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General discussion

iPod fires...oh, those pesky Apple lawyers

Jul 21, 2009 2:51PM PDT

I know full well that this tv station is deep in the heart of Microsoft country, but is this getting any coverage anywhere?

http://www.kirotv.com/money/20089894/detail.html

Apple Downplays Fiery iPod Incidents
Amy Clancy
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News


I was going to cut & paste the story, but there's a disclaimer at the bottom of the article's web page that states none of the contents can be reprinted or redistributed. So to save CNET and CBS the trouble of censoring my post, I edited myself (btw, KIRO is also a CBS affiliate).

Discussion is locked

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Seems inline with
Jul 21, 2009 9:59PM PDT

Just about all battery powered devices. Maybe the lesson here is that all battery powered devices should be treated with the possibility that they will fail.

Your link is interesting but you can find this same issue with cell phones and more.
Bob

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Well it wasn't so much about the batteries...
Jul 22, 2009 4:33AM PDT

...or the iPods themselves as it was about the implied stalling tactics brought on by Cupertino's legal staff.

We've own a bunch of iPods over the years, and yes a couple of them did get a bit toasty over extended use, though it was never anything like my Android G1 used to get prior to the Cupcake push. And I've seen plenty of postings over the years from iPod owners griping about the same thing. But to read (and watch) reports about the apparent stonewalling on Apple's part, that was new to me.

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So you remember the Ford Pinto?
Jul 22, 2009 5:28AM PDT

In the US there is a system for such deception or such. Are you using it?

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Poor example, I think...
Jul 22, 2009 8:18AM PDT

Yeah, I still remember it fairly well; I wasn't too far removed after getting my driver's license at the time.

The Pinto debacle was as much about overzealous corporate cost accounting and the devaluing of human life via the risks from potential liability costs for not installing that $11 reinforcing plate to prevent the gas tank punctures that arose with rear-end collisions. Ford's product planners knowingly made their proverbial bed LONG BEFORE any problems--too often deadly--actually showed up with consumers and their cars. But then again, those same cost accountants and liability lawyers didn't exactly factor in the outrage and fallout that followed, particularly with the burning deaths of the three teenage girls in the midwest (Illinois? Indiana?) when the Pinto they were in went up in flames. (Sigh) Yet if only Ford learned that lesson...then perhaps police departments and taxi fleets all across the country TODAY wouldn't have to cast a wary eye at their own potentially explosive Crown Vics over a disturbingly similar problem decades later.

There's no evidence that Apple did the same sort of "accounting" with regards to the iPod's 'toasty' battery issues. Rather in this particular instance it's what Apple and their lawyers have done after the fact that's what I find disturbing...and disappointing.

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And my thought on this.
Jul 22, 2009 9:00AM PDT

You seem to have singled out a particular product when all products that use this battery technology show this issue.

Why the narrow focus?
Bob

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Again...it's NOT the product that matters
Jul 22, 2009 11:12PM PDT

Playing the Devil's Advocate, are we?

It's ALL about the subsequent actions of the company that produced that product, and of the tactics of its legal staff.

If the company in question had been Microsoft...or Sony, for that matter...my reaction, and subsequent posting, would've been the same.

Though I admit if it HAD been about Microsoft, I sorely doubt that there would be the lack of Google hits that Apple seems to be generating with specific regards to this story. Every Linux geek and their second cousins, EU protectionist no-so-free radicals as well as the Apple faithful would pounce on pathetic ol' Redmond.