Steve Jobs Weighs in on iPad International Pricing and Taxes

[Anuba]

Steve Jobs is quickly becoming a jerk.

Uh, he has always been a jerk, for better or worse. He is notoriously frank, rude, sarcastic and to the point. He's like that in every video clip of him available, from the 1970's and on, whether target be Microsoft, Greenpeace, Adobe or just some random individual who happens to get in his way.

Check out the clip where a guy in a wheelchair asks Steve for his autograph and Steve says "No, sign it yourself" and "Oh, now lay the guilt. Start crying!"

Today, Apple boasts a lot about how 'green' they are, but a few years back when Greenpeace singled out Apple as the most environmentally unfriendly computer manufacturer, Steve told them to "go save some whales".

It's just the way he is, an *sshole who makes great products. The ****** part is common knowledge, and to act all surprised because Steve was rude is like being shocked that Robin Williams tries to be funny and does a lot of voices... it's who he is.

 

[DanielSw]

Those customers were so enchanted by Steve and his keynotes that they not only expected a reply from him, but a friendlier one!

If I were them, I wouldn't buy the iPad!

Those are not his employees. He pays his employees therefore he gets to be rude with them. Users are different because they are the ones who pay him whether he likes it or not!

And if he was "friendly" you idiots would call him insincere or condescending.

He isn't being rude--merely brusque and unequivocal so as not to encourage further stupid blabber on his lines, but yet lending a few messsages "straight from the horse's mouth" here and there where they're needed.

We're not used to hearing from large corporate execs directly. Their respective messages might be even more distasteful IF they had the gonads to do so.

I'd say this displeasure from some of you at his "manners" is mere cowardly indirection, and that even you know he's basically correct and truthful in what he says, yet you won't admit it.

And, no, I'm not "enchanted" with the man. I'm impressed with his intelligence, insight, leadership, and courage. We as a global society could indeed use thousands more of him to get more of you yammering laggards off your fat butts and to work in useful activities.

Apple is at least setting good examples for the saner amongst you to follow, and from which to benefit.

 

[veggiedude]

All Greek to me

I wonder how much a iPad will cost in Greece now?

BTW, why do people think Jobs have to 'be nice' in an email? Gimme a break! The fact he is responding is being nice in itself.

 

[Rootus]

Only if you sit back and do nothing about it! NOTHIING'S inevitable, pal.

At this point it is, actually. Or bankruptcy. Choose.

 

[iSamurai]

UK VAT aside, is it pretty much standard marketing practice to make the negative point of the product the "improvement" that compliments the positives...(like that Top Gear episode), so they would make the price "unbelievable" in this case? lol

 

[gnasher729]

pple is always better off with an extra customer. Are you assuming that, because someone is a rude emailer that they will buy and Apple, complain, and have a net-negative effect on the company? Or is there something else? Or is it just not a well thought out post?

This post would have cost you a minimum of $130....

Your post was worth a maximum of -$12.39

If you had ever looked at retail, you would know that there are plenty of people around that you _don't_ want as your customers. People who will buy something + complain, completely independent of the qualities of the product, because they want to get something for free by complaining. They cost money. People who intentionally break things to get their money back for things they can't return otherwise. There was the statistics that insured iPhones break at an alarming rate just when a new model is released - clearly there are some insurance customers that the insurance company really would rather avoid. It seems that in some parts of the world many people don't want a lawyer as their customer as it is bad for business.

And yes, any bozo who complains about UK prices and forgets VAT deserves to be told off.

 

[Alienrat]

I think it is largely irrelevant what the price is. The price is whatever it is set to and if you don't like it, don't buy it, or get it from ebay.

But anyway, you are all missing the important point. What time tomorrow can we preorder it from?

 

[Porco]

Isn't the iPad made in China like most Apple products though?

 

[ct2k7]

Isn't the iPad made in China like most Apple products though?

Parts made and assembled in China

 

[Shasterball]

Check out the clip where a guy in a wheelchair asks Steve for his autograph and Steve says "No, sign it yourself" and "Oh, now lay the guilt. Start crying!"

Ok, now I have to find this!

 

[gnasher729]

I thought they EU was working on collecting cross-border VAT, where businesses are required to collect VAT for customers outside their country and send them to the customer's government.

I don't know about that, but a company that is let's say operating from Germany will add German VAT to anything they sell, and send the money to the German tax office; the German company then has done it's duty. British consumers can order things and pay a slightly different rate than their own (19% instead of 17.5%) which will end up in the coffers of a different country. Summary: As a European consumer, you will _always_ pay VAT in some country; you just have a choice where to pay it.

British companies buying things in Germany and then selling it on to British consumers will have to do slightly complicated things, and these parts of the tax system have in the past been used for massive tax fraud (by charging British consumers VAT and somehow managing to avoid paying that VAT to _any_ European tax office, giving you an additional 17.5 percent illegal profit).

 

[ranguvar]

Preparing to see many Germans drive over to France to get their iPad, which costs them 30€ for gas, but saves them 15€ on the iPad

 

[Gradivus]

Don't ask stupid questions

is it me, or is Steve just getting more rude every time??

he doesn't have to attack!! people are just asking questions...

his PR team should talk to him... or spank him hahaha

Jobs is head of a huge international company, producing great products in an extremely competitive market.

Someone asks him a question where the answer is blindingly obvious to any child with more than two braincells. How do you expect him to answer?

 

[Augure]

As you may know, Apple products are way too expensive in Europe (remember the new Macbook Pro prices ? Almost 150% of the US price)

But you may have also heard that there's a crisis. You may also have heard that people pay a lot of taxes (in France, half the money you earn is "stolen" by the government). (on a short but smaller note: Europe looks like what is was in the 1920s...same crisis, same xenophobia rise, but muslims are used instead of jews, with the same large scale propaganda)

So Apple...death by price or a new way to separate elite rich from casual people like in other industries ? (Fashion, cars, travel etc...)

 

[mdatwood]

I think he likes all his products. He should suggest we buy a top notch Mac Pro

Actually I think it's cool that he probably looked at what the poster was doing with his computer and suggested one of the less expensive ones.

I recently bought a i7 17" MBP and the genius asked a lot of questions to make sure that I really needed it and couldn't get away with a less expensive solution. Trying to find the best product for the customer, even if it means a smaller sale, is just another example of Apple's great customer service.

 

[dscottbuch]

Assuming that tis email is authentic (seeing is believing)

As said it portrays the person he was talking to as uneducated, inferior. It belittles them. It also portrays Jobs as arrogant, uncaring.

A better response might have been "Unfortunately UK prices must by law include VAT, which is around 18%. US prices do not include tax."

No it doesn't. It does portray them as ignorant (unknowing of certain facts) which they were and of which they should have been aware, or could easily have been if they took the time used writing the e-mail and used it instead to google the issue. Ignorant and lazy.

 

[applesupergeek]

I'm tired of these arrogant people emailing Steve Jobs directly to complain about things - what makes these people think they should email him about stupid stuff like this?

Sigh.. I miss the good old days when stupid people didn't buy Apple products..

Me too, what a load of garbage.

People can't subtract the vat to figure out the correct price or understand that rates fluctuate and what is now a $40 difference more expensive for UK customers say, can easily be $40 less expensive with different exchange rates in a month or so...

 

[Anuba]

Jobs is head of a huge international company, producing great products in an extremely competitive market.

Someone asks him a question where the answer is blindingly obvious to any child with more than two braincells. How do you expect him to answer?

Is there really any evidence that Jobs actually answers emails personally?
I mean, I can send a letter to the president, too... but it won't be him responding.

I've worked in tech support for a software company and on a good day I was able to answer maybe 200-250 emails, and that was my entire workday. Steve probably gets 10 times more emails than our entire tech support department did, I can't see him spending more than 10 minutes a day on inane questions from whiney customers, I mean the guy is a billionaire who hates people... if anything, he's probably built an email-repellent force field around his office.

 

[paric]

The next time you cheer when the government "punishes" a corporation through fees or taxes or whatever, go back and re-read this Macrumors article.

The fact is that corporations do not pay the for taxes. Their customers do.

 

[Anuba]

I really hope other EU countries won't be introducing Copyright tax. Britain already taxes you for just OWNING a television. I don't like where the world is going with this!

What do you mean "going"? Nearly the entire world has a tax or license on TV sets to finance public TV, it's been around since the 1950's. The only ones who don't have it are Eastern European countries and the US. It's like public health care, more countries have it than not. I'm not a huge fan of the system but I can't say I don't enjoy TV without commercial breaks.

Denmark is the only country I know of that has extended the TV license to computers, 3G phones, game consoles and such. I don't see the world 'going' anywhere in this area, just business as usual.

 

[mcmlxix]

People need to stop emailing Steve for every little thing. We should be asking him important questions. Like what is his favorite color and stuff like that.

My money's on black.

 

[tonyshucraft]

"Please educate yourself"...
Please explain how that is not rude.

I'd only send him an email if I had done some research. I think for people to just get answers without trying to find them, themselves, is kinda rude. Not too mention that these are easy to research. People are just too lazy to do it. That would piss me off too and cause for short, blunt answers.

I'd love to hear him respond with this to somebody's email "Yeah, guess we were wrong with "think differently" years later and I have realized that people just need to think."

 

[HLdan]

Do you have a copy of the email he responded to? NO.
When you do and we can see the tome of that email, I will listen to you.

When ever I have emailed Steve, he has always been polite (if short) with his reply.

My guess is the email he got was less polite than his reply!

Thank you! That's what bothers me about some of the Apple haters that are defending the person that received the email from Jobs. We have no idea what was said on the letter that was written to him and I'll bet my life on it that it was 10 times more rude and meanspirited than the reply from Jobs.

Perfect example, Apple doesn't put a camera in the iPad and I can't even count how many hate posts and near threats towards Apple (although thrown in our face since we are readers of MR ) long before the iPad even was released to the public. I can only imagine how horribly rude the email was that Jobs received.

 

[Anuba]

Me too, what a load of garbage.

People can't subtract the vat to figure out the correct price

I'm sure they can, it's just that they don't realize that the US prices are listed without sales tax. It's not difficult to imagine why they wouldn't think of this, since listing prices excluding sales tax/VAT is not customary (and in many cases, flat out illegal) in their part of the world.

or understand that rates fluctuate

I'm sure they understand that too, but perhaps they're wondering why rate fluctuations only matter when it benefits Apple. They don't lower the prices when the rates go the other way. European currencies have taken a hit lately, but it's not like the USD is at an all-time high either. The highest USD exchange rate I've ever seen is 14 SEK, back in the Clinton days. Now the USD is worth around 7 SEK. So... we get Apple products at half price now? Nooo, Apple's prices are as high as they ever were, the exchange rate surplus is being sucked down Steve's greedy little throat like deep-fried Oreo's into a binge-eating whale woman.

 

[mcmlxix]

I'd only send him an email if I had done some research. I think for people to just get answers without trying to find them, themselves, is kinda rude. Not too mention that these are easy to research. People are just too lazy to do it. That would piss me off too and cause for short, blunt answers.

I too hate email conversations with people who ask questions that they could more quickly and in greater detail get answered by a web search. People are lazy or also perhaps such a question in this case is a passive aggressive complaint.

If I were Steve, I would have replied, "got Google...no wait...got Bing...no wait..."

I also doubt that these emails are likely coming directly from Steve. I think they're his answers though. He probably has an assistant reply with standard "Stevian" answers to standard questions.

Maybe he has hired Fake Steve Jobs to do this.

I also doubt that Steve has only one corporate email address. sjobs@apple.com is probably his public spam account. Maybe zen.ninja@apple.com is his real business account for all we know.