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Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

appleinsider.com

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Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#21

Post by pastor_elm »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #9
rgovostes wrote: post #7

The only thing remotely surprising here is that they lasted this long. It was frankly idiotic of them to have it there in the first place. No one is happy to spend $80 on a replacement MagSafe charger because the previous one frayed, so of course the listing was marred by 1-star reviews. The community Q&A also tends to be garbage. I understand that the average consumer is not going to have the same level of technical…

I understand your point. Still, I think that these reviews were helpful to Apple by collecting the bitching in one central location. It kept the product team on their game. Of course at some point, people stop trusting reviews in general and so maybe it's time to moveon.

Many of Apple accessories are designed to fail. Fewer stars probably gets product higher year end bonuses.

Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#22

Post by sockgrant »

pastor_elm wrote: post #21
xhkkffbf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your point. Still, I think that these reviews were helpful to Apple by collecting the bitching in one central location. It kept the product team on their game. Of course at some point, people stop trusting reviews in general and so maybe it's time to moveon.

Many of Apple accessories are designed to fail. Fewer stars probably gets product higher year end bonuses.

You got a source for that?

Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#23

Post by riffraff »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #19
kps wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many ‘accessory’ products had overwhelmingly negative reviews, because Apple's form-over-function philosophy means that they're genuinely hot garbage. … so they fixed the glitch. ¹ e.g. one I'm familiar with http://web.archive.org/web/20191113224149/https://www.apple....

Apple may choose form over function, but the power adaptors are a good example of how they still spent more time thinking of function than any competitor. For the typical "elongated black box" notebook charger, a cumulative sum of exactly zero effort was spent on improving it in either form or function. Meanwhile, Apple had MagSafe (which is nothing but function), the extendable prongs to wrap the cable, or the littl…

The first generations of magsafe adapters did not have stress relief at all, because form over function was still in full swing. Every charger had the cable completely break apart at the connection to the brick, because stress relief ruined the pretty minimalist design.

To say it's nothing but function means denying the evidence.

Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#24

Post by pastor_elm »

sockgrant wrote: post #22
pastor_elm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of Apple accessories are designed to fail. Fewer stars probably gets product higher year end bonuses.

You got a source for that?

Yes, the lightning to 3.5mm adaptor. Just look at it.

Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#25

Post by jmole »

pastor_elm wrote: post #24
sockgrant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got a source for that?

Yes, the lightning to 3.5mm adaptor. Just look at it.

I wouldn't say that it's designed to fail - but it's clearly not designed to last. It does seem like, with Ive's departure, that Apple may start to make their accessories (and cables, hopefully) as long-lasting as their products.

Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#27

Post by theincredulousk »

Unsurprising, given the (now very old) issue of selection/hidden-information bias in voluntary reviews. The people that are happy with the product are exponentially less likely to leave a "review" than the people that are unhappy, including outright trolls. The whole vibe that creates is not very "Apple".

In fact I'm not sure the problem has ever been "solved" - raw sample size of reviews is helpful, but nowhere near eliminates these biases.

How could it even be improved further in theory? I think you'd at least have to incorporate the number of total products sold into the review rating. If there were 10 terrible reviews on a product with 1,000,000 sold, that means something very different than one with 20 sold.

Baseline though, dealing with people, it will probably never be perfect unless the reviewers have "skin in the game". People with positive experiences need some incentive to leave reviews that is as compelling as the negative experience. Lots of Amazon sellers offer some kind of free product or coupon in their follow-up emails - maybe that works?

Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#28

Post by carlob »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #19
kps wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many ‘accessory’ products had overwhelmingly negative reviews, because Apple's form-over-function philosophy means that they're genuinely hot garbage. … so they fixed the glitch. ¹ e.g. one I'm familiar with http://web.archive.org/web/20191113224149/https://www.apple....

Apple may choose form over function, but the power adaptors are a good example of how they still spent more time thinking of function than any competitor. For the typical "elongated black box" notebook charger, a cumulative sum of exactly zero effort was spent on improving it in either form or function. Meanwhile, Apple had MagSafe (which is nothing but function), the extendable prongs to wrap the cable, or the littl…

All you say was kinda true for the magsafe ones, I recently saw the adapter that comes with a new macbook air:

- no little clip anymore

- no long cable anymore

- not the smallest Watt-for-Watt anymore (the new GaN ones are smaller)

- and of course: no magsafe anymore...

But I'm sure that three years from now they will have the "courage" to go back to their older superior design.

Re: Apple pulls all customer reviews from online Apple Store

#29

Post by Ensorceled »

rgovostes wrote: post #7

The only thing remotely surprising here is that they lasted this long. It was frankly idiotic of them to have it there in the first place. No one is happy to spend $80 on a replacement MagSafe charger because the previous one frayed, so of course the listing was marred by 1-star reviews. The community Q&A also tends to be garbage. I understand that the average consumer is not going to have the same level of technical…

Worse, many reviews were not about the product, but around Apple design decisions. Yes, I know everybody hates only having USB-C ports, but does this USB-C to xyx thingy work?

The worst about the Q&A section is seeing that your bug has been around since the Big Cat years and there is still no fix or answers, just a few thousand "I also have this issue"

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