
Apple censors Lawrence Lessig over warranty information - jjude
http://www.zdnet.com/apple-censors-lawrence-lessig-over-warranty-information-ios7-mess-grows-7000022533/
======
furyg3
This bug is very annoying. Two people in my close circle of friends/family
have this issue, which makes me think a) it's pretty common and b) it was
catchable in QC.

I spent 2 hours this week trying to upgrade, back-up, restore, etc a
relative's phone, without success. The fact that you can't _downgrade_ from
iOS 7 makes this doubly painful. Support from Apple was pretty straightforward
for my friend: "Your phone is out of warranty, sorry, we will not help you."
The fact that this warranty is illegal under EU law is left out.

Finding that this is an incredibly common problem amongst users with a recent
iPhone (4S, still being sold by Apple), and seeing that Apple is actively
censoring people for offering warranty help, is very frustrating. It's sad
that it takes someone famous ranting about Apple's censorship to solve the
issue, when it all could have been avoided by saying "We are aware of the
problem, it has to do with the iOS 7 upgrade, we are working on a software
fix, if we can't fix it we will replace the affected iPhones."

~~~
sidcool
It definitely should have been caught in Quality Checks. There's another
interesting angle to this. My boss always tells me to emulate Apple and Google
engineers. He says "If they can create a phone or a search engine without
glitches, I should be able to create a mediocre form without a defect".

In your face, boss!!!

~~~
linker3000
This is a triumph of marketing over QA - the oft-quoted Apple reality
distortion field...

A senior electronics engineer where I used to work 'had to have' an iPhone, so
one was duly supplied. He immediately had problems connecting reliably to
Exchange to pick up his emails and after the IT support guys had tried several
times to make it work more reliably, the phone was handed back with the
(valid) comment that this was currently a 'known problem'.

The engineer's reply was that he didn't accept that response because it was an
Apple product and they'd not have problems making something as simple as email
'just work'.

~~~
judk
That doesn't sound like a very good engineer. I don't want to use a product
from an engineer that decides by fiat that it works.

------
r0h1n
Lessig's own post is at #78, in spite of 233 points within 17 hours of
submission:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6627331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6627331)

Did it drop off the home page so fast, or is it being flagged?

~~~
lostlogin
I might be missing something here - why would people flag it? HN has never
struck me as being this petty. Anal retentive, pedantic, and difficult
(citation required, sigh). What am I missing?

~~~
annnnd
There is only one explanation I can think of and I am not sure I believe it
myself: Apple fan boys at work?

~~~
ars
I don't think flagging pushes a post down, that would not be in the spirit of
how this community was designed.

Flagging is just supposed to summon a moderator and that's all.

~~~
dangrossman
Flagging does push a post down the ranks; I've never heard of summoning a
moderator. Flags alone can also kill stories entirely if they come before it
gains many points. The voting ring detection and flame-war detection code also
push a post down the ranks.

So, the Lessig post could've been flagged, the comments on it could've
triggered the flame war code, or a moderator did it.

What almost definitely didn't happen is "Apple fan boys at work" flagging down
anything anti-Apple. When you use the flag link any more than extremely
sparingly, you lose the privilege, permanently.

------
acqq
It's not censorship at all, it's the moderation of the forum maintained by the
company. If I would maintain my forum I'd also delete the comments that are
aggressive, overblown, conspiracy-insane etc, for example. I'd also know it's
hard to win: only a few weirdos (and internet makes it really easy for them to
be visible) are enough to waste the time of more people, but it's still a nice
goal: better a few people on the payroll deleting the comments than the
thousands or even millions of users being distracted, creating the new
conspiracy theories or organizing lynching.

[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19](http://www.penny-
arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19)

In short, "do it in your own forum, I reserve the right to delete your posts
in mine, and by participating, you're acknowledging my right."

If you did any real-life engineering, you know there isn't anything that can
be produced without _any_ glitches. You are aware that your product isn't
perfect, but you still wouldn't want to support aggression in your own forums.
Due to the different laws in different countries, who should you personally
contact to solve the problem varies so even such answers in globally-read
thread which should be purely technical can be inappropriate. In European
countries it's very regulated and clear, for example. I don't know how it's in
US.

What's certainly clear is that nobody would even want the forums without the
active moderation, except the spammers and the insane.

~~~
johnkpush
Not sure if you're trolling, but I'll bite. Agreed that aggression in forums
shouldn't be tolerated and aggressive or false comments deleted, but this
isn't a case here. The point of a support forum is to provide a platform for
getting information about a problem you are having. Legitimate questions and
solutions to problems are being actively deleted by Apple and it's clear they
are trying to hide bugs in their software rather than addressing it.

~~~
acqq
Have you actually read the posts or do you also react purelly emotionally?
Lessig fixed on the post that was clearly inconsistent, and Lessig's own posts
are "why ate you moderating" subjects, nothing technical. There were also some
strange claims of "heating the chips to 300 degrees helps." The frustration of
non-functioning phone is understandable. But the decision to keep away too
emotional posts or those that attack moderator's decisions is also
understandable.

------
daraosn
Similar story for 2011 Q1 MBP, it seems like the Graphics are defect for
several models and suddenly started to fail for several customers about now...
+800 posts, NO RESPONSE AND CENSORSHIP FROM APPLE!! Think twice before buying
a new Macbook Pro:

[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577)

~~~
josteink
_Think twice before buying a new Macbook Pro_

No need to think twice at all.

I'm a software-developer and my livelihood depends on being able to write code
freely, without getting censored and threatened with litigation, bullshit
patents and rounded corners.

Thus patent trolls and people abusing software patents for anti-competitive
purposes is a direct threat to my livelihood and supporting that is directly
unintuitive, borderline madness.

I have an ethical code of software conduct and it's very simple: I don't deal
with patent-trolls. None. That includes not buying anything from Apple.

~~~
uxp
> I don't deal with patent-trolls. None.

Then I'm sure you don't buy any products that contain Samsung NAND NVRAM, nor
do you purchase anything with Qualcomm chips, as a significant portion of
their revenue comes from aggressive patent licensing, right?

Listen, I hate patent trolls as much as the next guy, but patent licensing is
a very common business tactic everywhere. Don't make broad, over reaching
comments if you don't actually mean them. You're perfectly fine with not
buying Apple products because you don't like Apple. I don't like LG products,
so I try not to buy LG. But, lets be realistic here.

~~~
aclevernickname
> Then I'm sure you don't buy any products that contain Samsung NAND NVRAM,
> nor do you purchase anything with Qualcomm chips, as a significant portion
> of their revenue comes from aggressive patent licensing, right?

Definitely adding them to my list of companies to not buy, thanks for the
tips.

~~~
i386
Good luck with that. Samsung and Qualcomm chips are everywhere.

------
webology
My girlfriend's iPhone 4s updated to iOS7 and refused to activate. After four
or five hours of going through support and then a trip to the Apple store,
Apple confirmed that the hardware was fine but something went wrong on the
upgrade. The "Genuis" told us that's it's "unfortunate" that things like wifi
sometimes break when you upgrade your phone's OS because of the stress that it
puts your phone through. Their only solution was to buy a used phone of the
same model for $200 from them. Our request to have downgrade back to iOS6 (we
have both an iTunes backup and an iCloud backup) was refused because the
"Genuises" can't even do it. I even offered to pay them to fix that phone and
we were told they couldn't do it.

We refused to pay Apple to replace her phone and I bought her a friend's spare
phone in the meanwhile. My first and only bad experience with Apple so far but
quite disappointing to say the least.

------
rmc
Things like this make me wish there was a law against companies attempting to
counter or restict information on customers legal rights.

~~~
MichaelApproved
We don't need laws against this. We already have existing and satisfactory
avenues that expose these types of business practices. Good journalism and
websites like Hacker News do a better job than a law regarding this type of
practice ever could.

~~~
logicallee
I'm not saying you're wrong, but please don't be so casual with this
audience's time.

For example, should we have to do vigilante investigation of every company
everywhere?

Obviously consumer rights have to be balanced with the first amendment - and
for this reason, I don't think your parent's proposal is clear enough to
become a law. It's super-vague.

But don't for a second be so generous in saying that we should take the burden
on instead.

I don't want to have to read about underage workers, credit card fraud by
companies, carcinogenic additives, gross marketing misrepresentation, or any
number of other practices that are simply illegal. Moreover even if someone
did want to read about them here, we couldn't police the world's 125M
companies.

This is totally literally what laws are for.

~~~
rmc
This original story was about information about the warranty in the EU. So I
don't think the first amendment of the US constitution applies in this case.

(And yes, it's a vague quick suggestion, this is a discussion board, we're not
writing laws here)

------
drderidder
One thing is clear: Jony Ive is no great software designer. He's stuck in a
paradigm of modernist functionalism that works well for physical objects but
doesn't translate well to the screen.

------
vor_
Flamebait headline, check. Author with history of flamebaiting, check.
Submitted to HN, check.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Ad-hominem attack, check.

