Red rings of death

Interesting news from Microsoft on xbox 360 repairs - they've set aside over $US 1B to reimburse anyone that has paid out of their own pocket to get their 360 fixed and also to prepare for the many other machines in the wild that may have this problem. Obviously they've made some manufacturing change so this doesn't happen in the future.

It gets you thinking that with so much pressure on to get to market some things will fall through the cracks. Software can be patched relatively easily in comparison but hardware defects are a real problem.

Who'd want to be in the game of selling leading edge consumer hardware. I'm sure Apple still does, they've been around the block numerous times and factor in defects. Traditionally Apple hasn't been so caring about problems with their ipods - i.e they let the consumer take the hit to their pocket. That may have to change with the iPhone which apparently has huge margins and consumers are becoming more aware of the tech giant. Commentators have already pointed out that someone can't be without their phone for a minute so Apple will need to invest heavily in customer support, a temporary loan and replacement program.

At first glance it seems that Apple may not have learned as their iPhone battery is not able to be replaced without tech support - you can't remove it yourself! Every other phone allows you to do this, unless they've magically invented the i-cell that doesn't need replacing a lot of consumers will sour over time. They've already announced a fee ($US79) to charge consumers that want a battery replaced but it takes 3 days to get your phone back, you can get a loan phone but it will cost you an extra $US30.

So the multi-billion dollar question is how far ahead are Apple with multi touch? Other device manufacturers has licensed Adobe's flashlite so can offer the sort of GUI that people will now expect but their phones don't have multi-touch. I don't think it will take very long for them to catch up at all. Companies like Samsung should be watched. Interesting times ahead indeed.