Apple sorry for deluge of emails

By ADAM GIFFORD

Apple distributor Renaissance has egg on its face after a mailout went wrong, clogging email boxes.

"We stuffed up. We are sending out an apology and we are trying to ensure it doesn't happen again," said Apple division general manager Paul Johnston.

The mistake came in two parts. The first was a breach of email etiquette, when a staff member sent an attachment as part of an invitation to an Apple roadshow next month.

"The attachment should have been about 50Kb, but it went out at far higher resolution - closer to 1Mb," Johnston said. "The person has been talked to ... "

The second mistake was that the original email was configured so all replies went to the entire list.

What began as complaints about the size of the attachment - with polite suggestions that a link to the document on a website would have been better - quickly became a slanging match about the amount of unsolicited emails piling up.

Apple is having a popularity surge with its Mac OS X operating system and its lampstand-style iMac.

Johnston said that although the order backlog was almost cleared for the mid and upper-range models, buyers of the economy model must wait at least a month for delivery.