Apple's Haves and Have Nots, Around the World 247
Rambo Tribble writes "As this story in the Economist notes, Apple's policies regarding international sales are often confusing and outdated. Apparently, Apple either hasn't been aware of political and social changes in the world over the last 20 years, or doesn't wish to acknowledge them."
Soulskill rightly notes that at least some of the complained-about policies boil down to Apple's adherence to local copyright and licensing laws.
Media Regional Sales Restrictions (Score:5, Informative)
The only thing I managed to really garner from this article is this, it's about Apples country restrictions on music and movies.
If the economist did a bit more research independently they would see it's a rights management issue from the content generators. Music and film in both the US and UK tend to restrict certain things like to their respective countries on a belief it's the only way everyone gets their dues.
It's the reason the silly regional encoding exists for the encryption on almost every DVD; my Discovery Channel Living With Wolves DVD lacked any sort of encryption.
Partly the irrational fear that artists won't get their rightful dues, because of currency exchange rates. Piracy fears I think are the biggest concern on the media companies not letting stuff out of the country digitally.
Along with the fact they make probably loads licensing manufacturers in other countries to make them locally and get around tariffs.
Re:Apples website in general (Score:0, Informative)
There is a field near the navigation bar called "Search" that works similar to Spotlight on OSX
I really doubt you've even bothered to look, because typing iPhone Technical Specifications [apple.com] nailed it as the top result.
You're just being obtuse on this matter. Apple site is considered to be one of the most usable ones out there. Calling it "in shambles" is one of the dumbest gripes I've heard. Perhaps you wanted to rant about something and misplaced your rage?
Re:Apples website in general (Score:2, Informative)
Apple's consumer website www.apple.com is one of the best designed websites out there.
Apple's developer website developer.apple.com is less well designed, more evolved over a period of time. But hardly a problem. If you're having trouble finding information for developing iPhone applications, then the first most likely explanation is that you haven't yet paid your $99 to be in the iPhone developer program.
You mean the one on the consumer website. I see an appropriate level of detail for a consumer electronics product. What tech spec information do you imagine is missing?
Re:Media Regional Sales Restrictions (Score:4, Informative)
If you try reading the first part of TFA as well, you'll see that you don't get Apple Store access at all in some European countries (members of the European Union, mind you, even some in the euro-zone), but you do in Vietnam. How is that again about movies and video again?
Re:Apples website in general (Score:1, Informative)
There is a field near the navigation bar called "Search" that works similar to Spotlight on OSX
I really doubt you've even bothered to look, because typing iPhone Technical Specifications [apple.com] nailed it as the top result.
You're just being obtuse on this matter. Apple site is considered to be one of the most usable ones out there. Calling it "in shambles" is one of the dumbest gripes I've heard. Perhaps you wanted to rant about something and misplaced your rage?
Also try looking at the technical specifications of the iPhone - it's just a bulletpoint list of features- hardly 'technical'
Actually it looks like they were perfectly capable of finding the "Technical" Specifications they just said it sucked and the comment about hard the site being hard to navigate was a separate matter as denoted by the ALSO!
Re:Not reallly wow (Score:5, Informative)
iTunes doesn't need large sums of money invested to make it work for these countries. But you are right, Apple "judges" and TBH, doesn't judge correctly. They CAN make money out of these countries, but they don't feel like trying. Oh well, this approach makes someone else rich anyway.
Re:wow (Score:5, Informative)
[myForehead isSlapped:YES with:@"Hand"];
The is prefix should only be used on predicate methods (i.e. ones returning a BOOL). If you have a KVC-compliant accessor, it can be isSlapped or setSlapped: for the @"slapped" key. Starting a method with side effects with is is very bad style.
Re:Not reallly wow (Score:3, Informative)
Authorised Apple Resellers: Poland
http://www.apple.com/pl/buy/locator/map.html?tySearch=1&viaProduct=2&viaSpecial=-1&strCountry=POL&lat=52.2296756&lng=21.0122287&gCountry=PL&c3=1 [apple.com]
Authorised Apple Reseller, Romania:
http://store.apcom.ro/ [apcom.ro]
Re:Actually, not. (Score:3, Informative)
FYI, in the US (or at least NY), there's a state sales tax, then each county has their own sales tax on top of that. The NY state sales tax is 4%, the remaining 4.25% you found was for whatever county you were looking at. Presently the county sales tax range from 3% to 4.75% in NY.
And there are some items which the state doesn't charge tax on, but some counties do.
Plus, some sales are taxed based upon where you live, not where you made the purchase. If I purchase a car in a county where the total sales tax is 8.75%, I'll only pay 8% because I the county I live in is 8% and the county the vehicle is first registered in is used for the tax.
Re:Non-article? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, there are companies that try to fill the gap. They have an address in US that you can use when ordering in an US-only online shop, and they will re-mail it to you in Europe. It is not cheap and a bit complicated, but it works.
Also, if you read my comment carefully, I used the word "half" a lot. There are many online shops that have no problem with shipping to eastern Europe. I can get my stuff online, it is just much less convenient.
The problem here is really simple. People in countries that are being left out have a strong feeling that the decision many companies make, not to ship to these countries, is often not based on rational reasoning. Yes, we can use the gap as an entrepreneurial opportunity, but that is beside the point. The point here is that we want to alert the companies that reconsidering their policy may be beneficial to them as well as to us.
(Try to walk in my shoes for a moment: You find something interesting on Amazon, try to order it... bang, not shipping this there. You search for it on google, try a few other shops, and maybe the third one will ship it. Even though you succeed, you still feel... discriminated.)
Re:Some zenly advice (Score:4, Informative)
probably has something to do with differing attitudes of best buy "customer service" and Apple's "Customer Service".
With Apple, they don't care if you caused the problem. They will attempt to help you with it. If it's something that can be fixed without any hardware replacements, then they won't even charge you anything... regardless of whether you're the problem or not. If it is something that does require a hardware replacement, they will 9 times out of 10 give the customer the benefit of the doubt and repair the affected hardware free of charge... often times if you aren't even in your warranty.
Time for my anecdotal evidence:
1) I had a classic iPod... at one point the click wheel started to become warped. It was raised up ever so slightly at the N, S, E, and W points and pushed down ever so slightly at the corners. I took it to the apple store, he asked if I knew what happened, and I honestly didn't. I told him I suspected it was because I left it in my car 24/7 (hot summer sun, cold winter nights, etc.). He said it wasn't a problem and replaced it.
2) The built-in keyboard and mouse on a Macbook Pro that I care for would randomly stop responding. Software was still responsive, I would continue to receive emails, IMs, and I could plug in an external keyboard and mouse and continue to work. So it was clearly a hardware problem. To fix it, all I had to do was reboot. Problem was, it happened EXTREMELY infrequently (like once every 3-4 days). Unless I happened to get extremely lucky I wasn't going to be able to reproduce it. I made an appointment anyway, I told him what was happening, what my own diagnosis was (faulty keyboard or connector)...Of course I wasn't able to get it to reproduce the issue. He said it could possibly be caused by the OS however, when I expressed a dislike in having to redo all my OS and settings, he said it wasn't a problem.. he replaced the entire keyboard and trackpad assembly. Problem went away for several months. Started happening again. Different Apple tech guy, same story... brought it in, told him the problem, couldn't reproduce, said it could possibly be the OS but he fixed it anyway. Over a year later (i'm using the same OS install) and I haven't had the problem again. If this were best buy they would have required me to reinstall the OS to prove it wasn't a software problem, assuming they even believed me to begin with about my VERY intermittent keyboard/trackpad problem.
3) A different MacBook Pro that I care for had a battery that started to bulge one day. The machine was well out of warranty and it was probably the original battery that came with the machine. Made an appointment and showed them the battery. They looked up the s/n of the machine and found it was over a year out of warranty. They decided to replace it anyway.
I have no personal experience with Best Buy and their computer return/exchange/repair procedures. However, I have read about them on the internet and the general idea I got is that "the customer is always wrong. We won't pay for anything until it can be proven that the problem is with the hardware. If there are other possible causes for your symptoms that aren't hardware related, then it's up to you to rule them out. Even if it can be determined that it's a hardware problem that's our responsibility then it will take 6-8 weeks for the computer to be shipped off to a 'repair facility'. Once at this facility, another technician will look at the problem with the same skepticism that we did, they will not read the case notes that we didn't bother being thorough on (even if we typed them up at all), determine that your problem might be caused by software, wipe your machine and reload it factory, and finally send it back to you without testing to see if the problem still exists."
Basically, Apple believes in investing in customer service and satisfaction. Best Buy does not.
Re:Apples website in general (Score:5, Informative)
"Apple's consumer website www.apple.com is one of the best designed websites out there."
WTF? Apple.com is crap, complete and useless.
Let's say I'm a visitor from Ukraine (I am, BTW). I go to apple.com - and see a site in English. How do I switch language to Ukrainian or Russian? The common way is to have a switch at the top of the site, offering language choices from GeoIP database.
But here I have to scroll it all the way down and click on inconspicuous 'Choose your country or region' button.
Ok, I click it and see country names. There's Ukraine? Nowhere to be found, even though I know as a fact that there are authorized Apple sellers in Kiev. Ok, I click on "Russia" because I speak Russian as well.
Great, I see the big 'Buy' button on the top left. I eagerly click it (http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/). And see a lot of options (some of them with in a broken grammar - can't they find good translators?). What should I choose? What is the difference between Apple distributors and resellers?
Ok, I click on "Apple distributors" - http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/shop/ [apple.com]
Great! I now can see the list of 3 (count them - THREE!) Apple shops for the whole Russia, all in Moscow. Wow!
And you might notice that I still can't find Ukrainian distributors.
Ok, I'm a power user and do a web search: http://yandex.ua/yandsearch?text=Apple%20%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9%20%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B5%D1%80&lr=143&ncrnd=214 [yandex.ua] on a local search engine. Great! Now I found the http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/locator/ [apple.com] - reseller locator.
And with a couple of clicks I find what I need: http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/locator/map.html?tySearch=1&viaProduct=2&viaSpecial=-1&strCountry=UKR&lat=50.45&lng=30.5233333&gCountry=UA [apple.com]
But how can I find this locator without resorting to a search engine? It turns out, I have to click on "Apple Authorised Reseller" link here: http://www.apple.com/ru/buy/ [apple.com] Its description says: "They help you to choose Mac or iPod, provide professional consultation and technical support of Apple products" - not a word about ability to search.
In short, Apple's web site is a #$#*@(&$^#*(&$ mess.
Re:Apples website in general (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the preferred way for a website to default to a language should be based on the browser indicated preference. That way, say, French speaking Canadians or Spanish speaking American's don't get lumped in the wrong group based on GeoIP (and I can put in Finnish as my preference regardless of my current location.) The list of preferred languages and their order should be hidden in your browser menu somewhere.
No argument about Apple's site, though :-)
Re:Apples website in general (Score:4, Informative)
Or just short circuit all your problems and try going to Apple's Russian website. You know, www.apple.com/ru . Like, you know, everyone else in every other country in the world goes to their own Apple site.
Re:Not reallly wow (Score:5, Informative)
It's not available ANYWHERE outside the USA yet, it hasn't been launched anywhere else due to the fact that US demand still outstrips ability to manufacture.
Because the authorised resellers for phones are networks: http://www.orange.ro/iphone/index.html [orange.ro] QED, officially available.
And I'd like a pony. Look, the iPhone is 99with a contract on that Orange.ro site. That's not a ridiculous price.
It does for Romania and Poland. Go into the app store and change country. They're both there.
You're whining about nothing.
Re:Apples website in general (Score:2, Informative)
"You clearly don't know what you're talking about. The Apple design is faultless in this regard."
Sure, Apple can never be wrong :)
"You click on the USA flag, and then select either the Russian flag, or a flag of some other country that Apple trades in. Couldn't be easier."
Except that you need: notice that little flag, 2 understand what it says.
"Once selected, that country will remain for future visits to the site."
In fact, it doesn't.
"The top of the screen is reserved for frequently used navigation tasks. A one off preference does NOT belong there."
Except that without this 'one-off' change the site is USELESS for non-English-speaking people.
"For whatever business reason they don't trade in the Ukraine. But that's not a website design issue."
But they DO trade in the Ukraine. They have authorized partners, etc.
"Your inability to understand the difference between the words "distributor" and "reseller" is not a web-site design problem. It's a literacy problem on your part. In any product supply chain, distributors operate in the levels between manufacturer and resellers. Distributors don't sell to consumers."
Except that there is no this distinction in Russian. Distributors certainly can sell things directly to customers.
And in fact they DO sell things directly to customers, according to the #@^$#*&$^ Apple.com site.