The Apple way of turning bad press into good press

When Apple got caught out slowing down Iphones when their battery began to degrade they offered free replacements for applicable models. This came among the uproar on Apple being sneaky and deceptive. It turned the headlines from the negatives of Apple to the good news stories of Apple providing free battery replacements. Now it’s happened again, Apple is saving face by offering free Macbook pro batteries.

The replacements program page is here and from what I have seen Apple have gone about this quietly. Thats a sign they know they have made a booboo and want to have something to fallback on.

Credit where credit is due for Apple i guess, their product has issues so they are covering costs to fix it. But in terms of Apples shiny “quality and premium” products shield, it has taken a beating and some of it is wearing off. This post isn’t to pot Apple on its products and their issues rather Apples strategy and behavior after the fact.

When you buy an expensive piece of tech and it fails/breaks down you most likely are going to regret buying that model from the company. It’s fair to say your perception of that company drops maybe to levels that you wont try them again and you’ll go to a competitor. It’s this exact situation that Apple is trying to crush with replacement programs.

The replacement programs can quell the bad media towards an Apple product having major issues, customer angst and brand damage. Whilst not a complete fix it’s certainly an effort.

It’s a “generous” effort from Apple in which otherwise could be seen as fixing an issue in their product which made consumers disappointed in the product.