{"id":222,"date":"2010-09-12T13:27:46","date_gmt":"2010-09-12T13:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/?p=222"},"modified":"2012-03-27T21:13:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T21:13:47","slug":"apple-all-about-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/2010\/09\/apple-all-about-the-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple : All About the Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The problem I have with Apple is that everything they do, they do for profit. \u00a0Not the consumer, not the industry, just their profit. \u00a0Yes, their hardware is top class (iPhone 4 notwithstanding<\/a>), but there’s just too many little things about using Apple products that keep ramming the point home.<\/p>\n

1. Pods, Phones and Pads all use proprietary power interfaces. \u00a0Mini, or even Micro USB is pretty much the industry standard now, but if you want to conveniently charge your iDevice at more than one place, get ready to buy lots of extra proprietary cables.<\/p>\n

2. iTunes. \u00a0Until January 2009, “Fairplay<\/a>” (riiiight) DRM added to all purchased tracks restricted how you could play your music. \u00a0In a nutshell, the main restriction was that you had to use Apple iPods to play it. \u00a0In January 2009, Apple announced that music bought from iTunes would now be DRM-free and allowed you to remove the DRM from all your previously bought tracks, BUT then went on to charge you for the privilege, despite the fact that any tracks you bought thereafter would have no such DRM applied to them. \u00a0So much for rewarding customer loyalty. \u00a0Amazon MP3 customers had a good chuckle. \u00a0Movies and TV shows still have Fairplay on them today.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>
Bashing Apple shouldn't be this easy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

3. If you want to put some music\/video on your Pod or Pad, you have to use iTunes. \u00a0Not only does this mean that you have to install this Apple abomination on your Windows\/Mac PC (no linux support, sorry), but it also nudges you towards using iTunes for future purchases. \u00a0Subtle. \u00a0Well, not really. \u00a0If there’s a way to get your music on to your Pod or Pad that doesn’t involve iTunes, I’ve not yet found it (beyond using Linux and something like Rhythmbox or Banshee).<\/p>\n

4. Crippled first generation devices. \u00a0The iPad is an astonishing example of this. \u00a0The “magical and revolutionary” device went on sale on April 4th without a front facing camera. \u00a0 No big deal – they sold by the million. \u00a0Then on June 24th, just 11 weeks later, the iPhone4 is released to much fanfare. \u00a0What’s this? \u00a0Why, it’s a front facing camera and a high-profile announcement of Facetime, allowing you to make video calls to other iOS devices. \u00a0Except, you know, the iPad that you just bought a few weeks ago. \u00a0But it’s a great sales ploy, because despite this insulting omission, the iPad did sell well and next year, all these rich first generation iPad owners will throw their money at Apple for an iPad with a front facing camera so that they can Facetime away to their heart’s content.<\/p>\n

There are other niggles, examples of where Apple’s drive for profit won’t let them admit the real world exists. \u00a0They force you to use AAC instead of MP3 (a legacy of Fairplay). \u00a0They ship their OSX devices that can’t play any<\/em> video out of the box\u00a0except iTunes video unless you add third party codec plug-in Perian<\/a> (which takes some searching).<\/p>\n

And of course, there’s the whole head-in-the-sand approach to Adobe Flash<\/a> on their iDevices (so if you want to see the Disneyland site<\/a>, don’t use an iPad).<\/p>\n

But they know how to market and by god do they sell. \u00a0And why not? \u00a0Only techies care about this stuff and possibly only half of it at that. \u00a0Some techies will even extol the virtues of AAC over MP3, how Flash (and perhaps Disneyland) was overrated anyway \u00a0and why they’d quite happily fall on a big technical sword for their lord and saviour, Steven P Jobs. \u00a0Good luck to them.<\/p>\n

Not for me though. \u00a0I prefer to think different<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The problem I have with Apple is that everything they do, they do for profit. \u00a0Not the consumer, not the industry, just their profit. \u00a0Yes, their hardware is top class (iPhone 4 notwithstanding), but there’s just too many little things about using Apple products that keep ramming the point home. 1. Pods, Phones and Pads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technical","tag-apple-fail-opinion"],"mb":[],"mfb_rest_fields":["title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scaine.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}