A group of Apple Computer resellers and consumers has banded together to file a class action suit against the company.
In the suit, filed in the California Superior Court in San Francisco, the resellers and consumers accuse Apple of not honoring warranties, misappropriating trade secrets from its resellers, unlawful business practices and packaging old kit as new, among other charges. Apple, which recently filed suit against three online journalists it claimed had leaked Apple's secrets, now finds itself on the receiving end of such a suit, with the resellers claiming the company has been using confidential reseller information in order to boost sales at Apple's own stores and cut the resellers out.
News source: C|Net News.com
In the suit, filed in the California Superior Court in San Francisco, the resellers and consumers accuse Apple of not honoring warranties, misappropriating trade secrets from its resellers, unlawful business practices and packaging old kit as new, among other charges. Apple, which recently filed suit against three online journalists it claimed had leaked Apple's secrets, now finds itself on the receiving end of such a suit, with the resellers claiming the company has been using confidential reseller information in order to boost sales at Apple's own stores and cut the resellers out.
News source: C|Net News.com
Opera is making headway into the home media market with their Web browser solutions and powerful HTML and JavaScript-based presentation engine. The voice-enabled EPG is a multimodal (or multiple forms of input and output such as speech, keyboard or handwriting) project aimed at increasing awareness in the consumer electronics sector of the benefits of voice-enabled Web technologies.
"Opera is a leading player in making technology easy and accessible for people in their everyday lives, and the voice-enabled EPG is not science fiction, but a compelling demonstration of what you can do with Web technologies for home media," says Igor Jablokov, Director, Multimodal and Voice Portals, IBM Software Group. "We are excited to continue our relationship with Opera to help set the standards for a voice-enabled Web."
"Opera's Web-based presentation environment is ideal for applications like EPGs, Video-on-Demand, Web browsing, and other interactive services because of its speed, standards-compliance and easy customization," says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. Operators can brand and specialize their offerings, and end-users can customize the appearance and functionality to their liking. The integration of voice with data is a natural evolution, and has enormous potential in the integrated home media market. Through our efforts with IBM(R), we hope to enable operators and OEMs to quickly get their HTML and Javascript-based applications talking."
Opera's voice-enabled EPG announcement was made just weeks before Opera rolls out their new voice-enabled edition of the Opera browser for PCs.
The voice-enabled EPG is written in XHTML+Voice or X+V multimodal programming language and is available in English with initial targets aimed at enterprise customers and developers. For a demonstration of X+Vmultimodal speech applications, visit: www.ibm.com/pvc/multimodal. Opera's Software Development Kit is based on the IBM(R) WebSphere Multimodal Toolkit, with its IBM WebSphere(R) Everyplace(R) Multimodal Environment, that includes IBM Embedded ViaVoice(R) and allows developers to easily build multimodal applications for devices ranging from low resource set top boxes to high-end Digital Video Recorders using the industry standards-based X+V markup language that combines XHTML and VoiceXML.
My point is, please don't make anymore stupid snap judgements. You're not going to get smarter or better or improve your social standing by being ignorant.
You bet they do!
That really isnt surprising if its true, apple has always seamed to me to be a company that would sacrifice popularity and widespread adoption if they could in any way make the most out of being the sole manufacturer of products for their own products, kind of like a monopoly
But he thinks the reseller was responsible.
I had a similar experience with Circuit City.
I returned a game becuase the CD was damaged.
Next day I saw the same game back on the stand.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=281826
GJ
and skyfox, did you pay for a retail one or a resold one?
This won't change anything for the apple zealots however. No matter how bad it looks.
Because you don't know someone who has got a returned "new" Mac?
Are you naive or what?
Besides, NetRyder makes a good point. If the job is done well it will be very hard to know. You might not be able to point at one thing and say "this one was returned".
http://www.spymac.com/gallery/show_photo.p...hp?picid=223390
I wouldn't know if they all come that way, but I've heard of this before (people like the coloured boxes!). In case anyone doesn't know Apple has a "Special Deals" section on the right side of the AppleStore.com. If you go there you can see all the refurbished products and the refurbishment process.
Speaking from personal experience I know a guy who I helped buy an iMac that was obviously used once we opened it up (it had the old bill in it from the previous buyer– same store!). The store refused to do anything even when we showed them the bill saying it's a normal practice. So we called Apple and they were very apologetic and said this wasn't the first time they have heard of this and that they would talk to the store. They offered to ship him a new unit or accept complimentary AppleCare. He took the AppleCare.
and yeah, apple was shooting for monopoly over the home industry int he beginning, until evil mr. gates came in and whomped their punk bums with windows. lol.
I'm, personally, amazed at how Apple is functioning so well, considering the demand for Mac minis, iPods, and iPod minis.
Notice how Dell and HP ship ten times more units than Apple does, year after year?
Numbers don't mean anything. Apple is targeted at the educated consumer who knows good stuff when they see one. Dell and HP are just selling their junk with a horrible OS to ignorat people who don't know thrash when they see one.
edit: Damn I was just looking at the other comments... Should I be surprised how many NetRyder has posted or does he always troll in Apple stuff?
I have nothing against Apple. I'm just irked by the attitude most Mac users have. Most of you seem to think everything else is junk. Guess what? If you think the rest of the world is buying junk, you're buying junk too...just with a higher price tag.
(On a sidenote, I recognize that name. You're oik, aren't you? Looks like your old account was banned. Maybe you should watch whom you call a troll.)
Last edited by 12081 on 22 Feb 2005 - 06:20
And no PC users do? Please take your Apple zealotry elsewhere.
Yes, we only like Microsoft zealots around here.
As mentioned early on, I do work for a reseller and I can honestly say that Apple does give itself an unfair advantage on stock, and in addition they have undercut me on price -- going below cost to ensure that they get the deal direct, how do they find out who my customers are? My customers buy Applecare, which needs to be registered to become active... thus providing a large database for Apple to call on directly.
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