Apple To Donate Profit Portion From Black Friday For AIDS Fight

An anonymous reader writes Apple will donate a portion of their sales from online and retail stores on Cyber Monday and Black Friday as a contribution to the worldwide fight against AIDS. Apple kicks off a two-week fundraising campaign for RED, the charity started by U2 lead singer Bono and Bobby Shriver. It includes 25 partnering app-makers, from Angry Birds to Toca Boca, which will donate all proceeds from purchases of their apps or in-app upgrades. In a statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said: "Apple is a proud supporter of (RED) because we believe the gift of life is the most important gift anyone can give. For eight years, our customers have been helping fight AIDS in Africa by funding life-saving treatments which are having a profoundly positive impact. This year we are launching our biggest fundraising push yet with the participation of Apple's retail and online stores, and some of the brightest minds in the App Store are lending their talents to the effort as well."

Re:Oh great, the Master of the iFlop blowing more

[alvinrod]

They've been doing this kind of promotion for years. They introduced the original RED iPod when Jobs was still in charge.

At least put some thought into your crappy trolling efforts.

Re:

[Penguinisto]

This... IIRC, they teamed up with U2 (the band) to do it. You bought a candy apple red iPod (IIRC) it came with a free U2 album on it, and a portion of the proceeds went towards AIDS research. Nothing new about that or TFA.

PS: Jobs was just as much of an ideological left-winger then as his replacement is now - likely more so.

As for future product lines? Dunno. None of that shit is easy, Jobs was just damned good at picking the winners.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Now every idevice comes with a free U2 album, whether you want it or not!

Re:

[alvinrod]

I don't think Jobs cared too much. If you look at his life, he comes off as a bit of a sociopath. However, like so many other good businessmen he realized the importance of having a good public image and a small bit of charitable giving that amounts to an alternative form of advertising is never a bad thing.

Re:

[geekoid]

I disagree. Jobs did a lot and didn't take credit.
Apple is, and has been, the greenest computer company on the planet. They just didn't advertise it until the green peace terrorist started lying about it. Apple, under Jobs, did many good things, they just didn't use it as PR. They used the user experience as PR.

Yes, there are a lot of issues with Apple.
Jobs was a hippie.

Re:Oh great, the Master of the iFlop blowing more

[serviscope_minor]

Jobs was a hippie.

It's a well known traint of hippies to steal[*] ideas from others, then sue those people to try to stop them using their own ideas.

[*] A stupid word, but it was his choice.

Re:

[davydagger]

Apple is, and has been, the greenest computer company on the planet.. They just didn't advertise it until the green peace terrorist started lying about it.

Doesn't this logic mildly upset you. Apple wasn't "green" until someone called them out on being "not green", that someone was a grass roots longstanding activist organization.(mabey with some questionable methods, but thats not relivant to the conversation). Then all of a sudden they are the "greenest company in tech".

Jobs was a hippie.

and the real hippies are terrorists.

I love this logic.

Re:

[gnasher719]

Doesn't this logic mildly upset you. Apple wasn't "green" until someone called them out on being "not green", that someone was a grass roots longstanding activist organization.(mabey with some questionable methods, but thats not relivant to the conversation). Then all of a sudden they are the "greenest company in tech".

Now that is utter bullshit. Greenpeace posted complaints about Apple because Apple didn't donate to the good cause, and because even in 2007 complaining about Apple would produce headlines.

At that time Greenpeace published a list marking computer companies on their greenness based on their promises. Among other things, they rated HP up for promising to get rid of some poisonous components and rated Apple down for not making any such promises - not realising (or worse, fully knowing) that Apple had remove

Re:

[davydagger]

can you back up your "best korea" style rhetoric with sources?

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Apple is, and has been, the greenest computer company on the planet.. They just didn't advertise it until the green peace terrorist started lying about it.

Doesn't this logic mildly upset you. Apple wasn't "green" until someone called them out on being "not green", that someone was a grass roots longstanding activist organization.(mabey with some questionable methods, but thats not relivant to the conversation). Then all of a sudden they are the "greenest company in tech".

Jobs was a hippie.

and the real hippies are terrorists.

I love this logic.

You hate reality. When Greenpeace first issued its "Guide to Greener Electronics" report in 2006 they gave Apple bad marks, because they didn't give out any information on their environmental policies, while giving good marks to the likes of HP because they promised to stop using certain chemicals. IOW they made up their scores on the PR blurbs by the companies, instead of their actions.

http://technicalconclusions.wordpress.com/2007/05/13/greenpeace_apple/

Next year they had to up Apple's score because th

Re:

[geekoid]

Jobs was good at dropping losers.
Sunk cost fallacy isn't something Jobs was a victim of. Did work like we thought? drop it, move on.
He was also an expert at getting people to do more then they thought they could.

Re:

[davydagger]

PS: Jobs was just as much of an ideological left-winger then as his replacement is now - likely more so.

Stop, right there. Jobs was a masterpiece at marketing, but he didn't have a single shred of socialism in him. He was a die hard capitalist to the core.

What Steve Jobs was good at, was convincing you of things.

Re:

[Jeff Flanagan]

Anyone who was actually as ignorant as the character you're trolling as would drown the first time it rained.

AIDS is bad

[halivar]

But there are a lot of very unglamorous diseases that kill more people every year. And that's my problem with these celebrity causes: they're mostly for show. A portion of profits; that is to say, just enough money that the goodwill advertising can make it back up again.

Re:

[i kan reed]

Yeah, but how many of those are going to draw in the kind of idiots that shop on black Friday.

N.B. Please don't respond and give your "totally sound" reasons for shopping on black Friday, you're mistaken.

Re:

[CrankyFool]

What's your problem with shopping on Black Friday? Do you draw a distinction between shopping on-line vs in-store?

(Me, I'm usually grateful to have a grocery store open the morning of Thanksgiving (for last-minute stuff I forgot) and Black Friday (to replenish whatever I ran out of); I could give up the latter without too much pain. I do bargain-shop on Black Friday, but only on-line, which feels like a reasonable way to minimize impact on retail-type people)

Re:

[CastrTroy]

So you're minimizing the impact on retail-type people by shopping online, which effectively makes them obsolete and unneeded. I kind of say this in a joking way, but I too do a lot of online shopping. It's just easier. Why would I want to go out to the store, when I can order it from the comfort of my living room and have it delivered in a few days. That isn't to say we don't need any retail. I still like to have physical grocery stores, because even next day delivery is too long, and it's very convenient

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[geekoid]

BF is more the Electronics. It's older then PC's for crying out loud.
And the oldest using dining cards on dates? really?

Re:

[blueg3]

Please don't respond and give your "totally sound" reasons for shopping on black Friday, you're mistaken.

Our friendly local gaming store is running game demos (and unstructured try-before-you-buy) and giving out coffee Friday morning. The owner encouraged us to come by.

What am I mistaken about?

Re:

[xaotikdesigns]

Well, it did say that it was going to help Africa, which does count as a very poor area if I'm not mistaken.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that Tim Cooke is out, he has to use his corporation's profits to donate to AIDS charities or the gay mafia with throw him out of the club.

Re:

[ganjadude]

not even that, they are doing it as a tax writeoff. notice they get the credit for making the donation, not you (who is paying for it)

Re:

[Just Some Guy]

Why would you get a tax writeoff for buying something? They're the one donating their part of the transaction, not you.

Re:

[ganjadude]

let me clarify what I mean

They are using the idea of donating to AIDS research with the money you used to buy X. Now some people who were not planning to buy X will see this and think "oh look, they are donating for AIDS on everything we buy today, we should buy something to help!"

On the other hand people who were going to buy, but maybe not on friday see it and say "oh boy, if we buy this a few weeks early, we will be helping support AIDS research!"

This is nothing more than using social engineerin

Re:

[Just Some Guy]

I think you're really grasping at straws. Note that Apple is donating all of the proceeds to charity. It's kind of hard to make a profit in volume when you're losing money on each individual sale.

Re:

[ganjadude]

as i said im not calling out apple here, im just explaining how things work. for the record I currently take care of retail stores cash registers, I hear about all sorts of tricks when it comes to getting people to buy stuff from these stores i take care of

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Note that Apple is donating all of the proceeds to charity. It's kind of hard to make a profit in volume when you're losing money on each individual sale.

Note that Apple is not donating all the proceeds to charity, as the headline suggets ("profit portion") but in fact a portion of profits. I am not new here so I am not surprised you have not read TFA but in fact the truth is that 100% of the profits from 25 apps will be donated, while a portion of the profits from Apple retail locations will be donated. Congratulations to ZDNet, they fooled you completely with that headline. Sucker.

Re:

[geekoid]

You don't really understand how taxes and tax write offs work, do you?

Re:

[MikeMo]

You do understand that a tax write-off only allows you to decrease your tax burden by a partial percentage of the donation? For example, if they donate $1,000, their burden is decreased by $260 (using their advertised US tax rate of 26%). So, it is nice on the tax side, but it still costs then $740 net.

It's not like it's free money.

Re:

[geekoid]

So what? They are giving money to help fund the finding for a cure of a disease. Why isn't that good enough? Would you rather nothing was given?
Is you life so disappointing to you that you need to attack groups that are trying to do some good?

Re:

[iluvcapra]

But there are a lot of very unglamorous diseases that kill more people every year.

Yes, but in southern Africa the AIDS prevalence rate between 15-25%, and those numbers go UP when juvenile cases are counted. It's "glamorous" because in Africa it's a pandemic comparable to the great 14th century plagues of Europe.

Re:

[alvinrod]

I dislike this defeatist attitude of it's obviously not everything so why bother. By that same logic, don't bother donating any difference yourself because that $50 - $100 probably isn't enough either. In fact, unless you're fully capable of handing them a cure to AIDS yourself, best to not even get involved.

Never mind that any company that tried donating more than a token amount would quickly find itself being sued by the shareholders who are going to be wondering why all of the profits are being spent

Re:

[s.petry]

Reread the post you responded to, in particular "If you actually care about AIDS, budget for the full retail price, get the best deal possible (maybe even not an iThingy), and donate the difference yourself. ". The complaint is the intentionally misleading wording, and pointing out a better way of helping if you really wanted to support the cause.

Re:

[alvinrod]

Well that's nice if someone would rather donate the full $$$ towards AIDS research, but most people want the iDevice or whatever product they're buying. Having $ or maybe even $$ donated to AIDS research by Apple for each sale is more than you could expect to get if you took all of the people who donated instead of buying something instead.

Is this completely good-will on Apple's part? I don't think so as they're essentially using it to get free press/advertising and they realize that even if they won't p

Re:

[neoritter]

If they're not making a profit off the discounted items, then no money goes to AIDs research. It's not a decent gesture. They're only doing it because it'll drum up more sales. If they really cared, they wouldn't advertise it, or at least not right before.

Re:

[macs4all]

If they're not making a profit off the discounted items, then no money goes to AIDs research. It's not a decent gesture. They're only doing it because it'll drum up more sales. If they really cared, they wouldn't advertise it, or at least not right before.

But I thought the meme on Slashdot was that Apple makes "obscenely high" profits on their products; so which is it?

1. Apple is being disingenuous because they won't be making any profits to give away?

2. Apple is evil because they make "high" profits?

Can't have it both ways.

Re:

[neoritter]

Stop projecting.

This isn't rocket science. Black Friday deals, i.e. discounts. If the discounts reduce profits to zero (see, "If they're not making a profit off discounted items"), then zero is what they donate. Take your false dichotomy rant elsewhere.

A good deed will never go unpunished

[Camembert]

So much negativity and cynicism here.
Would there be a similar /. backlash if, say, Ubuntu would do a similar effort this week?

Re:

[LWATCDR]

It is nice but doing it this way give the tax break to Apple and gives them free PR.
If they just cut the price by the amount and if people gave the money to the Charity of choice then the customer would get the tax break.

Over all it is a good thing because most of the people would probably just pocket the savings.

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

So your complaint is that Apple doesn't give you a tax deduction?

Re:

[LWATCDR]

My complaint is that no one seems to read anymore.
As I said over all I think this is a good idea.
You sir are seeking offense when none was intended or given.

Re:

[s.petry]

So much negativity and cynicism here. Would there be a similar /. backlash if, say, Ubuntu would do a similar effort this week?

Why yes, yes there would be similar backlash. Funny how you attempt to paint realism as "negativity and cynicism" prior to asking your question. This is called poisoning the well, shame on you!

The realism I'm referring to is that people are against the use of suffering as a propaganda tool. People are against the deception in advertising, such as "Apple To Donate Profit Portion" which is intentionally misleading in the headline and should read "Apple to donate a portion of profit". Save the excuse about

Re:

[neoritter]

Talk about it AFTER they did it for one. Charity isn't supposed to be ostentatious. If you're profiting off giving charity, then it's not really charity. It's a self-serving attitude.

This, and one more thing..

[s.petry]

What you said, but also they should be honest. If they are giving .5% of "profits" to charity the wording in TFA could have reflected this more accurately than the implication that all profit is going to the foundation as the wording attempted to imply.

Re:

[schnell]

Talk about it AFTER they did it for one

Then how would people who want their purchases to help benefit this charity know how, when and where to buy it? Part of the rationale of doing something like this is that some consumers will want to modify their purchasing decisions or timing to support a cause they find valuable.

Let's say Crucial.com was going to give a portion of the profits on all RAM purchases on a certain day to the EFF. Wouldn't you rather know when/what products that applies to, rather than have Crucial announce "hey, we gave part of

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

If you're profiting off giving charity, then it's not really charity.

How exactly would Apple profit from giving charity?

Re:

[macs4all]

The person that wrote the title is a professional writer, they know how words work.

From what I have seen pass the "Editors" at Slashdot, I wouldn't bet on either clauses of your statement being true.

This is a Tech-Blog; not the Wall Street Journal, nor the New York Times. If you're looking for examples of erudite journalism, you've come to the wrong genre.

Re:

[alvinrod]

It's the internet. There's always going to be some small amount of trolling a crap posts. If Ubuntu started a project to donate to animal shelters someone would post about how cats are worthless and someone should just snap all of their necks. I'm surprised there wasn't another GNAA (or whatever the derivative spam post actually is now) posted to the thread as it seems to have been cropping up a lot.

Re:

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Would there be a similar /. backlash if, say, Ubuntu would do a similar effort this week?

[cynicism...en-gage] Canonical would probably invent a new disease rather than just use an existing one! ;)

Re:

[Jeff Flanagan]

You bigoted, clueless cave men have no place in the modern world. All you can do is thrash impotently on the Internet when the rest of have left you behind and denied you loons power over anyone from outside your cults.

Post Jobs charity

[robstout]

It will be interesting to see if Apple becomes more charitable under Cook. Jobs was pretty stingy that way (very stingy in his perosnal life, but I think Apple unde rhim did do a few charitable contributions)

Re: Post Jobs charity

[maccodemonkey]

This charity was actually a favorite of Jobs' as well, and Apple has had multiple promotions around since maybe 2004? There was even a dedicated iPod RED model.

But of course because Tim Cook is gay, now people are noticing and it's a "deal." Sigh/face palm.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

Steve Jobs gave a lot of money to charity, he just didn't brag about it: http://www.news.com.au/finance... [news.com.au].

Re:

[tlhIngan]

It will be interesting to see if Apple becomes more charitable under Cook. Jobs was pretty stingy that way (very stingy in his perosnal life, but I think Apple unde rhim did do a few charitable contributions)

Apple has become more charitable under Cook. An employee perk is that Apple will match donations up to $10,000 or so per year to an employee's charity [macrumors.com].

Now, Jobs himself we don't know the extent of his charity - his records of public philanthropy are generally scant, though it's possible that Jobs himsel

Re:

[Plumpaquatsch]

Apple donate it to something that will matter. Like a charity that does actual research on terminal diseases.

Yeah Apple, save the Slashdot posters - find a cure for terminal stupidity.

Re:

[ArcadeMan]

Draco? The head of one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the world? He's making drugs now?

Re:

[ArcadeMan]

Me too. http://jamesbond.wikia.com/wik... [wikia.com]