Apple is starting to suck
The pattern continues. Regardless of how cool and savvy a company initially is, with success it eventually falls prey to the crushing weight of it’s own isatiable greed and starts to suck, or turn rotten and evil, or both. It’s unavoidable it seems. Enter Apple Computer. The once shining light of independence and goodness is now starting to show signs of the darkness creeping in.
Examples:
1. You can’t download Quicktime without iTunes (force feeding).
2. You can’t use the iTunes Music Store without the VERY latest version of iTunes, which get’s updated constantly.
3. You can’t easily move your own (paid for) music on and off your iPod.
4. Forget moving music off the iPod, if you have 2 computers (Computer 1 at home, Computer 2 at work), you can’t even add a goddamned song to your iPod via computer 2, without totally eradicating all the data that was put on by computer 1.
Now… why is this the case? Are these things that Apple has overlooked? Are they bugs or usability problems that the God of the GUI simply hasn’t addressed yet? No. The 4 irritating issues listed above are ALL the result of greed. Apple has had some success (particularly with iPod) and they want more. They want to “protect” it. They want to grow it. They want to make sure their users are “locked in”. They want to make it hard to get out. Sound familiar?
Not being able to download Quicktime without iTunes is a GREAT example… this is a signature Microsoft move. This is why people hate MS, they do this constantly and we all hate them for it. This is Apple trying to use the success of one product, to FORCE FEED you another product.
Apple in effect is saying this: “Oh… you like beer? Well.. guess what! We’ve created a technology that FORCES you to eat Pigs Feet while you drink beer. From now on if you try to drink beer without simultaneously eating Pigs Feet, the beer will explode in your stomach and kill you! So… from now on, Enjoy Beer! AND Pigs Feet Together! NOW AND FOREVER!!!! What??? Don’t like Pigs Feet??? Tough Fucking SHIT!!!!”
Personally, I hate iTunes. I think it sucks. It’s pig slow and it’s crippled. I don’t want it. But Apple wants me to have it. In fact they insist, and they’re going to make it hard on me if I don’t like it.
Sony could have owned the MP3 player market. They could have dominated it just like they dominated the portable tape and CD player market. But they didn’t. Why? The answer is once again greed. Sony is also a music company… which prevented them from making a good MP3 player. Because of GREEEED. Sony has publicly admitted this now, even apologized for it. Their myopic desire to protect their music business crippled their design capability and made their players SUCK!!! This incestual corporate greed… makes companies fuck themselves… retarded products are the result. Now Apple is lining up right behind Sony, and Microsoft. Lining up to fuck itself.
They funny part about all of this is that it’s all unnecessary. What the companies don’t get is that they only hurt themselves. They don’t stop the bad guys. I can easily circumvent all 4 of the issues I mentioned above. I can break the system and use the technology the way I want. I have that ability regardless of how hard they try to make it, how much they sacrifice to lock it down. They’ll ruin their products to force their corporate vision on the masses. But in the end, those who want to deviate still will, and those who simply wanted a good, usable product will eventually buy something else that isn’t as retarded.
Bottom line.. this is the begining of the end for Apple. To continue down this path means the end of the type of innovation the company has built itself on.
I just tried to buy a new album from the iTunes Music Store, this would be my first, but it tells me that I need iTunes 6.0, and after I just loaded 5.something 2 weeks ago… and you know what? Fuck ‘em. I don’t want it. They can keep their 6.0 and their electronic delivery. I’ll go someplace else, where features and functionality come before greed… at least for the time being.
Anyone want to buy an iPod?
-i believe i can see the future, cause i repeat the same routine…[NIN]