this may be a bit of too little too late for apple.
They are getting the reputation of being a hard company to deal with.
Lets examine recent news:
1- NBC / Universal states they cannot work with Apple on licensing/sales terms
2- Fox said it would be difficult to negotiate with Apple, but they would do it and keep content up
3- Valve Software head states Apple occasionally talks about games, but really does not do anything to support it. (something I agree with, they don't have imac or midsized towers with great graphics cards as an option which user can upgrade)
4- iPod and iPhone are locked to iTunes in a manner which outside companies can't get in there to work
5- iphone cannot work with most if not all ipod accessories. even car kits for charging and audio playback even with the same.
6- Record companies have stated they want to work with apple on DRM to allow them to copy protect content, yet allow it to be easy for consumers. Hell this could have been an opportunity for Apple to create an open source DRM standard that would play well with consumers
Well... i could go on but time and time again it looks like Apple is really becoming more and more like Microsoft used to be.
you tell me ... i want a kinder and gentler Apple who plays well with others.
Definitely.
In my case, I have been trying in vain to find a car solution I like. My ipod-aware Alpine stereo falls short in many respects.
I walked into Car Toys just a few days ago, iPhone in hand, and simply said to them, "I want this iPhone to work with my car stereo. I want it to play music through the stereo, and I want the stereo to handle phone calls hands-free."
They had no good solutions to this simple, obvious problem. No stereo does it. Not through a dock connector and not with a bluetooth pairing. You can 'kinda' do it with some add on devices that add a couple hundred extra to the total price tag, but these carry extra annoyances and nothing close to a simple, polished "just works" user experience.
Why has apple not partnered with a stereo manufacturer to do this? It's like none of the manufacturers got started on it before the phone was in stores.
ps
Things I hate about my Alpine car stereo:
o It takes over the controls of ipods and iphones, so you have to use the awful controls on the stereo's head unit.
o Most labels are too long to read on the stereo's screen.
o Buttons are confusing, and the same function might be on two different buttons depending on what screen you're looking at.
o Podcasts are really hard to navigate, and it doesn't show you those marks that indicate a new, un-listened-to episode.
o Inexplicably, every time I connect an ipod or iphone, it decides to turn on the device's 'repeat' mode.
o The nano doesn't stop or pause when the car is turned off. If you don't stop it yourself, it will play on until its battery dies.
o When the nano is disconnected, the apline logo is still there on the screen, keeping the ipod's controls locked and unusable. I have to reset it every time I disconnect it from the stereo.
I could go on...
