Letters to the editor
Posted on September 20, 2007

Apple article mistakes

Sarah Delia’s opinion piece in Monday’s issue titled “Apple gadgets aren’t as great as they seem,” most of her assertions have little basis in fact.

She complains that iPods are unreliable but provides no data to bolster her statement (“common trend” and “a significant number” hardly are meaningful quantifications). Every company makes a lemon now and then — but the AppleCare warranty covers that.

Ms. Delia’s objection to the iPhone mainly seems to be about price. She might be less upset were she to realize that the prices she quoted are high by $100: the 8GB iPhone originally cost $599 and now sells for $399.

Ms. Delia also warns about the danger of storing all of one’s data in a single device. Has she forgotten that Apple provides iTunes for free? iTunes is a program that automatically syncs and copies all of this data from one’s iPod and/or iPhone to one’s computer.

I’ve never heard of an iTunes account vanishing I’ve heard of many instances of Apple restoring lost music collections even though the users made no backups and took no other action to protect themselves from such an event. Consumer Reports consistently places Apple among the best in its tech support and customer satisfaction ratings.

John Gruver
SMAD Lab/Network manager