When people ask me why I refuse to give any money to Apple, I just refer them to articles like this. I bet that if they put all of the money the spend on anti-everyone-else campaigns, they would be able to produce the same quality hardware and software at a cheaper price. There will Always be people hacking other peoples stuff. it just happens. IMO they would be more successful by lowering prices and competing on a more level playing field, instead of just Forcing their idea's and software onto consumers.
Then again, it seems like Microsoft is going to pull the same crap, by disabling 3rd party xbox hdd's. Sigh. These companies get pretty ridonkulous sometimes.
doogald
· 3 weeks ago
Imagine you are Apple: for Macintoshes, you get almost all of your profit from selling hardware, not from selling OS upgrades. (Not to mention there is nothing that prevents people from installing a single copy of the OS on multiple pieces of hardware - there is nothing like what MS does with Windows installs that cripple the system without a valid license installed.) As that particular business, wouldn't you do pretty much the same thing?
Pony99CA
· 3 weeks ago
I agree. What's wrong with spiking to OS to detect unsupported processors and not work?
I do wish Apple would loosen up on iTunes, though. There are lots of people who don't want to buy an iPod but might not have a problem buying DRM-free music from iTunes if they could sync it with their player. While Apple certainly has the right to limit what devices can use iTunes, I think they're being shortsighted here.
Does iTunes require you to have a device to download music from iTunes? If not, why prevent syncing? If so, they're just cutting off potential revenue by preventing non-iPod users from buying media from iTunes. How much does Apple make on iPod sales compared to iTunes sales?
Steve
doogald
· 3 weeks ago
Actually, iTunes APIs are pretty open. Anybody can write an app that accesses iTunes libraries, including playlists, and sync them with whichever devices that they like. SuperSync is a cross-platform app that accesses the iTunes libraries, as an example. Blackberry Desktop can sync iTunes music files sans DRM to Blackberry devices; Mark/Space makes syncing apps for WM, Blackberry, Palm Pre and the iPhone that will sync music across from iTunes libraries. And now DoubleTwist syncs with many devices as well (though now with more capability in OSX, more Windows support is coming.)
This is what makes me scratch my head a bit about Palm - they know this, their team is filled with engineers and coders who worked at Apple, they could easily write their own sync app for the Pre. (Though maybe they are just waiting to get it right and have just been using iTunes until they're ready.)
Pony99CA
· 3 weeks ago
That's good to know. If Apple publishes the APIs for iTunes, I guess that's one less place to criticize their lack of openness.
All Comments
There will Always be people hacking other peoples stuff. it just happens. IMO they would be more successful by lowering prices and competing on a more level playing field, instead of just Forcing their idea's and software onto consumers.
Then again, it seems like Microsoft is going to pull the same crap, by disabling 3rd party xbox hdd's. Sigh. These companies get pretty ridonkulous sometimes.
I do wish Apple would loosen up on iTunes, though. There are lots of people who don't want to buy an iPod but might not have a problem buying DRM-free music from iTunes if they could sync it with their player. While Apple certainly has the right to limit what devices can use iTunes, I think they're being shortsighted here.
Does iTunes require you to have a device to download music from iTunes? If not, why prevent syncing? If so, they're just cutting off potential revenue by preventing non-iPod users from buying media from iTunes. How much does Apple make on iPod sales compared to iTunes sales?
Steve
This is what makes me scratch my head a bit about Palm - they know this, their team is filled with engineers and coders who worked at Apple, they could easily write their own sync app for the Pre. (Though maybe they are just waiting to get it right and have just been using iTunes until they're ready.)
Steve
http://lifehacker.com/5397890/hackintosh-netboo...