Is Apple an asshole?
It seems not, at least if Apple’s apology to China for its warranty policies (see here) was sincere. An asshole, or a company acting like an asshole, won’t usually apologize, instead of remaining entrenched in its sense of entitlement, finding all manner of rationalizations to bolster its confidence.
A skeptic might point out that the apology only came after increasingly vociferous criticism in the Chinese media. Apple was said to be “arrogant,” and this was endangering sales in its second largest market.
It is anyway tricky business to ascribe motives to a collective entity such as a corporation. This is easiest when there’s evidence that its culture harbors certain objectionable attitudes. I’m sure cost calculations entered into Apple’s deliberations, but it could be that its people simply thought the appearance of arrogance was a misunderstanding and found it easy to release a public statement that expresses its willingness to be accountable for well-serving its customers. Perhaps the best test is whether it really does improve its communications and adjust the warranty policies at issue, so that it isn’t simply trying to manage the bad publicity with an apologetic public statement. So we shall see.
In the meanwhile, I’m inclined to give them the benefit of any doubt, perhaps because I do think the public act of apology is itself a significant way of recognizing the rights of others to better treatment. If there’s no clear evidence that the act is simply a cynical ploy, then it upholds the moral norm that corporations really are accountable for what they do–a very good thing indeed.
It is interesting, by the way, that the act is apparently a very Chinese thing to do. Maybe that suggests that the act is just a way of telling the Chinese what they want to hear. Or maybe it is way of respecting them, by operating on their own terms. Hard to say for sure, but to the extent the practice is anyway a good one, I’m less inclined toward the cynical reading.
