As it is designed to be used in a manner that makes it susceptible to the buttons being knocked, the Apple engineers put a hold switch on it, so that you can disable the buttons while not in use. After less than a week of use, the hold switch fell of my iPod remote control. While it was locked. Needless to say, I was a little surprised.
Naively, I took my remote to the Apple store at which I purchased it. After a bit of a wait (they were busy) one of the staff told me that I had to phone Apple and gave me the number. When I phoned Apple, the telephone operator told me (after a while on hold) that I needed to fill in a form on the Apple web site and then take it and the item to be returned to Australia Post (what I do with it then was left as an exercise for the reader). As annoying as this is, I can accept that Apple is a big company and, as such, they need procedures like these to get anything done.
What really shits me off, is that I can’t submit the form on the Apple web site because it requires credit card information. I don’t have a credit card, I don’t want a credit card and if I did have a credit card, I most certainly wouldn’t give it to a company in these circumstances.
While I love Apple’s computers and find my iPod and Airport Express base station handy, I can’t help but be appalled at:
the fact that a remote control, a device designed to be carried around, broke after less than a week; and
that I need to enter my credit card details to return an item that, as I see it, was not fit for the purpose for which it was sold.
I suppose that I need to phone the help line again to find out what I’m supposed to do, but in the mean time, I can’t help but resent it.
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