“According to Experian, Apple was the retailer with the most searched for ‘returns policy’ online on Christmas Day,” James Hall reports for The Telegraph.
“James Murray, digital insight manager for Experian Marketing Services, said that the technology giant’s plethora of gadgets starting with ‘i’ – iPads, iPods and iPhones – are likely to have confused people who were buying them as presents for others,” Hall reports. “The high level of searches for Apple’s returns policy came despite five of the top twenty Christmas gifts this year being Apple products, Experian said.”
Hall reports, “‘Interestingly Apple was the most searched for returns policy on Christmas Day this year, and yet five of the top 20 Christmas gifts this year were Apple products,’ [Murray said]. ‘This is probably a case of parents and grandparents confusing the various models of iPads and iPods available, as although an iPad Mini and an iPod Nano might sound similar, they are clearly very different products.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Tim Worstall writes for Forbes, “Let us think this through. Apple has 5 pieces of kit in the list of the top 20 Christmas gifts this year… Assuming a simple straight line extrapolation, we’d expect the company manufacturing one quarter of those gifts to gain one quarter of the searches for returns policy.”
“Meaning that we expect Apple to top the list of searches for returns policies not ‘despite’” supplying 5 of the top 20 gifts,” Worstall writes, “but ‘because’ they supply 5 of the top 20.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Happy New Year! Worstall is right: It’s basic math, not “i confusion.”
Nevertheless, get ready for the usual suspects to completely misrepresent this “news” and flat out lie that Apple’s products were the “most returned” Christmas 2012 gifts.
Ridiculous.
It would seem that this xkcd cartoon adequately highlights the ridiculosity: http://xkcd.com/1138/
Exactly. Might as well end the comment thread here, you nailed it.
But “iPod” and “iPad” names only differ in one letter, so it might get confusing to some.
I agree. I had to educate my sister who was buying an iPad for her husband. She was confused as to why the iPad cost more than the iPad 2.
I needed to explain that the iPad was the iPad 4. In her world she wonders why they don’t call it an iPad 4.
It could be a good thing. That Apple store that was robbed in Paris, those crooks should be returning those devices in a day or two.
For when you get two of one gift!
Since iDevices were so popular, this is certainly in the realm of possibility.
Regardless, the Wall St. fearmongers will blow this out of proportion.
Or, like my gift from my wife, the iPad mini with the cell feature for the AT&T data connection in black. When it is available, I will get one. If she got it without the cell for AT&T or not at the maximum RAM, we would be returning it (unopened) and ordering the one we could not find. (Some people needed something for under the tree on Christmas.)
Think upgrade to another iOS device not returned without a final bigger sale! Every quarterly report, Apple always states, “We could have sold more if we could have made more.”
Of course, there’s always the possibility that someone wanted an upgraded device.
For all those that have been complaining about the GENIUS playlist feature missing in iTunes 11 I have waved a wand and willed this feature back in.
Go to ALBUM VIEW. Select the album with the song you want Genius to be based on. Hover you cursor over the song you want GENIUS to use. You will see a BLACK CIRCLE WITH A ARROW TO THE RIGHT appear next to the song. Click on this circle and a pop up appears. The rest I don’t need to explain.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Genius is available from any song in any display, not just album view.
Thanks for that.
But it’s more work and more mouse clicks to get at a feature.
Same with the hobbled miniplayer.
Same with iPhoto.
The more clicks you use, the more often you will use search. The more you use search, the more opportunity Apple has to show you stuff you can buy in the search results.
It’s not just Apple that does this.
I kind of like the cleaner interface. i will gladly sacrifice one extra click to get rid of the clutter of icons and buttons. However, I do agree it should be optionally displayed if you really want it.
How the effe is this more clicks?
Go to any song click the right caret symbol to the left of it and then click start genius
Holy crap two clicks is too much?
What is it with this contrived angst lately?
Oh god apple is making me make two clicks to create a genus playlist. How will I ever survive this forced labor.
Give me a break.
Voice of reason!
I didn’t know people still used a mouse.
Ok genius, show us how to get multiple windows back then, one of the most useful features, that some halfwit seemed to think was ‘too complicated’ and needed removing.
It’s a feature I used practically every time I had iTunes open, and now it’s gone. And I want it back! Now.
Out of interest – what were you doing in the other open windows? … I’m just asking.
Anyway, I got this tip from the Cult of Mac –
Under the Advanced section of Preferences, you can choose to have the MiniPlayer always float on top of all windows.
Here’s a nifty tip for using iTunes 11 in multiple Spaces or monitors: right click the iTunes icon in your dock and select Options > Assign To > All Desktops. Now when you use iTunes in full screen mode, you can also open the MiniPlayer separately and have it run in a different space or monitor. So you could have iTunes running full screen on your big external monitor while the MiniPlayer is on your laptop screen.
http://www.cultofmac.com/203679/the-ultimate-list-of-itunes-11-tips-tricks-and-changes-roundup/
It’s useful in many ways, especially if you use a Mac with two displays.
For example, you can open the iTunes Store in a separate window and show your music library in your main iTunes window. This allows you to easily see what songs you have already while shopping for new songs.
I would also use that capability to build new playlists (or update existing playlists) and open the playlist in a separate window. With my music library in the main iTunes window, I can easily drag songs to the playlist, while seeing if a particular song is already on the playlist. That’s actually difficult to do with iTunes 11.
Also, with two displays, iTunes WAS one of few apps that allowed the second display to be useful in full screen app mode. The main iTunes window would go full screen on the primary display, and I could open a second window and put it (at maximum size) on the secondary display. I can still put the equalizer window there, or play a video there in a separate window, but that’s nearly as useful.
However, overall, I like the new iTunes in many other ways. Hopefully, Apple will add back the lost “separate window” ability.
I suspect most of those searches originated from the Gates household.
Cue the FUD campaign in 3…2…1…
Those consumers didn’t want to be stuck behind Apple’s “Walled Prison.” They needed devices they could freely jailbreak which practically every average consumer does. And they knew they could take back one Apple device and use that money to get two Android devices of equal or better quality. I’m sure everyone knows that Samsung is selling way more products than Apple, so it’s the most favored brand to own in the entire world. Geez, I thought everyone was returning Apple products they got and that’s why Apple’s share price went from $700 to $500 in a matter of weeks. After hearing this report, when the market opens tomorrow, Apple’s share price will drop much further.
/s
Thanks for the /s. I was starting to believe you were serious.
Nicely done.
Not only the argument is drap but it’s also FALSE, I just checked on Google Trends myself and not surprisingly Amazon easily tops the list of searches for “returns policy” on Christmas Day.
You search USA, article search UK, USA is center of Universe, you must be right.
“confusing the various models of iPads and iPods available, as although an iPad Mini and an iPod ”
You got to be kidding me. Apple has a confusing set of products?? Not android? Every 4 or 5 days came out a new model of android device. Just Samsung has 4 different products called “galaxy” ( cameras, tablets, phones, tvs) and each cathegory has like 4 versions or models, and it is apple the one with confuse devices?
Apple has the most return policy search because they have the most wanted products, that’s it.
Apple products are the most-returned by morons with a grudge. :-0
When you sell more stuff than everybody else, it stands to reason you will have more stuff returned than everybody else.
Anyway, it just means more reburbished devices for me to choose from. Yippee!!!
anyone fall off a fiscal cliff last night?
Still standing!
I wonder if samdung had their employees googling the return policy because they have nothing else to do on Christmas Day.
The only people confused are the analysts.
And the hits just keep on coming.
Has anyone else seen the bins of Kindle Fires for sale that have been returned to Bust Buy?
More than likely they were checking to find out how they return and exchange forma different model/color or different Apple product
I am active on the Apple support forums.
All the questions I see regarding return policy are because they want to swap to a different model-larger capacity, cellular radio, iPad 4, etc.
Not because they want a different device from another manufacturer
Thank you for a touch of sanity using actual facts and experience instead of speculation, innuendo, and fabrication.
This is similar to the dumb-ass hysteria that often results because some idiot blogger reports that “hundreds” of customers are posting comments in support forums about a particular issue with an Apple product. Holy cow! It’s a MAJOR problem…!
Well, if Apple sells 10 million of something, “hundreds” is less than 1/100th of one percent (0.01%). Apple produces and sells a relatively small number of products in HUGE numbers. The math-challenged media can’t seem to take that obvious fact into consideration, and come up with some crazy theories. Congratulation to Tim Worstall for being the exception.
Thank you for a touch of sanity using actual reasoning and mathematics instead of media deadline-induced hysteria amplified by brain rot and a growing consternation that they may soon be found out as clueless fools unless they can find anything that could pass for a smoking gun before it’s too late and they have to settle for their next job as a motel clerk.
Ultimately this information has no context. If Apple had 100% of the market they would have 100% of the searches for returns. That wouldn’t mean they were bad.
Two reasons: Color swapping, and Mini vs. regular iPads.