{"id":22893,"date":"2011-05-01T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T10:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/?p=22893"},"modified":"2026-09-02T01:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T00:04:08","slug":"apples-approach-to-damage-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/01\/apples-approach-to-damage-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple\u2019s Approach To Damage Control"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s no doubting that the so called&nbsp; \u201clocationgate\u201d issue, originally coined to refer to the collecting of location data from an iOS device without the original permission of the device\u2019s owner, has been blown well out of proportion by the media over the last few weeks \u2013 and Apple knows this.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That\u2019s why, instead of&nbsp;releasing a statement&nbsp;to clarify the issue immediately,&nbsp;<strong>they waited a week.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apple approaches damage control like a field day at a marketing agency. Sure, not all media attention will be positive all of the time, but with a brand name&nbsp;<em>(reality-distortion field?)<\/em>&nbsp;as strong and as robust as the one Apple has built for itself over the years, bad press isn\u2019t necessarily a&nbsp;<em>bad<\/em>&nbsp;thing anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chris Rawson for&nbsp;<em>TUAW<\/em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110503041849\/http:\/\/www.tuaw.com\/2011\/04\/30\/how-apple-does-damage-control\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reports:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Typically, whenever something goes wrong with a company or its products and services, the company will try to head off a media free-for-all by releasing a brief statement that usually does only two things: it acknowledges that a problem exists and promises more information at a later date. But&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110503041849\/http:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/159548\/2011\/04\/apple_crisis_management.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as Jason Snell at Macworld notes<\/a>, Apple doesn\u2019t work that way. He notes that Apple\u2019s response to the so-called \u201clocationgate\u201d issue was almost identical to its reaction to \u201cantennagate\u201d last year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead of doing what everyone expected them to do, which was acknowledge the location tracking issue and promise a fix, Apple let the media have a field day for a week before releasing its official statement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s no doubting that the so called&nbsp; \u201clocationgate\u201d issue, originally coined to refer to the collecting of location data from an iOS device without the original permission of the device\u2019s owner, has been blown well out of proportion by the media over the last few weeks \u2013 and Apple knows this.&nbsp; That\u2019s why, instead of&nbsp;releasing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2786,174,2563],"tags":[4,3531,3532,3501,3530,399],"class_list":["post-22893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-blog","category-blog","category-tidbits","tag-apple","tag-damage-control","tag-field-day","tag-iphone","tag-locationgate","tag-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22894,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22893\/revisions\/22894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arronhirst.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}