
Wife Said No, Apple Said Yes - mcritz
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/03/18/ipad-2-wife-says-no-but-apple-says-yes/
======
caldwell
I actually had a similar interaction with Apple on a smaller scale. I had just
ordered a magic mouse for my sister's fiancee for Christmas. I talked to my
sister after purchasing it online and she told me that they were in an Apple
store the day before and he had mentioned that he wanted a magic pad.

Shit.

So I called up Apple asking if I could return the magic mouse that I ordered
online for the trackpad in a store because there wouldn't be enough time with
Christmas fast approaching. The customer support guy put me on hold for a
minute and then told me that in light of the Holiday Spirit they would send
out a trackpad with express shipping free of charge. I could return the magic
mouse if I wanted or keep both.

Fed Ex ended up dropping the ball on the express shipping, but still Apple
stepped up and made my day! I ended up giving him the magic mouse for
Christmas and then the trackpad a month later for his birthday.

~~~
potatolicious
Apple's service is, bar none, the best I've ever received from any technology
company.

A couple of years ago my MacBook Pro was conking out - graphics tearing
probably caused by bad VRAM.

I called them up, and having had a DVD drive and a latch fixed in the past,
they informed me (voluntarily! without me asking for it!) that given the
number of repairs done on this machine they'll just send me a new one instead
of going through another round of repairs. This is also with ~2 minutes on
hold, and talking directly to a human instead of navigating the touch-tone
gauntlet.

They sent me a return shipment label to start the process - I told them that I
really can't be without a machine for a whole week while they sent out the
replacement. They didn't argue or be difficult, they just decided right then
to ship me my new machine and I can ship back my old one at my leisure.

Did I mention I got a unibody MacBook Pro out of the deal despite being 2-3
generations out of date at that point? They replaced the MBP with the latest
and greatest instead of sticking me with an old-gen refurb as is standard for
hardware replacements.

That singular experience has made me an Apple laptop customer ever since.

The best part? My roommate at the time was dealing with a conked out Dell
laptop, so were on the phone with our respective support lines simultaneously.
Between dialing the number and finalizing the shipment details of the new
laptop I took about 25 minutes end to end. He spent the next 7 hours arguing
with Dell. On the other hand, after those 7 hours of pure customer service
pain, they sent someone out that fixed the machine same-day... so his
resolution was faster, but considerably more painful.

~~~
electromagnetic
Amazon gave me great service when they had to do a warranty replacement for my
Kindle. It took 2 minutes at 2:30am to convince the guy to send me the
replacement. My wife being from Canada didn't believe such customer service
even existed, but back in the UK I bought everything through Amazon and they
were always great.

I did find out in the process that FedEx is as incompetent piece of shit as it
was in the UK. The delivery guy left the package in the hallway to my
apartment building and obviously forged the signature required as it was an
international expedited and insured delivery.

~~~
_frog
Amazon is great for that, when I got my Kindle I was perhaps a bit too rough
with it. It was the week after I had gotten it as a birthday present and I
didn't have a case yet but I wanted to bring it with me for a train trip. I
threw it in a bag with books, keys and other loose materials and the next time
I tried to turn it on, the screen was completely broken.

I called up Amazon support and explained the situation to them, being
completely honest about how rough I was with it. I was pretty confident they'd
just say it was my fault and make me pay for repairs but instead they simply
got my Amazon account details off me and sent a new one right away. I mailed
the broken one off a few days later and didn't have to wait too long for the
replacement despite being in Australia.

Great customer service.

~~~
saurik
This is to be predicted, as if you don't have a working Kindle you are not
going to buy e-books for it, where they make most of their money on that
product line. Companies that have high margins ("the Apple tax") or secondary
markets (Amazon, and again Apple with iTunes) have good support because they
a) can afford to have it and b) can't afford _not_ to have it: a lost customer
is a loss of thousands of dollars of future profits; for most companies you
can talk about thousands of dollars of _revenue_ , but the actual _profit_ to
be lost from an ex-customer are so low as to make even hiring support staff
untenable (most hardware companies), and when they are required the staff are
often gulags with very very strict service/refund quotas (telecom companies).

------
Tyrant505
Now if he was smart, he would buy her a new pair of shoes, dress, new tie and
shirt for himself and take her out with the money saved. That's what I call a
good week.

~~~
haploid
What is it about hacker culture that places women on a pedestal and encourages
fawning, obsequious devotion and sacrifice to them? Relationships should not
be about master/slave dynamics, yet geeks seem to relish this dynamic more
than I've seen in any other subculture.

The man in this article has already castrated himself for his wife; this +15
comment suggests that unquestioningly bending to the indomitable will of his
wife was not enough?

What's next? Recommending cuckoldry as a solution to satisfying his wife's
sexual needs?

~~~
danilocampos
> The man in this article has already castrated himself for his wife... What's
> next? Recommending cuckoldry as a solution to satisfying his wife's sexual
> needs?

 _Wow._

Um.

 _Daaaaamn._

Unresolved issues much?

Without knowing the couple in question, I could see any number of potential
explanations that indicate a co-equal relationship. Let's enumerate some:

\- Trying to cut back on expenses and reduce debt, need to watch out for each
other's impulsive spending

\- Saving for big vacation, remember?

\- Return it you oaf! (Your birthday is in a month and I already ordered you
the best one)

\- Hey, uh, just lost my job. Sure we want to keep it? That $600 is a lot of
bills

When you're sharing your life with someone else, finance is a team sport.

~~~
Dylanlacey
"${Partner} said no" is also more acceptable then "Decided I shouldn't have
bought it, don't judge me".

------
uptown
My wife is buying my iPad (late Christmas gift) and she's encouraging me to
junk my old XPS laptop for a new Mac Book Pro. I think I've got a keeper!

~~~
joelackner
nope, you've just got an expensive one. that's standard issue. =)

~~~
spacemanaki
Why was this upvoted over 90 times? This and its siblings are all pretty
sexist comments.

~~~
benmathes
Disclaimer: I love women. As a heterosexual male, I don't have much choice!

While these comments _are_ sexist, that doesn't necessarily make them
incorrect.

~~~
seabee
The implication in those decrying the 'wives are expensive' comment is that
they do not believe spouses in general are expensive. Anecdotally, I find that
very hard to believe.

------
teraflop
Is there any reason to believe that this actually happened and isn't just an
Apple employee feeding PR fluff to MacRumors? It's essentially unverifiable.

~~~
splish
Agreed, there is no source link. There is 1 link to the "story" on macrumors
and another to the forum discussion.

~~~
arn
well, not having an external source link simply means this is the source.
Whether or not you believe it or not is a separate issue.

disclaimer: I wrote the article, and I believe it likely to be true, but can't
verify it for certain, unless the Apple VPs or guy who-got-iPad steps forward.

------
jjcm
Great customer service is some of the best advertising money can buy. It's
something that's been known for years, but hasn't made its way into corporate
culture for a long time. Kudos apple/newegg/amazon/all the other startups out
there/etc who've been successful with these principles.

~~~
jlees
Clearly Zappos' famously awesome customer service isn't good or memorable
enough to make the off-the-top-of-your-head list there. Interesting!

(They always keep saying "Whoa, Nellie! We upgraded you to express shipping
free!" on my orders -- it was a delightful surprise the first time, but now I
suspect it's standard..)

~~~
jjcm
Only because I've never used (and only vaguely heard of) zappos. I'll give it
a try, I need some new clothes anyway. Thanks!

------
MichaelApproved
Wife said "Sell it on eBay so we can pay our bills."

------
anthonyb
The day after that the iPad comes back with a note on it: "Wife is a Linux
kernel hacker and fully paid up member of the FSF."

~~~
pyre
Then why doesn't she attempt to hack it and install a different OS? It was
given at Apple's expense.

~~~
anthonyb
Because the iPad doesn't have a real fucking keyboard[1], or a port to add
one.

[1] - <http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/05/30/bye-apple>

~~~
lurch_mojoff
Sure it does:
[http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/04/24/ipad.has.nativ...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/04/24/ipad.has.native.usb.support.for.many.devices/)

------
alexsb92
I would love to have been in the room, when the execs heard about it and
decided on the note, or to see the face of the guy when he received the iPad
again.

Either way, great PR move Apple.

------
wmboy
Good to hear Apple is still going the extra mile.

There are lots of stories of people going into an Apple store with a product
broken after it's warranty and still walking out the door with a brand new
replacement.

You just don't get that kind of service from any other company (especially in
the computer hardware business).

~~~
saurik
_You just don't get that kind of service from any other company (especially in
the computer hardware business)._

...because most hardware companies are trying to compete for "price conscious
customers" as commodity products, and therefore don't have any margin to spend
on support.

------
FiddlerClamp
Sounds like an urban legend to me, a la "Send standard 'we have no
cockroaches' letter" or the "$400 red velvet cake recipe".

------
blinkingled
People are actually returning their iPad 2s for reasons other than production
defects? (If there were defects I am sure the blogs would be abuzz about it by
now.) I know this one was Wife defect but the story says Apple is looking to
see if there are any production defects.

I am pondering getting one and couldn't find one anywhere. To the people
returning for refund of same amount - come over on eBay ;)

~~~
cletus
I have a Verizon model, which I'll be returning. It was the only one I could
find. I ordered an AT&T model online at 6am EST on March 11. It's still in
Hong Kong.

I can return this model up til this coming Saturday and get a free refund.

iPads have had huge problems with mass organized scalping, particularly here
in New York. For many, it's their job to camp out all night and buy 2 iPads,
fronted by a guy carrying a wad of $50k+ cash for a bunch of people in the
line.

The scalpers want AT&T models first and foremost (the GSM 3G is
internationally usable) and then Wifi-only. They aren't interested in Verizon,
which I guess explains whY I found out.

I've considered eBaying it but I don't think Verizon models are as in high
demand as the other two. Probably more hassle than it's worth.

~~~
Legion
It was so necessary to have an iPad 2 RIGHT NOW that you had to go run out and
buy a model you didn't even want?

~~~
sammcd
Interesting. I didn't even question this part :). 80% of people here make
money off of software. If I was being funded by an iPad app it definitely
would be _that_ important.

~~~
Dylanlacey
See, that's the first thing that occurred to me. Why can't you use an emulator
OR an older iPad for development for a couple of weeks?

~~~
megablast
Emulators aren't 100%, I had a problem with an app that worked perfectly on
the simulator, and crashed on the device. Also, if you are doing something
with the new features, like the cameras, you will need a new device.

~~~
schrototo
Also of note: there is no iPhone/iPad emulator, only a _simulator_. There's
huge differences in performance, in addition to some rare bugs that only
manifest themselves on either the simulator or the device.

------
pauldisneyiv
This is very simple and very smart. It just "feels" like an Apple thing to do.

~~~
mcantelon
Apple is like the Old Testament God: on some days bestowing blessings, on
other days razing the land.

~~~
graceyang
As long as you worship no Androids above Apple, you should be OK.

------
Schultzy
Does anyone know if Apple has any sort of employee empowerment policy?

At start-ups, it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) take much for the decision
makers to hear from customers and respond in a way that "wow"s them, but I'd
be curious to know what processes or mechanisms specifically a large company
like Apple has in place to catch these kinds of opportunities.

~~~
Mafana0
The guys who did that are VPs, according to the article:

 _"It was escalated as something funny, and two of the VPs got wind of it."_

~~~
Schultzy
Right, but I'm wondering HOW they found out about it. Was is just dumb luck
that a particular go-getter found out about it and passed it up or do they
have some kind of "pass interesting things up" policy and actively encourage
it? It obviously wasn't the Veeps that were receiving the the returned iPad.

~~~
protomyth
I actually can see it traveling pretty fast. District Manager calls Store
Manager to find out how things are going. Store Manager does a "You gotta hear
this return reason...". Or, the someone at the store calls corporate to find
out what to code this return as. Never underestimate the number of stories
that start "This guy gave returned it because....".

------
dasht
Supposing that it is true, Apple has paid a very small amount of money and
received a (comparatively) very large amount of advertising. Why, they've been
well placed on HN for quite a while now, for one thing.

------
jh3
The post is obviously meant to be funny even if it's true. There is really no
reason to overanalyze it...

------
jongraehl
Disgusting.

------
kawasaki
Dtb

------
pdaviesa
It's funny that there are people on this forum that believe husbands actually
make decisions. A great quote from some random sitcom - "Marriage is all about
compromise. My wife wanted a cat, I didn't want a cat, so we compromised and
got a cat."

------
aubhat
sorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become....

~~~
teej
I hate to be "that guy" but from the guidelines:

"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying
that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"

If you don't think the article is noteworthy, flag it. It's really as simple
as that.

~~~
skeletonjelly
That's a great policy. Ironically, I wish reddit had this in their
reddiquette.

