Hysteria over iPod nano manufacturing blip proves Apple is not a company – it is a religion

“In space, no one can hear you scream. In cyberspace it is a different matter. After weeks of tussle, one little website has forced the mighty Apple to acknowledge a problem with its iPod Nanos, the rinky-dink music player thinner than a pencil that can hold 1000 songs,” Alison Rowat reports for The Herald. “[Buyers of the iPod nano, which] has been flying off the shelves… had complained about cracked screens and scratches. Apple says the problem only affects a tiny proportion of the stock and has offered free replacements.”

MacDailyNews Note: In the U.S., at least, “rinky-dink” means “old-fashioned, amateurish, or shoddy.” By reading Rowat’s entire piece, it is clear that she didn’t mean that definition to apply to iPod nano. We’re pretty sure that she meant “tiny.” Also, we’re not so sure that one tiny website forced Apple to do anything they weren’t already planning to do. A manufacturing defect in a batch of products is a quality control issue that any reputable company would take care of sans online hysteria. Apple is different, as Rowan attempts to explain.

Rowat writes, “Just an everyday story of a manufacturing blip. It would be, if Apple was an everyday company with everyday customers. That, however, is like saying the Beatles were a fairly popular beat combo. To many of its followers, Apple is not a company: it is a religion… Not that the followers of Apple should be tarred with the same brush as the members of such cults, or “new religious movements” as they, and their lawyers, like to call them. But Apple-heads (and I confess to being one) do have some things in common with cult members.”

Rowan writes, “The promise of free [iPod nano] replacements has restored peace in Mac paradise… Elsewhere in the blogosphere, some unhappiness remains, particularly over Apple’s advice that anyone worried about scratches on their [iPod nano] should buy a special case. It looks as though the apple of innocence about Apple might have been eaten. Still, when a religion acquires its doubters, it truly has arrived.”

Full article here.

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