The year 2012 was filled with high octane tech launches, iPhone 5, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Android Jelly Bean, iPad mini and a plenty more. Each event was festive. Then there were other events too, where tech companies came out public about their follies and said “please forgive us users”. Read on to know few such tech companies who did public apologies as compiled by Network World.
Apple
Apple’s iPhone 5 and iOS 6 were most awaited Apple products of the year. But somewhere down the line Apple fans went queasy over buying iPhone 5 and updating their OS to iOS6, for these Apple products left out the omniscient Google Maps. The fans were more annoyed when they discovered the biggest flaws in Apple’s mapping service.
Apple CEO promised to make up for this and apologized: “At Apple, we strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers. With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment. We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers and we are doing everything we can to make Maps better.”
Microsoft’s bundle of apologies
When it comes to apologies, Microsoft had a bundle of them this year. Some coder from the company has pulled a naughty prank, by slipping a raunchy term in the software code connecting Linux Kernel to the Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization product. And there was also a raunchy dance routine that preceded an Azure presentation in Norway.
Microsoft issued an apology: “We thank the community for reporting this issue and apologize for the offensive string. We have submitted a patch to fix this issue and the change will be published in a future release of the kernel.”
And Microsoft also issued apology for a dance folly at Azure presentation in June, “This week’s Norwegian Developer’s Conference included a skit that involved inappropriate and offensive elements and vulgar language. We apologize to our customers and our partners and are actively looking into the matter.”
And then the company apologized again for interruptions to Azure services in July when its cloud offering went on the fritz in Western Europe: “We sincerely apologize for any issues this caused impacted customers, and will make the necessary adjustments to help prevent a similar issue from occurring in the future. Impacted customers should contact support to file an SLA credit,” wrote Mike Neil, general manager, Windows Azure, on a company blog.
Google earnings snafu, Gmail outage
Google like its wide range of services has also a plenty of apologies they made this year, for several of their service shambles. In October, Larry Page, CEO of Google apologized during an analysts’ call for accidental early releasing of its earning statements which caused fall in Google’s stock price “I’m sorry for the scramble earlier today”, however the stock did not stabilize even a month later. In April and June the company issued apology for Gmail outages: “We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the Gmail users for their patience and continued support. We are continually making improvements to its system reliability, which is our top priority.”
However in July, the users face another Gmail outage, which left the company embarrassed. Nevertheless company apologized again; the apology resembled the previous one: “Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.”
Yahoo’s massive breach
Yahoo apologized in July for a network breach that compromised users’ data. About 400,000 Yahoo user names and passwords, among other information were exposed. The breach was especially bad because it tied in with Gmail, Hotmail and other online accounts. The hacker group who claimed the responsibility said it used a SQL injection.
Yahoo’s apologized over this issue: “At Yahoo! we take security very seriously and invest heavily in protective measures to ensure the security of our users and their data across all our products. We confirm that an older file from Yahoo! Contributor Network containing approximately 400,000 Yahoo! and other company users’ names and passwords was stolen yesterday, July 11. Of these, less than 5 percent of theYahoo! accounts had valid passwords. We are fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo! users and notifying the companies whose users’ accounts may have been compromised. We apologize to affected users. We encourage users to change their passwords on a regular basis and also familiarize themselves with our online safety tips at security.yahoo.com.”
Nokia’s camera trick
Nokia’s big Lumia 920 Windows Phone 8 splash in September got off to a rough start when the promotional video about the phone camera’s Pureview camera technology got in fix over Nokia’s not-so-hidden cameraman trick.
As Network Worlds Colin Neagle wrote in September: “Nokia was caught red-handed in a lie, after tech bloggers spotted a cameraman capturing a video the company claimed was shot with its new, highly touted Lumia 920 smartphone. After apologizing,Nokia posted a real video shot with the Smartphone, displaying the optical image stabilization (OIS) camera technology that was faked on the first try.”
Tech bloggers in the promotional video spotted a reflection of a cameraman with a professional camera actually taking the shot of a woman on a bicycle, and were upset about Nokia’s lie.
The company said its main fault was failing to publish “a disclaimer stating this was a representation of OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) only.”
McAfee
McAfee the security software firm apologized in September when the update to the antivirus software that generated false negatives for some malware on Windows personal computers, leaving users flummoxed.
“We would like to apologize for all the disruption caused to our many customers worldwide. We recognize the issue is very serious, and are doing everything we can to resolve it.”
source::::silicon india net
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