iS the iHoneymoon iOver? (USA)It was one of the most anticipated unions of the high-tech year when, in July, throngs of geeks, in their Moonie-like massses, exchanged high-summer vows with the Apple iPhone at anointed stores across the US.
But many of the marriages that were supposed to have lasted at least as long a 2-year contract with AT&T are already showing signs of hitting the rocks.
It was all honey-baby, snuggle-bunnyness for the first month or so as the happy couples consummated their relationship and settled into their new daily routine. But bliss can be so short-lived and the first cracks in the lovey-doviness began to appear when, one dark day shortly after all the weddings had taken place, that nice Mr. Jobs, the CEO of Apple, suddenly let it be known that he wanted to see, other, new people - and at a discount dowry of US$200 less per marriage at that!
Thereafter, things were never quite the same and they got even worse in the aftermath of “the hacking incident”. Some uber-geeks thought that by spending some seriously long quality time with the iPhone and really getting intimate with its inner workings, they could rekindle the flame of passion.
So they worked and they worked, spurning food and all other nourishment, to concentrate solely on finding a hack that would deepen the almost mystical bond between propellor-head and machine.
This obsession was much more than just a casual relationship with a passing PDA and quickly developed into an alternative swinging lifestyle for the new mobile society, where all are accepted into the club regardless of SIM card or carrier orientation. But, as the media is always telling us, such flightiness can never bring true monogamous happiness.
The iPhone couldn’t handle an open marriage and it wasn’t long before the raw sounds of wailing, gnashing teeth and rending loincloths was heard across the land of the free and the home of the brave. During one particularly difficult period, Apple actually locked iPhone hacker hubbies out of a new update, leaving them with broken phones and dawning realisation that the beautiful and biddable brides that they had bedded were, in fact, termagants with control-freak tendencies and an in-built handiness with a rolling-pin.
And, as is often the way of things when the path of true love turns rough and rocky, some of the iPhone spouses that married in haste are now beginning to repent at leisure. Divorces are looming and setttlements are demanded.
The writing was on the wall this week when a woman in Queens, New York, filed a lawsuit against Apple, AT&T and that nice Mr. Jobs demanding a divorce payment of a million dollars.
And, in addition to the compensatory damages, she and her lawyers, in attempting to forment a mass divorce movement, are seeking to spark a class-action that could result in further substantial punitive damages if a sympathetic jury is empanelled.
According to court documents filed in Nassau and Queens County in the US state of New York, the plaintiff, a Ms.
Dongmei Li, seeks compensatory redress for “price discrimination, discrimination in rebates, underselling….. unfair and deceptive acts and practices and telecommunications chargers or service discrimination.”
The nub of Ms. Li’s argument is that Apple put itself in breach of US price discrimination legislation when it cut the cost of the 8-gigabyte iPhone by a third, from $599 to $399, within two months of the handset’s debut. Apple reduced the price of the iPhone’s on September 5 and also said it would stop selling the $499 4-gigabyte model. Hundreds of early adopters who has queued-up to fork-out the full price did not expect a price reduction so quickly and complained.
Apple was forced to issue an apology the very next day next day and under its “return policy”, refunded the $200 difference for those who bought the phone within 14 days of the price drop. Then, as an olive branch to angry customers who has bought an iPhone at full-whack before that arbitrary 14-day cut-off period, the company offered a $100 credit at Apple stores.
According to the lawsuit the price reduction “injured and was detrimental to” early adopters because they cannot resell the product for the same profit as those who bought the iPhone after the price was reduced. Clear so far? Good.
In essence, the lawsuit is claiming that Apple and AT&T effectively duped consumers with one of the oldest ploys in the the book of retail tricks – the old bait and switcheroo routine – via which the considerably more expensive AT&T Media net wireless service was upsold deliberately to leverage the iPhone’s much-vaunted multimedia features (without which the device is little more than a shiny and expensive iPaperweight). Further, the good old $100 “store credit” remedy was switched to the now infamous $200 dollar “rebate”. These practices, says the lawsuit, are clear violations of US consumer protection laws.
Just like the million or more iPhones that have been sold to date, the matter is now in the hands of the American people. On a Mac Forum chat site, the veritable beating and bleeding heart of the Apple corps community, there sits a very public call for a class-action lawsuit against the company “seeking respondents for possible class action lawsuit against Apple Inc. relating to refusal to service iPhones and related accessories under warranty.”
Oh, the irony of it! Like King Lear, Mr. Jobs is leaning the hard way how “sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” We suggest that next time, if there is a next time, and to avoid the repetition of any such nastiness ever again, the use of prophylactics might be recommended.
