Apple Deletes Thread About Consumer Reports Not Recommending An iPhone [Updated]
from the we-were-always-at-war-with-eurasia dept
Apple, of course, became a household name with its infamous 1984 commercial, about how Apple equipment would make sure that "1984" wasn't like 1984. However, now that it's 2010, apparently it's fine. As you may have heard, Consumer Reports yesterday posted that it could not recommend the iPhone 4 due to the widely discussed antenna problems. Apparently that was double-plus-ungood to the folks at Apple.Ragaboo alerts us to the news that Apple has deleted a thread discussing this at the Apple support forums. And when they delete it, they mean it. People created a new thread, and it got deleted again. And again. And again and again. At least six such threads have been deleted, according to that TUAW article. Of course, all this is doing is drawing more attention to the issue and the fact that Apple is trying to deny it exists. Oh, and we were always at war with Eurasia.
Update: Apparently some of the threads have now come back... and people are suggesting that it may have been a glitch with Apple's forums, rather than anything malicious... We haven't yet seen a full explanation, but perhaps that's the case.
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Filed Under: iphone, support
Companies: apple, consumer reports
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But it ******* prints money!
And has lots of GB's and them WiFi's.
I want a white one.
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Apple SOP
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It really doesn't matter
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Re: It really doesn't matter
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Re: Re: It really doesn't matter
Basically, anyone who was already interested in buying a locked down phone from a company as customer unfriendly as Apple isn't interested in little technical issues like actually being able to make a call in a low signal area while holding the phone in a natural way.
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Re: It really doesn't matter
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We have captured Africa. And the war posters and war flags are wrong.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
"~whimper~ ...is, is that where you keep the bumpers that will fix the reception problem?"
"Winston, its a software issue. Its always been a software issue. There is no reception problem. NOW how many fingers am I holding up?"
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1984 is perfectly OK
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senility?
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Awww ...
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threads are back now
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ok, more specifically THIS thread is active
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Re:
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Who cares?
Let me guess, since information wants to be free we should force Apple to put up with whatever we want to put in their forums. Lame.
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Re: Who cares?
Not you, obviously, but lots of other people appear to be rather interested in it.
Lots of other outlets, including this one, are covering the story. It is Apple's prerogative to choose what threads to allow in its forums. Good idea or not does not matter.
I see. So it's wrong for us to discuss whether or not it's a good idea?
Let me guess, since information wants to be free we should force Apple to put up with whatever we want to put in their forums. Lame.
Huh? First off, no, no one said that at all. Second, no one here said "information wants to be free." In fact, I've noted in the past "information doesn't want anything."
We were just noting that it seemed pretty silly of Apple to take down these threads. You disagree. Good for you.
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Re: Re: Who cares?
Who said that? Discuss whatever you want, just don't expect to be able to discuss whatever you want in an Apple forum. If you want to discuss what Consumer Reports said then maybe you should do that in a Consumer Reports forum and not in an Apple forum.
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Re: Re: Re: Who cares?
Too late. Not only is he already discussing it, you are discussing it as well!
And while Apple can delete whatever it wants, deleting a discussion on the problem their customers are experiencing is simply bad PR. Feel free to discuss that ;)
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Re: Who cares?
Discuss whatever you want, just don't expect to be able to discuss whatever you want in an Apple forum.
But you would expect to be able to discuss Apple products, would you not?
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Re: Re: Who cares?
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Re: Re: Re: Who cares?
Why not?
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Re: Re: Who cares?
Sure sounds like support of "information wants to be free" to me. And that one goes way back.
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Re: Re: Re: Who cares?
Well, if that's what you got from it, your reading and comprehension skills definitely need some work.
The article quite clearly says "You can make information very difficult to access", and "Information that is released can't be taken back".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Who cares?
"They set up a number of assumptions that people make that support the free information idea and then tear them down to show that information can be controlled. Of course, the argument really only works if you buy into the assumptions they put forth - which I don't."
And
"The problem isn't that information doesn't want to be free - or that it can be controlled, but rather that the distribution/searching mechanisms are controllable."
That last part starts with a double negative, it says pretty clearly that information wants to be free.
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Re: Re: Re: Who cares?
Did you even read that post?
Even so, if you need to go back a decade to sorta try to find a post where I said that (when I didn't even say that) perhaps you've got your argument wrong.
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Re: Who cares?
BTW is the prerogative of other places to do whatever they want.
Let me guess since Apple is doing it the rest of the world should be forced to fallow Apple and don't put that out there. Lame.
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HDDVD all over again!
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What is really amazing the is people making ink of this pretty typical cel phone issue. But i guess if the haters didn't take the chance to hate, they would have nothing to say.
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Re:
I never saw a phone act like that and I used to assemble them and go to the magnetic shielded room to test those things.
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http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100712/consumer-reports-by-the-way-the-iphone-4-is-a lso-the-best-smartphone-on-the-market/
Now that is selective "reporting", (from the same source no less!).
No bias here, just a tech reporter getting the word out to his loyal followers.
BTW, the apple forums are back up. About 40% of Apple's forums went down today for a couple of hours for some undisclosed reason. Don't forget to "report" on the Keynote Help Forum Conspiracy, Mike.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2504635&tstart=0
Dude, is there anything true in your "reporting"?
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This post wasn't about whether or not the iPhone is a good phone or not. It was about the supposed deletion of the forum thread. I have no problem with the iPhone. It wasn't "selective reporting" at all. It was just reporting on the key point in this post.
No bias here, just a tech reporter getting the word out to his loyal followers.
Huh? I'm not a tech reporter, I always write my opinion and I actually think the iPhone is a pretty nice phone. What, exactly is your point?
BTW, the apple forums are back up. About 40% of Apple's forums went down today for a couple of hours for some undisclosed reason.
See, you could have just pointed that out, as that's rather pertinent information, that actually adds more detail to the story. How hard would it have been to say "hey, looks like there's more to the story, and those forums are back up!" and we would have said "hey, cool, let's update the story!" Instead you have to go snarky and assume there's some sort of conspiracy?
Bizarre.
I'm not a reporter. I post what's interesting and we have a discussion about it. If you have interesting and relevant information to add, add it and I'll add it to the post as I'm doing with this. But don't assume that I'm trying to "hide" stuff when I'm just writing about what appears to be going on and giving my opinion about it.
Dude, is there anything true in your "reporting"?
More than is "true" in your comment suspecting some evil anti-Apple conspiracy.
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lame apple
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You are being a bit hypocritical and paranoid in your responses. You seemed to be making quite the case, again and again and again about threads being deleted by Apple, all in light of a non-issue. You even invoked Orwellian comparisons but when someone made fun of your conspiracy theory you attacked them.
There is nothing but pure speculation and false information in your blog and that has fueled fanboys on both side. I can't believe you are still sticking with that title which is the only reason I'm here. But when someone actually points our some facts, you go all snarky on them.
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Re:
I don't believe either is true, but ok...
You seemed to be making quite the case, again and again and again about threads being deleted by Apple
They were, in fact, deleted. Nothing I stated was wrong. And multiple other sources reported on it, and we wrote about their reporting.
You even invoked Orwellian comparisons but when someone made fun of your conspiracy theory you attacked them.
How dare I have a little fun at the obvious connection to the Orwellian world that Apple used to make fun of...
There is nothing but pure speculation and false information in your blog and that has fueled fanboys on both side.
Widely reported. I repeated it and corrected it when other info came up.
But when someone actually points our some facts, you go all snarky on them.
Oh come on. I responded to the guy who was accusing me of some nefarious plan to hide information that simply wasn't true. So yes, I was snarky in response, and I stand by it. If you come here and make bogus comments about my intentions then be ready for me to respond in kind.
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yeah, that's what happpened.
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http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/feature.asp?t=how_to&c=11426
Actually, and since the issue does not arise when the phone is positioned within a protective case, here is a real opportunity for an up-and-comer to make a name for itself by constructing a protective case that has been silk screened with a rag-tag image of duct tape.
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Subject
No doubt some zit-faced, affection-starved, pale and friendless Apple Fanboi support group moderator just got click happy until someone alerted his boss.
Besides. All negative publicity about the company is non-issue and everything is the end-users fault. All Apple Fanbois will evolve to their products, and never the other way around.
It's pathetic really.
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It's all fashion
Are Levis 501 jeans the most hardwearing ?
When people put up for inconvenience in the name of fashion (ie women in 5" heels) it stops making sense to get into technical arguments about what is actually best.
I read a review of an iPod from a music fidelity point of view a couple of years back and the gist of it was that if what you wanted was something to play music in a quality way, the iPod at the time was actually quite mediocre.
I also read a Pre vs iPhone comparison where (amazingly) the author admitted the Pre was a better call making device but said that in his case that was not worth so much as he always carried a 2nd phone besides his iPhone for when he needed to actually make calls.
It's not about people being rational.
Apple have succeeded in breaking the rule that tech push fails but market pull succeeds by making it "tech + fashion" push. But to do it they have to put just as much work into the brand image as they do into the technology itself. And if that means controlling the message in any medium over which they will have control, that's probably good business.
Will it turn around and bite them in the ass ? I'm not sure it will. After all, you make an iPhone user happy by making him feel good about his iPhone, not just by making it technically better. Letting him see bad news about the product he has already bought does not contribute to his happiness one bit. Happy is good even if the guy is deluded about how good his gadget actually is.
People want reinforcement. They read news that matches their own views, and they are very hard to swy with contrary views.
Creepy as it may seem to us free thinking outsiders, Apple are probably handling their users just the right way.
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Re: It's all fashion
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iPhone 4 - bad luck for Apple
But by deleting the support threads they hit their lowest mark on my scale of decency.
I suspect that it all comes down to keep the shareholders happy, no shareholder wants to hear a word "recall" especially when the stock it topping out. Just build a larger size iPad 2, that will do it.
Take it like MAN Steve!
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Very doubtful. A glitch would not be at all likely to selectively affect only threads on a single, fairly narrow topic. Much more likely is that negative publicity about the thread deletions caused Apple to back off from the unwritten deletion policy, reinstate some of the threads, and then concoct a "glitch" story to explain what happened rather than admit the deletions were intentional.
Why they even attempted it, though, will remain an enduring mystery. It's not like Apple is any stranger to the Streisand Effect. Remember when they tried to disappear some blog posts about the technical specs of an upcoming product of theirs via lawyer-implemented bullying?
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