BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

Technology is a very good thing. It may help you in your everyday life, pay for your house and meals, get you connected. It may also be a source of the biggest annoyance in your life. Last couple of months I was traveling a lot, so I decided to swap my HTC Advantage for smaller Samsung BlackJack smartphone. Typing a huge blog post ain’t fun on a little keyboard that any smartphone posses, especially on a tiny Samsung buttons. But (as in any such story) I was almost done…

Now I know that holding “backspace” button for longer then 2 seconds in Notepad on Samsung BlackJack deletes the note without the ability to restore it. Cost me 35 minutes to figure that out.

Be aware.

Everyone knows how contemporary cash register looks like. It’s a beast with tiny monochrome screen, full size computer keyboard with credit card reader and printer, that spits out couple of yards of specially crafted cash register paper anytime you go and buy a bag of groceries. God forbid you enter Staples/BestBuy/CompUSA – those will just sink you in a cash register tape. People who man registers look to me like machine gunners of World War II, constantly reloading their things as they run out of ammo. All the registers in the store are tied into a network that stores orders, customer information, any promotions I used ever since the store opened and so on.

Why am I still getting two yards of paper with purchase? Just so the nervously shaking guy with a pen can scribe something on it when I exit the store? Oh, wait, in case I want to exchange something – I need to bring the merchandise and the receipt. No exchange without the receipt. They know where I live, they know which credit card I used, they know my home and work phone numbers, they have a history of my purchases since the Big Bang, they even have the whole process on camera (now there’s cameras everywhere, especially pointing at the cash registers) but they still need those two yards of paper back when I bring back the merchandise. Why?

With so much recording going on, I don’t need to be handed the paper at all. Or at least – don’t have to keep it around. Sure, there’s a need for store security to check on how many items I am carrying out of the store, but that doesn’t require using that much paper. And for return – I should be able to conduct returns/exchanges using the credit card that I purchased the items with. Obviously, people who pay cash should get the full-blown receipt anyhow, but for regular folks who don’t suffer from paranoia and prefer convenience – we shouldn’t be suffering from receipts collection disorder.

As GigaOM writes (linking to Steve Job’s statement on Apple’s web site):

Now there’s a way to annoy the people who have stuck by the company through thick and thin. Today, realizing that Apple’s goodwill was at risk, Jobs announced a $100 credit to all early iPhone buyers, promising to do the right thing.

I see this as another marketing trick targeted specifically at Apple fans. They WOULD use this credit one way or another. As a different example, myself – the iPhone is the first product by Apple I have purchased in my entire life (and not even for myself), such credit is absolutely and perfectly useless.

Good thing I bought mine less then a week ago.