Apple has added banners to its United States website and iTunes Store in an effort to encourage its customers to donate to those affected by Hurricane Harvey.
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Similar to past relief efforts, users can choose to donate $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, or $200, and Apple will transfer 100 percent of the proceeds to the American Red Cross, which is providing relief efforts for people in the path of Hurricane Harvey. All donations will be processed as normal iTunes purchases through a connected Apple ID.
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted about the donations early this morning, as rescue workers in Houston and other parts of southeast Texas attempt to help residents trapped in their homes by "catastrophic flooding." Harvey made landfall late Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane and has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, which is expected to stay in the region over the next few days.
Prayers for Texas and all those affected by #HurricaneHarvey. Join us in the relief effort by donating: https://t.co/QLBMFOjaDG — Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 27, 2017
Top Rated Comments
I had a look at other companies websites to see what they're doing:
* Microsoft - nothing
* Google - nothing
* Amazon - nothing
* Visa - nothing
* MasterCard - nothing
* American Express - nothing
* Target - nothing
* Walmart - nothing
Wow.
Now, remember that Houston is the oil capital of the US, with no less than 25 Fortune 500 companies headquartered there. Surely they'd step up and offer web resources to help their local community organize and recover? Wouldn't you think? (Self interest, if nothing else.)
So I checked the websites for the ten largest Houston corporations (the number below in bold is their Fortune 500 ranking). These are big, multinational, oil-rich players who pump money out of the ground 24x7:
* 4 Phillips 66 ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_66')
* 45 ConocoPhillips ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConocoPhillips')
* 64 Enterprise Products Partners ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Products')
* 65 Sysco ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sysco')
* 77 Plains All American Pipeline ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_All_American_Pipeline')
* 106 Halliburton ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halliburton')
* 135 Baker Hughes ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Hughes')
* 144 National Oilwell Varco ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Oilwell_Varco')
* 167 Apache ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Corporation')
* 174 Marathon Oil ('https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon_Oil')
Nothing.
So well done Apple. Thinking different indeed.
That said, for a massive effort like this, the infrastructure of a huge charity like Red Cross is valuable.