I've always thought that this was weird, that you're there online as soon as tickets go on sale and it's impossible to get through and when you do you manage to get through you get a few crappy seats. And yet touts somehow are getting hold of loads of tickets, as if they've got peering with Ticketmaster's server and access half an hour beforehand or something equally as ridiculous.

I asked someone "in the know" about this one time, and they said the majority of scalpers and touts get hold of a large number of good seats easily by either going to or knowing someone at the venue box office.

Personally I've not had a problem with the few gigs I've been to where I've had to provide ID instead of a ticket, namely the recent free RATM gig in London, but then I make a habit of just getting a few tickets (or just one) for gigs and always tend to go as I only ever book for stuff I'm really interested in seeing, and if I can't go or have a spare ticket I'm usually going as well, or I'll just take the hit. Best thing would be to make the tickets transferrable still, but make it a lot of effort - you have to phone up, give the credit card details for the new person, make it take a few minutes etc. That way, touts would think twice about selling on a large number of tickets given the time investment required, and it would completely eliminate ticket buying/selling outside venues on the date of the gig.

Why is peoples' immediate reaction to this list so negative? You'd struggle to find a company giving this level of advice to their customer service reps to help customers deal with a specific issue. I've phoned numerous customer service numbers and never experienced the level of product knowledge and satisfaction that I have with Apple. I've recently had the hard drive, bottom case and battery all replaced for free on my three-year-old MacBook without any fuss and after dealing with reps who knew exactly what I was talking about.

They'll need to fix this problem, and it sucks that you're not getting a free bumper (as it always does when you don't get free stuff), but at least as a result of this memo you're getting immediate correct advice as to what you're going to get from Apple as a result of this issue.

Why should they? You're not in a 24-month contract with Apple, they've fulfilled their commitment to the consumer by providing the product (so apparently you're not aware what the realities are). You're in it with the wireless carrier, and you made the choice to enter that contract. If you didn't weigh up the relative pros and cons of that contract and signed it because you were getting something shiny, that's your own fault. And my understanding is that in this situation, if you said you wanted the $30 unlimited plan you get to keep it if you carry on paying for it, which makes perfect sense to me.

Also, the whole point of a contract is that it works both ways - if the other party fucks up and as a result is in breach of the contract, you are entitled to go to a higher authority and challenge them. If it says in the contract with AT&T "they must provide this" and they don't, you can complain and happily exit the contract as a result of them being in breach of it. If it doesn't say that, you've got nothing to complain about. Once again, no one forced you to enter that contract, and there are provisions in the law that cover you if the other party doesn't keep to it.

Apple is the one that has required that you use AT&T if you want to use their products.

Then don't use them. People act like this is hard or something. Apple is not heroin, it's just capitalistic.

Anybody want to start the countdown until a new model iMac has an AT&T lock-in too? Maybe just a entry-level model, but still...

This is so hilariously out-of-touch with reality that your previous statement now makes perfect sense.

I think that said enough really, I'm saving up the myriad of other reasons for other arguments.

Seriously though, since when was Steve Jobs' ability and skill as a marketer and product promoter something to whine about when relating to a business? He's not there to make friends with Richard Stallman. I'm not even convinced that's possible. If you really had to choose someone to promote your product, does anyone really believe that the near-evangelism that Steve Jobs has created in an industry that's previously found it hard to be seen as even interesting is a bad thing?