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Aw grandad, I asked for an iPad and you got me an iPod

I thought it was rather reasonably priced

You'd think Brits receiving Apple products for Christmas would be happy to find the pricey kit in their stockings, but not all of them were.

Searches for returns policies on Christmas Day in the UK were 250 per cent higher than last year, says Experian Hitwise, the web analytics company, and searches for the Apple returns policy topped the list.

Experian stressed to The Register that searchers were as likely to be looking to swap their kit as return it:

"We are not saying that Apple was the most unwanted product, since Apple products were actually the most searched for pre Xmas," said spokeswoman Alexandra Banks. "We think this has to with people not getting the right model, colour or product."

James Murray, Digital Insight Manager for Experian, suggested that the dissatisfaction could have been down to not-so-tech-savvy relatives getting mixed up in the Apple Store:

Interestingly Apple was the most searched for returns policy on Christmas Day this year and yet five of the top 20 Christmas gifts this year were Apple products. This is probably a case of parents and grandparents confusing the various models of iPads and iPods available, as although an iPad Mini and an iPod Nano might sound similar, they are clearly very different products.

Or maybe everyone just wanted to get a Samsung instead.

After Apple, Brits were also searching for returns policies from Argos, followed by Harrods, Debenhams and Toys R Us. ®

Does that mean that Apple can now sue itself for patent infringement, as Apple's products are similar enough to Apple's products to confuse the average customer, thus making Apple lose revenue or however the usual lawyer bait goes?

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Money to burn and no sense of what really matters

Last week a news story local to where I live, ran an article of an unfortunate couple who were burgled twice in days and had their entire haul of presents stolen, The most shocking part of this story is not that they were sadly burgled, but the sheer disgusting amount of money they wasted on what looked like three four or five year old children; the value came to something approaching THREE THOUSAND POUNDS!!! When I was that age in the mid 1970s, I got things like a teddy bear and a few simple low value presents. I appreciate that the world was much less technology driven then, but I have an uncle who is a genuine scientific electronics and computing boffin, and was always at the cutting edge of technology and brought many interesting things for himself and later for me, but even then I still never had hundreds or thousands lavished on me. This has never bothered me though, because what I did get was interesting and taught me a lot, plus I had many years of pleasure from them. During my teens I saved up and paid for just about everything I ever owned, including computers and HiFi etc.

People these days are too busy leading self indulgent lives, chasing ever larger houses, cars, holidays and so on. To pay for all of this they have to work every hour of the day, often with miles of commuting and meanwhile their poor neglected children suffer lives lacking real love and devotion. I'm glad my mother was of the previous generations, where staying home to properly raise the family mattered the most. Good on ya mum!

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No, it's just that children in this day and age are over indulged and spoiled, that parents try to over compensate for the lack of 'quality time' they have with their children.

So much for our fragmented society.

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Anonymous Coward

... I suggested to my son's ...

Oops ... apologies for the stray apostrophe!

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Re: a simple explanation

I asked my child to read that comment when she wouldn't tidy her room and I insisted she should. I told her, "you might think I'm being mean and controlling, however I could be really mean and controlling like this parent."

She still replied I was equally as mean and controlling though...

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