Apple Reporter

Two Apple Store employees have been charged with stealing 332 iPhones from the Mall in Rockingham Park Apple Store. According to Salem, New Hampshire police, Joshua Garrand and Christopher Nashed stole $132,468 worth of iPhones and sold them on the black market.

Nashed is being held on $250,000 bail at Rockingham County jail, while Garrand is at Essex County Jail in Middlesex, Massachusetts under charges of “fugitive from justice”. From the Eagle Tribune:

Garrand and Nashed were taken into custody at their homes yesterday afternoon without incident.

“These (phones) are in very high demand,” said Deputy police Chief William Ganley.

Police wouldn’t say whether the men were selling the phones online or how sophisticated their operation was. Investigators were first contacted by the store in early January. Salem police Sgt. Steve Malisos dug through store records and spent three months on the case.”

As much as we all love the Apple Store employees, it seems some of them are just bad Apples… (bad, I know). This reinforces the truth about the iPhone craze and really all Apple products in general. It seems that Apple products cause a kind of craze, and this story is really the same as when you read about children getting their iPod stolen, or a man getting killed over his hot new tech product.

Either way, these two guys are making my dream job look really lame; if they are really looking to make some more money, they should’ve tried making their own Apple or finding the next big thing in tech, stealing from your place of work and reselling the goods is definitely lame, especially when it’s an iPhone. Potential iPhone buyers, careful where you buy that iPhone: Who knows if it’s one of the 332 stolen iPhones.

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TUAW reports that reader B. Ioffe was told by former President Bill Clinton as he signed his iPhone that Clinton too was an iPhone user. Apparently, the iPhone was given to him by Steve Jobs himself. While this is not “breaking” news, it’s interesting to note that the iPhone is becoming very mainstream, no doubt thanks to Apple’s brilliant marketing of the product.

Thanks to TUAW for the picture and story.

Digg, the popular social news website, is full of good Apple stories that are just waiting to be covered. Some of them are informational, but others, like this one, are just funny.

Billy at An Error Occurred While Processing This Directive had the interesting experience of wandering into his local Apple Store in NYC at 3 A.M. Of course, at 3 in the morning, there’s bound to be some strange people wandering about (speculation - Windows users dissatisfied with Vista).

Read the full story here: Link

After a series of power outages in the Northwest, my Macbook Pro was left a little messed up. By messed up, I mean that it wouldn’t turn on unless it was plugged in via Magsafe adapter. Realizing that this, combined with the broken fan that had been ailing my Macbook for the 10 months I’ve owned it, probably warranted a call to Apple support, I promptly began my phone call into 1-800-MYA-PPLE. The first thing I noticed was that instead of using the standard “Press 1 for etc., two for etc.,) I was told to say the name of my product. “Macbook Pro” elicited the “Sorry, what did you say?” response. Obviously, they aren’t using the same speech recognition as their operating systems. After about 5 minutes of navigating their automated systems, I was put on hold, with an estimated 15 minutes of wait time. After 25 minutes of horrible waiting music (think Nickelback and fake Oasis), I was connected to an Apple Customer support technician.

Being a 14-year old kid, mostly on customer service lines I am treated like an idiot. I was used to this, even though it infuriates me. For the first time I can remember, I was treated like I should be: like any other Apple customer. The two problems with my MBP were promptly addressed, and he promised a package for me to return my Macbook Pro back to them with in less than two days. The box came today, almost 48 hours since I hung up with them. This is how customer service should be, I have now decided. Kudos to Apple for their amazing customer support, and kudos for helping a broke teenager repair his Macbook Pro for absolutely free. Anyone else have any other Tech Support experience they want to share?

This video found on Youtube takes place in 1984, at an annual Apple shareholder meeting. An ecstatic and almost tearful Steve Jobs and his new creation, the Macintosh computer (known now as the Macintosh 128k) are met with standing ovations and wild cheering. It’s a good reminder of how far Apple has come, from a group of 3 guys assembling Apple I’s per order to a multi-billion dollar corporation. Enjoy.

Link if embed isn’t working.

From a cartoon I enjoy, Ctrl-Alt-Delete: