Bad Apple
Apple is really starting to irritate me.
I own 2 macs, an Apple TV and an iPhone. I am an iTunes customer — I currently subscribe to 2 shows. I would subscribe to more, but NBC is being dumb. But that’s another issue.
In the course of Flapping Crane’s existence, we’ve made some music. Funny music. Music I’d like to be ringtones on my iPhone.
I can kind of accept that Apple wouldn’t provide a means to make anything into a ringtone. But they appear to be actively trying to stop third-party developers from allowing it.
This is stupid. I can use iTunes to do all manner of illegal things. I can play music that I (gasp!) didn’t pay for. I can import friends’ cds. But I pay for music. The awesome thing about iTunes has always been that it’s convenient and fairly-priced. The DRM is potentially troublesome, but I’ve never run up against it.
I would probably be willing to buy ringtones from iTunes if they weren’t being bastards. Specifically — I want to be able to make my own music into ringtones. They are actively preventing it. They are removing functionality.
Is this of catastrophic importance? No. It’s just goddamn ringtones. But I am becoming increasingly annoyed by this, and my attitude towards Apple is starting to go south.
I’ve got a trial going with eMusic. I haven’t decided whether to subscribe. But Amazon now has an mp3 store with no DRM. If Apple wasn’t behaving this way I might stick with them out of loyalty. But I don’t foresee myself buying anything anymore from ITMS besides the TV shows I’m subscribed to.
Bottom line — Apple apparently thinks it can treat its customers like shit. I’ve influenced friends and family in their purchases, and for years I’ve highly recommended Apple products. I’m starting to question that.
They haven’t lost me yet, but they’re well on their way.
September 28th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I wonder how much of this is Apple and how much of this is AT&T…..
October 5th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I just finished a month trial of eMusic, and I didn’t renew.
Initially I was able to find a bunch of stuff I’d discovered through Sirius. But then when I started looking for more things, I found that a lot of the music eMusic offers are “covers”. And I don’t even mean Gwen Stefani covering an old 80’s tune. I mean, here’s an album of classic Motown songs, with the original artists named, but when you listen to the songs, it’s clearly an impersonator. So I guess impersonations, not covers.
I’m sure if I’d kept the service that’s like 10 bucks a month it probably would be OK, but I just decided I didn’t need it that much. I did like that the songs aren’t locked with DRM.