A good overview on how Apple locks in the consumer...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33738833/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets//
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33738833/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets//
There are a number of flaws in this writer's argument, but the biggest is the source: MSNBC. A TV channel/web site critiques Apple and we're supposed to accept that it has some sort of objectivity? If it were a MacRumors post, it would be shot down as trolling. Just because it's on a corporate stage doesn't make it less so.
mt
Of course, many people don't want to leave Apple's tent. After all, it's filled with iPhones and MacBooks and other cool stuff. And Apple is hardly the only business that tries to lock in customers wireless carriers (including Apple partner AT&T) are probably the worst offenders. Nor is Apple the only vendor to use one product as leverage to push others onto consumers (let's declare Microsoft the champion there).
There are a number of flaws in this writer's argument, but the biggest is the source: MSNBC. A TV channel/web site critiques Apple and we're supposed to accept that it has some sort of objectivity?
There are a number of flaws in this writer's argument, but the biggest is the source: MSNBC. A TV channel/web site critiques Apple and we're supposed to accept that it has some sort of objectivity? If it were a MacRumors post, it would be shot down as trolling. Just because it's on a corporate stage doesn't make it less so.
mt
Of course not as this is the Internet. Just the first and last sentences are enough.Did you even read the article?
Did you even read the article?
It's not an MSNBC piece, it's a PC World piece.
Please read it and demonstrate with evidence where it is being non-objective.
Dismissing it for lacing objectivity simply because of a URL, without demonstrating WHY it lacks objectivity is, well....not particularly objective, is it?
To me, this is the biggest flaw. The Mac has been a tightly controlled, closed system ever since its introduction in 1984. John Sculley made an abortive attempt to allow Mac cloning, but it failed miserably and nearly sank the company. But for someone who tries to write with the sweep of history of the company, to make this comment is ridiculous.Ever since the Second Coming (aka the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997), the Mac has been a tightly controlled, closed system. The result? High prices and limits on the options you can get with Mac hardware.
If you wanted to move the songs you bought at a buck apiece to a cheaper player from a competing manufacturer, you had two options: an onerous process in which you burned your songs to a CD and then reripped them as MP3s, or quasilegal software that essentially did the same thing using your hard drive instead of a disc.
Actually, Apple has at least two other choices. It could license its Fairplay DRM technology to other hardware manufacturers and allow multiple devices to play media purchased on iTunes, as Amazon does with its video-on-demand service.
I don’t understand what this means. He castigates Apple -- and I think he’s justified -- for installing software unrelated to an update. But it’s pretty innocuous stuff. I got an unwanted copy of Norton when I updated Adobe a few months back that royally screwed up my Dell laptop. It did nothing to pull me into an “ecosystem.”With the exception of MobileMe, which costs $99 to $149 a year, none of these software programs generate revenue for Apple. But they do serve to pull users further into Apple's ecosystem.
Explain to me how a patent is going to prevent anyone from altering an iPod.5. Shoes and spies
In March 2007, Apple applied for a patent on technology that allowed it to pair a garment with an electronic sensor, as it had done with the Nike iPod Sport Kit. That kit allowed owners of Nike shoes to track their speed, mileage, and other data on their iPods. Apple's objective in the patent: to prevent users from removing the sensor from the Nike shoe and putting it into shoes from a different manufacturer — what New Scientist's Paul Marks called "DRM for your wardrobe."
Quelle heureur! Apple wants to make it harder to steal its products. Will the republic survive?Two months later the company filed for a patent on technology that would prevent Apple devices from accepting a charge during certain circumstances. This tech would prevent a thief from recharging your iPhone or iPod, but it could also keep you from charging the device if you tried to sync it with an "unauthorized" PC.
“Presumably” -- or does it mean the company spends a lot of money on tech support and it wants to give its tech people more information on why a computer is failing? Big Brotherish? Maybe, but you can have that argument if you provide the documented proof that you disabled the black box in your high-end SUV.And last August the company filed for a patent on sensors that would record "customer abuse events" on Apple products; the data from these sensors would presumably be used to deny warranty repair claims by documenting damage that was the customer's fault.
Unsupported. And if Microsoft sought similar patents, we’re to assume they have only angelic intentions?Apple is certainly within its rights to patent such technologies; what these applications show, though, is that there is seemingly no limit to what the company wants to control.
Many such lock-in examples exist, to be sure, and we'd like to hear yours, in the comments below.
The question is, do Apple fans care? Widman, for one, says, "Choice is overrated. As a consumer, I'm more interested in something that works."
It's a reasonable argument — but also a costly one. Is it really worth it?
But no other technology company exercises the same amount of control over what its customers can and can't do with the things they bought.
Oh noes!! We're locked in to . . . great products and services that keep getting better! NOOOO!!!
Oh noes!! We're locked in to . . . great products and services that keep getting better! NOOOO!!!
My reading of the post is that he loves the products.it's legitimately disturbing to me that anyone could love any corporation this much
Now that I'm at it, I don't think that Mac users are generally better informed about tech. I think it has more to do with the fact that they are wealthier and cannot be bothered about limitations of OS X.
Extremely flawed logic? Taking DRM'd tracks, burning them to a CD, ripping that CD, renaming & retagging all the tracks *is* onerous. Being able to buy a non-DRM track and sync, or drag & drop, that track onto any MP3 player is *not* onerous. I'd also say using CDs to backup your iTunes library is onerous as well unless you have a very small library.Onerous? Is he kidding? You click a button, you burn a disk. Otherwise called a backup. To call it onerous is just the writers search for a pejorative adjective.
But then in Paragraph 14, he says:
So if I move it to another device, its not onerous, but if I burn my music to a medium that is played on thousands of devices, it is. Extremely flawed logic.
Extremely flawed logic? Taking DRM'd tracks, burning them to a CD, ripping that CD, renaming & retagging all the tracks *is* onerous. Being able to buy a non-DRM track and sync, or drag & drop, that track onto any MP3 player is *not* onerous.
My recollection is that Apple's earliest negotiations of the iTunes store Apple wanted no DRM but the studios refused to bite.
Yet if you were an indie, you were forced to use DRM whether you wanted it or not. If you make an iPhone app, even a free one, you get DRM whether you want it or not.
But Apple could've licensed FairPlay. They didn't want to 'cause it would have cut into iPod sales but they could have.True, But Apple cannot really be cited for DRM issues that it had no choice.
But Apple could've licensed FairPlay. They didn't want to 'cause it would have cut into iPod sales but they could have.
Yeah, the Mac OS is so limited. Perhaps someone with limited knowledge didn't know that OS X is certified UNIX.
But my point was more to illustrate how ridiculous mysterytramp's opinion is that burning, ripping, renaming and retagging songs is as easy copying the files from the computer to an MP3 player.