According to Newsday, Apple is involving two bloggers in a suit that concerns the disclosure of “Asteroid,” a secret product. Glenn Reynolds and Bill Hobbs are dismayed, with the former commenting: “[N]ow when people ask me why I don’t own a Mac, I can blame Apple’s heavy-handed tactics.”
This story is indeed unflattering for the company — and it comes at a pretty bad time, at least in the case of this consumer. I recently began using iTunes. By accident, I created two accounts. When I decided to delete one of them, I had the hardest time figuring out how to do it. I eventually had to consult this site, in which one poster just happened to receive correspondence from the Customer Service Department. Apparently, “[a]t present, it is not possible to cancel an account.” That didn’t make me feel too secure. Later, when I tried to use PayPal for a purchase, iTunes refused to recognize it, despite the three or four confirmations from PayPal itself. And, just last night, my wife learned that an iTunes gift certificate for her brother had not been received. She reached a customer representative, but received very bad service — enough for her to say, “Boy, that reflects poorly on them.”
So, within a span of about two weeks, Apple’s compiled a rather unsatisfactory record in my book. It coincides with news today from Harvard computer services that my beloved IBM laptop is gone for good, putting me in the market for a new machine. Last month, I was bound and determined to make my next purchase an iBook. Today, I’m quite uncertain.
