Michigan Dems repay Apple for iPod demo trip, say no plan to provide every Michigan kid with iPod

19 years ago

“Democrat Party members in Michigan were eager on Friday to match words with deeds by compensating Apple for the money it spent on flying them to California for a technology demo,” Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider.

Malley reports, “The gesture was an attempt to quickly squelch the controversy generated by the trip, whose partial Apple funding implied that the computer company had tried to buy influence and win an educational contract that would have reportedly seen $36 million in iPods delivered to every Michigan child.”

Malley reports, “Representative Tim Melton was adamant that the proposal had never been meaningful, and that repaying Apple the $1,702 it had cost each of the three Democrats who made the trip was simply a way of proving the party’s honesty. ‘The only reason we’re paying for it is to end this public perception that something is misguided,’ Melton said. ‘There was never a plan to provide an iPod for every child in the state of Michigan.'”

Full article which contains info about an iPod supplier bust and new Apple Retail Store concepts here.