01.05.11

Gemini version available ♊︎

Sociopaths at Apple

Posted in Apple, Patents at 12:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Shout and let it all out

Summary: Apple’s parallel universe of distasteful attitudes, as covered in the latest news

FURTHER to the post about changed perception, more and more people become aware of Apple’s dark side and more reporters write about it too. “Apple support company sues customer for complaining,” CNET alerts despite Apple’s payments to it:

Returning to my inbox after the New Year’s break, I found it full of Greeks bearing rifts.

The national press, the tech blogosphere, even normal, ordinary human beings on Twitter are railing against Systemgraph, a support company officially approved by Apple to be its reseller and authorized service provider.

Dimitris Papadimitriadis, a physician in Greece, was apparently having a little trouble with his iMac, so he took it to Systemgraph in order to enjoy its authorized servicing skills. According to the Greek newspaper Proto Thema, Papadimitriadis discovered dark patches on the screen of his machine.

Keep it classy. In other news, The Register says that “Apple patent endangers unbiased product reviews” and it explains why:

Apple has filed a patent application for an online-store product-review system that turns the ideal of unbiased product evaluation on its head.

“The present invention relates to electronic commerce,” the application reads, “and more specifically to using the collective wisdom of a community to predict rankings for items for sale in an electronic store.”

Many “collective wisdom” product-evaluation systems currently exist, of course, from Amazon to Epinions to Yelp and more. Many more.

What makes Apple’s filing unusual is that the system it describes “provides an incentive for individuals in the group of individuals whose associated predictive ranking coincides with the actual ranking of the item.”

For those who do not know, Apple allegedly collaborates/pays a company which produces fake reviews. Last year we also showed how Apple bribed famous people to review the hypePad ahead of everyone else. Apple’s patent attacks on competitors (notably Linux/Android) is a subject we’ll get around to later in the week.

An Apple a day keeps reason away. █

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New

  1. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day

  2. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day

  3. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)

  4. HMRC Does Not Care About Tax Fraud Committed by UK Government Contractor, Sirius 'Open Source'

    The tax crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported to HMRC two weeks ago; HMRC did not bother getting back to the reporters (victims of the crime) and it’s worth noting that the reporters worked on UK government systems for many years, so maybe there’s a hidden incentive to bury this under the rug

  5. Our IRC at 15th Anniversary

    So our IRC community turns 15 today (sort of) and I’ve decided to do a video reflecting on the fact that some of the same people are still there after 15 years

  6. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 01, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 01, 2023

  7. Links 02/06/2023: NixOS 23.05 and Rust 1.70.0

    Links for the day

  8. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Flying High With Gemini and Gogios Released

    Links for the day

  9. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day

  10. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day

  11. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day

  12. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023

  13. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)

  14. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day

  15. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day

  16. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

    Links for the day

  17. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, May 30, 2023

  18. Gemini Protocol About to Turn 4 and It's Still Growing

    In the month of May we had zero downtime (no updates to the system or outages in the network), which means Lupa did not detect any errors such as timeouts and we’re on top of the list (the page was fixed a day or so after we wrote about it); Gemini continues to grow (chart by Botond) as we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of the protocol

  19. Links 31/05/2023: Librem Server v2, curl 8.1.2, and Kali Linux 2023.2 Release

    Links for the day

  20. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Bayes Filter and Programming Wordle

    Links for the day

  21. [Meme] Makes No Sense for EPO (Now Connected to the EU) and Staff Pensions to be Tied to the UK After Brexit

    It seems like EPO staff is starting to have doubts about the safety of EPO pensions after Benoît Battistelli sent money to reckless gambling (EPOTIF) — a plot that’s 100% supported by António Campinos and his enablers in the Council, not to mention the European Union

  22. Working Conditions at EPO Deteriorate and Staff Inquires About Pension Rights

    Work is becoming a lot worse (not even compliant with the law!) and promises are constantly being broken, so staff is starting to chase management for answers and assurances pertaining to finances

  23. Links 30/05/2023: Orc 0.4.34 and Another Rust Crisis

    Links for the day

  24. Links 30/05/2023: Nitrux 2.8.1 and HypoPG 1.4.0

    Links for the day

  25. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Bubble Version 3.0

    Links for the day

  26. Links 30/05/2023: LibreOffice 7.6 in Review and More Digital Restrictions (DRM) From HP

    Links for the day

  27. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Curl Still Missing the Point?

    Links for the day

  28. IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 29, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, May 29, 2023

  29. MS (Mark Shuttleworth) as a Microsoft Salesperson

    Canonical isn’t working for GNU/Linux or for Ubuntu; it’s working for “business partners” (WSL was all along about promoting Windows)

  30. First Speaker in Event for GNU at 40 Called for Resignation/Removal of GNU's Founder

    It’s good that the FSF prepares an event to celebrate GNU’s 40th anniversary, but readers told us that the speakers list is unsavoury, especially the first one (a key participant in the relentless campaign of defamation against the person who started both GNU and the FSF; the "FSFE" isn't even permitted to use that name)

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts