Apple's Contempt for South East Asia

Apple is of course a US owned and US-centric company. No, let's correct that, it is a California-centric company. Or, more accurately, a California Gay Left Supremacist company. It certainly holds Asia in contempt despite producing its products there.

Apple featured a promotional video on its YouTube channel which took place in Thailand in what was meant to be a funny video about four characters who had to cater to their boss in America who was ordering services from Thailand.

The video faced widespread backlash for being outdated and promoting tropes about Thailand being a backward, chaotic country portraying an image that is reminiscent of the US Vietnam mercenaries stay in Thailand with prostitutes and so on.

Taking its time to respond to criticism, after widespread negative reports featuring across even Western Tech Media outlets, it pulled the video or made it private. That Thailand's western backed Prime Minister found the video OK, just shows also how out of touch with the national culture its own political system is, as almost anywhere today.

But this is not the only measure of Apple's contempt for Thailand and the region. Try to purchase an Apple Watch Series 9, for example, or an iPhone SE3. These current devices are not available from Apple in Thailand, due to Tim Apple's policy of "holding no, or minimum local inventory".

Thus, anyone wishing to purchase anything other than the few majorly promoted iPhones or MacBooks will have to wait for them to arrive from China, via Singapore. And forget about Apple's "Environmental" policies: this is all propaganda.

Just like the propaganda about Apple's campaigns for "gay rights" with its "PRODUCT RED" agenda controversial participation and its "water proof" IP ratings: those ratings are only valid at the time of order, and quickly disintegrate.

After even one year, or just outside the standard guarantee period, water proof Apple Watches cannot even be worn in the shower, let alone 10m below water. Of course, Apple don't tell you that, since it's money you will pay for repairs, or extended coverage warranty.

Back to the other fake claim of Apple which is being "environmentally friendly", something they make much of in their advertising and failure to supply customers with required parts, their recycling and other policies. These are much akin to the "electric cars" and other money making ventures of capitalists in the name of the environment.

In actual fact these policies don't stand up to scrutiny. Again, thanks to Tim Apple's idea of holding no or minimal local inventory, what happens if you order, let's say, an iPhone SE in Thailand? And together with it a protective case, earphones, and charger?

Firstly, a week or so later, you'll receive the protective case, all on its own, in a large box with lots of protective packaging. Completely unnecessary for such a small and light weight and allegedly durable and resistant piece of rubbery plastic.

Then, some days after that, you'll receive the charger, in yet more packaging, and of course also delivered by US firms such as DHL, with all the exhaust and pollution that takes to cross the country to the remote location where it was ordered.

Still no phone, which finally arrives some days after that, along with the headphones. So, three deliveries, at a speed that initially you are thinking was by delivery on environmentally friendly bicycles, but then you find out it was aircraft from China and Singapore, and fossil fuel vans crossing the country from Bangkok.

And as if yet more proof was needed of Apple's contempt for South East Asia, in Thailand, there are also many foreigners living and working who have not mastered the admittedly difficult language, so Apple provides a menu to press an option for "English" or "Thai". You press the English option, then receive the menu in English.

You then select your choice, for example, Technical Support. Then you are yet again asked which language to select, English or Thai, and you select English. You then end up with long menu options which are in Thai language, not English and you have to press buttons randomly in the hope of arriving at someone who can then transfer you.

This issue has been reported to Apple dozens of times by users in Thailand for over a year and nothing has been done about fixing something as simple as a customer service phone option menu. Apple Thailand claimed it is because of a lack of English speaking staff out of hours, but this occurs also during the day, during office hours.

Do we still need more examples of Apple's neglect of Thailand and even its non-Thai speaking customers there? There are actually a great many great support agents who speak perfectly adequate English, but they're not "qualified" or "authorized" to provide English language support. Clearly Apple needs to revise those policies.

Calls then get transferred to agents overseas, sometimes even in the USA, and those are often unequipped to deal with problems relating to Thailand. For example, one Apple customer was kept waiting in a hotel for several days for a "return box" to arrive, which never did, since that service is offered inside USA but not Thailand.

In fact, that customer eventually travelled to Malaysia in order to try to fix his Series 4 Watch which is not "End of Life" and thus supposed to be supported by Apple for another year. It has been broken for over a year, repaired (attempted) countless times at expense by a Thailand "Authorized Apple Service Agent", to no effect.

Battery replaced, shows 100% and depletes rapidly even after resets, the "100% full" false display bug, and, does not even update software. The issue resulted in tens of hours of calls to Apple Support agents, with no results. Finally taken to Malaysia, the service agent said the motherboard is damaged, repairs would be too costly.

We could go on and on about Apple's contempt for the world outside California, but we think you get the picture and would soon get bored.