iTunes Disables MusicMatch

spooza writes "If you own an iPod and use it with MusicMatch on a Windows machine and then install iTunes, strange things happen: after the installation, MusicMatch is unable to communicate or even find the iPod anymore. Of course this might be a coincidence or bad programming on the Apple side, but since MusicMatch also introduced a pay-per-download service it seems not too farfetched to suspect that Apple simply took the opportunity to knock out an opponent. The funny thing is, Apple and MusicMatch cooperated before, because Apple wanted to have software that was able to work with iPod and thus not lose potential customers that want to buy an iPod but have only Windows." MusicMatch recommends deleting, then downloading and reinstalling, the MusicMatch software to reenable it.

Comments

hear, hear...

[FatSean]

They aren't geeks...they are brand whores...looking for the 'cool' brand to align with. So many fucking followers in this group that claims to be 'different'.

Re:sounds like the usual.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the end, Apple is far worse the MS, IMHO. The biggest issue being Apples cut cutthroat "upgrade or die" practice. If Microsoft were to pull this stunt, there would be a line, 20 miles long filled with lawyers ready to pounce..

heh

[jared_hanson]

I shouldn't try to see if I can't post a comment that wouldn't make sense if it doesn't use double negative contractions.

Re:hard to recommend iTunes/PC to friends

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work at Apple. I quit only a few months ago. Why? Because the Apple employees are crazy zealots who have no sense of realism.

To them, "Macintosh is better. Period." And because of that, NONE of them run Windows or have any idea how Windows XP works. Your typical Mac employee believes that, for example, if you plug a digital camera into a XP machine, it won't know what to do. In fact, Windows was automatically handling digital cameras connected via USB about 18 months before that feature was added to Mac.

I couldn't wait every day to go home and do "recreational programming" in C#! Nothing sucks as much as Objective-C. The language stinks and the tools stink. The compiler and development tools would crash on me several times a day. I can't remember the last time MS DevStudio 7 crashed on me.

What does this have to do with iTunes? Simple. Apple believes they know what's best so they probably spent very little time trying to be a well-behaved Windows application. (For example, iTunes didn't work at all for me. It said I had "not enough memory" even though I have 3GB. Also, the window didn't size or move correctly on my 2-monitor system.)

And I suspect that the Windows programmers at Apple get treated like crap.

Re:They announced this

[Anonymous Coward]

fag

Re:Yes, but...

[Moraelin]

Or is it more like it's the Apple users who are used to this kind of treatment. Obviously they thrive on it, or they'd have ditched Apple a long time ago.

You only have one program, or sometimes none, for each task you might actually need, and even that one is often a half-arsed Apple implementation. If none is available, you're supposed to believe that, hey, the Mac has a good graphics editor. (Which the PC has too.) So go edit graphics instead of whatever unrelated thing it was that you wanted to do.

I suppose once you catter to people who are confused by more than one mouse button, or by stuff like "each program has its own menu bar", there's no point in torturing their mental skills by making them (*gasp*) choose between programs.

You're also supposed to believe that any crap that Apple sells is pure gold. Such as paying big bucks for 100 MB of storage on .Mac. Sorry, an old 100 MB Zip drive _and_ a whole pack of 100 MB disks costs less. Or you could just learn to burn a CD or DVD.

Oh wait, I forget that we're talking about people who can't right click. Sorry, folks. I forgot that dragging stuff into a CD burner program and clicking on the "Burn" button is too complicated. Go on.

You also get maybe one game per year. Two if it was a particularly good year. None of that "Microsoft fanboy" mental torture of going into a shop with a whole aisle per genre of Windows games, and wondering which of all those to buy. On a Mac, you're lucky if your favourite genre got a game in the last decade, so you know which one to buy. (No, not all of us play Warcraft and FPS only.)

And you're used to Apple pulling stunts as to which hardware works and which doesn't any more. (See all those people with external drives who lost all their data in the Panther upgrade. Sorry, no worm has done anything of that scale to anyone I know, in the Windows world. "Just works" my ass.)

So, yeah, I'd say it's a brilliant move by Apple. Get people used to the idea that Apple decides which software and hardware they're allowed to use. Once you get them off that nasty addiction on using their brains, they might even go and switch to Macs.