Who in their right mind would do something like this? Even the most technologically illiterate person I know understands how their Apple ID/Google Account works and that their purchases are tied to it. As for forgetting one's password, this is why just about every login form on the internet has a "Forgot Password" link/button.

This is NOT the norm.

I disagree. My wife doesn't use the Apple appstore, at all. If she wants or needs an app (or if I think she does and endeavor to put it on her phone), I have to do it myself. I never remember her Apple ID password, even though I set it. I am certain she doesn't know it, either.

No it's not. People may forget, but they don't rebuy things repeatadly.

Hi there, as a former phone support/trainer for apple support, people definitely buy things repeatedly!

I had one customer who thought each phone was effectively a burner, and he threw them out when he got a new one. He also made sure the apple store activated his phone (before all went that way) as he thought it was useless to have a computer with the phone (because why was he buying the phone then?).

This story and many like it popped up again and again until I realized that the majority of users are completely ignorant of even the smallest details of how the device or its internals work, its is mostly a fashion statement.

Surely the Apple Store would set up the new phone with his existing Apple ID, though? Even if they didn't, most people only have one e-mail address (that they know of?) and so will be forced into using the same account again whether they like it or not.

Just like the commenter at the same level, many times the customer would not bring in their previous phone and have little to no idea about what their email address even was.

The apple store will definitely attempt to gather that info, but at some point it is new account and have a great day!

You can create a new email address in the setup wizard. I know of people who set it up there and literally don't understand what they did, and don't attempt to remember it.

Somebody gave one of my students a fairly (< 1yr old) new laptop the other day because they got it loaded up with viruses, (virii?) There is a market segment with more money than brains, it is large.

Word is from Latin - Latin plural is viri. The double i would only occur if the stem already ends in i, such as radius: radi- + -us.

http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/WORDS.EXE?virus

In English the plural is viruses.

In Latin, "virus" is a mass noun, like "stuff", "water", or "poison", its original meaning. There is no attested plural. Being of originally Greek origin doesn't help matters.

In English, there's never a reason to use anything other than "viruses".

> Latin plural is viri

Actually, virus is a "mass noun" (uncountable) and has no plural. If it ever had a nominative plural it would be vira, and out of anything, viri is its genitive singular.

> Word is from Latin - Latin plural is viri.

No, that's the Latin plural of vir; viri means "men" not "poisons" ("virus" means "poison" in Latin.) [1]

http://www.google.com/#q=translate+viri+from+latin+to+englis...

Oops. I mistook the genitive listing in Whitaker for a plural.

I don't see how (a) one example of stupidity is representative for the populace at large and (b) how this particular example is relevant at all.

If one person is ignorant in one domain, that doesn't mean that person doesn't excel in another domain. Stupidity is relative.

E.g. my father can't use a computer and thinks his computer is broken whenever he has minor problems with it. On the other hand he has a perfect track record in managing government institutions and the family's business and he's also extremely good at handling money and being a cheap bastard. He never learned to use a computer simply because he can delegate such tasks to his subordinates (or me).

And yet you've placed him in the bucket of people with more money than brains, simply because somebody on this planet sold his computer because it was virused.

Viruses.

People spend hundreds of dollars on DVDs and Books that they only use one time, apps probably fall in a similar category for a lot of consumers.