Omlaagladen

Ik heb een hekel aan nederlandstalig software - het zit in de genen. Sorry.  Maar van Apple kan en mag ik alleen in het nederlands toegesproken worden door de iTunes store (ik woon nou eenmaal in Amsterdam). Nou, nederlands? Wat te denken van zo'n bericht?

Moet ik dat snappen? Ze gaan mijn creditcard belasten en me gelukkig ook niet opnieuw vragen om nummers te kopen.

Mijn collega's in vertaal-land zijn ook "verrast" (niet). Zie hier een paar reacties:

» Translated by Google?

» "Overbruggend de kloof", wordt er waarschijnlijk bedoeld. Heb je daar wat aan?

» Als dat tenminste het nummer is dat Martin wil omlaagladen.

» Hoe kan een aankoop nu beginnen met downloaden?

» Ik wil wel graag een naambadge met de tekst "vraag me niet opnieuw om dingen te kopen". 

» En een vinkje erbij. Dat ik dat kan opspelden als ik in een winkel ben, en dan niet meer 

» wordt lastiggevallen door verkopers. 

» Het is nogal triest, ja. Ik vraag me af of ze gewoon een heel slecht, of een heel 

» goedkoop vertaalbureau hebben ingeschakeld. (Het hoeft helaas niet altijd samen te gaan.)

» Als het uit goedkoopte is, is het wel heel wrang, voor een bedrijf dat zulke gigantische 

» winsten maakt, en dat zijn quasi-monopoliepositie flink misbruikt om rechthebbenden 

» van zogenaamde "content" flink uit te persen als ze van hun platform gebruik willen maken.

» (Vraag maar eens aan NRC en Nederlandse uitgevers.)

Binnenkort gaat er een Apple Store open in het Hirschgebouw aan het Leidseplein - zullen de borden en documentatie even leesbaar zijn?

Air Display?

The wonders of Apple and iTunes. The company (it is one, right?) profits from confusing customers. You complain to Apple and they blame iTunes and vice versa. Bit they can also take it a step further and blame anyone else in range. Sounds like Catch 22.

It's just happened again. I bought "Air Display" by Avatron on 8 July. I played with it and unfortunately discovered it was not able to play an .avi file from a PC on the iPad as secondary monitor. Not only that, the PC display stayed messed up even when Air Display wasn't running. There was suddenly a whole area of invisible virtual desktop (lost mouse, strange remote display).

I tried posting to the Avatron forum, but the relevant technical forum is read-only (?). So I contacted Avatron and they offered a couple of suggestions that were not able to solve the problem. All I ended up with was a bland "No, this is not a known issue. We'll certainly look into this and see if we can reproduce the issue."

So today I ended up contacting iTunes. But they referred me back to Avatron because it was a technical problem. So I asked Avatron for a refund, but Avatron replied "If you'd like to pursue a refund you'll need to contact Apple." But as soon as I tried to return to the relevant iTunes link I was informed "U hebt al een probleem gemeld met dit artikel, of het is te oud om te melden." No idea why Apple still insists on addressing me in Dutch to inform me that I had already reported a problem, but that's obviously Catch 23.

Or course writing this blog costs a lot more than €7.99, but that seems to be the Apple strategy to stop complaints. Make it more expensive to complain than to shrug your shoulders and put up with it.

Apple can't do 'Rithmetic

It's very strange how major companies work sometimes. It can also give an interesting glimpse of their mentality and attitude to customers.

For instance... take Apple. A nice friendly company, you would think. BUt it isn't always easy. I wanted to buy "Quicktime Pro" - video software for the PC from Apple. You can click on a link in the free version and it takes you to a site offering it for £20. So you try to buy but then it turns out you're in Holland and then it's €30. Not sure how they work that out, because £20 is €23. The €30 also includies Irish VAT. Now that is weird: it should actually be including Dutch VAT, as it is purchased from a Dutch site.

Another interesting Apple anomaly: if you give a Dutch address for the Apple store then you will only be able to use the store in Dutch. All descriptions of software are also in Dutch and you only have to hope the software itself will be in English. In Germany, the site is only German. But in Belgium or Switzerland you can choose a language and English is okay too. But that is on the side.

Back to Quicktime. So you want to buy it from the Dutch site including Dutch VAT (or none at all if you are a business) and to pay using the standard (and relatively safe) Dutch internet banking system: iDeal. But no. You can only pay with a credit card. Strange and inefficient as far as I am concerned. Any contacts with Apple are met with a polite but firm rebuttal. "We only sell it for this price and including Irish VAT. You can write and ask for the VAT back. Sorry, the Apple Store in Holland is only available in Dutch."

You suddenly start to get a glimpse of what life is like in Appleville. You have no choice, so Apple call the tricks. No company would dare be so haughty in PC land. There's too much competition. Long live the competition.