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It's funny. Laugh. Businesses United Kingdom Apple

UK Apple Shop Forced To Change Its Name 174

Posted by timothy from the but-but-but-the-semantic-web dept.
tlhIngan writes "The Apple Shop, in Norfolk, UK is a little corner store that sells apple products. Not Apple products, but apple products, in this case, cider. However, it's been forced to change its name to the Norfolk Cider Shop. However, the name change did not come from any lawsuit from Apple (the Cupertino one, that is), nor has there been any evidence that Apple (Cupertino) knew about them. Instead, they're changing their name because their phones have been ringing constantly from people seeking help with their Apple (Cupertino) products. Apple (Cupertino) opened an Apple store in 2009 in the nearby (larger) town of Norwich."
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UK Apple Shop Forced To Change Its Name More

UK Apple Shop Forced To Change Its Name

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  • So by forced, they mean chose (Score:5, Informative)

    by Stewie241 ( 1035724 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @06:53PM (#42924293)

    So by forced to change their name, what they really mean is they chose to change their name because people were mistaking them for the Apple Store?

    • Re:So by forced, they mean chose (Score:5, Funny)

      by djl4570 ( 801529 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @07:09PM (#42924383) Journal
      Forced by a meatspace DDOS attack on their phone number.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

      They should have partnered with Samsung/Microsoft and got them to open a shop next door. When all the people looking to buy a new tablet or laptop turn up and realize they are in the wrong place the first thing they see is the handy shop next door selling the very thing they wanted.

      People should know better though. Apple always open "stores" (American), not shops (British).

    • Missed a golden opportunity. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 16, 2013 @08:25PM (#42924853)

      How much money could they have made letting some guy from a PC maker come in and be their receptionist? He could listen to their problems, then lead them on a chase through trouble-shooting land, and say at the end, "well, maybe you should have bought a PC, genius!) And hang UP. Then that person, angry at what he BELIEVES is Apple Corp. tech support, and switches to a PC. Apple (of Cupertino) sufffers, eventually failing.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Cinder6 ( 894572 )

        I think you might be overestimating the influence of this little fruit shop...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Meski ( 774546 )
        Alternatively, you could cold-call people at dinnertime, pretend to be from Microsoft, and tell them there's something wrong with their computer. No-one would *ever* have done that before.

    • Forced would work fine in this situation. They felt they had no choice but to change their name in order to avoid the large volume of confused calls.

      • Forced would work fine in this situation. They felt they had no choice

        No, no it wouldn't. They can have felt forced, but it doesn't mean they were forced.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Xenx ( 2211586 )
          So, if someone places a gun to your head and tells you to [whatever] you don't think you've been forced into it? I mean, you still have a choice.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Meski ( 774546 )
            I'd call their, and your, bluff.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Myopic ( 18616 ) *

          You are right, if you deny the possibility of ever being forced to do anything. Do you deny the entire notion of force?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Myopic ( 18616 ) *

      Only if you deny the possibility of being forced to do anything. Name something that counts to you as "being forced" and I bet I can deny it as easily you just did.

  • Impressive! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gazbo ( 517111 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @06:54PM (#42924297)
    I mean I guess the summary could have been written in a more cunty way, but I don't see how. So high fives all round!
    • Your description beats anything I could have said. Sorry, Slashdot! I'm worried why I even come here any more.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Titus Groan ( 2834723 )
      you sir, have summed up everything in a very eloquent manner. remember when /. was edited by people with a brain?
    • Speaking of which, Beaver College [wikipedia.org] changed their name to Arcadia University: *insert witty response here*. And you're welcome.

    • I mean I guess the summary could have been written in a more cunty way, but I don't see how. So high fives all round!

      Challenge accepted!

      TFS could have made a snide generalization about how dumb typical apple users would have to be to confuse a cider store with a computer store.

      Or maybe a bad pun: cider/cyber or apple/app springs to mind...

      There is always more cuntiness readily available in the world.

      The problem the Norfolk Cider shop will have now is all the people calling them up trying to get pear cider, when they are an apple cider store which no longer has the word apple in their name. Oh the humanity!

  • This is News (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    NEWS FOR NERDS!!!111!!1

  • What's that sound I hear? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Twinbee ( 767046 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @07:05PM (#42924357)
    ...Almost like the roar of a thousand pitchforks being summoned out, and then calmly put back. (I admit to being a little annoyed for a second myself).

  • ... and I say Apple ... let's call the whole thing off.

  • apple is still evil (Score:5, Funny)

    by alen ( 225700 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @07:19PM (#42924433)

    i mean who names a computer company after a fruit, so all the fruit sellers get spammed with calls about computers?

    • I should totally steal their idea and start a tech company in the UK called Orange.

      Oh, wait...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Quirkz ( 1206400 )
        Call yourself Lemon. Surely nobody would take poorly to that?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • McDonalds verses McDonalds (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Grayhand ( 2610049 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @07:25PM (#42924451)
    It's a very different case since the corporation wasn't the bad guy but it made me think of another case. The corporation McDonalds once sued the head of the McDonald clan for daring to have a restaurant called McDonald's in the UK. He pointed out he had no problem with the corporation using his family's name but found it odd he'd be sued for using his own name especially when he was the head of the clan. This case is sad since neither side was causing a conflict it was the customers that forced the name change.

    • Waiting to see what happens (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DaveAtFraud ( 460127 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @10:18PM (#42925401) Homepage Journal

      The little town of Empire, Colorado (about an hour west of Denver, on U.S. 40 headed toward Winter Park ski area) has an eatery/bar/town offices called "The Hard Rock Cafe". Empire was a hard rock mining town until most precious metal mining operations left the U.S. I'm thinking this place has been called the Hard Rock Cafe since long before the trendy, international chain took up the name. Haven't heard about any legal moves to make them change their name.

      Cheers,
      Dave

  • Apples (Score:4)

    by jgrahn ( 181062 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @07:28PM (#42924473)
    Now that I think of it, apples are vastly more important to me than Apple products. There are the blossoms in spring. The early kinds in August--September: Transparent Blanche, then Gyllenkrok Astrakan, Safstaholm. Later James Grieve, Aroma and many others. In October--November the nameless bitter kind which only grows in my home village and is good for baking in the oven with syrup. And finally, the apples which last into winter: Ingrid Marie, Cox Orange, Gloster.

    The many forms and uses of apples is a small miracle. And yes, it's technology of a kind.

    • You forgot the good ol' Red Delicious. Possibly on purpose? In the US anyway it's the epitome of the "industrial apple." I wouldn't be surprised to find it on sale around the globe.

      I don't recognize any of the varieties on your list but then I'm anything but a epicure. There's no less than 7.5k cultivars of apples so it's not surprising that a list from another country might be full of names that are unfamiliar.

      Funny: To begin researching this I highlighted the word 'Apple' and right-clicked in Chrome;

      • Arkansas Blacks [orangepippin.com], if you can find them, are a nice substitute for boring ol’ Red Delicious, the beefsteak tomato of apples. They’re a lovely dark color, more interesting flavor than RD, and they last forever hanging around at room temperature without even getting mealy.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by vakuona ( 788200 )

      And you left out the McIntosh!

    • Are all those apples being raised in a walled garden?

    • That's an interesting list of apples. The only one of those I've heard of is Cox's Orange Pippin, and I've tried a lot of apples. I'm guessing you are Swedish and those are local varieties? My favorite apples are Snowsweet, Spigold, and Pink Pearl. If you like apples you should definitely seek those varieties out. It is pretty amazing how many different varieties of apples (and other crops for that matter) there are and what you can do with them. Crop cultivation & use is most certainty a technolo

  • One of my colleagues has a similar story. He used to work for UPS and one day got a call (or someone near him got a call, not sure) from a person complaining about receiving upwards of 30 calls per hour from people asking to have UPS pick up their packages. The problem was that the person's phone number happened to be (local area code)-742-5877 and all of the callers should have been dialing 1-800-742-5877 (1-800 PICK UPS).

    The individual wanted UPS to do something to "fix" the problem, something that did

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      The individual wanted UPS to do something to "fix" the problem, something that didn't require him to get a new phone number.

      Or he'll sell it to FedEx?

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cffrost ( 885375 )

          Question: Does the user of that number actually "own" it? In other words, does one user have the rights to transfer that number to another user, or only forfeit it in exchange from another via phone provider? I'm not sure phone numbers are transferable like domain names are.

          Apparently they can be transferred (sometimes, at least); I could have sworn someone tried to sell 212-867-5309 on eBay but was unable to transfer "ownership." Looking to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/867-5309/Jenny#Popularity_and_litigation [wikipedia.org] for a citation, I saw no reference to 212, but a 201 instance was successfully sold and transferred. My guess is that it probably depends on the carrier and/or local regulations.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          Good question. I effectively 'own' my home phone number. Due to number portability regulations, I can transfer it to any service provider I want. If I find a service provider that allows me to resell that number, who would stop the transaction? If one refuses, I can just switch to the next one.

          Ain't the free market wonderful?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Quirkz ( 1206400 )
      I live in southwestern Colorado and have an internal extension at my company of 5058. Just across the border from us in New Mexico is the 505 area code, and we do some business down there. On average once a day one of my co-workers tries to dial New Mexico without punching 8 to get an outside line, and dials me instead. This is made worse by a phone system that doesn't insert the code if you try to call back the number on caller ID unless you punch some extra buttons.

      I say average 1/day, but in reality i

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by adolf ( 21054 )

        This is made worse by a phone system that doesn't insert the code if you try to call back the number on caller ID unless you punch some extra buttons.

        Ew. What phone system is this? I had this working on our old Altigen system, and I'm sure I could make it work on our "more recent" Comdial (which may or may not be more recent, depending on whether you're counting manufacturing date or initial design date).

        Please let me know so I can avoid it or research it more properly in the future: The callback button

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Quirkz ( 1206400 )
          I think it's Cisco Call Manager. Other than this one thing, I don't have any problems with it. It does redial calls as they're identified by caller ID, couldn't tell you why it doesn't automatically edit the outside calls to include the 8.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by adolf ( 21054 )

            I'd bitch at the phone guys, then. They're doing their job poorly.

            It can automatically insert the 8. It can also insert (or not) a 1 for long distance when needed.

      • Out of curiosity, why haven't you just had your internal extension changed? It seems an especially pertinent question given this story.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Quirkz ( 1206400 )
          I don't think anything else has much sympathy for me. Also, it's a tech support number and they don't change those lightly, because they've got to retrain all the customers.

  • Footage of one of the incidents has been discovered. [youtube.com]

  • as to the real reasons because of settling out of court? The name, along with selling a product that has round corners when sliced, makes me wonder.

  • Tell customers ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @08:41PM (#42924965)

    ... you'd be more than happy to help them out with their problems if they just bring their apples in.

    Just put them in the cider press and Voila! No more problems!

  • I am a cider drinker
    I drinks it all of the day
    I am a cider drinker
    It soothes all me troubles away
    Oo'ar oo'ar ay, Oo'ar oo'ar ay

  • Sounds like a missed opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)

    by az1324 ( 458137 ) on Saturday February 16, 2013 @09:33PM (#42925231)

    TAS: "Hello, The Apple Shop"
    Caller: "I'm having trouble with..."
    TAS (interrupts): "We have a special offer going on today that I highly recommend. It's our exclusive Cider Club membership which will deliver our latest products to you every month, year-round. And when you come into our shop you will get VIP service at our Juice (slur pronunciation) Bar. This is a limited time offer."
    Caller: "Wow that sounds great how much is this Cyber (don't correct them) Club?"
    TAS: "It's just £199 for the year, billed on a recurring basis. I can take your credit card information now."
    Caller: "Sounds too good to be true! Sign me up!"

    • Good idea, but people who have broken products are probably going to be in a bad mood and aren't going to put up with that.

    • Your idea is funny but it is unethical. Good people do not deceive. They actively try to ensure that the potential customer knows what they are buying.

  • BS (Score:2)

    by csumpi ( 2258986 )
    "people seeking help with their Apple (Cupertino) products"

    Apple products just work. That's why they are so expensive.

    • Apple products just work. That's why they are so expensive.

      See, that's the problem with Apple products. While other products work great, Apple products just work. ;-)

  • The shop was in Wroxham Barns, near the city of Norwich. Both are in the county of Norfolk.

  • POTS is so last millenium. Can we please get with the times? Then people can call sip:apple.com and not be confused with sip:apple.cider.com

  • Tech blogger, tech conference speaker and JS Bin developer Remy Sharp has a Twitter handle that made lots of people think that he was the band R.E.M. When the band disbanded, he got tons of tweets, so many that it was excruciating wading through them all for tweets that were actually intended for him. But he didn't give up his Twitter handle.

    You don't HAVE to capitulate to mass misunderstandings.

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