On Tue, 9 Jan 2018 10:30:02 -0800, sms wrote:
> I think it's like car service or any other repair service where they
> don't want to tell you the price until they see what needs servicing.
I agree with you - and they said as much - where they said they give you a
quote only if you show up - but not over the phone - but my question was
merely what the *tax* was on.
As you may know, you live in California, this state taxes the wierdest
things. For example, there's a sales tax on top of the CRV, so, let's say,
for even numbers, you paid $100 in CRV over the year, you get your $100
back, but you actually pay about $110 (assuming 10% sales tax for an even
number), and you never get that sales tax back.
The sales tax is on the CRV (not on the soda - which has its own sales
tax). I called the state and asked about this directly, and they told me,
in essence, the CRV is considered "part of the product" so they tax the CRV
in addition to the rest of the product.
Likewise, I've called the state and discussed the repetitive tax on tires.
As you may know, I buy my tires and I mount and balance them myself at
home, where I pay a sales tax on the tire plus extra "taxes" for disposal,
and yet, after I install a new tire and I bring the old tire to any tire
shop to be recycled, not only do I pay their recycling fee (which is fine),
but I pay a *tax* on top of that.
WTF? I paid a sales tax on the tire, plus a recycling fee when I buy the
tire, and then I pay a sales tax on the recycling fee when I dispose of the
tire. That's California for you.
In another case which I haven't called Sacramento on in years because I buy
my phones for full price nowadays, but in the olden days, we'd get a "free"
phone which carrier valued at full MSRP, and then we'd have to pay $70 in
tax for that free phone becuase of the sales tax on the full price of the
phone, even though we never *paid* a penny for the phone (and you can rest
assured, the carrier made their money in the service contract, which itself
already has a hefty tax).
So, it's not unheard of for California to tax things you never thought
woudl be taxes.
But Apple *refuses* to state that they will tax on the phone.
What's funny is that you just heard nospam flatly deny this, even though
anyone can easily, with a single phone call, doublecheck what I say is a
fact.
The fact-hating Apple Apologist are what wrecks this newsgroup.
> I think that they wanted to extend the run-time between recharging on
> older phones rather than display a warning that the battery needed to be
> replaced, since the latter would have generated complaints about them
> trying to sell an $80 battery service.
I agree that Apple was trying to solve a problem after the fact that they
didn't catch in their testing of the product line (they admitted this
fact).
However, that service is a *lot* more than $80, if you count up the true
cost, especially if you opt for the $6.95 shipping (everything being likely
taxed at about 8% to 9% so add another 18 or so dollars to any price Apple
provides on the web to be factually true).
I think Apple was confronted with a dilemma, and they took the easy way
out, hoping they'd never get caught.
Remember also that zero Android manufacturers do what Apple did, where all
the big ones are on record for stating that flatly. (If you want links, I
just supplied a dozen links to that effect in another thread.)
> On the other hand, displaying a warning that the battery capacity had
> fallen beyond an acceptable level, and presenting a choice between
> "Battery Saver Mode" or "Performance Mode" along with suggesting a
> battery replacement, might have generated MORE new iPhone sales,
> especially considering the high resale value of used iPhones.
I agree with you that Apple, when they figured out that the problem was
defective batteries, should have provided their loyal customer with much
more information about the state of the battery.
In the end, Apple must do *something* because any rational person will have
to mentally halve any benchmark score they ever see for an Apple iPhone
ever again in the future, given that the claimed CPU speeds are only for
the first year.
> After all this came to light, they also might have considered offering a
> choice between a $29 battery replacement and a $300-$500 trade-in
> credit, depending on old and new model, on a new iPhone. This would have
> been a win-win since they could increase new iPhone sales and use the
> traded-in iPhones for warranty replacements or sell them in their online
> store where they sell used products.
Yup. I think the correct approach was not to hide a secret and permanent
throttling of CPU performance to half the original performance after just a
year of use.
The correct approach was to come clean, accept the fault, recall the
phones, and provide some kind of fix to the consumer. A company with
Apple's pockets could have given them all a newly designed phone for their
tradein and they would have lost no goodwill and they would have made their
customers whole on the defect.
As it stands, they have a dozen lawsuits with plenty of merit to settle,
which I predict they will settle out of court. Those settlements will
dictate what redress Apple provides to their loyal customer base.
BTW, it's refreshing to discuss facts with a normal adult!
I think, after long reflection, that the main issue with the fact-hating
Apple Apologists is that they lack a formal education and that any fact
they don't like about Apple shakes the foundation of their belief system.
You don't act at all like they do, so I assume you have a formal education
(as do I, as I have multiple higher-level degrees) and you aren't afraid of
facts, even those facts that you might not like.