Apple legal sends little girl running, crying to room
By Ryan Block 
posted April 14th 2006 12:19PM
posted April 14th 2006 12:19PM
So as the story goes, eight year old Shea was
learning to write letters in her third grade class; Shea also happened to be really into her iPod nano. So she decided
to hit up Stevie J. with a list of her ideas on how to improve the nano -- you know, standard stuff like "slip a little chip"
in there to add support for lyrics, movies, etc. (what, don't you want to officially play Doom, too, or at least Pac-Man?). After three months Shea
received a reply from Cupertino... signed by Apple's Senior Counsel, Mark Aaker, who put the little girl in her place
by stating "please do not send" suggestions, and letting her know Apple doesn't accept unsolicited ideas.
Said Shea, who went running to her room, "It was kind of like they were saying, 'Oh, we don't want your idea --
it's not good or anything.'" (Hey, don't feel bad, whenever we write about improving Apple's products we tend to
get harshed on too.) While the story didn't exactly end happily, at least Aaker called the little girl to personally
apologize, but not before holding a meeting to change policies regarding responses to letters from children. And just
for that, all of our staff's children will be swarming Apple with letters on such varied topics from Apple's
potentially increased market share with Boot Camp, to the mysterious video iPod -- replete with backwards Es and Ss.[Via Cult of Mac]
That must have been a really slow news day or that mom did a lot of the ol bitchin to get the story to the big wigs. That little kid is a brat, just imagine how much she cried when she got the letter, and she realized that apple had stole her idea and put lyrics on her nano.
Nintendo has been doing this since 87.. Friends and I always designed games on graph paper and sent them in. Designs for controllers, etc. Then we all got responses back that Nintendo cannot take ideas from people for whatever reason. Etc etc.
Same thing happened when SSBM came out on Gamecube. I LOVED the side scrolling aspect and emailed them they needed to do a Mario game just like that! They sent the same response, they aren't allowed to take ideas for games...
Oh well, at least nearly 5 years later I finally got my wish. New Super Mario Bros is right around the corner!!
dont critisize me...but you americans are dum.
in latvia a 8year old with a nano? havent seen anything like that in whole my life. and you know why? because people earn their gadgets, nobody buys them for someone. our children arent that spoiled and in third grade they arent learning to write. they know how read, write, calculate and draw when they are 7.
Wow!
When I was a kid and wrote to apple in the early 90's about my idea for an add they sent me an amazing letter and a t-shirt!
Times have changed.
Slow news day huh?
This is so funny. The teacher should be the one to take the brunt of the attack. It is clear she is not teaching properly or she would have explained to the little knuckle heads that "Big companies are too damn busy to read every letter written to them and they use form letters to respond to thousands of letters." The teacher should be fired for not understand big business.
I'm willing to be the little girl thought Apple would send a letter thanking her for her wonderful idea and they will use her idea on the new video iPod. haha yeah right! Welcome to the real world little girl. On the subject of her parents, it is pretty clear her mother isn't functioning in the real world.
She is a kid and she be treated as so.
Now listen, this girl will be the futuer CEO of Banana Computer Technology, which eventually buys Microsoft and Apple in one single purchase and then rule the universe.
hahaha Graham (#41) is an idiot. :P
i think this story is funny, and i dont really care that americans are spoiled, and that the self-esteem movement is creating a nation of pussies, or that apple was mean to a little girl somehow making them the new evil empire.
who the fuck cares? it's just a moderately entertaining 45-second story.
Get over it, you fucking trolls.
This girl sounds like a perfect candidate for the Foaming Mouths Apple Haters Club. I think the club president and half its members post comments (or more accurately "rants"...) here on Engadget. You guys should include her on your next membership drive. Maybe you can even convince her to buy a Creative Zen Vision:M Deluxe Platinum 2006 Edition or something.
P.S. Anyone who uses the word "fanboy" because he can't make a point any other way sounds like an idiot.
I was thinking of switching to Mac but after reading how arrogant and insensitive Apple can be I am starting to have second thoughts about it. If Apple treats a customer who wants to help it in this fashion then how will it treat those who are his enemies? It has nothing to do with getting sued for applying ideas from someone else. This is basically customers feedback! You can accept them or ignore them. There is no need to be harsh with them. Apple said he is going to change the response policy for children. Does it mean, for other people it is going to tell them to shut up and keep their ideas and suggestions to their ... ? If so, it's better to mention it on his website that Apple does not want any suggestions and ideas from anybody. Then it can be sure that it will not be overflooded with unwanted mail. But of course it will never do that. It sounds too pompous, proud and arrogant. This might send Apple to its second downfall and never to return again.
MICROSFT VS APPLE
------------------------------
My faith in apple has disappeared!!
FORGET APPLE AND GET A PC WITH WINDOWS, JUST BUY MORE MEMORY AND MAKE SURE U HAVE A DECENT GRAPHICS CARD, (will still cost less than a mac!!and for the same price as a mac will run better, even for graphics and videos.)
all we pay for is the design!!!
apple have a history of cover up problems with their machines, just look at all the people with problems with the powerbook, macbooks, and ibooks!!!
** GOOGLE Search "logic board" with "G3", "G4" and see all these people with mac problems.**
If this was a car, u would get a letter in the post calling a recall, if it was windows they fix it with an update...apple, well leave it to us to figure it out and if u get the problem sooner than any 3yr extension replacement program, then great, but any time after that....GOOD LUCK
TO END
if u get an apple machine expect only about only 3yrs of bliss at most if you lucky, just look look at all the people with ibooks G3, which have missed and boat and stuck with a null computer that looks pretty and nothing else
Latvia? is that even a real country? and if it is, what good has come out of Latvia? nothing, so i think "us americans" are doing something right, now arent we? and btw anyone with some manners would apologize for his bad english before he makes a post like you just did, damn Latvians, dont they teach you manners?
My own childhood product suggestion experience came when I was about 9 or 10, when I wrote a letter to Lego suggesting that they make a new "Amateur Architect" line of huge bricks that were sturdy enough to make little forts and stuff out of. And make them compatible with Duplo (at the time called "Lego Preschool Edition" or something) so you could use those for trim, and normal legos on top of the Duplo for detail.
The letter I got back was, basically, "Thanks for loving legos. We have product designers to come up with this stuff for us, so keep your ideas to yourself. By the way, when talking with your friends about legos, make sure you always call them Lego(r) Bricks(tm) and Toys. We wouldn't want anyone to, you know, get hurt."
I wasn't much of a crier or a run-to-my-roomer, so I just kept my rejection inside where it festered into the huge, malevolent ball of corporation hatred that has directed my entire life since then. So you see, sometimes these things do have a happy ending.
wow, that must have been a slow news week for that to be on TV. And when i'm 13 now, but when i was 8 i didn't have an MP3 player...(yes they were on the market)...that must be one spoiled ass little girl...
$200 she has a cell.
#59 - Its not a slow news week for that to be on TV. There's a war, there's illegal immigrants controlling our country, there's a trial, there's severe weather, there's gas prices going over $3/gallon and there's soldiers being killed to liberate a country that prefers to be controlled.
The fact that none of those life-changing events are bigger stories than the rejected Apple girl and a cat stuck in a wall just points out that the media has its priorities all screwed up.
Dying American Soldiers >>>>>> Sad little rich girl
In watching the video, did the mom strike any of you as the "you corrected my child; I'm highly offended at your gross intolerance for children" type?
She probably marches right down to the school to speak with the principal whenever little Shea gets something wrong.
Hooray for entitlement culture.
PiTT:
Do you even speak a language other than English?
lol funny. i once sent in a letter about the old enos lives add sony had for the playstation. i had it all figuerd out too. i never got a response
That's funny, when I was a kid and wrote a letter to Apple, they used it (and a few other kids') for some internal ad/promo thing. Heh...
good to see Apple continuing their tradition of innovation... by looking for new ways to suck.
(btw, i'm a Mac user)
To those that cite that we must teach our children the harsh relaities of the world belie the point that social global change is needed in order to live in this thing we call a mudball. Let them have unrealistic expectation that the world is not just a big game of war chess.
The 'corporate america' entertainment fallacy (and please before anybody jumps up, I have an MP3 player and yes I recognise my 'fun'needs and my inherent hypocrisy) doesnt even allow for a moment to realise the waste, but at the same time techology can be good.
By definition you cannot get a formal busienss letter from a child and as such the response should have contained all it did but then on top of that personal words to this very young customer. If it is an auto-reponse it shows that Apple has reached a critical mass in terms of its internal structure, if it was a human response then unfortunately it shows the inability of what made Apple the company it is by being able to 'interface' with with humans.
The slow news day it is not, for the above reasons, it shows a story like this coming from the Apple camp should really have been a Microsoft story from the mid-nineties. IBM, MS and now Apple. (Although #2 has always been #2, hint: Intel;)
:( for my heart at a Company that I have respect for.
Trying to improve the iPod "as a platform" by writing a letter to Apple has something that vaguely resembles "stalking". The wrong victim (Apple) for the wrong reasons (improve... what? the iPod?) with all the wrong methods (writing politely), after using the wrong toys (iPod) at the wrong time (when it's selling well) and with the wrong people (as if they want to know).
Next thing we know is some people write to Weber.COM about how you could modify a grill to help shield astronauts on the next Mars mission, but the reply will be something like "go grill yourself", after which there's only "Engadget article therapy".
I sense a pattern.
Yeah, I agree with Radical. This whole thing was pretty ridiculous. If I was the CEO of Apple, I wouldn't want to read thousands of ideas from people daily. 99.9% of the ideas people throw at Apple are complete trash. Although the idea with the lyrics thing isn't a bad idea, it still isn't one that I would think Apple would be interested in. This whole thing happened just because it was a little kid.
@Archijs
Latvian Children earn their gadgets? You mean like learning how to steal car from Finland and "export" it to Latvia for parts and pleasure? Yeah we know about that gig too.
Not that I'm so pro-American or anything, but using Latvia, one of the poortest and least well-run of the former Soviet-bloc as example of intelligence is a bit of a stretch.
BTW, I think Apple sucks ass for doing this. Just arrogance at work. It's not like they never had to deal with children u know... they have dominated the educational market every since the Apple II days. I'll bet there are tons of other example of this type of "customer service". They got so arrogant with their hold over the dumb kiddies that they couldn't care less about this future customer crap. They only want the mac-freaks and the artys-type buying their little nichy Macs so this kids can go F herself. If she grow up to be one of our fangirls then she can live with the insult anyway.
Hahaha... so many so-called "liberal" people bought into the fandom one of the most secretive, tightly-controled, authoritatian, and brain-washing organization in the world, and they all ended up buying all their over-priced crap and hating Microsoft! Gogo Apple Fanboys!
Perhaps the letter would have been better received had a lollipop been included in the envelope.
Well from the little snippets actually in the engadget article it looks like the response letter was not nasty but was simply straightforward and business like (if only the comments on Engadget were more like that...then again probably 3/4 of mine would have to stricken :P ). So I don't think there is any (more) need to villify Apple (than there was before). As others have stated, many companies would have given the exact same kind of flat response.
On the other hand, I too have sent in suggestions to various companies about improving items/products I'm enthusiastic about. I'm not gonna sue anyone over it if they use my ideas (I'd just be happy if they produced the Cold Steel Ti-lite with Zytel handles and ASSISTED opening at a price I could afford...Heck if China or Taiwan would simply produce a quality knockoff I'd shut my pie hole on the subject), but they don't know that. Most of the time I get responses either realatively cheery form letters ("Thank you for your idea BUT..."), or sometimes I actually get personal responses with a bit more chatting. Like when such feature additions *might* be on the horizon, or why thy can't/won't/aren't planning to release anything like I've suggested and/or some suggestions for other products of theirs or even other companies that might have what I want. While the form letters don't really offend me, the personal ones impress me to a certain extent. Often times they are 'signed' by executives or in smaller companies by the actual designers who create the products. It's true, these message might in reality be typed by a secretary or a night watchman for all I know, but at least SOMEONE card about me (the consummer) enough to spend a little time showing it. Good PR.
Basically, I don't think Apple is doing anything particularly heinous here(more on that below). But they obviously have missed/botched an oppurtunity for some good PR. Had they sent a nice glowing response this may not have ended up in the news. But even so, this kid should be important to them. She has a Nano...she is one of their CUSTOMERS (I know mommy and daddy paid for it but still...). It's pretty easy to write a form letter in such a way that you make the recipient at least feel a little bit appreciated/valued...even if you don't mean it you only have to do it 3 or 4 times for 3 or 4 different responses. Or just create a webpage wherein people can submit ideas (the process of such would of course involve stating that you are over 18 and agree that anything you submit becomes THEIR exclusive IP. Then if people submit ideas via email your form letter response is a simple polite/warm
"Thank you for your idea, but we request that all product suggestions be submitted via our web interface (w/ link provided of course) so that they can be reviewed and considered in the most efficient manner possible. Unfortunately, due to legal concerns if they are not submitted in this manner we cannot even review them though we are deeply interested in satisfying our customers. Thanks!"
See ? How hard is that ? And they never even have to bother to read any of the submissions if they don't want to(though if they did, they might actualy find a good idea or two among all the detritus...). This could be implemented for maybe what $3000 if they use an incredibly overpowered dedicated sever to run the page and have someone spend maybe a day or two building the page. Missed your chance Apple.
BUT! I gotta say I think both the girls', and I would guess her parents', response was WAY over the top. If I wasn't resigned to the impending end of this world, kids like this would worry me. Yeah, she's only 8, but she's going to need to learn to deal with rejection at some point or another. And from the snippets it doesn't sound like they rejected her IDEAS, they rejected her SUGGESTION. Doesn't sound like they said her idea was bad, THEY simply couldn't use it. This might have been a good opurtunity for her parents to explain any number of important truths about the world that this kid NEEDS to learn. But instead it looks like they're teaching her "The squeaky wheel get's the grease. If you don't like what's happening, pitch a fit until someone else fixes it for you.".
I can't say they are 'bad parents' specifically, but I think that if Apple screwed up here, so did they...
- End Rant
When I was a kid, I sent a letter to Hasbro detailing the design of a new G.I. Joe that they could use.
They sent me back a nice letter on corporate letter head. I can't remember what it said - but it didn't say "STFU" or anything... but I don't think they said they were going to consider using it or anything...
I still have the letter, and the drawings that they sent back to me. I think I was 7 or 8 at the time.
Apple should learn from toy manufacturers...
What the hell is a 8 year old doing with an iPod Nano?
I didnt even own a portable CD-player until i was 13!
If this is the biggest dissapointment or rejection she ever encounters, her life is frickin' easy. Sure, she's 5, but why didn't her mom monitor/screen her incoming and outgoing mail if it sounded harsh? Legal issues, people. That's pretty obvious. Had Apple replied "great idea" then this girl's mom probably wouldn't just sued anyway. Did the girl even mention her age in the letter? YHESH. Cry me a frickin' river.
The lady has huge entitlement issues. She probably edited the letter to sound like it wasn't coming from a child so Apple will be coerced into settling/paying her off before she tries to (ridiculously) sue for emotional distress.
You guys are freaks. I'm glad it's the Internet. If I met some of you in real life, I'd kick your shins on sight.
My response to the article: That girl shouldn't even own an iPod. And the iPod does have lyrics and video support. It's like asking Microsoft to add an Internet browser to Windows. It's freaking redundant. Only reason that news story exists is because someone at CBS5 was having a slow news day.
I heard she started crying when Stevie told her she had to wear black turtle-neck and jeans as a school uniform ?!
Why anybody thinks this whole thing is funny is beyond me.
Those who don't have kids or experience with kids need to shut up. You have nothing intelligent to contribute here, even though you try. All your comments are BORING, and IGNORANT.
I'm glad Apple is setting different policies for responding to kids, but this is how Apple responds to everybody. So all of this isn't about a little girl.
This is about Apple needing to lighten up. Talk about being anal.
Since when wouldn't a company welcome ideas? Oh I forgot, Apple knows everything. Get real.
All companies need to welcome ideas. This girl may not have thought this up on her own, but so what? Regardless of who the ideas come from, all companies, including Apple, need to remain open to suggestions.
Making products based on what people want is what business is all about.
Of course, then again, lawyers don't make things any easier by facilitating every stupid unfounded lawsuit imaginable. They're a massive part of the reason no one can move more than two inches without walking on egg shells, and why letters like these have to be written in the first place.
"Talk about being anal."
Yes let's...
"All companies need to welcome ideas."
Ah...but apparently individuals don't, eh ? >>>
"Those who don't have kids or experience with kids need to shut up. You have nothing intelligent to contribute here, even though you try. All your comments are BORING, and IGNORANT."
"this is how Apple responds to everybody. So all of this isn't about a little girl."
So apple is releasing curt, blanket(sp?), indisciminate responses aimed thoughtlessly at people for expressing their ideas and contributing thoughts ?
How dare they.
"All companies need to welcome ideas. This girl may not have thought this up on her own, but so what? Regardless of who the ideas come from, all companies, including Apple, need to remain open to suggestions."
If I business wishes to remain proffitable that is a pretty good way of accomplishing it. But who knows...maybe they actually want to excercise their state and god given right to run their business into the ground with bad PR. They don't "need to" do anything.
"Making products based on what people want is what business is all about."
I have a dissenting opinion and I think I shall decend from whatever egg shells I may still be on and express it (in this forum that unlike the offices of a private company is designed precisely for). Business is about making/acquirng money. Giving people what they want is a great business model and it works really well a lot of the time. But there's an even better one...the MONOPOLY. Create/affect the market in whatever way necessary (probably starting with satisfying customers at an early stage) until you completely DOMINATE the market. Then you can produce your product/service at whatever customer satisfaction index you like and charge extortionary prices and there is not a dern thing your customers can do but suck it up and pay. THAT is business. It's cut-throat and greed driven. It's just that simple.
"Of course, then again, lawyers don't make things any easier by facilitating every stupid unfounded lawsuit imaginable. They're a massive part of the reason no one can move more than two inches without walking on egg shells"
Hmmm....personally, I think the problem is more wide spread than that. I rather suspect that many individual people out there who think they "know- everything" are part of it as well.
Overall, I'm confused. Apple needs to "lighten up" for treating a 9 year old as an adult when she takes on an adult task, but berating and trying to silence other people (who may in fact be childeren themselves, as children do post on engadget on occasion) for expressing their opinions in a forum design for precisely that purpose is not at all "IGNORANT" ? The mind boggles...
While I don't agree with everything in the comments section of this thread, I'm gonna pass on two very good bits of advice from the comments above...
"lighten up" and "Get real."
Thanks for being so "open to suggestions" !
(PS - Sorry for any/all grammar/spelling errors)
If you watched the video on the "read" hotlink, it shows that the family called him
"Mr. Steven Jobs"
I couldn't even imagine someone like "His Steveniess" answering to that, even at keynotes he likes to be called Steve.
When do we get the ViPod Mr. Steven Jobs?
Somebody call teh WAAAAAAAAAAAMBULANCE!
Sorry I had to do it.
This story is completely ridiculous. I dislike Apple in many respects, but I wouldn't expect them to respond differently to a child who oversimplifies the feat of creating a DAP, and isnt even familiar with the features on her so called beloved iPod (as stated earlier, the Nano does have lyrics support, which is supposedly the thing she wanted most, boy is she gonna feel stupid when she finds that out).
I think this is entirely the fault of the parents for disillusioning their child. Such a mundane, dime a dozen, crappy letter cannot be expected to illicit an individual response. If it does, great. Otherwise, who cares?
21, you win. I laughed my ass off
"that bitchy mom would probably have a lawsuit against Apple for stealing her daughter's idea."
All ideas do not come from Apple. I'm so sorry to burst your bubble, fanboys. IF the good lord intended for a such a puny fruity company to be the source for all innovatice ideas then they would have invented a way to keep their Ipod batereis from dying, or would had invented scratch-resistant Nanos... should i go on?
What an Asshole this marky guy is, that's not the type of response a consumer company should send to ANY of their end-consumers. but what else we {the non-fanboys} can expect? the arrogance of their executives starts with Stevie BLOWjobs which is somehow transfered like a bad rash to fanboys A.K.A. owners when they purchase their Apple goods.
"stealing your idea"
Com on, PEOPLE, weak up.
IDEA is not your property. PATENT says anything.
This just makes me so mad.What kind of a crybaby is this kid?I mean of course they have to respond like that so they don't get sued.The fact that the media was on the girls side makes it even more disgusting.Oh and by the way doesn't the iPod nano already have the ability to display lyrics?
Yes and Apple should incorporate te PiePod software into their iPod's. It's the only reason I even bought an iPod in the first place. It locates pizza places around the city for me.
True story: When I was 10 years old I sent a letter to Hasbro with my suggestions for improvements to their Transformers toy line (e.g. radio-controlled Transformers that transform by themselves--hey, I was 10!), and a few weeks later I got a letter exactly like the one described in the article. I was a little disappointed, sure, but my mom explained to me the probable legal issues (basically what other people have posted--it doesn't take a lawyer to figure these things out), I didn't run crying to my room, and nobody called the local CBS affiliate.
Now, I can't fault the little girl for getting upset, but I can fault the mom for raising her kid to have this huge sense of entitlement that says, "When things don't go your way, don't try to understand the reasons why, just alert the media." When that girl grows up she's going to be either very disappointed or very successful, or both.
LOL...
Maybe that wasn't the best and nicest answer but when it comes to productimprovments I want to say a few words. You could easily improve any product alot, especially Apples iPods. But I don't think that's the right way to go. Just see how long it tock them to add the radio thing. Apples iPods are no multimachines that can play every single audio-format on earth or handle mucis from any online store in the world. It's not in Apples interest. They could easily add support for alot of audio-formats but they don't. They just want a simplde device that does simple things in an easy way. It's not in their interest to make the iPod a "bloat-pod". Keep it simple.
But I do want to add that they should have answered differently or not have answered at all.
Also, its not using Apple firmware, but you can play videos on your ipod nano.
Aww, but that is pretty funny. And I think Apple do need to sort out their customer relations.
So, if I did have a brilliant idea and would like to speak to Steve Jobs; or at least make certain he reads it and not the Law Department in which all submission ideas are funelled to, how would I go about doing this? Is there an email that Steve Jobs personally has that I can send to? Should I be persistent in my unsolicited ideas by replying back to the generic letter? Is the generic letter a test to see how far I am willing to go to have my ideas heard by an audience that may perhaps benefit? In actuality, If they didn't want us to solicit ideas, and it was indeed a brilliant idea, then would there not be an interest to the Company to then hire on that individual? There are many more visionaries as Mr. Jobs refers to himself as. I ask for an audience to listen.