But if you did, you could have commented about why you can't boot from a mini, and made a customer happy answering his question.

What did you expect them to do? Ask you to join them for a beer?

Someone is angry they didn't get to hear any new product specs...


(Jimmy Eat World)

I like your sig.
Man... if Gore ran in '04... he'd win. Hands down. And since he's on Apple's board of directors he'd pass laws banning windows in the US of A. That would kick so much ass.

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Say something along the lines of "Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate your input." If there's a specific reason that the Mini isn't bootable, you can explain it to the customer if you like, but otherwise, it's best just to graciously accept the feedback. Hell, even if you ignore the suggestion, it's the polite thing to do.

They probably get that kind of stuff all the time, it's kinda like telling someone to use the search feature and not answering their question, or giving them a stupid answer, to put it in fora terms. Perhaps if the circumstances were different...

When you're with friends, you're always more arrogant.

You want to show your friends how "man" you are.

Don't take it personal.

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Remind me never to hire you.

Apple are a notoriously arrogant company.

Imagine the size of an iPod product managers ego.

(If you wish to have an answer to your question, white iPod drives spin at the same RPM as laptop drives - so they are usable for booting. Microdrives (used in the mini) spin much slower and thus would make for very slow booting/usage.

The Microdrive is also packed in a far more compact space, and so the heat generated would cause problems for neighbouring components when the drive is in use for long-ish periods of time).

You were right, the Apple guys response was inappropriate, but my guess is at these events, it is more of a social gathering to let loose and relax. The last thing they probably want to talk about is work related stuff.

I agree. To you, talking about Apple products is fun. To them it is work.

While you went away miffed from their response, they probably turned and laughed saying something like, "Another customer who thinks every Apple product should do everything." etc.

I'm sure the mini doesn't support booting because it may not do it well or even survive. I'm sure if it could, it would. I'm just happy my 3G iPod can act as a HD at all (it is my backup HD).

It's also important not to lump all Apple employees together.

I was at the same bash, and was talking to one of the guys working on CFNetwork for Safari. Very cool, took some feedback very graciously, and was just a neat guy in general.

So maybe the iPod folks are just full of their own success or something.

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Did you happen to remember the names of any of the Apple reps?

Might be able to talk to their boss.

While they should have treated you with more respect, they were probably laughing because it has doubtless come up in their product discussions before. That would be a pretty common request, but also one that there are all sorts of technical reasons why it wouldn't be possible. (mainly heat and drive durability issues...) I imagine the marketing people and the product engineers had quite an argument over that spec. They were probably laughing at that process more than they were laughing at you. Plus, they were probably a little tipsy anyway.

Did you know for sure that they were marketing people? Marketing people should know better than to talk like that, but engineers are usually not allowed around customers for presicely this reason: they're not usually hired on the basis of their people skills. I should know, I are one!
(Heck, I'm usually much nastier than that when I'm sober, especially to my project manager, and get nicer when I'm drunk, which prompts him to buy me beer. I don't mind!)

Again, they should have treated you with more respect, but you also should not have taken it quite so personally. Since it was an informal get-together, they probably thought that they were being humorous. I've been at many of these get-togethers with salespeople before, where they jokingly talk about all the product that my group is going to buy, and I jokingly point out that we'd need to lay off a few people before we could afford their overpriced garbage. And everyone's all smiles...

edit: I should add that the main reason that I have the attitude I do is that I know certain salespeople (and certainly my management) pretty well, and they know me well, and we can joke like that and not get bent out of shape. I don't really think I'd be quite as jovial with a sales rep I don't know. But if one started treating me this way, I'd get right back at them. (You know, my entire family does want iPods, but they refuse to buy an inferior product with a spinning hard drive. When you're selling your 20 GB Flash iPod with 5-day bettery life for $200/pop, I'll buy six!)...

daimoni, it seems like you're a sensitive guy.

If I were in your shoes, I'd say something like nah, I'll buy Rio Player for all of you.

Have some sense of humor man!

Well, instead of laughing, they could either have graciously accepted the feedback and then ignored it, or they could have explained, "Unfortunately, this isn't possible because the hard drive is in such a small space that there would be heat problems. Also, the microdrives aren't really fast enough to boot from," and that would have been much more polite.

Excellent answer!

Those guys deserved what you gave them, nice one, there is no need for abuse like that, especially when you've laid down $$$ for an iPod mini

. As for the iPod mini not being bootable, well the last time i installed OS X on a mac, the install said it would take up about 3 gig, and once you have your own apps and stuff on there it could easily go over 4 gig, which is the iPod mini drive capacity. So it's probably not worth enabling the drive backup on a mini because it would fill the drive and leave no room for the songs, they might put the feature in when they make the drive bigger.

...and what planet did you just arrive from???

Before he could pass laws banning Windows, he'd have to get them through Congress. So many of the people there are in bed with Bill Gates (sorry about the visual) that it'll never get to his level.

No, I'm afraid the best he could do would be to ask his Attorney General to restart the antitrust suit.

How? They already settled it.

Well, that explains a lot about the answer you got. At least you got in a good line before you walked away.