I just finally got around to unsubscribing from "New on iTunes" emails that I just kept deleting (yeah I'm lazy) and was taken to a page on an Apple web site that announced:

Your email address and/or subscription preferences have been updated. Please allow up to 10 days for any changes to take effect.

Just what the hell is going on in Apple's servers that it will take up to 10 days?

At least the message didn't start off with some faux emotion like another email that I unsubscribed from that actually started off with "*sniff* *sniff* we're sorry you are leaving ..."

I think that's mostly so they can send you just a few more emails without getting their asses sued, or being labeled spammers.

Or it's so in the off chance that they have an email blast being queued up at the same time as your unsubscription.. they don't get sued. Sending large volume (>10000) email blasts takes a lot more effort, and I'm sure they don't query the DB live for something like that. They'd query a snapshot.

gu3st:

Or it's so in the off chance that they have an email blast being queued up at the same time as your unsubscription.. they don't get sued. Sending large volume (>10000) email blasts takes a lot more effort, and I'm sure they don't query the DB live for something like that. They'd query a snapshot.

More likely they use a third party service to send the emails and only update the unsubscribe list once a week or so. Because it would be soo much work to integrate the unsubscribe page with the email provider using an API. This is Apple after all.

OzPeter:

I just finally got around to unsubscribing from "New on iTunes" emails that I just kept deleting (yeah I'm lazy) and was taken to a page on an Apple web site that announced:

Your email address and/or subscription preferences have been updated. Please allow up to 10 days for any changes to take effect.

Just what the hell is going on in Apple's servers that it will take up to 10 days?

Same thing as when they were supposed to rewrite their apology for lying about Samsung:

Apple tried to argue that it would take at least 14 days to put a corrective statement on the site – a claim that one judge said he "cannot believe".

Maybe that's really how long it takes them to update anything on their web systems after all.

DaveK:

OzPeter:

I just finally got around to unsubscribing from "New on iTunes" emails that I just kept deleting (yeah I'm lazy) and was taken to a page on an Apple web site that announced:

Your email address and/or subscription preferences have been updated. Please allow up to 10 days for any changes to take effect.

Just what the hell is going on in Apple's servers that it will take up to 10 days?

Same thing as when they were supposed to rewrite their apology for lying about Samsung:

Apple tried to argue that it would take at least 14 days to put a corrective statement on the site – a claim that one judge said he "cannot believe".

Maybe that's really how long it takes them to update anything on their web systems after all.

If whoever's Apple's head honcho wants a corrective statement put on the site today, it's going to be live today. 14 days, my lily-white ass. I'm assuming that a similar train of thought went through the court's mind at that time.

We have a few mailing lists at work. One of them has a large number of users and since we don't have dedicated bandwidth for sending mailing list emails, they are slowly sent out over several days. The queue is decided at the beginning and once the list has started, the DB isn't touched again. So you can still receive mails from the list even if you had unsubscribed several days earlier, but we are talking 2 or 3 days at the max.

Mole:

So you can still receive mails from the list even if you had unsubscribed several days earlier, but we are talking 2 or 3 days at the max.

 

Ditto here, but that's probably because what we deem a "large number" is probably several magnitudes smaller than their "large number".

toon:

If whoever's Apple's head honcho wants a corrective statement put on the site today, it's going to be live today.

My thoughts, too. If I was the judge, I'd have incarcerated the head honcho together with the lawyer until the corrective statement appears, just to see if Apple can expedite matters.

Then once the statement appears, I'd tell them it'll take 14 days to process the release papers...

 I wonder how long it took when Steve Jobs died to have his face on their front page.

Thank you all for ruining my rant with logic.

OzPeter:

Thank you all for ruining my rant with logic.

Always happy to help.

There's a server company we use and I just noticed this on their FAQ:

How quickly can capacity of a Virtual Machine be increased?

Capacity can be increased with a quick turnaround, usually within 5 business days.

??? I thought one big thing of virtual machines was instant upgrading? My old work used one that if you ordered an upgrade it would be done between clicking the order button and alt-tabbing to the ssh window to do a df or free.

Zemm:

??? I thought one big thing of virtual machines was instant upgrading? My old work used one that if you ordered an upgrade it would be done between clicking the order button and alt-tabbing to the ssh window to do a df or free.

If the server serves 1000 people and everyone requests a capacity increase, then there might be a need for user intervention.

Zemm:

I thought one big thing of virtual machines was instant upgrading?

I'm no expert but I'd say that that was dependent on how the server on which the VM's are running, is administered. If I would do that, I'd probably do it wrong and it'd take me about a week. I know that in big cloud providers, it's as easy as clicking a button; apparently, you can double your capacity and then halve it an hour later, and only pay for the hour you had the extra capacity. That's a pretty cool service if you ask me.

Zemm:

Capacity can be increased with a quick turnaround, usually within 5 business days.

??? I thought one big thing of virtual machines was instant upgrading? My old work used one that if you ordered an upgrade it would be done between clicking the order button and alt-tabbing to the ssh window to do a df or free.

 

The duration to perform an action should not be confused with the duration required to get around to it.

 

That company must be run by Calvin's dad

OzPeter:

I just finally got around to unsubscribing from "New on iTunes" emails that I just kept deleting (yeah I'm lazy) and was taken to a page on an Apple web site that announced:

Your email address and/or subscription preferences have been updated. Please allow up to 10 days for any changes to take effect.

Just what the hell is going on in Apple's servers that it will take up to 10 days?

At least the message didn't start off with some faux emotion like another email that I unsubscribed from that actually started off with "*sniff* *sniff* we're sorry you are leaving ..."

 Here's a worse form of that:  Somehow I got on a mailing list for Viacom.  Every once in a while they'll randomly start sending me email about a different Viacom TV channel or something:  country music TV, VH1, Nickelodeon, and so on, only substitute actual Viacom IP for stuff I've named incorrectly.  Hitting the unsubscribe link will let you unsub from THAT ONE TV channel's updates--in 10 days, just like OP's report.

 Then about a month later you'll get a new mail from another different Viacom IP.  There's no way to say "just stop sending me any email at all of any kind ever."