Ecosystem lock-in?

[dylanursula]

All,

So I have been flirting with buying an Android off contract to play around with as a change from iOS until the new iPhone comes out in 2012 and swap my SIM between my iphone4 and my new phone. However, all my app purchases and music is tied to iTunes and I really do not want to purchase the apps on Android again so will be limited to the free apps.

Is anyone else in the same boat and finding being tied in/down a real dilemma to moving?

Thanks

 

[Shadowbech]

Unless you have an ipod touch then all the apps that was purchased aren't wasted. That's my opinion.

 

[Small White Car]

However, all my app purchases and music is tied to iTunes

All your music? Have you bought anything in the last 3 years? Those are all clear.

If you do have that much old DRM'd iTunes music you should pay for 1 year of iTunes Match and download the cloud version of all those songs.

 

[deeddawg]

all my app purchases and music is tied to iTunes and I really do not want to purchase the apps on Android again so will be limited to the free apps.

Is anyone else in the same boat and finding being tied in/down a real dilemma to moving?

That is the entire point of a company developing an ecosystem / platform - it creates "stickiness" which raises the exit barriers.

As to music though, isn't most of the music sold in iTunes DRM free these days? I thought they dropped DRM back in early 2009? Anything purchased since then should work fine on Android devices, as would anything purchased or obtained elsewhere in MP3 format. I could be wrong of course.

 

[Sonisk]

It might feel like you're being tied down to Apple's hardware. And this is ofcourse true too. The things you buy in iTunes ofcourse wouldn't work on a droid phone. This is ofcourse very sad, since you probably would want all your great apps on your droid aswell, but you're holding off, since you bought it for one piece of hardware allready.

Look at it this way though. It's the same story with for example VHS, DVD and later BluRay. New hardware means buying the software again, if you want it to run on that new hardware. We could also look at for example Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, with their Wii, Playstation and Xbox. Different systems means you have to buy software for each system.

So yes, you're kinda tied down with your iTunes purchases, kinda like you would be with everything else software and hardware related.

 

[VulchR]

Isn't it the case that some Android apps can import music from iTunes?

 

[deeddawg]

Isn't it the case that some Android apps can import music from iTunes?

Android Supported Media Formats suggests there should be no problem with AAC format music (m4a) -- of course anything purchased while DRM was still active back before early 2009 might be a problem, and anything purchased in Apple Lossless Format may need to be converted.

 

[Kyotoma]

WinAMP for Android and Windows would be your best bet for syncing music. Plus with Apple going DRM free, you can import most of your music directly from your iTunes library into WinAMP.

 

[urkel]

Is anyone else in the same boat and finding being tied in/down a real dilemma to moving?

I know what you mean, but Its only a dilemma if you aren't happy with the ecosystem you're tied into. And for me then I'm extremely happy in the iOS camp. But the good thing about both sides is that theres enough free apps that being dual platform isn't so bad.

 

[verwon]

I went from a Palm Treo, to a Palm Pre, to an HTC Evo, to the iPhone. Each time I ended up having spent money on apps and such that I couldn't use on the next OS. In the smartphone world, that's just something you have to accept, when moving on.

And yes, there is software, such as DoubleTwist, which can sync your iTunes library to an Android phone.