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Mac mini Test Drive Offer Pulled

shadowmoses said:
If its true that they have been pulled its very bizzarre and must be for a good reason, possibly due to a mistake in the listing page and they will put it back up soon....Or maybe it was a mistake in the first place..
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I would think they would've remembered the first "Test Drive a Macintosh". I do, I still have my bag with the tag on it. That was what, 1985?

Hmmm... 20 years ago....

Hmmm....
 
Lacero said:
Probably pulled because of customer confusion with test driving a real car. Pretty lame promo if you ask me. Glad Apple came to their senses.

Probably some new hotshot Apple marketing director is cleaning out his desk as I type this.
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You're kidding, right? You think people would mistake a $500 computer with dimensions of a few inches on each side for a car?
 
Maybe they pulled it because there's going to be a (real) Mac mini update at MW Paris.

The thinking could go something along the lines of this: If people do the test drive now, a lot of people will probably end up returning their mini's for the updated models and Apple would then be stuck with a bunch of opened and used computers which they'll then have to sell at a lower price. Plus, they'll have to spend money to test the machines and repackage them. All this could result in zero margins for Apple since they really don't make that much off them as it is.

Maybe they'll offer the test drive again if new Mac minis are released/announced at MW Paris.

Just a thought.
 
It wouldn't have suprised me that apple got an overwhelming amount of orders and then realized that they would probably LOSE money on this promo and not sell more mini's...good call on apples part i say
 
sw1tcher said:
Maybe they pulled it because there's going to be a (real) Mac mini update at MW Paris.

The thinking could go something along the lines of this: If people do the test drive now, a lot of people will probably end up returning their mini's for the updated models and Apple would then be stuck with a bunch of opened and used computers which they'll then have to sell at a lower price. Plus, they'll have to spend money to test the machines and repackage them. All this could result in zero margins for Apple since they really don't make that much off them as it is.

Maybe they'll offer the test drive again if new Mac minis are released/announced at MW Paris.

Just a thought.
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Possible, but I think Apple's marketing dept. would have known that the new Mini was coming out. I still think it's more likely that this promo is intended for the new Mini, that, as you suggest, will likely be released at MW Paris.
 
Lucky736 said:
Man, I love how everyone is repeating my idea from an hour and a half before. 😱
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Yes, I was agreeing with your opinion, at least in part. However, I think that this promo was never intended for the current Minis, but was posted prematurely.
 
I already bought one today thinking the promotion was still on!!! 🙁!!!
what can I do????
Does anyone have a cached page of the full promotional page??
thanks!
tom
 
TommyM said:
I already bought one today thinking the promotion was still on!!! 🙁!!!
what can I do????
Does anyone have a cached page of the full promotional page??
thanks!
tom
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Apple is well aware that it offered this promotion. If you purchased online thinking that the promo was still in effect, then when you contact Customer Service, they should agree to either honor the promo or cancel your order with no penalty. To do otherwise would be unethical.

From what I understand, though, this offer only applied to online purchases, so if you purchased in a store, you might have more difficulty...
 
give it a couple months

they probably weren't fully ready to launch the service. with that said, i see this "test drive" program revisited in the near future.
 
Well, if Apple announces a Mac mini G5 in Paris everyone would be returning them in order to trade up. Maybe the offer will reappear after the expo. 😛
 
I know it was posted, but was it actively promoted? Perhaps Apple it was posted on the website prematurely and then pulled. Maybe Apple was going to promote it but decided not to because of Katrina.

In any case, that was really odd, and I wouldn't be surprised if it came back.
 
This whole saga seems very amatuerish to me! frankly i would expect better from a multinational such as apple. I do not think they got to many orders becasue it was only up for what 24hrs? not many people would've known about it at that stage? It was either a mistake on the webmasters part or something else really stupid 😛
 
I agree

Lucky736 said:
It's easy to see why. You have a 30 day trial. When Apple announces Mini's with new video cards shortly, are you going to keep that old one your testing out? Or return it fee free and get the new one now that you know you like it. Bet this program is right back on after the update. 🙄
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My thinking exactly they don't want this to overlap a revision of the mini at ...lets say ...Paris.
 
_Matt said:
i think they just stepped back from it for a second and realized it was not worth it...what would they do with all those returned mac minis? they would have to put them on the refurbished page wouldn't they? and then they would lose money off of each system and then have to sell a perfectably good mac mini below retail value, and somewhere along the line the consumers would be troubled because they were paying retail value for a mac mini that they could have gotten for less from apple and the machine wasn't even refurbished...it was just a sendback...just my thoughts...hopefully someone will correct me because i really dont know what im talking about... 😕
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That is correct.

That is also very obvious, and as Apple has many many smart people working for them, and I'm sure they already thought of that BEFORE they made the advertising banners. It's not like we're all incredibly gifted people who thought of something that anybody with common sense couldn't figure out.

A lot of people thought about it, and chances are, that the possibility/reality of a large number of returned Minis wasn't the reason the promotion was pulled.
 
zv470 said:
Why don't ya? It's still the same computer... and it's pretty cool too. 🙂
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Because I'm not sure how the video card is. Not that I do any major video editing, just a little photoshop on my pics. I've just heard that this card is really bad, not even core compliant. So I thought this would be a great way to see if it was worth it or save for an iMac.

Lacero said:
He probably plans to return it after the one month expiry. Why else would he be so angry?
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Read above comment, thank you. Unfortunately some of us are limited on their money and I would have liked to decide if it fit my needs. In other words use it more than an hour in the Apple store. But then maybe you have the money to make your mind up for you.
 
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