CrunchGear

One of my biggest peeves is rebates. The website you are to use for the rebate is awful and the company seems to go out of the way to make it hard to use and then there is the wait and wait for the rebate to come. If companies are going to use rebates, make it easy instead of pulling teeth.

1. How about improved customer service - maybe even an easy way to reach I person I can speak to in English. No I don’t like having to sift through online faqs. For example - Maxtor has a wonderful replacement process - Thermaltake blows.

2. Also, I second the notion of improving the rebate process.

3. Get rid of service plans / subscriptions.

Since you mention price, size, and ease-of-use, I’ll share a comment on all three: we need more joint development projects that address the end-to-end user experience, from OOBE to the time the battery finally stops working. An example of a relatively successful such project is iRiver clix/Microsoft WMP 11/MTV Urge. From the packaging to syncing to flagging songs you want to buy, everything just seems to work like one would expect. No user-replaceable battery, but nothing’s perfect. :)

Why not do away with rebates completely and just give the cheaper price? Okay, realistically, an online rebate system, which refunds quickly would be nice. Not to mention, the overhead for retailers would drop immensely. Well not really because at the pace these systems are currently working, it seems like retailers only have 2 people in the rebate department anyway.

Clearly I hate rebates and avoid them at all costs.

Formats and DRM. It’s getting impossible for the average person (I don’t think any of us here count as average) to know what works with what, which cables belong to which system, etc. I understand that accessories and technology upgrades are the gravy train for these companies, but consumers will get fed up eventually. Can they survive on the geek elite alone?

ahh rebates. I have been screwed by cingular twice. Buying two phones and two contracts at the same time and each time only receiving one rebate. Customer service sucks. Look at rebates from 3rd party vendors. These i understand but why wouldnt the company selling the phone/service offer cheaper prices. If you buy from Amazon you can get phones usually $100 cheaper PLUS A REBATE. So you wait a week or two. You saved $. They should offerer quicker rebates if they have them. Hell they charge out the ass to cancel service so why wait to give rebate?

Bring on the LIBRA!

Yes, an online rebate system. Lower cost would be nice, but rebates are something that is going to stay around, rebates must be a marketing ploy.

Simplicity across the board - if you bundle the products for the sale than bundle it for a single, simple rebate.

Try to go with standard cables/interfaces - USB ports work well; how come the 3 Dell laptops in the office all have different power connectors??? Do they really want to make all of their money frustrating us to buy new power adapters? (Did I hear someone say cell phone power supplies???) Blu Ray??

How about long term support also. I know that technology moves quickly and we want the latest/greatest but that doesn’t mean to drop support for things after just a couple of years. Everybody can’t afford to replace all of the technology that quickly; different people will pick different items to replace. If support is migrated off consumers are stuck with bricks; or debt??

Service plans are great for recurring revenue but who needs another monthly bill? I already give blood (from my veins) don;t empty it from my wallet, too. This may be worse than migrating off support.

Ask when I get my jet pack.

oh I forgot - forced bundles - think PSP

I got screwed out of 50 bucks for a pair of headphones (with crappy remote), a sock and a 32MB card.

Most of it has been said:

1. Rebates
2. Proprietary cables, hookups, etc.
3. Cheap, cheesy casings. Forget it has the best ‘whatever’ inside, I’ve gotten stronger plastic out of Happy Meals.
4. Shipping costs/wasted materials - I understand keeping this safe during shipping, but I ordered 6 hp printer cartridges and received a box the size of a small microwave with umpteen pounds of peanuts…seriously, was that necessary?
5. Making/designing anything to be non-upgradeable. Forget your stupid warranty sticker, selling ‘certified’ upgradeable parts for electronics would be a market unto it’s own. Having to buy something completely new for one feature is retarded.

NO MORE CLOSED STANDARDS!!

The other day, I hooked up my atari to my 1080p LCD tv, and was able to play it in full glory. Do you think HDMI will still be available or even relevant in 25 years? Will anyone even have documentation on how to decrypt the thing?

Another side effect of closed standards is interoperability. What if i want to watch a move i bought in bluray on my ipod? Should i have to buy the movie for each consumer device that i purchase? That means i’m going to buy less movies, and less devices, because none of it interoperates properly when everone is relying on closed/proprietary standards!!

Say NO to DRM, say NO to closed standards, and NO to closed-source software.

http://www.defectivebydesign.org

Most annoying thing has to be non-compatability between products. I’ve already lost track of what is going to work with what! As a result i’m not spending money on new equipment as i’m not sure it is going to work the way i want it to. Long gone are the days when you could plug your tv into the tv-out port on your computer and all would work fine!

How about hounding the portable media device makers namel;y creative for making otherwise GREAT devices and then CRIPPLING them with horrendous software and even more horrendous interfaces that make NO SENSE. Why can we just now have simply DIRECTORY access to the device and simple USB Mass Storage interaction with the device. Why do they have to always over complicate and make proprietary interfaces and software that NO ONE ON EARTH WANTS Grrrr

rob t, your retarded. Okay, let me explain with small words. Blu Ray is a type of high definition. high definition is the kind of video that you can see lots of details. Like the pimples on Lindsy Lohan’s face. Most computer monitors are high definition. YOUR IPOD IS NOT HIGH DEFINITION. Ipod’s have what I would certainly call a crappy screen. It’s tiny. Period. And the TV shows you buy off of iTunes are crappy screen quality because they are meant to be watched on your iPod. Just try it. Buy a TV show, and watch it full screen on your computer. It looks horrendous. There is no way in hell that you could ever get ANY high definition quality viewing material out of an iPod screen.

Okay, I hate video games based on damn movies. It’s like, who the hell wants to play The Polar Express, the video game, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or Astro Boy. I mean, they make these stupid video games just to make money, when they don’t even take into consideration the fact that video gamers only like REAL video games. And some VG’s based on movies ARE really good. Like the spider-man games. Those rock!
So please tell them off for me to do a better job, or no job at all with, Rocky Balboa: The Ass Kicking Chronicles.

How about just standing by your product? I’ve gone through two gateway monitors in a few months and now I have to pay for shipping and insurance to send this last one back to them. Oh yeah, they also suggested that I buy one of their special boxes to send it back to them in. If you build a crappy product you should simply replace it, bottom line. Next time I’ll shop at Costco.

Rebates! Rebates! Rebates!
As I have been ordering parts to build a computer I have had to do over 15 MIRs. They are seriously annoying. Some also require you to go online and fill information there and only god know what else they will come up next with. If they did just cut the crap and gave instant rebates some much time and money would be saved. I know that I would have saved a lot more if there were instant rebates since I would also be saving on tax. CA tax kills most deals.

HD and home theater, I’m looking at you.

Open up the utility/settings menu on your product. Hand the remote to your mom, giver her a task - and shut up. Videotape this and show it at numerous meetings. Encourage everyone at work to do the same. Create an internal web site about usability, and collect your results for everyone to see.

To partly solve this problem, do not allow your engineers to design and implement these menus. Have proper user interface and graphic designers make a beautiful, functional menu that’s as attractive as the product itself.

If the device can have other stuff plugged in to it, said stuff should be automatically recognized and configured. Think of your device as a funny looking robot. How helpful could the robot be, about helping the customer use itself?

It’s estimated that fully half your HD customers are watching standard-def and have no idea it’s not the high-def they paid for. This is complete failure of an entire industry.

Have the display show what kind of signal the program is, by default, for the first few weeks of operation, then have the info fade out after a few seconds. Have the device offer to group programs by signal type.

If you don’t pull your collective heads out, there’s a good chance that Apple or someone else is going to solve these problems, and clean your clock for you. Of course, Macworld is next week, it may already be too late. :-)

I’d like to see portable electronic devices designed to survive a fall of at least one metre onto concrete or two metres onto carpet.

I don’t appreciate it when companies knowingly sacrifice usability for modest income increases. Almost everybody does this to some degree, and as examples i’ll bring up the things that irritate me on a daily basis: LG and Apple Corp.(.?) Part of what pisses me off about these two is that they design such excellent products otherwise.

First, LG. Specifically their phones. Specifically every LG phone i’ve ever owned (and i keep going back because they do make some good phones). And even more specifically their damn keybindings. You can’t change anything! Not that i can tell. (And i’d be extremely happy to be made an idiot on this one, just to find out i’m wrong). I would just assume that this was a result of crappy UI iteration except for the fact they they always do have a shortcut menu somewhat easily available (so they at least know that people want to be able to set up shortcuts) and always at least one of the keys are bound to some sort of completely useless marketplace dealio. Usually the most prominent key. I could accept locked key bindings if it seemed like they were really trying to be useful. Grudgingly. But this is just blatant exploitation.

Regarding apple, i mostly just loathe this one aspect of iTunes that doesn’t let you sync the library to a folder. The only way to get new music automatically into itunes is to buy it from the iMS or to let itunes rip it. Anything else: downloaded/pirated music, music from my friends’ bands, music from mp3 discs, etc. has to be manually imported. I’m sure that the specific level of irritating changes for different people. For me, personally, it is hugely irritating. Partially because i have to spend time finding things that should just be there, and partially because this has no non-exploitative goals, that i can think of. It can’t even be that difficult; literally(?) every other music player on the market has that functionality. So yeah, if you get the chance would you ask the steve why itunes is crippleware?

I’m a baby boomer. There are lots of us. We buy things.

We are not stupid, we are not tech-phobic.

But — it is true that our eyesight and fine motor control may not be what they once were. So — simplify. Larger controls, no more tiny print on black buttons on black equipment.

Guess what — we like iPods!

How about order fulfillment on release of a new product? I’ll see my Asus eee at CES before Amazon can fulfill the order. *sigh*