14 DAY TRIAL // Any company’s former employees are likely to be disgruntled for one reason or another, but for a handful of ex Apple staffers there is one common factor that makes them all hate the Cupertino giant – the iMessage flaw preventing texts from arriving on their newly-purchased Droids.
Some have speculated that the widely-reported iMessage bug that causes texts from iPhones to fail to arrive on Android is a tactic on behalf of Apple to keep people enclosed in its walled garden, a practice that some believe should be punishable by law. Case in point, some customers are actually suing.
A former Apple employee in the Dallas-Fort Worth area tells Business Insider, “I worked for Apple for over three years, mostly at the Genius Bar. I, of course, have seen numerous issues related to iMessage, however, this one has to be the worst by far.”
“It's interesting that it's being brought forth as a lawsuit, considering they will probably not get any damages from it, but it seems to be one of the only ways to really get a company's attention sometimes,” he says.
But whether or not Apple is indeed doing this on purpose, according to one former employee, the Cupertino giant has no reasons to rush out a fix and is taking its time.
This person, who is reportedly a former AppleCare Advisor, says, “this is not a surprise at all. ... Consumers were always calling in - complaining about this,” with the publication adding that “The staffer believes Apple isn't incentivized to fix the problem because it causes trouble for people who want to leave the ecosystem for other brands.” This, of course, is pure speculation.
An Apple store worker who recently left the company says she bought a Samsung Galaxy device and, because of the iMessage fiasco, she had to go back to using an iPhone.
“I myself am a former Apple employee and have almost one of each of Apple's products it is a very frustrating situation to be in,” she says.
Finally, BI cites similar stories from more than 400 people who talked to Apple’s existing Support staff, claiming “no fix was imminent” at the time the matter was brought up, and that “for customers who switch and discard their iPhones without shutting down iMessage properly, ‘we've exhausted all possible solutions’,” one Support employee reportedly said.
Be sure to take all this with a grain of salt as some of these statements could well be fabricated. Plus, most people are inclined to badmouth a former employer.