Re: Apple - Simply the best

T i m <news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 02:42:15 +0000, me18@xxxxxxxxxxx (zoara) wrote:

<snip distance selling aside>

The situation you outline is precisely the reason that the Distance
Selling Regulations came into place, and makes no difference to the
argument. An item can only be returned under "fit for purpose sold"
regulations if it is not, in fact, fit for the purpose sold. Your
returning said item under Distance Selling Regulations is not in any way
relevant to this subject.

I'm afraid that yet again you have missed the point entirely. As I said,
you can't claim a product is faulty just because it doesn't do something
that no-one ever said it did. The only way that Apple would in any way
be held to task against the "fit for purpose sold" regulations in this
case is if they made specific claims about the situations in which the
alert is audible.

But it's got to be a realistic claim.

Define "realistic"; therein lies your problem.

In most circumstances this definition is glossed over, because at the
first sign of legal threats the company graciously decides to offer a
"goodwill gesture", which is notably different to an admission of fault.


And I doubt that they do; it's my understanding that
they have pretty good lawyers. Your example only says that the item
makes an audible alert; it does. Everything else is your assumption and
therefore not a valid argument with regards to being "fit for purpose
sold".

Ok, ignore the distance selling thing (I should have realised you'd
let that make a difference to the spirit of my point <g>)

To be fair, I think changing the conclusion from "company has no legal
responsibility" to "company is legally obliged to refund" is a fairly
considerable change....


but if it says in the written specifications that it does something, are
you suggesting that the only way you have grounds to insist on refund on
the 'fit for purpose sold' thing is if you had discussed said point with a
salesperson?

No. You might try reading what I have written, it would help your
understanding of my point.


Say you had actually stood there for two hours
discussing *every* facet of the functionality with said salesperson ..
"Q: Right, Page 76 .. Does the calendar really have an audible alert?
A: Yes" and then you got it home and found the 'audible alert' was
inaudible to a human being under the same condition as all the other
audio functions and in comparison with similar devices, then that
would set the prescience / benchmark for what defines 'audible' in
this context.

Not in a court of law it wouldn't. If the company claims it has an
audible alert (hint: a claim may be written as well as verbal) and it
has an audible alert, then the company is in the clear. If the company
claims it has an audible alert that can be heard in a specific situation
by a typical person, and it cannot, then the company is at fault.

It makes no difference how loud the other alerts are. It makes no
difference how loud similar alerts are on competing products. It's
really, really simple; if the company makes a claim and that claim is
true, they are fine.

You may well be confused by the fact that this sort of thing often goes
(or threatens to go) to court and the consumer wins. That is because
these sorts of claims are entirely subjective; how loud is loud enough?
That sort of thing cannot be decided by Acts and Regulations; it must be
decided on a case-by-case basis.


Like a car that has '5 doors' and yes they all open, like the salesman
said, but you forgot to ask them if they opened enough for a std sized
human to get out ... (and most people wouldn't assume that also
included the tailgate).

I'm a little concerned that you need to know whether a standard-sized
human can be gotten out of the tailgate of a car. Do you star in an
American gangster TV series?


If you has a 'special requirement' (say you
were mobility disabled) then a very important factor might be 'how far
do the doors open' so you wouldn't assume the answer would be 'extra
open'. Lynn didn't want the alert louder than any other audio on that
product, she just wanted it 'as loud'.

But she didn't ask that.

Sure, a reasonable person would assume that all the alerts on a device
were approximately equally audible. A reasonable person would assume
that an alert was loud enough to hear in a given situation. Problem is,
all reasonable people are different, and the law cannot cater for all
those different reasonablenesses. So it does the best it can; it
responds to the letter of the claim made by the company and
allowsrecourse in case this is not considered adequate.

You seem to have forgotten that many people *do* find the alert sound
reasonable. So is it, or isn't it? How does the law decide?


Apple were not obliged to take Lynn's iPod Touch back. They did. That
deserves the credit and thanks that Lynn gave them.

Even if it was the case that there was no fault within the product
(and I believe there was, especially if I understand a JB one *can*
have said alert made 'audible' somehow) the 'problem' would counter
the positive outcome.

Jailbreaking is irrelevant, sorry. Think about it. There is no fault in
the device.


I'm not sure "Apple, simply the best" is
appropriate. "Apple, did the right thing" maybe?

Semantics. Lynn felt they were the best, so said so. Perfectly fair!

-zoara-




--
"And the tiny universe compiles."
http://powazek.com/posts/1655
.

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