On the contrary, the need for an uninstaller is a sign of fragility! The Mac way is just to drag it to the trash. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?
The problem is not the iPhone. The problem is, trying to tell people what to do with your product after they have bought it. If we start admitting this is a legitimate approach to business, we have basically lost intellectual freedom in the digital age. It gets clearer and clearer that one trend is the open trend - which dominated media for hundreds of years
Although I agree with some of what you are saying, It is not that simple. People *can* do whatever they want to their iPhones after they buy them. What people cannot do is modify their phones and then expect that these modifications will stick when they install firmware updates and take advantage of new features developed by Apple.
What's wrong with apple fixing security holes and *also* making the phone developer friendly?
Nothing. That is what Apple is doing! They are closing the holes that could allow malware to be installed, and which, incidentally, are the very same holes that people are using to install third-party apps. And, they are are putting together an official SDK. It's only a false dichotomy if, somehow, the holes could be closed only for malware and not genuine apps. Do some googling on the techniques being used to install these apps and you will understand why they need to be closed for security purposes.
Same here. I've got three machines running Leopard smoothly. He, being a computer geek, probably installed all kinds of crap. Just needs to find the offender and get rid of it.
No you're not. It's way too much. These idiots are dreaming when they want to charge $2.99 or more. The record labels are equally stupid in this way. They forget that they are competing against illegal filesharing.
Amazon's store faces the same limitations as iTunes and EVERY other store. The rights to sell music in a country have to be negotiated on a country-by-country basis. Smaller markets are a lower priority.
It's old-fashioned, true, since technologically it would be trivial to open a worldwide store. The limitiations are entirely legal.
What good would it be to get your business be Apple had to slash profits to Dell's razor-thin margins to do so? That's the key. Marketshare is only one part of the equation that determines profits. Margins matter too. There's a reason IBM got out of the personal PC market, just as there's a reason tha Gateway couldn't make it.
Yep, Apple's strategy is just right. There is no way that Apple can compete with Windows PC vendors for the big corporate accounts, and Apple doesn't really try. Apple would have to be able to take on a huge infrastructure that is geared towards dealing with Windows. Licensing the OS to other vendors would not make an appreciable difference. Linux is free. Firefox is free. Still, most people run Windows and IE. A small portion of people are willing to consider something else, and Apple can capture the lion's share of them through its current strategy.
Apple's strategy a "niche" strategy gives them an awfully nice, profitable niche in which the OS gives them product differentiation from other hardware vendors. Dell has much better marketshare, but what good is that doing Dell at the moment? The low-margin, mass-market PC business is a morass in which very few companies are making any money.
You forgot this point: "4. Why is it that our network is getting slammed but similar networks at other universities are not?"
One does not need a technical background to know that if the iPhone caused problems for these kind of networks, we should be seeing them all over the place. A simple, logical process of elimination would soon cast strong doubt on the iPhone as the cause. It had to be the way that particular network interacted with the iPhone. Hence, it was the network and not the phone.
Well, this is quite a different issue than where we started out.
Apple, true, has not released a software development kit for the iPhone. I can see that as a developer you would find that disappointing. Where I differ is that I do not draw the conclusion that this means the iPhone is destined to fail. What matters for users is the availability of *quality* applications, which is not the same thing as the quantity of applications. Users do not really care how those applications got on their device. They do want the device to be reliable, however.
What we see at present with the iPhone is a brand-new device that has not been on sale much more than a week. It will evolve over time, and so will the application set available for it. It is my belief that third-party development will contribute greatly to the success of the iPhone. Apple may handle it differently than Microsoft in taking a greater degree of control over vetting third-party programs and making sure that they do not cause reliability problems on the device, but that could very well mean a superior user experience. Time will tell.
As for Microsoft and Silverlight, I don't really care. I think Microsoft's big concern there is that they don't want Adobe to become dominant with Flash. Microsoft is good at protecting its turf from competing platforms. Call it cross-platform or whatever, it's about Microsoft wanting to its fingers in every nook and cranny. They are good at making things easy for developers, I'll give them that, but the result often is the corruption of open standards, replacing them with Microsoft "standards."
Very interesting that you apparently would put Apple in the camp of those trying to exclude everyone but "submissive partners" since Apple and Google have stated that they are working together to develop "next gen" internet applications for the iPhone. I don't think Google is anyone's submissive partner. There will be more partnerships like this. The iPhone OS will be great platform for next gen apps.
Once again, you assume that Apple is just short-sighted and foolish. Apple just has a different approach, and I think that Apple's approach is far better-suited to the current era. Unlike the market for computer operating systems in the 1980s, there are not pressures for uniformity. Mobile devices do not need the same operating system to have the same functions. The very emergence of next gen applications that you mention is precisely why Microsoft will not be able to do what it did with computer operating systems. All these new apps are platform independent. The iPhone will be able to run them, so your old thinking is moot. This is not the 1980s all over again.
Finally, putting Microsoft in the "camp" of those that offers freedom is just a little rich. You make it sound like Microsoft is some big friendly bear that welcomes all comers. On the contrary, Microsoft is happy to give people freedom as long as they are locked into Windows. That company did not get where it is today by playing nice.
Without a bail out from Microsoft in the late 90's Apple and its platform would have perished.
This old saw has been amply discussed elsewhere. It was not a financial bailout. Apple had over $1.2 billion in cash assets at the time. Microsoft's $150 million investment was not a big deal financially. What Apple DID need was investor confidence. Microsoft's commitment to keep producing Office for the Mac was important for Apple. On top of that Microsoft had its own business reasons for making the "investment." QuickTime code had turned up in Windows Media Player, and Apple was raising a big stink about it. Part of the deal was an undisclosed cash settlement on this matter. Also, Microsoft got the commitment from Apple to make Internet Explorer the default Mac browser, which was one way for Microsoft to fight off the competitive threat from Netscape. Read about it here: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/59 2FE887-5CA1-4F30-BD62-407362B533B9.html
As was the case with the PC market in it's early stages, from the user perspective there have been lots of issues and problems with Windows Mobile phones. Marrying an OS platform from one company with hardware and software from another is not simple, and pretty much impossible to do right until after repeated attempts. As with the PC market eventually it will be right for the average consumer, to date it's really only been a satisfactory for the technology enthusiast.
Things are different today than they were in the 1980s, and the differences matter even more with respect to mobile devices. PCs have always dominated the workplace, and that dominance enabled Windows to take over the home market as well. Today, however, so much is done through the internet and using open standards. It's a complete fallacy to think that all mobile devices will have to have the same operating system in order to run the same programs or use the same files. What matters is that devices need to work reliably and be easy to use. Apple's approach delivers in this regard.
The problem with Windows Mobile, is that it has attempted to apply the same ideology to the mobile market as what was done in the PC market, and it has experienced similar technical problems to the PC market in it's early stages. Adopting companies are small, inexperienced, lacking quality control, they are technologically lagging major players, lacking marketing and distribution channels.
Precisely.
Windows Mobile is waiting for it's Dell, Compaq etc. Unlike the PC market the competition in the mobile market is well established and the user base is far less tolerant of the glitches that have plagued many of the Windows Mobile devices.
Yeah, just like Dell was going to take over the iPod business from Apple. So-called analysts were saying that soon Apple's marketshare on iPods would mirror its marketshare in computers. Now, Dell has bowed out of the business. This time, manufacturers cannot count on Microsoft's monopoly to carry the day.
So in the short term, yes you're right, Apple should feel right at home competing against the like's of Sony, Nokia etc who share their closed system ideology. But do you really believe this sort of ideology will last forever?
Nothing lasts for forever, but it is clear that we are moving to an era in mobile devices where software is becoming king. Yes, you still need a good piece of equipment, but the biggest source of innovation will be on the software side. Apple is extremely well-position to succeed in this world.
Now, do you want to re-evaluate your claims that Apple knows what it's doing when it releases a product?:)
No, think more carefully. Apple got exactly what it wanted from the ROKR: experience in the cell phone market without creating a threat to the iPod business. Apple made sure that the ROKR was limited in the number of songs it could hold for that reason. On top of that, Apple announced the re-designed iPod nano at the same event as the ROKR, turning into an iPod show. Months later, Ed Zander of Motorola was quoted as saying something to the effect of "everybody knows that they are working on their own cell phone." Indeed.
As I said, Apple has been working on the iPhone for years. They are in the middle of executing a long-term strategy in which future products targeting different market segments are already mapped out. Give them credit. They know what they are doing.
Not trying to flame here, but it never ceases to amaze me that people will just assume that Apple is completely short-sighted. There are billions of dollars at stake, and Apple has been working on this device for years. Do you really think that they haven't considered this carefully? That there is some "classic tale" that somehow people at Apple are too blind to see?
Apple has learned many lessons, and many of them are much more relevant to the success of the iPhone than the decision in the early days of the Mac to not license the operating system. They have learned that you don't necessarily need the most apps, you need great apps. The iPhone, one way or another, will have great apps. From the iPod, they have learned that keeping full control over the device enables them to move more nimbly, unlike the cumbersome PlaysFor{not}Sure system developed by Microsoft.
Windows Mobile is already out there and has been out there for years. Yet, the iPhone can come along and make an immediate, serious impact on the market. Apple knows what it is doing, and they will do with the iPhone what they need to do to keep it competitive.
The parent poster is making a good point. It seems practically impossible to a test run that represents anything close to the volume of activiations that the iPhone brought. There are many different pieces to the puzzle, moreover, such as the fact that many people have to wait for another carrier to release the number, which is just out of AT&T's control.
Think about it this way. In the typical process for buying a cell phone, a person would go to the store and sit there and wait while somebody activated the phone for them. When I've done this in the past, it's taken close to an hour. If the iPhone were being sold this way, there lines would have moved like molasses. People who got in line Friday would still be there today, waiting for their turn. Instead, everybody got their phones pretty quickly and all went home to activate them at the same time. It's really not that surprising the system got overwhelmed. That volume of activations happening simultaneously has to be unprecedented.
AT&T is not blameless, of course, but I really doubt that any of the other carriers would have handled it without hiccups.
Why do Apple programs "break" the usual look and feel of Windows programs?
True, but for that matter, one could say the same things over time about Microsoft programs on the Mac OS. Word 6.0 on the Mac was a disaster because Microsoft tried to use the same codebase as the Windows version. It goes both ways. If iTunes on Windows were as good as iTunes on the Mac, a lot of complaints about it would go away.
With respect to Safari, I think one reason could be the development angle. Apple wants Safari to have a broader share and make it easier for web developers to test for Safari compatibility. If this is the goal, it makes sense that they would want the Windows version of Safari to render just like the Mac version. The font anti-aliasing looks out of place on the Windows side, since Microsoft does it differently, but any additional Safari users from the Windows side are just gravy.
Accounts are that Apple has long been telling the major labels that DRM is not workable from the beginning. For evidence to this point, look no further than EMI's CEO, who stated that they knew Steve Jobs' views on DRM long before his open letter calling for DRM-free music. From the press conference where Jobs and Eric Nicoli announced the deal:
"Q: It's a pretty radical step, Eric. How did you reach the decision to do it? Was it Steve Jobs' letter that convinced you? Was it the internal surveys you've done? What was the moment in which you said, "Damn it, we're gonna go DRM-free?" And will the extra sales be enough to compensate for the declining physical sales?
A: We've always known Steve's view on the subject, long before his open letter."
No, the original article is talking about winning a standards war with Microsoft. If all the music stores turn to selling AAC, or even MP3 and AAC, Microsoft's effort to make WMA the standard media format will have failed. That's the point.
Don't get me wrong. I think the author takes the point too far when he leaps to conclusions of AAC dominance, but I do think that he may have a point about Microsoft. The interesting thing to me is that would be a victory *against* Microsoft but not one *for* any other company in particular. Apple uses AAC, but AAC is open to anybody despite what a lot of people think. For Apple, it is a victory in that they do not have to be beholden to Microsoft in this area. The same is true for nearly every other company but Microsoft.
Actually, it appears that the EU is really focused on the record labels rather than Apple. As an EU spokesman said today, "Our current view is that this is an arrangement which is imposed on Apple by the major record companies and we do not see a justification for it."
He also said, "Apple are the managers of the iTunes store. It's true that the focus is the major record companies."
Remember, if I'm in France with a German issued credit card, I can buy from the German store. Why aren't they worried about that?
The copyright issue pertains to downloads, not physical sales, because it has to do with the legal right to download a song file and save it on your machine. Apple cannot by itself declare that you have the right to do this. That is up to the rights-holders.
if you can't do business legally, don't do business.
Your assumption here is that the law is clear, but the laws are in conflict so it was not so clear. The EU has decided the arrangment is illegal very recently. The record companies are vigorously disputing that. It seems obvious that laws have yet to adjust to technological change. This kind of thing happens all the time. Until the laws adjust, there are a lot of grey areas. Apple happens to be a pioneer in this area, but the same issues would arise regardless of which music retailer came first, and I think it would be silly to just sit on the sidelines and wait until the law gets clarified.
Today, there is a story on CNet that sheds some interesting light on this debate. It is clear from the story that the EU Commission sees the record labels as being the source of the problem and that the current situation is not one of Apple's doing. That makes sense. Here are some relevant quotes:
"Our current view is that this is an arrangement which is imposed on Apple by the major record companies and we do not see a justification for it," Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told reporters.
"Apple are the managers of the iTunes store. It's true that the focus is the major record companies," Todd said.
Now, what, exactly, is stopping them from also granting a license to do the same thing in Germany?
Apple is not the rights-holder. How could it grant such a license unless the rights-holders give it the power to do so? It's good that the EU is trying to harmonize copyright. Obviously, it needs too. This situation results directly from the fact that copyright is not harmonized. That's where the attention should be focused.
Alternatively, Apple will have to allow any consumer in any EU member country to shop from any of the EU country stores. Consumers would go where prices are cheapest, and the lablels would have to "face the music," as they say.
I seriously doubt Apple would care. The labels would, obviously. Don't know what would happen to the deals between Apple and the labels in such a case.
As an aside to the Americans who think this is an example of EU socialism bashing a successful American company, consider this:
The last time I checked, EMI, BMG and Vivendi Universal were European companies. They have been charging different prices across EU countries long before Apple opened the iTunes store. The EU, apparently, did nothing about this. Apple has to cut deals with these companies to get content. Apple is a big player in digital music, but it is still only a tiny player in terms of the overall music market. Is Apple supposed to single-handedly force these companies to unify their pricing schemes across countries when the EU itself has not done so? Given the EU's apparent lack of effort to force change, why should Apple lawyers worry? Apple did not create the system.
It seems to me that you have anti-Apple eye glasses. Your assumption is that Apple somehow prefers the current system and that their comments are just spin. That doesn't hold up to logic. It would be far simpler for Apple if they could run a single European store. Having to cut individual deals for each country with all the relevant parties in each country had to have been a huge pain in the arse, but Apple didn't have a choice if it wanted content. That's the way the music deals have been made for decades. I seriously doubt that Apple's margins differ much across countries. Their margins on iTunes sales are not that large in any event. The differences in pricing come from the pricing differences that the music wholesale prices charged by the labels. If the the EU finds proof to the contrary, then naming Apple makes more sense.
The difference now is that the internet breaks down borders, making the complexity of the old system and the resulting differences in prices readily apparent. So, yes, the EU needs to come to grips with technological change and make companies comply with EU rules. I understand why Apple is named in the suit. They are the number one seller of digital music, but the brunt of the legal action should be directed at the music rights-holders. They are the ones that need to bring cross-border consistency to their system of royalties and pricing. There is no reason to believe that Apple would oppose this in any way. Having a single EU deal would greatly reduce the complexity of running iTunes.
Case in point. When Apple first opened its iTunes store in the UK, a consumer group filed a complaint about price gouging. They were comparing the difference in prices with France, if I recall. The assinine thing about the complaint, though, was that Apple's price for digital downloads was cheaper than any other major player in the UK at the time (considerably so if I recall). The point is they complained that *Apple* was price-gouging, when the underlying cause of the problem was that ALL music being sold in the UK was more expensive. iTunes just made the price differences more absurd since the internet does not care about political lines on a map or differences in legal systems.
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On the contrary, the need for an uninstaller is a sign of fragility! The Mac way is just to drag it to the trash. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?
Although I agree with some of what you are saying, It is not that simple. People *can* do whatever they want to their iPhones after they buy them. What people cannot do is modify their phones and then expect that these modifications will stick when they install firmware updates and take advantage of new features developed by Apple.
Nothing. That is what Apple is doing! They are closing the holes that could allow malware to be installed, and which, incidentally, are the very same holes that people are using to install third-party apps. And, they are are putting together an official SDK. It's only a false dichotomy if, somehow, the holes could be closed only for malware and not genuine apps. Do some googling on the techniques being used to install these apps and you will understand why they need to be closed for security purposes.
Same here. I've got three machines running Leopard smoothly. He, being a computer geek, probably installed all kinds of crap. Just needs to find the offender and get rid of it.
No you're not. It's way too much. These idiots are dreaming when they want to charge $2.99 or more. The record labels are equally stupid in this way. They forget that they are competing against illegal filesharing.
Amazon's store faces the same limitations as iTunes and EVERY other store. The rights to sell music in a country have to be negotiated on a country-by-country basis. Smaller markets are a lower priority. It's old-fashioned, true, since technologically it would be trivial to open a worldwide store. The limitiations are entirely legal.
What good would it be to get your business be Apple had to slash profits to Dell's razor-thin margins to do so? That's the key. Marketshare is only one part of the equation that determines profits. Margins matter too. There's a reason IBM got out of the personal PC market, just as there's a reason tha Gateway couldn't make it.
Yep, Apple's strategy is just right. There is no way that Apple can compete with Windows PC vendors for the big corporate accounts, and Apple doesn't really try. Apple would have to be able to take on a huge infrastructure that is geared towards dealing with Windows. Licensing the OS to other vendors would not make an appreciable difference. Linux is free. Firefox is free. Still, most people run Windows and IE. A small portion of people are willing to consider something else, and Apple can capture the lion's share of them through its current strategy.
Apple's strategy a "niche" strategy gives them an awfully nice, profitable niche in which the OS gives them product differentiation from other hardware vendors. Dell has much better marketshare, but what good is that doing Dell at the moment? The low-margin, mass-market PC business is a morass in which very few companies are making any money.
You forgot this point: "4. Why is it that our network is getting slammed but similar networks at other universities are not?"
One does not need a technical background to know that if the iPhone caused problems for these kind of networks, we should be seeing them all over the place. A simple, logical process of elimination would soon cast strong doubt on the iPhone as the cause. It had to be the way that particular network interacted with the iPhone. Hence, it was the network and not the phone.
Well, this is quite a different issue than where we started out.
Apple, true, has not released a software development kit for the iPhone. I can see that as a developer you would find that disappointing. Where I differ is that I do not draw the conclusion that this means the iPhone is destined to fail. What matters for users is the availability of *quality* applications, which is not the same thing as the quantity of applications. Users do not really care how those applications got on their device. They do want the device to be reliable, however.
What we see at present with the iPhone is a brand-new device that has not been on sale much more than a week. It will evolve over time, and so will the application set available for it. It is my belief that third-party development will contribute greatly to the success of the iPhone. Apple may handle it differently than Microsoft in taking a greater degree of control over vetting third-party programs and making sure that they do not cause reliability problems on the device, but that could very well mean a superior user experience. Time will tell.
As for Microsoft and Silverlight, I don't really care. I think Microsoft's big concern there is that they don't want Adobe to become dominant with Flash. Microsoft is good at protecting its turf from competing platforms. Call it cross-platform or whatever, it's about Microsoft wanting to its fingers in every nook and cranny. They are good at making things easy for developers, I'll give them that, but the result often is the corruption of open standards, replacing them with Microsoft "standards."
Very interesting that you apparently would put Apple in the camp of those trying to exclude everyone but "submissive partners" since Apple and Google have stated that they are working together to develop "next gen" internet applications for the iPhone. I don't think Google is anyone's submissive partner. There will be more partnerships like this. The iPhone OS will be great platform for next gen apps.
Once again, you assume that Apple is just short-sighted and foolish. Apple just has a different approach, and I think that Apple's approach is far better-suited to the current era. Unlike the market for computer operating systems in the 1980s, there are not pressures for uniformity. Mobile devices do not need the same operating system to have the same functions. The very emergence of next gen applications that you mention is precisely why Microsoft will not be able to do what it did with computer operating systems. All these new apps are platform independent. The iPhone will be able to run them, so your old thinking is moot. This is not the 1980s all over again.
Finally, putting Microsoft in the "camp" of those that offers freedom is just a little rich. You make it sound like Microsoft is some big friendly bear that welcomes all comers. On the contrary, Microsoft is happy to give people freedom as long as they are locked into Windows. That company did not get where it is today by playing nice.
This old saw has been amply discussed elsewhere. It was not a financial bailout. Apple had over $1.2 billion in cash assets at the time. Microsoft's $150 million investment was not a big deal financially. What Apple DID need was investor confidence. Microsoft's commitment to keep producing Office for the Mac was important for Apple. On top of that Microsoft had its own business reasons for making the "investment." QuickTime code had turned up in Windows Media Player, and Apple was raising a big stink about it. Part of the deal was an undisclosed cash settlement on this matter. Also, Microsoft got the commitment from Apple to make Internet Explorer the default Mac browser, which was one way for Microsoft to fight off the competitive threat from Netscape. Read about it here: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/59 2FE887-5CA1-4F30-BD62-407362B533B9.html
Things are different today than they were in the 1980s, and the differences matter even more with respect to mobile devices. PCs have always dominated the workplace, and that dominance enabled Windows to take over the home market as well. Today, however, so much is done through the internet and using open standards. It's a complete fallacy to think that all mobile devices will have to have the same operating system in order to run the same programs or use the same files. What matters is that devices need to work reliably and be easy to use. Apple's approach delivers in this regard.
Precisely.
Yeah, just like Dell was going to take over the iPod business from Apple. So-called analysts were saying that soon Apple's marketshare on iPods would mirror its marketshare in computers. Now, Dell has bowed out of the business. This time, manufacturers cannot count on Microsoft's monopoly to carry the day.
Nothing lasts for forever, but it is clear that we are moving to an era in mobile devices where software is becoming king. Yes, you still need a good piece of equipment, but the biggest source of innovation will be on the software side. Apple is extremely well-position to succeed in this world.
No, think more carefully. Apple got exactly what it wanted from the ROKR: experience in the cell phone market without creating a threat to the iPod business. Apple made sure that the ROKR was limited in the number of songs it could hold for that reason. On top of that, Apple announced the re-designed iPod nano at the same event as the ROKR, turning into an iPod show. Months later, Ed Zander of Motorola was quoted as saying something to the effect of "everybody knows that they are working on their own cell phone." Indeed.
As I said, Apple has been working on the iPhone for years. They are in the middle of executing a long-term strategy in which future products targeting different market segments are already mapped out. Give them credit. They know what they are doing.
Not trying to flame here, but it never ceases to amaze me that people will just assume that Apple is completely short-sighted. There are billions of dollars at stake, and Apple has been working on this device for years. Do you really think that they haven't considered this carefully? That there is some "classic tale" that somehow people at Apple are too blind to see?
Apple has learned many lessons, and many of them are much more relevant to the success of the iPhone than the decision in the early days of the Mac to not license the operating system. They have learned that you don't necessarily need the most apps, you need great apps. The iPhone, one way or another, will have great apps. From the iPod, they have learned that keeping full control over the device enables them to move more nimbly, unlike the cumbersome PlaysFor{not}Sure system developed by Microsoft.
Windows Mobile is already out there and has been out there for years. Yet, the iPhone can come along and make an immediate, serious impact on the market. Apple knows what it is doing, and they will do with the iPhone what they need to do to keep it competitive.
The parent poster is making a good point. It seems practically impossible to a test run that represents anything close to the volume of activiations that the iPhone brought. There are many different pieces to the puzzle, moreover, such as the fact that many people have to wait for another carrier to release the number, which is just out of AT&T's control.
Think about it this way. In the typical process for buying a cell phone, a person would go to the store and sit there and wait while somebody activated the phone for them. When I've done this in the past, it's taken close to an hour. If the iPhone were being sold this way, there lines would have moved like molasses. People who got in line Friday would still be there today, waiting for their turn. Instead, everybody got their phones pretty quickly and all went home to activate them at the same time. It's really not that surprising the system got overwhelmed. That volume of activations happening simultaneously has to be unprecedented.
AT&T is not blameless, of course, but I really doubt that any of the other carriers would have handled it without hiccups.
True, but for that matter, one could say the same things over time about Microsoft programs on the Mac OS. Word 6.0 on the Mac was a disaster because Microsoft tried to use the same codebase as the Windows version. It goes both ways. If iTunes on Windows were as good as iTunes on the Mac, a lot of complaints about it would go away.
With respect to Safari, I think one reason could be the development angle. Apple wants Safari to have a broader share and make it easier for web developers to test for Safari compatibility. If this is the goal, it makes sense that they would want the Windows version of Safari to render just like the Mac version. The font anti-aliasing looks out of place on the Windows side, since Microsoft does it differently, but any additional Safari users from the Windows side are just gravy.
Accounts are that Apple has long been telling the major labels that DRM is not workable from the beginning. For evidence to this point, look no further than EMI's CEO, who stated that they knew Steve Jobs' views on DRM long before his open letter calling for DRM-free music. From the press conference where Jobs and Eric Nicoli announced the deal:
s _talks_new_itunes_functions_drm_and_video_ipod_sto rage_transcript.html
"Q: It's a pretty radical step, Eric. How did you reach the decision to do it? Was it Steve Jobs' letter that convinced you? Was it the internal surveys you've done? What was the moment in which you said, "Damn it, we're gonna go DRM-free?" And will the extra sales be enough to compensate for the declining physical sales?
A: We've always known Steve's view on the subject, long before his open letter."
The full transcript is here: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/02/job
No, the original article is talking about winning a standards war with Microsoft. If all the music stores turn to selling AAC, or even MP3 and AAC, Microsoft's effort to make WMA the standard media format will have failed. That's the point.
Don't get me wrong. I think the author takes the point too far when he leaps to conclusions of AAC dominance, but I do think that he may have a point about Microsoft. The interesting thing to me is that would be a victory *against* Microsoft but not one *for* any other company in particular. Apple uses AAC, but AAC is open to anybody despite what a lot of people think. For Apple, it is a victory in that they do not have to be beholden to Microsoft in this area. The same is true for nearly every other company but Microsoft.
Actually, it appears that the EU is really focused on the record labels rather than Apple. As an EU spokesman said today, "Our current view is that this is an arrangement which is imposed on Apple by the major record companies and we do not see a justification for it."
He also said, "Apple are the managers of the iTunes store. It's true that the focus is the major record companies."
Full story here: http://news.com.com/2100-1027-6173093.html?tag=tb
The copyright issue pertains to downloads, not physical sales, because it has to do with the legal right to download a song file and save it on your machine. Apple cannot by itself declare that you have the right to do this. That is up to the rights-holders.
Your assumption here is that the law is clear, but the laws are in conflict so it was not so clear. The EU has decided the arrangment is illegal very recently. The record companies are vigorously disputing that. It seems obvious that laws have yet to adjust to technological change. This kind of thing happens all the time. Until the laws adjust, there are a lot of grey areas. Apple happens to be a pioneer in this area, but the same issues would arise regardless of which music retailer came first, and I think it would be silly to just sit on the sidelines and wait until the law gets clarified.
Today, there is a story on CNet that sheds some interesting light on this debate. It is clear from the story that the EU Commission sees the record labels as being the source of the problem and that the current situation is not one of Apple's doing. That makes sense. Here are some relevant quotes:
Full story here: http://news.com.com/2100-1027-6173093.html?tag=tb
Alternatively, Apple will have to allow any consumer in any EU member country to shop from any of the EU country stores. Consumers would go where prices are cheapest, and the lablels would have to "face the music," as they say.
I seriously doubt Apple would care. The labels would, obviously. Don't know what would happen to the deals between Apple and the labels in such a case.
The last time I checked, EMI, BMG and Vivendi Universal were European companies. They have been charging different prices across EU countries long before Apple opened the iTunes store. The EU, apparently, did nothing about this. Apple has to cut deals with these companies to get content. Apple is a big player in digital music, but it is still only a tiny player in terms of the overall music market. Is Apple supposed to single-handedly force these companies to unify their pricing schemes across countries when the EU itself has not done so? Given the EU's apparent lack of effort to force change, why should Apple lawyers worry? Apple did not create the system.
It seems to me that you have anti-Apple eye glasses. Your assumption is that Apple somehow prefers the current system and that their comments are just spin. That doesn't hold up to logic. It would be far simpler for Apple if they could run a single European store. Having to cut individual deals for each country with all the relevant parties in each country had to have been a huge pain in the arse, but Apple didn't have a choice if it wanted content. That's the way the music deals have been made for decades. I seriously doubt that Apple's margins differ much across countries. Their margins on iTunes sales are not that large in any event. The differences in pricing come from the pricing differences that the music wholesale prices charged by the labels. If the the EU finds proof to the contrary, then naming Apple makes more sense.
The difference now is that the internet breaks down borders, making the complexity of the old system and the resulting differences in prices readily apparent. So, yes, the EU needs to come to grips with technological change and make companies comply with EU rules. I understand why Apple is named in the suit. They are the number one seller of digital music, but the brunt of the legal action should be directed at the music rights-holders. They are the ones that need to bring cross-border consistency to their system of royalties and pricing. There is no reason to believe that Apple would oppose this in any way. Having a single EU deal would greatly reduce the complexity of running iTunes.
Case in point. When Apple first opened its iTunes store in the UK, a consumer group filed a complaint about price gouging. They were comparing the difference in prices with France, if I recall. The assinine thing about the complaint, though, was that Apple's price for digital downloads was cheaper than any other major player in the UK at the time (considerably so if I recall). The point is they complained that *Apple* was price-gouging, when the underlying cause of the problem was that ALL music being sold in the UK was more expensive. iTunes just made the price differences more absurd since the internet does not care about political lines on a map or differences in legal systems.