Good. I'm sure resources and man power could be better spent on other things. No need to do the same damn thing every year, things get predictable and meaningless.
I shop at the Apple Store less and less. This, and the lack of Black Friday discounts (sorry, iTunes gift cards don't count) are just some of the reasons.
I did stop in the other day to ask about the sudden lack of tracking in my Health app on my iPhone 6. At 10:10 am, in a largely empty store, I was told I could make an appointment to come back at 7:00 pm. I motioned to the empty Genius Bar counter at the back of the store and asked if they were really that backed up ten minutes after opening, but was told by the guy in the festive-red Apple shirt that I could take it or leave it.
If this a sign of the Angela Ahrendts era, you can color me unimpressed.
I would have some sympathy for you if you didn't start out by complaining that they didn't offer Black Friday discounts. Is it possible that the entitlement mentality that has overtaken the American population in the last two decades is forcing Apple to make some hard decisions about how the run *their* business? If your story is true, then I hope that Apple gives their head a shake, but I definitely won't be believing you until I see more proof.
@mpantone... I need to ask... who pissed in your Cheerios this morning? Your posts are disturbingly negative.
not really. people who should know better commenting the same nonsense about lucky bags. even on macrumors there are enough people explaining its a lottery and that doesn't fly here.
We've had it for several years in England. What would happen is that the ratings for every single gift would plummet, regardless of its score before being made free. I suspect that this fostered frustration both from Apple and the developers.
In addition, this was the year of the U2 fiasco, when Apple foisted an album on all its customers that, inevitably, most didn't want. Whilst The Twelve Days of Christmas promotion didn't have this level of intrusion, there is a degree of similarity, and it probably left a bad taste in Apple's mouth, not to mention its customers.
2014 was a real stinker for films. I fear that the art of film-making is going by the wayside.
Finally, so many apps are freemium these days, that Apple are artificially restricted in promoting apps. One thing I would like to see is the ability to gift someone in-app purchases.
Good. I'm sure resources and man power could be better spent on other things. No need to do the same damn thing every year, things get predictable and meaningless.
So no need for Apple to make profits every year, as it's too predictable and meaningless?
How can it be cancelled if they never announced they'd be doing it?
It's like when people cancel Christmas, it's just assumed Christmas will be going ahead as usual.
Apple's giving of low quality one-content-fits-all became a tradition. Everyone would huddle round the fire, start up the app and then proclaim 'bah, I don't want that' 12 times every year.
It started to get better last year with movies but they were old movies. It would have been better to just give a single redeemable gift voucher that had to be redeemed on Christmas day for content a user chose up to a value limit. Everyone has different tastes so just let them choose, $1.99 maximum value. Rent a movie, buy an app, get past a level in Candy Crush, buy a song. Apple gets 30% of it back anyway so it's really $1.40 for every redeemed code and not every user will redeem the code. They could have let people get $1.99 off a purchase made using Apple Pay. This might be better done on Boxing Day.
Another route they could have gone is force pushed The Interview to everyone. Gifts from the last 3 years were the following, there were a couple of good gifts but I won't miss the promotion:
Gifts from last year 2013 - 2014
December 26, 2013 (day 1): Justin Timberlake's iTunes Festival EP (4 songs)
December 27, 2013 (day 2): Tiny Thief and Once Upon A Time TV series (1 game, 1 TV serie)
December 28, 2013 (day 3): Lonely Planet's Best in 2014 and The Ice Princess (2 iBooks)
December 29, 2013 (day 4): Toca House (1 game)
December 30, 2013 (day 5): Hugo and Home Alone (2 movies)
December 31, 2013 (day 6): New Year's Eve from Avicii (2 songs)
January 1, 2014 (day 7): Rayman Jungle Run (1 game)
January 2, 2014 (day 8): Diary of a Wimpy Kid (1 iBook)
January 3, 2014 (day 9): Kings of Leon's iTunes Festival EP and more Albums (4 songs)
January 4, 2014 (day 10): Sesame Street and Despicable Me (1 TV serie, 3 mini-movies)
January 5, 2014 (day 11): Mr. Crab by Illusion Labs (1 game)
January 6, 2014 (day 12): The Rolling Stones (3 songs)
Gifts from 2012 - 2013
December 26, 2012 (day 1): Maroon 5: Holiday Gift (3 songs, 3 videos)
December 27, 2012 (day 2): Score! Classic Goals (1 game)
December 28, 2012 (day 3): Geomaster and Sherlock (1 game, 2 videos)
December 29, 2012 (day 4): The Red Pole of Macau, Rachel's Holiday, and more
December 30, 2012 (day 5): How I met your mother, season 1
December 31, 2012 (day 6): Sonic Jump
January 1, 2013 (day 7): Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry
January 2, 2013 (day 8): Kesha, Ken Folley, Lee Child, and more (music, books, videos)
January 3, 2013 (day 9): The xxmas - Single (album, 3 songs, 2 videos)
January 4, 2013 (day 10): The Photo cookbook - Quick & Easy (1 cooking app)
January 5, 2013 (day 11): One Direction - Little Things Video and more
January 6, 2013 (day 12): Shark Dash (universal app)
Gifts from 2011 - 2012
December 26 (day 1): Coldplay iTunes Festival 2011 (1 songs, 2 videos)
December 27 (day 2): Top Gear: The Trip
December 28 (day 3): Marry The Night by Lady Gaga
December 29 (day 4): The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø (Book)
December 30 (day 5): Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing
December 31 (day 6): Nothing But The Beat (Party Mix) by David Guetta
January 1 (day 7): Snapseed (Photo Editing App)
January 2 (day 8): Its Gotta Be You by One Direction
January 3 (day 9): House and 30 Rock Pilots
January 4 (day 10): Shift 2 Unleashed
January 5 (day 11): Lonely Planets Best in Travel 2012
January 6 (day 12): Foo Fighters (Single)
its probably for the better that this was cancelled, because i dont ever recall downloading anything from this event in past years. I think last year, they had a movie, a song, a book, some apps and other stuff, but none of it was too interesting, and people's tastes vary wildly, so Apple is better off saving their money.
I also dont think that Apple should do anything like the u2 giveaway in the future again. Can you imagine how much cash they must have forked over to bono? I bet that it was an obscene amount.
The next time apple decides to do something, it should be completely out of the blue, and it should catch people by surprise, by not having it tied to a specific holiday, where people are expecting something. And giving away free stuff is usually not worth it. Look at the whole u2 controversy, and the amount of people that were whining about that.
Perhhaps it is because of u2 that apple decided to cancel the christmas giveaway event this year. Perhaps Tim Cook thought, well, people arent appreciative when we at Apple give away something for free, so screw them all! We'll just cancel it this year!
So no need for Apple to make profits every year, as it's too predictable and meaningless?
Got it.
And no need for any more birthdays, anniversaries, christmas or even iPhone refreshes! Damn it all to hell! Everything is hereby cancelled from this point forward! It's all just too damn predictable!
When you have two Apple IDs the greatest present they could give to me is the simple ability to merge them. that would actually make a real difference. Far more helpful than all this promotional froth !
For free movies or albums (Google just gave away the Frozen album and the Guardians of the Galaxy recently), go to Go to play.google.com and create a gmail account. Look for the free albums and movies (the last free movie was the Hobbit) then grab the Google Play Music and Movies apps. You can't buy through the appstore but if you "buy" through the google website, you can buy them for free and use on IOS.
Guys, if you want free movies or music albums (Google just gave away the Frozen album and the Guardians of the Galaxy recently), go to Go to play.google.com and create a gmail account. Look for the free albums and movies (the last free movie was the Hobbit) then grab the Google Play Music and Movies apps. You can't buy through the appstore but if you "buy" through the google website, you can buy them for free and use on IOS.
We've had it for several years in England. What would happen is that the ratings for every single gift would plummet, regardless of its score before being made free. I suspect that this fostered frustration both from Apple and the developers.
This is definitely true. An app that I was involved with was included in an Apple promotion and the rating dropped. People getting the app for free were way more critical than those who paid $5 for it. I guess that's because more children downloaded it.
It's also worth pointing out that all of the cost of the promotion is on the developer. We bore all of the cost of making the app free. I guess this is fine if your app is full of IAPs but ours wasn't.
As a consumer, it's been great though. I watched Home Alone from last year's UK promotion the other day.
Other than the opportunists who will view this non-event as yet another way to bash Apple or to queue up their own unrelated personal grievances against Apple I suspect few of Apple's customers will actually miss this promotion. I don't miss it. There are more than enough semi meaningless promotions and idle diversions happening in conjunction with the holiday season to distract customers. The 12-days thing likely did very little to enhance customer experience around the Apple ecosystem and just got lost in the collective noise and glut of holiday commercialization and consumerism. Kind of like the second or third slice of pie after a holiday feast.
The 12-days promotion wasn't free for Apple. Apple would probably be better off to invest in promotional activities around events that are uniquely associated with Apple and its customers. The well intentioned U2 album giveaway had the potential to make a big splash but fumbled a bit on execution. I don't think Apple will make a similar mistake in execution in the future. However I do see the U2 style of highly focused promotion being more in line with how Apple will try to elevate itself above the noise and the crowd going forward, unlike the me-too 12-days promotion that was both expensive and came at a time of the year when Apple was not at the center of attention and its customers were distracted with other things, like choosing a second or third desert as a turkey chaser.
Good. I'm sure resources and man power could be better spent on other things. No need to do the same damn thing every year, things get predictable and meaningless.
I agree. 16GB as the base storage is so predictable and meaningless. Apple needs to up it to 32GB in 2015. I'd much rather have them spend money on that than stupid U2 freebies and Beats acquisitions.
its probably for the better that this was cancelled, because i dont ever recall downloading anything from this event in past years. I think last year, they had a movie, a song, a book, some apps and other stuff, but none of it was too interesting, and people's tastes vary wildly, so Apple is better off saving their money.
I also dont think that Apple should do anything like the u2 giveaway in the future again. Can you imagine how much cash they must have forked over to bono? I bet that it was an obscene amount.
The next time apple decides to do something, it should be completely out of the blue, and it should catch people by surprise, by not having it tied to a specific holiday, where people are expecting something. And giving away free stuff is usually not worth it. Look at the whole u2 controversy, and the amount of people that were whining about that.
Perhhaps it is because of u2 that apple decided to cancel the christmas giveaway event this year. Perhaps Tim Cook thought, well, people arent appreciative when we at Apple give away something for free, so screw them all! We'll just cancel it this year!
People whined about U2 because it was pushed to them, and many people have automatic downloads turned on. had Apple just put it up on the iTunes store with a big "FREE" button nobody would have complained (well other than those calling it a promotional stunt). Those that wanted to download it would have and everyone else like me would have ignored it. It's hard to ignore though when it's sitting in your purchased history, or worse is actually taking up space on your device (I'll bet a lot of these were 16GB devices too).
I agree. 16GB as the base storage is so predictable and meaningless. Apple needs to up it to 32GB in 2015. I'd much rather have them spend money on that than stupid U2 freebies and Beats acquisitions.
Good point. All money and all effort should be focussed on the products themselves and making them better.
Comments
Good. I'm sure resources and man power could be better spent on other things. No need to do the same damn thing every year, things get predictable and meaningless.
Translated: The "state" wants its cut.
No Lorde?!? (ya ya ya)
If this is true
I shop at the Apple Store less and less. This, and the lack of Black Friday discounts (sorry, iTunes gift cards don't count) are just some of the reasons.
I did stop in the other day to ask about the sudden lack of tracking in my Health app on my iPhone 6. At 10:10 am, in a largely empty store, I was told I could make an appointment to come back at 7:00 pm. I motioned to the empty Genius Bar counter at the back of the store and asked if they were really that backed up ten minutes after opening, but was told by the guy in the festive-red Apple shirt that I could take it or leave it.
If this a sign of the Angela Ahrendts era, you can color me unimpressed.
I would have some sympathy for you if you didn't start out by complaining that they didn't offer Black Friday discounts. Is it possible that the entitlement mentality that has overtaken the American population in the last two decades is forcing Apple to make some hard decisions about how the run *their* business? If your story is true, then I hope that Apple gives their head a shake, but I definitely won't be believing you until I see more proof.
We have gone over this before.
American consumers aren't going to get a Lucky Bag. Just let it go and move on with your life.
@mpantone... I need to ask... who pissed in your Cheerios this morning? Your posts are disturbingly negative.
not really. people who should know better commenting the same nonsense about lucky bags. even on macrumors there are enough people explaining its a lottery and that doesn't fly here.
We've had it for several years in England. What would happen is that the ratings for every single gift would plummet, regardless of its score before being made free. I suspect that this fostered frustration both from Apple and the developers.
In addition, this was the year of the U2 fiasco, when Apple foisted an album on all its customers that, inevitably, most didn't want. Whilst The Twelve Days of Christmas promotion didn't have this level of intrusion, there is a degree of similarity, and it probably left a bad taste in Apple's mouth, not to mention its customers.
2014 was a real stinker for films. I fear that the art of film-making is going by the wayside.
Finally, so many apps are freemium these days, that Apple are artificially restricted in promoting apps. One thing I would like to see is the ability to gift someone in-app purchases.
So no need for Apple to make profits every year, as it's too predictable and meaningless?
Got it.
It's like when people cancel Christmas, it's just assumed Christmas will be going ahead as usual.
Apple's giving of low quality one-content-fits-all became a tradition. Everyone would huddle round the fire, start up the app and then proclaim 'bah, I don't want that' 12 times every year.
It started to get better last year with movies but they were old movies. It would have been better to just give a single redeemable gift voucher that had to be redeemed on Christmas day for content a user chose up to a value limit. Everyone has different tastes so just let them choose, $1.99 maximum value. Rent a movie, buy an app, get past a level in Candy Crush, buy a song. Apple gets 30% of it back anyway so it's really $1.40 for every redeemed code and not every user will redeem the code. They could have let people get $1.99 off a purchase made using Apple Pay. This might be better done on Boxing Day.
Another route they could have gone is force pushed The Interview to everyone. Gifts from the last 3 years were the following, there were a couple of good gifts but I won't miss the promotion:
Gifts from last year 2013 - 2014
December 26, 2013 (day 1): Justin Timberlake's iTunes Festival EP (4 songs)
December 27, 2013 (day 2): Tiny Thief and Once Upon A Time TV series (1 game, 1 TV serie)
December 28, 2013 (day 3): Lonely Planet's Best in 2014 and The Ice Princess (2 iBooks)
December 29, 2013 (day 4): Toca House (1 game)
December 30, 2013 (day 5): Hugo and Home Alone (2 movies)
December 31, 2013 (day 6): New Year's Eve from Avicii (2 songs)
January 1, 2014 (day 7): Rayman Jungle Run (1 game)
January 2, 2014 (day 8): Diary of a Wimpy Kid (1 iBook)
January 3, 2014 (day 9): Kings of Leon's iTunes Festival EP and more Albums (4 songs)
January 4, 2014 (day 10): Sesame Street and Despicable Me (1 TV serie, 3 mini-movies)
January 5, 2014 (day 11): Mr. Crab by Illusion Labs (1 game)
January 6, 2014 (day 12): The Rolling Stones (3 songs)
Gifts from 2012 - 2013
December 26, 2012 (day 1): Maroon 5: Holiday Gift (3 songs, 3 videos)
December 27, 2012 (day 2): Score! Classic Goals (1 game)
December 28, 2012 (day 3): Geomaster and Sherlock (1 game, 2 videos)
December 29, 2012 (day 4): The Red Pole of Macau, Rachel's Holiday, and more
December 30, 2012 (day 5): How I met your mother, season 1
December 31, 2012 (day 6): Sonic Jump
January 1, 2013 (day 7): Tom and Jerry: The Fast and the Furry
January 2, 2013 (day 8): Kesha, Ken Folley, Lee Child, and more (music, books, videos)
January 3, 2013 (day 9): The xxmas - Single (album, 3 songs, 2 videos)
January 4, 2013 (day 10): The Photo cookbook - Quick & Easy (1 cooking app)
January 5, 2013 (day 11): One Direction - Little Things Video and more
January 6, 2013 (day 12): Shark Dash (universal app)
Gifts from 2011 - 2012
December 26 (day 1): Coldplay iTunes Festival 2011 (1 songs, 2 videos)
December 27 (day 2): Top Gear: The Trip
December 28 (day 3): Marry The Night by Lady Gaga
December 29 (day 4): The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø (Book)
December 30 (day 5): Sonic & Sega All Stars Racing
December 31 (day 6): Nothing But The Beat (Party Mix) by David Guetta
January 1 (day 7): Snapseed (Photo Editing App)
January 2 (day 8): Its Gotta Be You by One Direction
January 3 (day 9): House and 30 Rock Pilots
January 4 (day 10): Shift 2 Unleashed
January 5 (day 11): Lonely Planets Best in Travel 2012
January 6 (day 12): Foo Fighters (Single)
I also dont think that Apple should do anything like the u2 giveaway in the future again. Can you imagine how much cash they must have forked over to bono? I bet that it was an obscene amount.
The next time apple decides to do something, it should be completely out of the blue, and it should catch people by surprise, by not having it tied to a specific holiday, where people are expecting something. And giving away free stuff is usually not worth it. Look at the whole u2 controversy, and the amount of people that were whining about that.
Perhhaps it is because of u2 that apple decided to cancel the christmas giveaway event this year. Perhaps Tim Cook thought, well, people arent appreciative when we at Apple give away something for free, so screw them all! We'll just cancel it this year!
And no need for any more birthdays, anniversaries, christmas or even iPhone refreshes! Damn it all to hell! Everything is hereby cancelled from this point forward! It's all just too damn predictable!
When you have two Apple IDs the greatest present they could give to me is the simple ability to merge them. that would actually make a real difference. Far more helpful than all this promotional froth !
Guys, if you want free movies or music albums (Google just gave away the Frozen album and the Guardians of the Galaxy recently), go to Go to play.google.com and create a gmail account. Look for the free albums and movies (the last free movie was the Hobbit) then grab the Google Play Music and Movies apps. You can't buy through the appstore but if you "buy" through the google website, you can buy them for free and use on IOS.
This is definitely true. An app that I was involved with was included in an Apple promotion and the rating dropped. People getting the app for free were way more critical than those who paid $5 for it. I guess that's because more children downloaded it.
It's also worth pointing out that all of the cost of the promotion is on the developer. We bore all of the cost of making the app free. I guess this is fine if your app is full of IAPs but ours wasn't.
As a consumer, it's been great though. I watched Home Alone from last year's UK promotion the other day.
The money has gone to their U2 friends for songs nobody wants. Pathetic.
Other than the opportunists who will view this non-event as yet another way to bash Apple or to queue up their own unrelated personal grievances against Apple I suspect few of Apple's customers will actually miss this promotion. I don't miss it. There are more than enough semi meaningless promotions and idle diversions happening in conjunction with the holiday season to distract customers. The 12-days thing likely did very little to enhance customer experience around the Apple ecosystem and just got lost in the collective noise and glut of holiday commercialization and consumerism. Kind of like the second or third slice of pie after a holiday feast.
The 12-days promotion wasn't free for Apple. Apple would probably be better off to invest in promotional activities around events that are uniquely associated with Apple and its customers. The well intentioned U2 album giveaway had the potential to make a big splash but fumbled a bit on execution. I don't think Apple will make a similar mistake in execution in the future. However I do see the U2 style of highly focused promotion being more in line with how Apple will try to elevate itself above the noise and the crowd going forward, unlike the me-too 12-days promotion that was both expensive and came at a time of the year when Apple was not at the center of attention and its customers were distracted with other things, like choosing a second or third desert as a turkey chaser.
I agree. 16GB as the base storage is so predictable and meaningless. Apple needs to up it to 32GB in 2015. I'd much rather have them spend money on that than stupid U2 freebies and Beats acquisitions.
People whined about U2 because it was pushed to them, and many people have automatic downloads turned on. had Apple just put it up on the iTunes store with a big "FREE" button nobody would have complained (well other than those calling it a promotional stunt). Those that wanted to download it would have and everyone else like me would have ignored it. It's hard to ignore though when it's sitting in your purchased history, or worse is actually taking up space on your device (I'll bet a lot of these were 16GB devices too).
I agree. 16GB as the base storage is so predictable and meaningless. Apple needs to up it to 32GB in 2015. I'd much rather have them spend money on that than stupid U2 freebies and Beats acquisitions.
Good point. All money and all effort should be focussed on the products themselves and making them better.