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from the Only-the-true-believers-may-worship-here dept.
An Apple store found a new low recently when a Sydney, Australia father was not able to purchase an item because the Apple staffer would only process his payment using Apple pay. In a move the buyer recounts as being 'stupidity', a staff member repeatedly tried to get the customer onto Apple pay instead of just processing the payment for the item. Things went downhill after the staffer asked the customer if he had an iPhone. The customer got the impression that he would need to use the Apple Pay app to buy what he wanted, when what he really needed was to pay and leave. After trying, and failing, to find a staff member who would just process his payment, the customer left the store, walked across the street, and purchased the same item from a JB Hi Fi store.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 06 2019, @05:15PM (10 children)
I sympathize with the father from the story. I would have done the same thing, or never even attempted to go into an Apple Store at all.
Apple as a brand reeks of pretension. It is the closest thing to a techno cult there is and its customers are the closest thing to brainwashed zombies (yes, yes, I can hear the jokes about BSD already). That makes it an excellent investment, but a poor choice for a consumer.
The father should have known all that, and known better before wasting time and money on their products.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @05:55PM (6 children)
This may come as a shock to you, but not everyone knows or cares about electronics manufacturers. Apple's sleek image works so well because what else is an ignorant shopper going to judge them on? "Apple's stuff looks good, people rave about it, their store is fancy and futuristic, and not to mention my kid just wont fucking shut up about wanting an iphone!"
Some people HAPPILY go about their lives not caring about such particulars. At least the story ended well, Apple loses a sale, gets bad PR for their stupidity, and the dude got a cheaper and better product most likely.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday February 06 2019, @06:23PM (2 children)
You forgot "it just works, or the nice boy in the store will help me set it up", which is far from a small thing for my mom's friends.
And, as much as I hate Apple, their update policy, and their unwillingness to share their precious spy data with others, is better than their competition.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:41PM (1 child)
Indeed. I hate Apple. I have two iPhones, a Macbook, and two iPods (still working). Because while I hate Apple, I hate all the other companies even more.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:49PM
I have a small business and on the backend I use linux servers for all our data needs -- on the front we use macs. I can run Apple's Darwin Calendar Server on my linux machines and the calendar is a key application for my business. I've tried other calendar systems in the past (last time probably six or seven years ago to be fair) and the options then were somewhere between non-existent and terrible for a shared calendaring system. I suppose there is Outlook but I gave up windows totally by 2002 or 03 and didn't want it.
Anyway, I do find the mac marketing image annoying but the fact is, about all I have to do when we get a new employee is say something like "just use the clover key instead of the ctrl key and you'll be fine." The hardware lasts a very long time and because I usually buy from the refurb store, it isn't ridiculously overpriced, just maybe sorta overpriced. ;-) The value of not having to mess with it though, as well as the longevity, makes up for that initial outlay.
Also being able to iconize bash scripts with Platypus ( http://sveinbjorn.org/platypus/ [sveinbjorn.org] ) makes it easy automate certain tasks so they are performed in a consistent and predictable fashion by tech-inept users (like getting documents from a front end machine to a server without every having to ask "why'd you put it there, what did you call it, etc. etc.). That's very handy.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday February 06 2019, @06:24PM
The trouble is, even if I knew (and cared) nothing about the technology, I've never personally liked Apple's aesthetics. Something about the sparseness, the light colors, the excessive thinness, style over substance. The endless rounded rectangles. It's hard to put a finger on it, but it just doesn't appeal to me. Give me a chunky, black, full tower gaming rig with loads of drive bays and ports and I'm in love! I guess I never have been and never will be the target market.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @07:31PM (1 child)
yes and these same lazy minded, willfully ignorant suck ass slaves also love paying income tax and voting for the seditious tough on crime sheriff so foreign kids can get bombed by a drone for going to their uncle's funeral and the neighbors son can get kidnapped by pigs for a fucking plant. am i supposed to feel sorry for these stupid whores?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:23PM
This story is as old as humanity, you must be young.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @07:15PM
Pretentious is right. When the Apple Watch first came out on the market, I was at an Apple store (in the Seattle area) and asked one of the employees if they would ever make the Apple Watch compatible with Android. I kinda figured they eventually would, as (at the time) roughly 40% of smartphone owners were Android users and, let's face it, that's a lot of consumers. I was, however, astounded at his response: he looked at me, scoffed and said, "I hope not." I don't even remember what he said next, because at that point I no longer had any respect for anything he could possibly have to say. It's one thing to choose to not support competitor's products. It's quite another to be so damned pretentious and insulting to consumers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:10PM (1 child)
Did Apple already register as religion? I mean, they wouldn't miss an opportunity to save taxes, would they?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:32PM
No, but that would be a brilliant move.
Washington DC delenda est.