Interesting to note - my flatmate, who has bought almost 10K worth of Apple gear in the last year, has never heard the S word once.

Items purchased so far: Mac Pro (2x4x3.0Ghz), Macbook Air, Airport Extreme, Time Capsule, Ipod, Ipod touch, Iphone 3G, .mac subscription, .me subscription

It all started with the Airports. Advertised as being able to do '600Mbit wireless link', we set it up all excited to get rid of the wires across our flat and what would you know - even when 5 feet apart on either side of the loungeroom, the highest transfer speed possible over the 'waves was 4 MEGABYTES a second.

Apple admitted 'oh yeah we're aware of that problem' but never said sorry. Sorry for taking basically $1000 off your hands and giving you 3-4MB/s.

Second issue - macbook air. Something went wrong with it and it needed the mobo replaced. Dropped it into the Sydney Mac Store, 3 days later it's back and my flatmate notices it's a little slower.

They've installed a 1.6Ghz board instead of the 1.8 it previously had. The 1.8 part wasn't in the country, so someone decided 'it's more important to have the 3 day turnaround, giving the customer a downgrade than make them wait for the 1.8 to come in from the 'States.' Woops.

Again, no 'sorry' was forthcoming. People pointed fingers at other people and blame was offered, but never a sorry was offered.

Thirdly; all the issues with the .Mac and .Me service. On top of that, he noticed that although the service SAYS he should have 20G available, he only has 13G. He raised the issue, they said they'd look into why he wasn't allocated the full 20G, however, nary a sorry forthcoming about that either.

Fourthly; he purchased the Iphone 3G on the day it came out, and couldn't activate it via Itunes for at least a few days. "We know about the issue' but hey, we'll die before we say a simple 'sorry'.

Perhaps it's a reflection of the necessary nature of litigation-proofing your business; perhaps saying the 'S' word will open them up to a torrent of lawsuits. If that's the case, it's a sad state for American business when courtesy cannot be offered as it will be used against you.

However, you would think that at least a sorry would be offered for downgrading his Macbook Air and hoping he wouldn't notice. And the whole debacle with the useless wireless speeds between our two Airport Extremes (one being a Time Capsule) would rate a sorry too.

nope. No sorries. Never.