Apple removes apology-hiding JavaScript from UK website Apple has removed from its UK website the JavaScript code that caused its court-mandated apology to always be displayed "below the fold" – meaning that you had to scroll down the web page to find it. If you launched Apple's UK website earlier this week and resized your browser window, a bit of JavaScript code called " …
Reminds me of that tragic kid when you were a small child who got a smack on the back of his legs but kept trying to dodge it.
Ended up getting about 10 slaps as his mum/dad made sure the message was adequately recieved.
Of course these days those parents would have to be shaved, sterilized and destroyed.
Charge them £1 for every "copied" device they've sold in the UK.
Now that would be interesting, not from the money perspective, but from the real sales figures for the UK - would they downgrade the numbers to reduce the fine, or upgrade the numbers to increase the publicity :)
Ah, the good old days of parenting! I remember as if it was yesterday! Nowadays you'll have to knee in front of your spoiled tender sprouts and beg them for every little thing you want from them, like being polite, obey etc. Oh, and here in Canada you have a good chance of being sued by them in court.
They may have as well hidden pictures of Barbara Streisand's house under the fold. Doesn't anyone at Apple realize this actually draws more attention to the "apology" and prolongs the humiliation?
Also, tip to the courts: next time order the court-mandated text to be displayed in red frame at the top of the page or, better yet, make the entire landing page out of the message with "continue" button. That will instantly make companies like Apple downright reasonable in your courtroom.
No it doesn't. It draws attention to the fact that Apple strongly disagrees. Which is their point I suspect -- the longer this goes on, the more people think "galaxy? oh yeah that ipad clone"...
You can't eat your cake and have it: either Apple is only good at marketing (selling bucketloads of mediocre stuff at inflated prices) or they're incredibly stupid at it (but then how do you maintain that they're so good at selling?).
Us sitting in our chairs are not even of the level of amateurs at this marketing game. I'm sure Apple has tested reactions, and the UK Samsung victory was Pyrrhic at best: "it's too uncool to be a copy". Every newspaper article about the apology hide&seek quotes that hilarious* putdown (certainly in less techy sites -- here every reader knows it).
*Hilarious for the admittedly special value/context of a judicial proceeding, of course, with grown men wearing 17th century wigs.
The judge should convict them of contempt of court, fine them whatever they would pay their web designers for the duration the apology should appear, and have the Clerk of the court do the web design for that period. "If you won't do it properly, we-ll do it!"
That's not a coat, it's the scales of justice.
I like it!
And give the clerk one of those ancient Teach yourself HTML 3.0 Guides so he knows how to design it. And since he won't have proper time to do all the ADA compliance testing, for the landing page he goes straight to the high contrast and large letter design for the visually impaired. Single click through link at the bottom of the page redirects to the normal website. And he gets to make it the worldwide corporate landing page.
"OMG why doesnt the judge just put these MORONS in jail? He hasnt got balls or something??
What a load of wank!"
Good to know that given an encyclopaedic knowledge of Law, a hefty slice of authority and a backlog of criminal cases to hear, that you'd ride roughshod over legislation and waste a bunch of time trying to extradite US citizens for contempt of court.
So, did they remove the Javascript because it might have got them in trouble?
Or did they remove it because it breaks the page layout on every single available browser for Android?
After all, if you're trying to woo owners of the competition, having your page look like this or even better this, is really not a good idea.
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"Apple pulled Samsung into court over this, and afaik it's customary to put the *plaintiff* first when referring to court cases..--> Plaintiff v/s Defendant. They try to make it look as if Samsung is the one who started the ball rolling here."
They're actually correct in this specific case.
Samsung went to court in order to ask for a statement from Apple that their device was not infringing, and then Apple launched a counter-case. The statement is a result of Samsung UK vs Apple
As I stated before, I like their products but this behaviour is intolerable.
I can see that it's a classic US response to a judgement because US law is based on the letter of the law, not the intent, but I think you can argue that the statement should be instantly visible instead of hidden. Otherwise, it means it will act as a precedent for when Facebook gets slammed in court - if they put it where their "help" link is (at the bottom) you will never get to it because they keep backfilling the page when you scroll.
I think the judgement should be revisited: as punishment, they now have to run the statement where presently the text for the new iPad appears, in the same font (type and size). Or spend a couple of weeks in jail. It would be interesting to see what they would choose..
The random sample of regional websites that I looked at seem all to have lost the image resize code.
Instead there is now a default of 'fecking huge' so if I was willing to believe that it was a coincidence that the regional websites had resize code at about the same time the UK judgement happened, I'm less willing now.
All those international sites apart from Mexico are using two images on the main page (iPad and iPad Retina) which are probably alternated between using cookies. Mexico's got a huge iPhone 5, however the Mexican court said that it lost the right to use 'iPhone'. Obviously Apple's legal department are feeling feisty.
...Apple are not innocent of this they have a damages payment to make for FaceTime... As per another Reg article.
They are worse than most others, Samsung would have had to make their phones an octogan or even a sphere to avoid apple suing them, then again a sphere looks like an apple.
They even ripped their name off the beatles record company!
The fruity company post the apology in a position that is not prominent. No shocks there then.
The commentaries queue up like five year olds to demand more and more stringent penalties. All on the basis that my toy is better than your toy so ner ner ne ner ner.
No wonder the IT professional is seen as a fat sweaty nerd with a Star Wars fetish and no social skill. We moan about bean counters and act like spoilt kids. FFS "The IT Crowd" was meant to be satirical, not a restrained documentary.
I think you miss something. Grown-ups, when buying stuff that costs money, worry about things like customer service and longevity.
What do you think this behaviour makes me think about Apple? That if they twist and turn to avoid complying with a court decision they don't like, what kind of customer service can I expect?
The iPhone 5 seems to have very good performance. But I'm not spending money on one because it looks to me that if it goes wrong, Apple might just possibly try to avoid fixing it under warranty. The same goes for Powerbooks, in spades.
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