citpeks
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Doctor decries Apple gift card discount 'scam' after failing to understand the terms of th...
omasou said:If not a scam it is VERY misleading.
I want a $100 discount on the item I am buying, now, today, nothing else. I don't want or need a $100 gift card on a FUTURE purchase.
Essentially, it works out to me paying full price for the item and getting a free $100 that I can ONLY spend at Apple. It's similar to Kohl's dollars...an attempt to lure you back to the retailer to spend more money or "lose" your "free" Kohl's cash.
Well guess what. I just bought what I wanted. I don't need the gift card.
In the end, I added it to my Apple account and it paid my next couple of Apple One subscription fees.I'm not a fan of "captive value" promotions, like those that involve gift cards, either, and tend to avoid them, but Apple says up front that they're giving you a gift card, not a discount.Buy Mac or iPad with education savings. And now through 9/30, get a gift card up to $150, 20% off AppleCare+, and more. Only at the Apple Store.It doesn't say "$100 off," "(additional) $100 discount on Macs and iPads" or anything of that nature. It says buyers will enjoy the usual EDU discount, and get a gift card on top of that. As the story said, in the past it was a pair of AirPods. A bonus item, not a discount. If it were me, I'd have specified "Apple Gift Card" to further discourage any potential misunderstanding, but it still works as worded.That said, as I already stated, I'm no fan of gift cards, and what was sleazy, before some state regulators clamped down on the practice, were the vampire maintenance fees and expiration dates issuers obscured in the fine print of their terms, which drained their value unbeknownst to the card holders. States have also made it enforceable to redeem values for cash once they fall below a certain balance threshold.Some loopholes still exist where Federal rules take precedence, but prudent card holders should redeem them, or transfer their value to another form without haste. For Amazon customers, redeeming gift cards into Amazon gift balances is an easy way to get "rid" of them, and those balances don't expire, at least in the U.S.--The internet, and social media in particular, has made the ease and efficiency of communication better than ever before…even if it's to illustrate how dumb you are.Apple spells out exactly how the promo works in the fine print, and anyone who believes that the terms haven't been signed off by the legal department might want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge instead.Available for Qualified Purchasers only. Qualified Purchasers receive an Apple Gift Card when they purchase an Eligible Product at a Qualifying Location through September 30, 2024. Gift card values may vary by Eligible Product. Only one Apple Gift Card per Eligible Product per Qualified Purchaser. Offer subject to availability. While supplies last. Qualified Purchasers shall receive a discount equal to the value of the Apple Gift Card off the price of the Eligible Product, but will be charged for all items in their cart, including the Apple Gift Card.Book smart is not street smart. Even for those who have titles attached before, or after, their names. Dr. Einstein might as well be teaching at the University of American Samoa, alma mater of fine graduates like James McGill.Unfortunately, such measures are necessarily for companies to protect themselves. Professional scammers, and regular customers game the promotions or store policies, and everyone loses. Buy electronics at Costco, and find that their "lifetime" satisfaction policy doesn't apply, only 90-days? Or their car battery warranties, which have eliminated free-replacement terms in favor of prorated terms? Thank the members who took advantage of their generous policies and gamed their system.
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Norman Foster speaks on creating Apple Park's iconic spaceship campus
Why would Apple want to buy McLaren from the Bahrain wealth fund? Especially when it has abandoned the car business it was never officially in?The McLaren F1 team has been doing well of late, but it's been a long, hard road back, and I wouldn't expect to see Apple branding displacing Google's branding on the cars any time soon.The IndyCar team has spent a lot of money, and still can't be considered one of the top two in the series. Teddy Porkchops losing the #6 to Howdy Doody's dad's money has been the latest in the series of questionable driver moves. And Lundgaard was probably asking less than Rossi wanted.With Arrow rumored to be reducing its role, if not pulling out entirely, Zak's gotta find someone else to help pay the bills.The production car side hasn't had great financials.The MTC campus was sold to a REIT, and leased back. They don't even own the Foster-designed building any longer. -
Apple's Jeff Williams takes another secret overseas trip, this time to China
His age is said to work against him, but could be follow in Cook's footsteps to ascend to CEO?Meeting with key suppliers is part of his role as COO, but public-facing meetings with government officials is good practice for the kinds of tasks CEOs perform.**Contrary to the beliefs of (far too) many Apple forum participants, Tim Cook's role as CEO is not to conceive, design, and engineer products and hatch schemes to personally offend every one of those who express their dissatisfaction with Apple…yet continue to buy Apple products anyway.
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Apple has drawn a fuzzy line about what counts as console emulation on iPhone
Service dogs and pet dogs are both dogs, but the former serves a specific, extraordinary purpose the latter is not trained to, and is therefore allowed in places that the latter is not. Pet dogs can provide comfort and fulfill duties for their owners as well, but they are not service dogs (something many owners also fail to understand).It shouldn't be hard to comprehend what Apple's intent behind their rules changes pertaining to emulation were, but if some developer tries to sneak a general purpose emulator onto iOS, it should come at no surprise that Apple would balk. The ability to play DOS games doesn't negate all the other potential capabilities that Apple objects to and bans on iOS.While Apple does do a lot of disagreeable things, and does have questionable and/or ambiguous policies, the Post on social media/hope it goes viral via general media/make Apple the villain strategy of trying to get what you want is really getting tiresome. Boo frickin' hoo if you don't understand the rules, which in this case are clear, even if that may not always be the case.The last sentence of the story torpedoes any argument that the devs, and this writer, are trying to make.
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Phil Schiller will be Apple's ecosystem defender for quite some time
avon b7 said:He might not be the same now. Maybe he's just too long in the tooth but he was there through thick and thin and defending the brand. That's admirable. He's an Apple guy.Apple's stubborn refusal to make reasonable, measured concessions in the way it does business has had the predictable effect -- regulators around the world who have had Apple in their sights have now pulled their triggers, with both barrels from the EU and US the latest and largest.Cook strikes me as an adaptable guy, shown by the way he's able to navigate the fraught geopolitical waters that the company navigates, and mostly avoid the criticism that would easily come from being so invested in China.But if he is indeed the one who has left Schiller to mind the App Store, and allowed him to maintain the hard line stance with regard its policies, then I think that may have been a mistake. Taking the same all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it stance in how it deals with developers, large and small, has now brought consequences, where Apple might be forced to take steps beyond what it could have voluntarily taken, because it, or he in particular, felt that the company was too and powerful to have anyone push it around.Worse, it has come at the result of the lobbying from hypocrites like Sweeney and Ek, who bear no admirable qualities of their own; they're sharks on their own accords.A marketing guy, no matter how tenured, should not be the one making overall strategic decisions like that. That's the CEO's job.I've been an Apple user all my life, and the way the company exerts its market power should disconcerting to anyone who recalls what Microsoft did in the past, and how Mac users vehemently railed against them and their conduct. That shoe is now on the proverbial other foot.
