Pulp Free

I suppose if you’re going to do something you didn’t mean to do… this would be one way of feeling pretty stupid about it. I’m talking about accidentally purchasing the TomTom iPhone application from the Apple Store while trying to test out application sharing with a friend of mine. Essentially the iTunes Store’s Terms of Sale state:

REFUND POLICY

All Sales and rentals (as applicable) are final.

Now I already have a TomTom ONE 130-S that has suited me perfectly for the last year. Small, compact, works great, cheap, includes Text-To-Speech – and if I happen to lose it or were it to get broken – I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. But when my friend purchased the TomTom app I thought it would be interesting to try out after watching a CNET video on application sharing. (Watcher beware – I can barely watch much of Brian Tong… Your mileage may vary…)

Long story short – while my friend authorized my iTunes with his account, we debated on whose credentials to provide when hitting the download of the TomTom application. My account won out and instead of getting a second copy from his account, ka-ching happened and my credit card was charged $99.99 for this application…

Ahhhh crap I thought after we started debating on what actually just happened. I looked at my previous purchases and sure enough – I bought myself my very own copy. Thankfully there’s a button next to each purchase that allows you to submit a request based on each purchase. In my case – I clearly marked:

I inadvertently purchased this application

Since the whole effort of getting refunds from Apple have been laid out in the news in the last few weeks I was pretty sure that I had no chance of getting a refund. I tried to think “maybe this could be useful after all” but it wasn’t helping. Even after using it on a recent trip to Minneapolis did I find that it wasn’t even worth $10. (This particular entry isn’t about the application so I won’t go into it here…) So I waited a bit and sure enough, I received a response from Jeff @ Apple. I explained my efforts and intentions and then shortly a second response was received:

Jeff, here from the iTunes Store again. Thank you for clarifying things for me! At this time, and as a one time exception, I have reversed the charge for “TomTom U.S. & Canada,” as it appears you were not signed in to the correct account at the time of purchase. Although you may have authorized your computer for your friend’s account, you must also be signed into the account originally used to purchase the item in order to redownload at no charge. In three to five business days, a credit of $99.99, plus any applicable sales tax, should be posted to your Visa Card.

Please note that according to the iTunes Store Terms of Sale, all sales are final, so this is an exception which I cannot guarantee will be granted again in the future.

Whoa. I was on track for getting a refund. I quickly replied back to Jeff with this comment:

Thank you very much for your generosity in this one-time exception from Apple and the clarity in process for account management. I sincerely appreciate your effort in managing my request and assisting with my mistake.

And sure enough, a few minutes later, Jeff replied back:

Jeff, here from the iTunes Store. You’re more than welcome – my pleasure! Nothing makes us happier than to hear that we have helped our customers. I wish you the best and hope that you will continue to enjoy shopping the iTunes Store in the future. Have a great day, David!

With Warm Regards,

Jeff
iTunes Store Customer Support

So I’m very happy that I was able to get a fantastic Apple customer support person and that Jeff was generous enough to provide a refund. Now while seemingly no real impact for Apple for this refund – word on the street that developers can get taken for a ride doesn’t seem so fair… But in any case – I’m glad that the $100 is back in my account.

Thanks, Jeff!

We had our first death in our iPod family this week. Our 80 GB iPod 5.5 decided to no longer charge even though it was “100% Charged”. “Our” iPod is used the same way every day. C uses it an hour a day while she’s walking in the morning 5 days a week (she’s very dedicated). The nice part is that it will hold a charge for the entire week. Charge it up on Friday, ready to go for her walking on Monday. Rinse and repeat.

So it was quite odd that without the usual slowly depreciated battery life between charges – it just died. So even though the new iPod Nanos just came out – I took a chance on getting a new, user replaceable battery.

Two options. Ship back to Apple for $70 or find one online somewhere (who buys locally any more?). That turned out pretty easy as there’s plenty of review sites and companies to purchase from. For our first effort, I chose iPod Battery Depot.

For about $20 including shipping, a new replaceable battery showed up via USPS. Probably took maybe 3-4 days to arrive. Web site looks a little 1998 if you know what I mean… But I checked out the BBB links, did a little bit of research to see if there were any horror stories out there about them. Seemed decent enough. And for $20 – it was worth a little risk.

Turned out not to be an issue at all. Popped open the iPod and about 5 minutes later the new battery was in. Funny enough as well – the instructions state to run the battery charge down that it came with and then perform a full charge after that for 4 hours. Well – even the trickle that was left from the factory took 2 hours to wind down playing back video! A few days in and everything is still working great! C has her perfectally size iPod for walking and I have my iPhone back! (She was afraid of dropping it… I think the screen size was just too much for her! LOL)

So if you’re in need of a new battery for your iPod – iPod Battery Depot is worth checking out. Be sure to check around for some online coupons… There’s a 15% and $3 off coupon floating around right now…

(There’s no sponsorship here… or hidden links – or referrals… just a good experience…)

There have been a few new additions to the family clan that I've been needing to talk about… It's been a long time coming, but we're now parents to a brand new Wii.

Now already being a long time XBOX camp member, the Wii was a nice addition for C and I to play some fun games together… (It was rather stressful playing racing car games with her!) Funny part of the story being that I asked a few of my friends to keep my eye out for them during their travels. It happens to be that two of them found them on the same weekend and purchased one for me. What would the odds be of that happening again knowing how hard they've been able to find? (They seem to be coming into their own again… being a bit more available now…)

C		D
		(I don't usually have my mouth hanging open like that!)

I've now spent enough time with WiiSports to become a pro at Bowling (just barely) and I'm making my way pretty well with Tennis… I just need to get C to put in some more time practicing!

Second up has been a real "Life Changer" – a shiny 16GB iPhone has also made it's way into my life.

Since starting my new job at HP I needed to become more connected with e-mail and it's works really well. Add the ability to sync my Microsoft Outlook information, a gorgeous screen for watching videos and a being a pretty decent phone it looks like I couldn't go wrong. (Notice I didn't say anything about how pitiful the EDGE network with AT&T is… – oh wait – I just did… ugh…) Of course, I'm sure that an even shinier 3G phone is just on the horizon but in reality – I'm not that much of a mobile network user… It works great with our home Wi-Fi which is where I use that kind of functionality the most…

With the introduction of my iPulp phone (yeah – I named it iPulp) – that meant it was time to let a few of my older iPods go… I've had my first few experiences with Craigslist and I have to say I've made out pretty well. My 30 GB black Video iPod went for a respectable $125 (of course – $300 new!) and I know that they're actually selling for more than that now. But it went to a better home! A few of my sound modules have also headed out to some other musicians and if I'm lucky – my 65" Mitsubishi HDTV might have a new home as well! Cross your fingers!

Well – that's my story for now (and I'm sticking to it!) We do have a big milestone coming up next post… That's right – #100 is coming up next… Oh whatever will I write about?

Apple has had their Aqua GUI interface for some time now. This is nothing new… But I’ve always been secretly mesmerized by the simplicity of the style. Almost like my fascination with flashing lights! In any case… I came across an image that made me want to brush up on my Photoshop skills (I’ve been really out of practice for the past 10 years!).

I present:

Can I have one? Perhaps I’ll find it looking for some Photoshop tutorials… Isn’t there just a filter I can download? It’s so sweet to see 3D objects made with 2D design tools.

Well… it’s just under 24 hours before all of America will be drooling over their new Apple iPhones. Do I want one? Meh… Maybe version 2.0. I still have 18 months left on my renewed Spring PCS contract. But it does look cool. And way better than the other phones trying to compete with it. Time will tell how groundbreaking this latest effort by Apple will be. Granted – I’ve been Apple’tized since the 3rd grade when our family bought an Apple //e (just had to use the same forward slashes!) We even had an Apple SilentType. Mmmmm… Thermal printers!

Anyway – I digress. The point of my ramblings is more specific to how Apple spoke about their employees on this “dawn of the new age…”

Steve got a “look on his face that was kind of the same look as he had when introducing the Mac in 1984.” He said that it sounded like Steve thought the iPhone launch was a really huge deal, and considered it to be one of the most revolutionary and exciting products they had ever created. Steve said, “Don’t worry about two years from now,” they’ll deal with that as it comes. Apple employees will be able to tell their grandkids that they were at Apple when they launched the iPhone, and that it was all worth the sacrifice.

To thank the employees, all full time Apple employees in the US who have been there for a year will be getting an iPhone at the end of July. Multiple sources have told me that they believe this includes retail employees.

Granted – $600 bonus? Yeah, maybe. But I work in technology. I have the projects that seem to last in terms of “years” rather than weeks. Everything pushed aside (including reason) to make the date. It just seems that in this effort – I think the Apple employees really think that their management teams really do appreciate them. There’s something substantial being released at the end of their project. Something tangible.

Maybe I’ll get a paid-in-full mortgage…