Our friends at
Crunch Gear are reporting that Apple's ire has been raised by an iPad 2 sales stunt pulled by Best Buy personnel. A Best Buy employee claims that the store was intentionally hoarding reserves and holding off on selling the supply it had in stock. Why? That much isn't clear. And it is, indeed, monumentally baffling.
When Apple got wind of Best Buy telling customers that supplies were depleted (even though they weren't), executives in Cupertino got angry. Very angry. Chief among the reported hotheads was Tim Cook, the acting chief in Steve Jobs' absence. If the report in question is presenting accurate information, here's what we know: Apple is "blacklisting" Best Buy on the iPad 2 for the time being.
The tipster says the Apple rep at his branch of Best Buy "confirmed the story." But much like the editorial discretion of Crunch Gear suggests, it's important to take this sort of report with a grain of salt until we start noticing a complete and utter lack of iPad 2s at Best Buy.
Incredibly, Best Buy is making no shortage of headlines in terms of angering Apple. Earlier this week it was reported that Best Buy pulled a controversial ad from the promotional page for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, a small but still established competitor of the iPad.
Quote:
The ad showed an iPad-like product and a keyboard duct-taped together. Next to it was the Transformer. Above the tablets were the words: “Like that. But better.” The Transformer has a clip-on keyboard, while the iPad does not come with a keyboard, although Apple sells keyboard docks for the device.
It isn't known if Apple had something to do with the yanked ad, but we can't imagine the boys and girls in Cupertino would let this one slide if they knew about it.
Source:
Crunch Gear,
PC World
