Sahar Sabet (pictured above) is an American citizen, 19 years old, a student at the University of Georgia, and she owns an Apple iPhone and a MacBook Pro. She recently visited a local Apple Store with her uncle to buy an iPad as a gift for her cousin. While there she spoke to her uncle using her mother tongue: Farsi. The employees working at the Apple Store, recognizing that Farsi is the language that Iranians speak, refused to sell her an iPad citing rules set forth by the United States government that say Apple can’t sell their hardware to Iran. The exact line the employee used: “I just can’t sell this to you. Our countries have bad relations.” Sahar didn’t make a scene, she just sunk her head down, teared up a little, left, and just ordered an iPad off the internet. Instead of staying silent about the treatment she received, she called her local news station and told them her story. They made a short video which you can watch on their website.
There are multiple ways to interpret this story. If you’re a hardcore supporter of a smartphone platform that isn’t iOS, you’re probably thinking to yourself that what happened to Sahar proves that Apple is indeed the worst company on the face of this planet. If on the other hand you have a shrine in your garage dedicated to Steve Jobs and own multiple copies of the authorized Isaacson biography, then chances are you think Apple Store employees were just following the rules, so they didn’t make a mistake. Here’s our opinion: Apple tries their best not to hire idiot douchebags, but sometimes it happens. Said douchebags slip up, stir up a bit of controversy, and then a week later no one remembers what happened in the first place.
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