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iPad Purchases - Apparent Lifetime Limit Clause

Buyer reaches their life time limit on iPad purchases

Extract:
Guy #1: I'm sorry sir, but you have reached your lifetime limit of iPad purchases and will not be allowed to buy any more.
Me: Is the iPad limit per person? Per credit card? Per household?
Guy #1: All I can say is that you have reached your lifetime limit.
Me: What does that mean? Can I use a different credit card to buy it? I'm buying this for a friend.
Guy #1: You are not allowed to buy this iPad.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/25/ipad_lifetime_limit/
 
lol. I think it's by email address.

They're also clearly going to need to rethink a "lifetime limit" as time passes and people want to upgrade or whatever.
 
This has already been posted. I'm pretty sure it was postdoctoral by the actual guy that was banned too!
 
Life time limit is silly. It's only in place because Apple want's to ensure a broad range of consumers in the US get their iPads; and that the supply of initial iPads aren't consumed by a very small handful of organizations wanting to order these by the hundreds or thousands.


As a matter of fact, I recall reading an article as of yesterday that some organizations are already going to deploy them within their industries . The hospital is going to allow their working staff to view X ray images using an iPad.
 
This is probably so that people don't buy 50 and sell them on Ebay at crazy prices to places where it isn't for sale yet.
 
boss1 said:
Life time limit is silly. It's only in place because Apple want's to ensure a broad range of consumers in the US get their iPads; and that the supply of initial iPads aren't consumed by a very small handful of organizations wanting to order these by the hundreds or thousands.


As a matter of fact, I recall reading an article as of yesterday that some organizations are already, including a hospital are already going to deploy them within their industries . The hospital particularly the all their working staff to view X ray images using an iPad.
Click to expand...

I would imagine that business/organizations have a different channel to go through for bulk purchases.
 
Not a very well thought out retail control. You can absolutely see their reason for wanting to do this at least initially, but really hard to implement. Then, you have a poor retail worker that has no idea how to answer the customer's questions because poorly implemented control can we defeated by anyone applying a little logic.

They should just leave it as units per credit card. If anyone wants to go beyond that, let them.
 
Excellent business model. The stockholders should be ecstatic.

Apple Computer.
Please do not buy too many of our products.
 
Stetrain said:
I would imagine that business/organizations have a different channel to go through for bulk purchases.
Click to expand...

I think at this point, some business have had the special privilege of accessing purchase deals with Apple without having to purchase via Applestore online .

A lot of people may think its odd that a product manufacturer like Apple has so much control over things , and it flies smack in the face of everything Walmart did to the product manufacture of the past decade.

Imagine that. A product manufacturer setting the price of their own product.

And taking it a step further by strategically planing which business get to purchase iPads in bulk first, so that Apple can use it for PR/marketing because it will make news.
 
mcdj said:
Excellent business model. The stockholders should be ecstatic.

Apple Computer.
Please do not buy too many of our products.
Click to expand...

Apple doesn't care if it upsets the consumer because they know there are no alternatives. So people will just wait until the restriction is lifted . Apple will freely preload every product with their own internet browser and mail programs and make it very difficult for other business to create their own for the Apple OS and or bar them from selling their products through the App Store.


NOW re read with I just wrote but replace the underlined words with Microsoft
 
iSingandiDance said:
Note to self: Pay for iPad with cash
Click to expand...

I was at the Apple Store in Southdale Mall in Edina, MN (Minneapolis/St. Paul area) yesterday....getting my fix while I wait for my 3g to arrive....and noticed a small sign on the table that stated something to the effect that iPads could only be purchased with a check or credit/debit card. I took this to mean no cash.

Steve
 
normwood said:
I was at the Apple Store in Southdale Mall in Edina, MN (Minneapolis/St. Paul area) yesterday....getting my fix while I wait for my 3g to arrive....and noticed a small sign on the table that stated something to the effect that iPads could only be purchased with a check or credit/debit card. I took this to mean no cash.

Steve
Click to expand...

I purchased my original 32gig on April 3rd with cash, and 3 others (at later dates, one at a time) with cash for family members that live out of town. Have yet to be told I can't buy another iPad. I currently have a 64gig on "reserve" as they are sold out today, so when it comes in I'll go in to pay cash for yet another one. This was done all at the same Apple store. Paid with cash, printed a receipt, on my way. Never an issue.
 
Do they mean:
  • The lifetime of the purchaser,
  • The lifetime of their credit/debit card account,
  • Or the lifetime of the 1st gen iPad (guessing it's a year)?
 
boss1 said:
Apple doesn't care if it upsets the consumer because they know there are no alternatives. So people will just wait until the restriction is lifted . Apple will freely preload every product with their own internet browser and mail programs and make it very difficult for other business to create their own for the Apple OS and or bar them from selling their products through the App Store.


NOW re read with I just wrote but replace the underlined words with Microsoft
Click to expand...

You don't make any sense. You are saying apple should not look out for apple but look out for other compaines that could later on decide to make thier own hardware and take customers from them.
 
normwood said:
I was at the Apple Store in Southdale Mall in Edina, MN (Minneapolis/St. Paul area) yesterday....getting my fix while I wait for my 3g to arrive....and noticed a small sign on the table that stated something to the effect that iPads could only be purchased with a check or credit/debit card. I took this to mean no cash.

Steve
Click to expand...

I was at that Apple store yesterday as well - about 10:30ish am. :D

Checked out the Ipad and bought a Time capsule. Waiting for my 3G Ipad...
 
Sketchr said:
I was at that Apple store yesterday as well - about 10:30ish am. :D

Checked out the Ipad and bought a Time capsule. Waiting for my 3G Ipad...
Click to expand...

I was there early afternoon. Place as an absolute zoo. Played with iPad, looked at cases, asked the Checker inner dude if I could hold the iPad he was using for scheduling.....it was in an Apple case....wanted to get a feel for it and contemplated the dock and the bluetooth keyboard. Left empty handed though.

Did I mention.....the place was a zoo.

Steve
 
bossxii said:
I purchased my original 32gig on April 3rd with cash, and 3 others (at later dates, one at a time) with cash for family members that live out of town. Have yet to be told I can't buy another iPad. I currently have a 64gig on "reserve" as they are sold out today, so when it comes in I'll go in to pay cash for yet another one. This was done all at the same Apple store. Paid with cash, printed a receipt, on my way. Never an issue.
Click to expand...

I did't actually try to buy one....just saw the sign.

Steve
 
Arran said:
Do they mean:
  • The lifetime of the purchaser,
  • The lifetime of their credit/debit card account,
  • Or the lifetime of the 1st gen iPad (guessing it's a year)?
Click to expand...

What do they likely mean: lifetime of the purchaser but just for this generation (until they change their mind).
Why might they be doing this: they don't want anyone else to greatly profit of re-selling the devices. They know the sales will be there, but would rather them come from people ordering them online/from an Apple Store/from a Best Buy store.

What this is actually doing: limiting a credit or debit card account.

Until they take down something else that would identify the buyer, another credit card/debit card or cash should take care of the purchase. A purchaser may lose out on some sort of reward points by having to use a different card or come up with a large amount of cash to make a big purchase, but I think we've all seen the stories about people coming from overseas and purchasing more than a couple iPads to bring back to their friends/family/co-workers.
 
How many iPads is the lifetime limit? If it's like 10 or something, then Apple should increase it. But if the number is like 100, then I don't see how it's a problem.
 
The "lifetime limit" is 2, I think. I doubt they will track it much longer than there are supply shortages in the market.

And the reason for doing this is that it'll hurt Apple's image if the device is difficult to get without paying a third party a big markup on ebay or whatever. If there were no limit, then anybody with the money and time to deal with it would buy a thousand and sell them at a markup as long as demand exceeds supply. The net result would be it would be harder and more expensive to get iPads for most consumers, with no benefit to Apple.
 
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