Filed under: Apple Corporate, iPod Family
Yes, Virginia, there is an Apple legal department
Here's the
situation. A young girl (3rd grade) has ideas on how Apple can improve her iPod. So, she writes a letter expressing her
ideas as a class project, and sends it off to 1 Infinite Loop. She received a reply...from Apple legal. The letter
stated that Apple does not accept or appreciate unsolicited product ideas with all the warmth and humanity that you
would expect from the legal department of a billion dollar company. I don't know what this girl's teacher
expected to happen, but I'm guessing it wasn't this.Apple has since apologized to the girl and is now thinking of implementing a new policy for interacting with kids.
[Via Cult of Mac]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Peter London said 12:14PM on 4-14-2006
I saw the letter this little girl received from Mark Aaker, Apple's senior legal counsel and, irrespective of Apple's policy, I couldn't believe just how crass it was. The girl's a third-grader and to receive such a letter even as an adult would have been rude.
So, Apple is changing its policy. Wow! For all of us who love Apple and respect what it stands for, this reflects very badly on Mr Aaker. I'm sure someone will have a chat with him! I can't believe that even Microsoft's senior counsel would have been so ill-advised to write such a letter to what was so obviously a child..
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mingistech said 12:16PM on 4-14-2006
Well... the problem is people like to send in product ideas to large corporations, then if by chance the company already had that idea in motion for a product the individual thinks the company "stole" their idea and wants restitution.
Just imagine the family filing a law suit against Apple for stealing their daughters idea about song lyrics displaying on the iPod screen... I know it sounds ridicules, but it happens.
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jerry salem said 12:22PM on 4-14-2006
Calm down everyone. This type of letter is standard in many large companies. My second grader got a very similar letter from Mattel when she send in original drawings for Barbie clothes.
Just big companies acting like big companies.
jerry
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hesse said 12:26PM on 4-14-2006
did anybody watch the story on the website. they couldnt even get the name of the ipod right. clearly it was a mini and they said nano. well i would love to write more about this post but i just recieved a letter from santa's lawyers about a letter i wrote when i was 8.
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LD said 12:35PM on 4-14-2006
hesse, that was a Nano with a green skin cover. Note the size, color screen, and placement of the wheel and headphones.
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narco said 12:35PM on 4-14-2006
I don't know why, but this story made me laugh. I really hope that letter made the little girl cry.
Fishes,
narco.
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Jimbo Jones said 12:36PM on 4-14-2006
Ok... it was an iPod Nano with a green Z-Cover, and the girl's idea about lyrics on the screen already exists. Good job investigating the facts, CBS 5.
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Bdude said 12:41PM on 4-14-2006
#3 Just want to point out the colour screen...
It was a Nano with a Green iPod Case.
Seriously though, if the parents really want to teach that girl a lesson, she should realize that legal practices of any company involve bulk letters and less than stellar replies; especially on topics of which have had lots of comments from people who provide their own 'educated' input on how to 'improve' the iPod. I learned this a long time ago, and I'm 14.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302244. you follow that, and you'll see how to add lyrics to your Nano.
Speaking of which, I own BOTH an iPod and a D-Link Mp3 Player, and a Sony Portable Radio, all of which I use, and all of which I love for their own specific uses. So there is no sense in calling me an iPod/Apple Fanboy.
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bill said 12:43PM on 4-14-2006
Just what did the letter say that was so harsh? I saw the video, but saw only scraps of the letter and even what I did see did not seem as bad as the reporter implied. Regardless, wasn't the purpose of the exercise to allow the third-grader to experiment with business letters? So, she wrote a business letter and got a business letter response. Seems fair to me. Perhaps her teacher did not explain clearly enough that you should not expect a warm fuzzy response to your business letter. The rest was just the mom giving Apple a good harangue, for what? Not pulling out the crayons every time they get a letter from a child?
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Mitchell said 12:50PM on 4-14-2006
Harsh...but what did she expect.. a tour of apple computer to implement her new ideas?
am I being mean? Don't mean to be.
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David LaRoche said 1:02PM on 4-14-2006
Attorneys owe a duty to their clients to not sugar-coat things. Letters like this are common in intellectual property industries where claims of infringement and plaigarism are common. Maybe the Apple lawyers could have written the letter "nicer", such as thowing a "thanks for your interest", but they would have had to say the same thing to protect themselves from frivolous claims.
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John Tylko said 1:08PM on 4-14-2006
the girl deserved the cold hearted reply...her new idea? to have lyrics on the ipod! hello...open up the manual....
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JaXX said 1:21PM on 4-14-2006
I would have replied with a "Thanks for your Ideas, We're pleased to see supporters, He's a 15$ rebate on Sims2 just for you"... but that's probably because i'm simply human...
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Kasei said 1:23PM on 4-14-2006
Welcome to the world of big business. The little girl's teacher should have taken her lesson plan a little further and taught about corporate business stucture especially dealing with the legal department. Just because she is a kid doesn't mean she can't be told the truth. The mother's statement about how Apple knows better was crazy. She also needs to step into the real world..
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Joseph said 1:45PM on 4-14-2006
I'm 12 and sent a letter to Apple, but just got what looks like the average response from a letter to a company. "Thank you for you recent correspondnce to Apple", "We shared your comments with members of the management team", Thank you for taking the time to write." Though, I send it to Cupertino, it came from Austin, Texas. A quick Google search told me it's Apple Austin Office.
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Kyle Broflowski said 2:13PM on 4-14-2006
I learned something today...
Even Apple's lawyers are cold, and I shouldn't ask Apple to add a feature that's already in a product.
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Brian Tiemann said 2:15PM on 4-14-2006
I run a fan website for a certain movie. I always have to reply to e-mails from kids who want to send in their fan scripts to Disney; I always have to explain to them that Disney's legal policy, like any big company (but particularly for movie studios), is that they have to return all submissions unopened, for the reasons described by commenter #2. How'd you like to be the president of the company, facing a lawsuit from someone who said they sent you a manuscript that just happens to bear a striking resemblance to the movie you just produced? How do you prove you didn't steal their idea, unless you send the package back unopened and document the hell out of the exchange?
That said, though, I'm glad Apple is changing its policynot necessarily because I think they should be nicer to kids just because they're kids, but because it might make them more seriously consider stuff like adding lyrics to the iPod/iTMS-downloaded songs. ;)
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Apparatus said 2:35PM on 4-14-2006
This is the funniest story to be posted on TUAW in a while. I damn near fell out of my chair.
And I hope the letter did make the girl cry. She's got to learn the harsh truth of our corporatized culture sooner or later!
I only wish Apple Legal had issued her a cease and desist letter and maybe a gag order.
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Jonathan said 3:38PM on 4-14-2006
Ahem...
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.
The kid did learn something: the cold harsh reality of adult life and the state of our litigious society. Had Apple not responded with that reply, and she actually suggested something that ended up in the next revision of the iPod, the news story would have been 'Apple steals children's ideas'.
Sheesh. Stories like this make me angry.
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Matt said 4:41PM on 4-14-2006
It makes me angry enough that this 9 year old girl owns an ipod.
It makes me angrier that this 9 year old girl has her own imac in her room.
It makes angriest that CBS supports and encourages this blatant ignorance on the side of the girl and her mother.
Welcome to the real world people.
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