Apple gags schoolgirl over exploding Ipod
WHEN AN 11 YEAR-OLD GIRL'S Ipod exploded, Jobs Mob sent her family a letter threatening legal action if they blabbed about the incident.
Ken Stanborough from Liverpool accidentally dropped his daughter Ellie's Ipod. The device started hissing and overheating rapidly, so he threw it into the garden where it exploded with a pop and jumped 10 feet into the air, Stanborough told the Times.
Naturally enough, Stanborough contacted retailer Argos where he'd bought the music player, and Apple, to obtain a refund.
After a telephone conversation with Apple, the company sent Stanborough a letter denying liability but offering a refund, so far so standard procedure. But the letter also ordered the family to keep news of the settlement secret, otherwise Apple would seek damages and legal costs.
Stanborough has declined to sign the letter and Apple and Argos have yet to examine Ellie's fiery Ipod.
Despite news of over-heating Ipods leaking out into the blogosphere, the fruit-themed toymaker has done its best to suppress the extent of the problem. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission released 800 pages of documentation on Ipod problems only after a Freedom of Information Act request was filed by a US reporter. µ
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Title says it all. Eventually, people are going to realise it is impossible to OWN outright an Apple product.
The link at the bottom of the article said 'flame author'. Does clicking the link cause him (or her) to drop their Ipod then?
well done, I needed that little giggle this morning.
check this picture from a Dutch TV reporter:
http://twitpic.com/c56d8
Oh well, this girl should count her lucky stars that she was not pushed out a 10 story window like that poor bloke who ran afoul of Job's Mob in China.
There seems to be an interesting pattern in which the "apple" symbol has been equated with various nastiness from the garden of Eden, to Snow White, and now Stevo is continuing this fine tradition by running sweat shops and marketing IEDs to school girls. Of course, like the biblical Job, Stevo Jobs may just be turning a blind eye to the evil deeds enacted by others in "his" company. But I doubt it.
Apple would have a job making that one stick in the UK courts or the European ones. Trading Standards and HSE ought to be taking a keen interest. Clearly there was a danger to health and possibly life here. Businesses are not allowed to hide that in the EU.
This sounds like the bizarre behaviour of one of those strange cults like scientology or something, not a wholesome down-to-earth perfectly normal company like Apple...
Eh? Apple offered to replace their damaged iPod for free, as long as they keep their mouth shut, which they didnt.
C'mon fanboi's! Are none of you going to even give it a whirl?
Mike, Of course they will no shut up. If my iphone explodes on me, i will sue Apple and my telephone carrier for no less than 100.000u$ . Free exchange for don´t tell a word of the incident? LOL. I hope this little girl gets a million or more dollars from these dorks (for extorsion)and also serves to indemnify other similar cases.
NDAs re such settlements are a perfectly normal and acceptable procedure.
In fact, you will hardly ever reach any settlement agreement without accepting a confidentiality clause. That's a standard practice - and a total non-issue.
I hope you are being sarcastic, spacewarp? Maybe NDA's are frequent in the US where comsumer rights seem to have dwindeled during the Bush era and big corporation get away with murder, but such a thing would not do in the EU.
Even Apple needs to follow EU laws.
No need to have any kind of legal deal with Apple, and a gagging order, to get it replaced...
UK consumers are protected by many laws which will require the faulty unit to be replaced without them having to give up any rights.
Then again, when have Apple known anything about how things work on this side of the water, they released a phone that couldn't do MMS, group SMS or video after all!
So from now on all terrorist will have an iphone and will use it as a sucide bomb. LOL
And good news for terrorists are this that apple is launching its tablet so they will be able to use it like a atom bomb . LOL
have a look at this http://www.domesticutilities.com/apple.htm
NDA requests may be a "normal and acceptable" procedure to the party making the request, but only a complete idiot would ever agree to such. Nobody can be forced to agree to any NDA under any circumstance, and not only that, nobody should ever agree to any NDA, and here's the reason: lets say the secret that you swear to keep ever gets revealed for any reason whatsoever, surprise, your "reward" shall be instantly forfeit, and you become liable for a counter lawsuit. Now you're the party being sued, you gotta love it eh! That is precisely the position that every NDA-offerer wants to put you in. And they will crucify you before the judge & jury too. Sucka.
As well as the fact that nobody has yet mentioned the excruciatingly obvious truth, that only a utter moron would take another faulty ipod in place of the one that just blew up your tomato plants. "No this one's good, just take it and you're good", Yeah Right!!!!!!!! You mean, this one is armed to go off if it ever gets close to my jugular, you murderous swine!!!!
The last time I was pro-Macintosh was 1995, ever since then it's been 100% PC, baby. Well, plus a fair bit of dabbling into Linux powered Nokia internet tablet ownership. Never Macintosh ever again. I am a reformed Apple junkie.
No, NDAs are in fact very common world-wide. It's just they are usually reserved for those in "sensitive" positions and/or those above a certain compensation level.
In other words, patrons of your local pub, IT basement or clerical pool wont be asked to sign one.
That all iPod purchasers are now part of a "sensitive positions" group? (I suppose if this poor lass or her butterfingered father had popped this device into a front pocket rather than toss it swiftly into the greens, they would now be sporting sensitive positions as well...)
Paris, because she obviously - oh shit that's the wrong website...
Can we take them on a plane?
I didn't know APPLE was working for US ARMY, this kind of IPOD is ready for Afghanistan, just drop it from plane and wait a taliban to push the on/off button.
It'll be better to rename this model of IPOD to IBOOM, to make the difference.
And remember steeve, Afghanistan is not in EUROPE !