Apple Misrepresentations Case Study Analysis
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in California which sells , develops and give designs to computer software, consumer electronics and many other online services. Their hardware products includes IPhone, IPad, Mac, IPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch and was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne in April,1976.The first smartphone launched by Apple was in the year 2007 named as Apple 3G which supports only 2g service provider having iOs 3 as the operating system. Its worldwide revenue for 2017 fiscal year totaled at 229 billion dollars which is the world’s largest company by revenue and stands at 3rdlargest mobile manufacturer after Samsung and Huawei.
Outline of the Case
Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, producing their gadgets with new innovative ideas and techniques which attracts an individual’s mind and force them to buy their product. As every year, a new iPhone or iPod is launched and due to which older one’s are ignored by the company which lead to a case (error 53) and made Apple stood in the court. Strict actions against Apple US and Apple Australia were taken by ACCC regarding complaints of “error 53”as iPhones and iPads were getting impaired as when people put them on update.
Ethical Issues
There were number of issues which were faced by the people. Firstly, it challenges capacity deceptions and omissions related to iOs 8 working framework, a short reveals was given to customers that as much as 23.1% of the promoted capacity of the gadgets will be expanded by iOS 8 and which was inaccessible for buyers at the time when the buy the product.
The case states that Apple fails to disclose that upgrading from iOS 7 to iOS 8 will cost a user between 600 MB and 1.3 GB of storage space which is a result that no consumer of the product could reasonably anticipate.
These representations were made from February 2015 to February 2016 on Apple US’ site, by Apple Australia’s staff in-store and on its client benefit phone calls. Apple actualized an outreached program to compensate every individual whose gadgets were made inoperable by “blunder 53”. This program was amplified to around 5,000 people.
Apple stated CNBC that their objective is to provide the finest experience for clients, which incorporates in overall performance and drawing out the life of their gadgets and also told that Lithium-ion batteries, if they are putted for more time on charge and in cold regions, they have less ability to supply their peak performance.
Opinion
ACCC chairman Rod Sims stated that customers who went to the third-party regarding their repair of devices problems like broken screen, were denied without providing them any benefit even if the blame had nothing to do with the broken screenand as per the Consumer guarantee rights under Australian Consumer Law, they exist freely of any manufacturer’s guarantee and also are not quenched essentially because of just a small reason of repairing the product from third-party. Apple’s behavior is unusual and is not the type of behavior that should be there in modern economy.
People often find with companies that they like to have gadgets repaired by themselves instead from the third-party as Sims told the ABC.As per the words of Charles Arthur, updating software doesn't continuously make that happen, it's as it were in case the battery is in destitute condition, so that it can't hold sufficient charge to handle a sudden surge in request from the processor and Apple is really attempting to assist you hang on to your older phone for as long as conceivable, but it has screwed up how it tells you approximately that. In truth, it hasn't told you that at all, which is destitute communication.
Faculty director for the Berkeley Centre for Law and Technology, Chris Hoofnagle said, Apple may not have done wrong.
Ethical Decisions with Moral Philosophies
The ACCC is affirming breaches of the law referring to 275 clients with each breach carrying a most extreme punishment of 1.1 million dollars. If individuals purchase an iPhone or iPad from Apple and it endures a major disappointment, they are entitled to get refund of their money and if a consumer wants to substitute their product, they are preferred to a new device available, Ms. Court said.
As per the company, (Utilitarianism Philosophy)their view to slow down the aging iPhones and iPods were to maximize the sale of their upcoming and upgraded gadgets and collect a number of people to buy their product without keeping the interest of the people. Apple once decided to sought to mask the battery detect as they can even provide or replace with new and free batteries to the affected iPhones.
Judgement of the Court
As number of customers faced many problems while updating the software on their devices, which affected them in many ways like nowadays everything is online whether it is a business work or a school work. In return which crated a mind-set of individuals that the company is doing embezzlement with them and which ultimately made them to file a lawsuit against the company and by observing the case Federal Court has ordered Apple Inc. to pay 9 million dollars in punishments for making wrong or deluding representations to clients with flawed iPhones and iPads their rights beneath the Australian Customer Law(ACL).
Conclusion
From the above paragraphs, we can conclude that the company kept their self-interest on the top without thinking of their customers. If they do not satisfy their customers, they cannot be happy and soon they will move to the substitute company.
