Apple removes all Bose products from its online store

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 87
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    Requiring NFL players to wear Bose headphones was Bush League and Communist.

     

    Bose will get crushed this holiday season.


    It's actually pretty typical of endorsement contracts. Apple has their own stipulations somewhere, which may or may not differ from these types of agreements.

  • Reply 62 of 87
    I guess beats couldn't compete.
  • Reply 63 of 87
    marvfoxmarvfox Posts: 2,275member

    Bose is biggest piece of crap that was ever made now.It is a joke to own this! Years ago Bose was a good product no more.Apple  I agree with to remove Bose.

  • Reply 64 of 87
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member

    I don't know why people are viewing Apple's decision to no longer carry Bose products as punitive. When Apple purchased Beats (for reasons I cannot fathom) it put itself in direct competition with Bose. Period. If you walk into a Bose store, as I have done on several occasions, I hope that you will not be shocked and dismayed to find that they don't carry Apple products. Duh.  This is straight market competition and nothing more and nothing less.

     

    This has nothing to do with some douchebag employee of an organization deciding to slam his employer's operating guidelines that he's contractually obligated to follow for his own personal agenda. No matter how well intentioned it may have been it was selfish and wrong. If you want a public forum to promote a cause that you believe in- create it and pay for it yourself. None of these pro athletes are poor or lacking access to publicity channels. This is clearly and simply a selfish public display for a total lack of respect for one's employer. Unfortunately in today's totally self centered society this lack of respect and casting aside of dignity is considered the norm and not the exception.

     

    In terms of Apple and Beats I do have have many concerns. I've always believed that Apple under Tim Cook had one additional quality that Apple under Steve Jobs was sorely lacking - and this was Humility. Steve may have exhibited a bit of humility when he went to Bill Gates for money to keep Apple from going bankrupt. But after he got Apple back on its feet we didn't see a lot of humility from Steve. Maybe it was intense focus as Jony Ive alludes to, but for someone exposed to eastern philosophies and holistic living it always struck me as odd that Steve displayed such little humility in his outward mannerisms and public facing communications. Tim Cook on the other hand has always struck me as someone who has both intense focus but also humility. Maybe not warm and fuzzy but Apple under Tim seems to be painted as a bit softer and more socially caring organization. 

     

    Which brings me back to the Beats acquisition. Was this done to create some kind of "edgier" new mojo in Apple? No doubt that the Beats team brings in some excitement and youthful focus. Not a bad thing for Apple, which is now a middle aged company. But how does this mesh with the social and cultural values of Apple under Tim Cook? I hope that it adds a lot of energy without diluting any of the positive steps that Tim has made since taking over and reshaping Apple's culture. I am excited but also concerned. If Apple/Beats is actively promoting the kind of douchbaggery that we see with the NFL incident then I would see this as a step in a very negative direction. Apple has long proven that it can win under a flood of negativity from the press and illegal actions by its competitors. Now that it's in a position to have to demonstrate its humility when it's in the dominant role I hope that it always plays by the rules and respects the business dealings of others. First and foremost Apple should state that it is in no way affiliated with internal matters of other organizations and does not condone or promote such actions by others. At this point saying nothing is not saying enough.

  • Reply 65 of 87
    Apple..... taking away choice. They will decide for you. Maybe the next gen iPhones and ipads can have a proprietary audio jack that will only work with their headphones and make all others obsolete. Go ahead, bring on the negative and hateful comments..... I'll be biking the C&O Canal towpath ~without a phone. Enjoy the nice day!
  • Reply 66 of 87

    Apple..... taking away choice. They will decide for you. Maybe the next gen iPhones and ipads can have a proprietary audio jack that will only work with their headphones and make all others obsolete. Go ahead, bring on the negative and hateful comments..... I'll be biking the C&O Canal towpath ~without a phone. Enjoy the nice day!

  • Reply 67 of 87
    malaxmalax Posts: 1,598member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DewMe View Post

     

    This has nothing to do with some douchebag employee of an organization deciding to slam his employer's operating guidelines that he's contractually obligated to follow for his own personal agenda. No matter how well intentioned it may have been it was selfish and wrong. If you want a public forum to promote a cause that you believe in- create it and pay for it yourself. None of these pro athletes are poor or lacking access to publicity channels. This is clearly and simply a selfish public display for a total lack of respect for one's employer. Unfortunately in today's totally self centered society this lack of respect and casting aside of dignity is considered the norm and not the exception.


    This is flat out ridiculous.  I'm not a 49ers fan or a Colin Kaepernick fan (or hater), but so say that wearing pink Beats headphones is "selfish" and shows a lack of respect for his employer is nuts.  First, his employer is the 49ers, not the NFL.  Second, if my company--with my input--decided that we could no longer wear a particular brand of [something] at work and the penalty for noncompliance was $5, I might very well pay that price.  Would that be me showing a lack of respect or perhaps me reacting to a lack of respect by my employer. And besides, I'm sure that the 49er don't give a flying fig about this.  The whole thing is just silly and trivial. To say that he is a douchebag "slamming" his employer just shows that your own judgement is questionable.  Remember, we're talking about professional sports/entertainment here, not a royal honor guard.

     

    Coincidentally, check out this article from 2 days ago: 

     

    Quote:  https://celebrity.yahoo.com/news/colin-kaepernick-named-nfls-most-stylish-star-gq-180900227.html ;


    Quarterback Colin Kaepernick was named the winner of GQ's Style Wars. The charity competition pitted Kaepernick's sense of style against other NFL stars.

    Fans voted online for which player they considered to be the league's best dressed. The win will give $10,000 to Kaepernick's charity, Camp Taylor, which helps young people and families of children with heart disease.

    “Thanks everyone who took the time to vote, and a big thanks to GQ for putting together this creative program,” said Kaepernick. “It's all about the kids at Camp Taylor, and to be able to give these kids something to smile about is the biggest win to me.”



     

    Yeah, I think Apple/Beats won this round.

  • Reply 68 of 87
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member

    I think Colin Kaepernick is an awesome and exciting player and as such has more than ample opportunity and public support to promote whatever causes that are important to him - on his own time. He is also being sponsored by Beats to promote Beats products, again on his own time. The NFL has made it very clear about where, when, and how players are responsible for adhering to the promotional related rules and regulations that the league itself (and not the promotors) have put in place.

     

    If players feel that the amount of the fine is chump change for them (other players have been fined up to 100K for similar incidents) then what "system" is in place to prevent the players from going against the explicit contractual agreements that the league has placed on them? That system is what's known as "respect" and it transcends financial affordability. Being respectful means that you do the right thing even when you can afford not do. 

  • Reply 69 of 87
    koopkoop Posts: 337member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by InteliusQ View Post

     

     

    Apple is a huge sales channel of millions of customers worldwide, to say that Bose doesn't need Apple is an arrogant statement.

     

    The loss of millions of dollars in sales just around the holiday shopping season is nothing to sneeze at.


     

    I agree with this.

     

    However I imagine Bose expected something like this to occur after the acquisition of Beats. It's also not a large enough sales channel for them to take a serious financial hit by any stretch. They wont be putting up a for sale sign anytime soon.

     

    People are spinning this that Bose was being petulant and Apple punished the pitiful tiny company, and now they are in dire straights. Reality is that Bose spent a butt ton of money for an NFL contract that is sealed tighter than Fort Knox, NFL took action on a breach of that contract (all rightfully so), and Apple is most likely pulling Bose regardless if that situation or not.

     

    I also feel this proves some of the commenter wrong here that Apple acquired Beats just to get a couple of pop culture entrepreneurs. Clearly Beats will be their hardware lineup for sound products for some time to come. That's too bad. Here's to hoping Apple improves the sound of those devices.

  • Reply 70 of 87
    (John B gave DroidFTW the cite).
  • Reply 71 of 87
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

     

     

    Bing has even been great for a while now. I haven’t used Google in years. Trying DDG on my clean installs; seems pretty simple right now.


    Bing really isn't very good, especially when searching for code snippets. No. I will use Google Search for the foreseeable future as I haven't come across anything that even comes close to being it's equal. Good luck with the whole rebel thing.

  • Reply 72 of 87
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member
    Bose's noise cancelling technology is great but the audio quality of their headphones stinks for the price. I don't think that this is a great loss to consumers.
  • Reply 73 of 87
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by RichL View Post



    Bose's noise cancelling technology is great but the audio quality of their headphones stinks for the price. I don't think that this is a great loss to consumers.

    Beats is similar in that regard, but now possibly without the excellent noise cancelling technology. There are brands that provide better value than either one in terms of audio quality relative to price.

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by DewMe View Post

     

    I don't know why people are viewing Apple's decision to no longer carry Bose products as punitive. When Apple purchased Beats (for reasons I cannot fathom) it put itself in direct competition with Bose. Period. If you walk into a Bose store, as I have done on several occasions, I hope that you will not be shocked and dismayed to find that they don't carry Apple products. Duh.  This is straight market competition and nothing more and nothing less.

     


     

    It's not that atypical of litigation. Parties often reach an agreement that includes the discontinuation of future business together. In the past Apple stocked Bose headphones as accessories for their own products. Apple didn't make a natural accessory to a Bose product, so Bose Stores weren't a natural distribution channel for Apple. This site just likes to spin things in weird ways.

  • Reply 74 of 87
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    sog35 wrote: »
    Requiring NFL players to wear Bose headphones was Bush League and Communist.

    Bose will get crushed this holiday season.


    They don't have to wear anything. The vast majority of players don't wear any headphones, and they still don't.
  • Reply 75 of 87
    malaxmalax Posts: 1,598member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by DewMe View Post

     

    I think Colin Kaepernick is an awesome and exciting player and as such has more than ample opportunity and public support to promote whatever causes that are important to him - on his own time. He is also being sponsored by Beats to promote Beats products, again on his own time. The NFL has made it very clear about where, when, and how players are responsible for adhering to the promotional related rules and regulations that the league itself (and not the promotors) have put in place.

     

    If players feel that the amount of the fine is chump change for them (other players have been fined up to 100K for similar incidents) then what "system" is in place to prevent the players from going against the explicit contractual agreements that the league has placed on them? That system is what's known as "respect" and it transcends financial affordability. Being respectful means that you do the right thing even when you can afford not do. 




    Given all the problems the NFL is facing (almost all of its own making), who says the NFL deserves respect?  On one hand it's the "no fun league" because of silly rules that just annoy the players and fan, and on the other it's great at ducking responsibility for covering up head injury data for years and trying to sweep criminal misconduct of players under the rug to protect its own brand.  So yeah, showing "disrespect" for wearing the wrong brand of headphones at interview session is nowhere near the top of my list of things to worry about.  If he can afford to give the NFL the finger in this way (and his actual employer doesn't care), then more power to him.  And of course, like everyone else who wears pink, he just cured a little bit of breast cancer /s.

  • Reply 76 of 87
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    Requiring NFL players to wear Bose headphones was Bush League and Communist.

     

    Bose will get crushed this holiday season.




    It's called "official sponsorship" and it's part of every pro sports league.    Want to see it go away?    Then you have to end the greed in the leagues and also start paying the players far less.    And they don't require NFL players to wear Bose headphones.  They're just not permitted to display other headphones for 90 minutes after the game.    

     

    And you have absolutely no idea what Communism means.    In a true socialist state, all players would be paid exactly the same salary and the teams would be owned by the Government.   

  • Reply 77 of 87

    I have to laugh as I hear all these posters waxing poetic about what a quality product Bose makes. I consider pretty much everything Bose has ever made to be greatly overpriced junk (Beats — even more so.) I suppose it's a result of greatly reduced sensitivity to audio fidelity brought on by the rise of small digital music players using poor compression (and also the associated ubiquitous irreversible hearing loss.)

  • Reply 78 of 87
    pazuzupazuzu Posts: 1,728member
    Sad for Apple customers who will no longer get a choice for headphones. Bad move Apple- the walled garden is coming back.
  • Reply 79 of 87
    Originally Posted by pazuzu View Post

    Sad for Apple customers who will no longer get a choice for headphones. Bad move Apple- the walled garden is coming back.

     

    If you don't have anything but FUD to post, don't post at all.

  • Reply 80 of 87
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pazuzu View Post



    Sad for Apple customers who will no longer get a choice for headphones. Bad move Apple- the walled garden is coming back.



    Absolutely ridiculous (unless you're being sarcastic).   While I don't personally think that Apple should have dropped selling Bose, there are plenty of places to buy Bose headphones.   It's not like Apple ever sold them below list price.    Frankly, I don't know why anyone would buy third party accessories at an Apple store anyway - you can get most of them far less expensive elsewhere.    

     

    It's not a walled garden unless the devices somehow stopped a consumer from using a third party brand.   

     

    While we don't know what the settlement was, I think it's safe to assume that Apple had to pay Bose something for the alleged Beats patent violations.   The question for Bose is whether that payment, whatever it was, was worth losing Apple's retail business.    I would think not. 

     

    What I'd like to know is where are all those Bose headphones that Apple had in inventory going?   I doubt Bose is taking them back.   If they're going to show up at substantial discount somewhere, I would certainly buy a pair or two.   

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