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Censorship Apple

Apple Censors Consumer Report iPhone4 Discussions 588

An anonymous reader writes "Apple has done it again. All threads about Consumer Report's iPhone4 non-recommendation are removed or deleted. If it happened once, maybe you'd say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?"
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Apple Censors Consumer Report iPhone4 Discussions

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  • If it happened once, maybe you'd say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?

    Keep it up until your 32,768th post when they'll regret using a signed short int for the NUM_POSTS_CENSORED value in your forum profile.

    • by Haffner ( 1349071 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:18AM (#32886856)
      Am I the only one who immediately thought of the Season 5 finale of The Office when Dwight asks "How many people need to get hurt before we learn a lesson?" (or something) "One? Two? Three?" "Dwight..." "No, let me finish. Four? Five? Six?"
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Demonantis ( 1340557 )
      The image in the post from 1984 should definitely be the new apple picture for /.. They have every right to do what they are doing. I just can't comprehend how it doesn't hurt their image.
  • by ciaran_o_riordan ( 662132 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:10AM (#32886744) Homepage

    Yeh, when Jobs said his control over every Apple-user's computing was about "freedom from porn", we could have guessed that "porn" was just being dragged up as a convenient excuse.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Chrisq ( 894406 )

      Yeh, when Jobs said his control over every Apple-user's computing was about "freedom from porn", we could have guessed that "porn" was just being dragged up as a convenient excuse.

      I don't know, when you see how excited some slashotters get about anti-Apple or anti-Microsoft news it looks like they are about to cream themselves.

    • by Reilaos ( 1544173 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:15AM (#32886804) Homepage

      Well, now this is freedom from having complications in your decision to by the revolutionary new iPhone!

    • by sznupi ( 719324 )

      Somebody ought to laugh at Jobs with the spoof of that 1984 commercial, featuring him on the screen.

    • They want a cool, sharp, designed world where everything is taken care of, by the caring giant that is Steve Jobs. He cares. He makes the world a better place. You don't have to worry about it.

      Didn't someone write a book about that?

       

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Culture20 ( 968837 )

        They want a cool, sharp, designed world where everything is taken care of, by the caring giant that is Steve Jobs. He cares. He makes the world a better place. You don't have to worry about it.

        Didn't someone write a book about that?

        Indeed. They wrote a series of books. [wikipedia.org]

  • by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:11AM (#32886760) Journal
    Well, that is what you do with bad apples, isn't it?
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Well, that is what you do with bad apples, isn't it?

      Bad apples, broken windows or dead penguins, ... I don't care which it is, I chuck them all into the bin.

  • by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:12AM (#32886778)
    It will be an "advantage" over Android, that the forums are not cluttered with unnecessary information.
  • by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:13AM (#32886782) Homepage

    ...we're Apple! Now shut up and buy this overpriced device that is marginally better than the more expensive one you bought last year!

  • by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:13AM (#32886786) Homepage Journal

    Really you just paid $299 for your phone. You pay goodness knows how much a month for your 2 GB capped data plan. Just suck it up and buy the $30 bumper! what is the big deal!
    (This message was sent from my Android phone on the Sprint network).

    • ! what is the big deal! (This message was sent from my Android phone on the Sprint network).

      The big deal is that a person should have a reasonable expectation that a $300 device would work as it should, without having to spend another $30 to fix what shouldn't need fixing.

      //I have an android phone on vz, so it doesn't really apply to me

    • "You just paid 40 grand for a new car that was supposed to run great. So what if the engine fell out? Stop whining already and drop that measly 5k to put a new one in it."
    • Tell me about it. It's like when one of the fuel injectors failed on my car and I found out that it was a design flaw. Big deal! It was only a problem if I actually drove the car, plus, instead of going to all the trouble of whining to the manufacturer or pulling some dick move like trying to warn other owners about the problem, I all I had to do to get it fixed was to spend money on it. Pfft, whiners.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BlackCreek ( 1004083 )

      The deal is that the phone is defective in the way it is sold.

      What I find the most amazing thing in this whole story is how so many blogs/"news" sites didn't dare to call apple on it wrt the iphone4 antenna. Engadget, cnet all of them just gave the defective phone a stupidly high rating. Now that the cat is out of the bag they will all back-pedal on it.

      Then there are the folks like you under the reasoning: "you bought a luxury phone that is defective by design, you were already ripped off, what are 30 bucks

  • by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:16AM (#32886828)

    ... That once claimed that 1984 wouldn't be like 1984.

  • All threads about Consumer Report's iPhone4 non-recommendation are removed or deleted

    Just use Usenet

  • by CritterNYC ( 190163 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:23AM (#32886920) Homepage

    Apple is about freedom. Freedom from porn. Freedom from criticism. Freedom from competition. Freedom from objective discussions. Freedom from the truth.

    Apple little world is looking more like 1984 every day.

    • Apple is about freedom. Freedom from porn. Freedom from criticism. Freedom from competition. Freedom from objective discussions. Freedom from the truth.

      True. It doesn't matter what flavor the Kool-Aid is, as long as it's in a shiny, black pitcher.
  • by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:23AM (#32886924)

    ...How do you explain this? Sadly, these fanboys will be outside Apple stores a few years down the road to buy the 'latest' and 'greatest' Apple product of the time...even when it's riddled with obvious defects like the iPhone 4.

    After all no one in the industry cares more about the customer experience better than Apple. Right?

  • by Omega ( 1602 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:24AM (#32886948) Homepage

    It's hard to know if this is censorship or if they just violated the terms of service and hatebois are flying off the handle. There are still lots [apple.com] of [apple.com] posts [apple.com] about [apple.com] the [apple.com] consumer [apple.com] reports [apple.com] unrecommendation [apple.com] on discussions.apple.com:

    http://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?search=Go&q=consumer+reports [apple.com]

    Still, if it's true it wouldn't be the first time Apple flew off the handle with the censorship (remember the Ulysses app flap [wired.com]?).

    • by Itninja ( 937614 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:46AM (#32887350) Homepage
      I took a walk thru several of those cited links. They all had a post or two similar to this among the complaints:

      BUY IT!

      i have nvever owned an iphone before saturday but decided to get one even though i thought like you,should i/shouldn't i? best
      thing i did! i have had no problems at all. the screen is amazing, so easy to register and sync, i can easily take of
      photos and movies i have made though the auto play when you first use the usb to charge/sync the phone when plugs into
      your pc. the movies and photos are perfect quality. no reception issues here and my case has not arrived so its nothing to do
      with that!

      get one, otherwise you don't know what you are missing!!

      I am guessing marketing dept intern....

  • Even though I'm a Windows user, it always gives me a wry smile when Linux users say what fun it is to observe all the Windows problems (virii, exploits, etc) from a safe distance.

    Now, as an ex-Apple customer, now happily using an HTC Desire, I can say that it's great fun watching Apple implode, from a safe distance.

    I don't wish them any ill-will. My preference would be for them to take an honesty pill, start treating their customers with some respect, and turn the whole sorry situation around. But they aren

  • Antennas and Cradles (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HiveMind118 ( 1163633 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:28AM (#32887016)
    We all know how Apple likes to make sure all peripherals are Apple licensed. Couldn't a cradle be made (for cars for example) that used the antenna contact point to extend the antenna (thereby bypassing the need to license a Apple proprietary plug)?
  • Oh the irony!... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kwolf22 ( 825499 )
    "Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.

    We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts.

    Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth.

    We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause.

    Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion.

    We shal
  • No... (Score:4, Funny)

    by SmurfButcher Bob ( 313810 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:40AM (#32887234) Journal

    No... they're posting it wrong.

  • New Logo Please (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tihstae ( 86842 ) <Tihstae@gmail.com> on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:41AM (#32887254) Homepage

    We need a new logo on /. for Apple. No more with the company logo. We need Steve Borg or something similar.

  • by RLBrown ( 889443 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @10:58AM (#32887574) Homepage
    Naturally, as soon as I read the Slashdot summary, I read the original at TUAW. The TUAW posting was as represented by the Slashdot summary: Apple is said to have killed all mention of the CR article in its forums. Being an Apple support forum member, I logged in. Yes, the particular posts were indeed labelled "you do not have permission...". EVIL, I thought. But then I poked around -- there are massive threads discussing the antenna in the Apple Support Forum, many dumping vile on the antenna engineering. So what was so offensive to Apple in the handful of posts that they did censor? TUAW helpfully pointed out that Bing had cached the offensive posts. Well, let's have a look there. The deleted posts were less about the antenna issue, and more about the quality and accuracy of CR testing. Expressed in highly emotional fan-boy terms. It would seem that Apple has not touched the real ongoing discussions of the antenna issue, but just taken down the threads that strayed into CR bashing. BTW, as a CR subscriber, I read the original article there, too. Yes, after giving good marks to most iPhone 4 features, it considers the antenna issue to be a fatal flaw. But it does not discuss the claims that the signal must be marginal in the first place, for the hand grip to make a difference. Nor discusses the possible smokescreen of bar generation algorithms.
  • So? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Androclese ( 627848 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @11:09AM (#32887778)
    It is a privately owned company (i.e. Not the Government) removing conversations from their website that they do not wish discussed on their property. They are well within their rights to do so.

    If they were performing this action or disrupting the conversation someplace other than their own property, that would be a huge! ...but on their own support forums? Sorry, I don't see the issue. The CS rating is a story worth discussing, but if Apple doesn't want it done on their site, there are other places (such as here) to do it.
  • by lophophore ( 4087 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @11:53AM (#32888460) Homepage

    This is SOP for Apple.

    When Airport Express units started dropping like flies, all reports about the problem were deleted from their forums.

    They don't like criticism of their products, true or not.

  • Holy crap! (Score:4, Funny)

    by psydeshow ( 154300 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @01:02PM (#32889520) Homepage

    The real news here is that they actually paid attention to something that was said in their support forums. :-p

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