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Two Rants |  |
Rant 1
I’ve been having strong feelings of ambivalence toward Apple for a little while now. Not too long ago, I went out and picked up an iPod Nano, which I love. It’s sleek, and seems pretty durable, and it does exactly what I want it to do. What I didn’t realize when I got it was that it was a second generation iPod Nano, which makes a difference. Functionally, I’d imagine the two generations are pretty similar. However, the form of the second generation Nano is slightly different from that of the first generation, which poses an interesting problem: incompatiblity with previous generation accessories. Want to use your old Nano hard case? Too bad; the second generation’s curves are slightly different, meaning that it just won’t fit unless you’re using a soft skin (and even that is an imperfect fit, in my experience). Today, I went out to pick up an FM transmitter specifically designed for the Nano. Unfortunately, the second generation Nano’s USB dock port is both larger and differently positioned, meaning that the transmitter just wouldn’t fit it. To me, this is extraordinarily frustrating, mainly because a lot of this stuff either isn’t out for the second generation yet, or is still too expensive to be worth it. The design change seems to me to be motivated almost entirely by a desire on Apple’s part to sell more peripherals, rather than allow people to use their old ones.
Rant 2
And speaking of Apple, you know how iTunes limits the number of computers you can play your legally downloaded music on? Yeah, that pisses me off, too. This is clearly an anti-piracy measure, and it sucks for two reasons. First: it punishes people who buy the music legally from iTunes. I’ve gone through a couple of computers in the last year, and two more upgrades down the road I’ll have to re-purchase all that music (in theory, at least). And that brings me to the second reason that this feature sucks: it’s laughably easy to circumvent. All you really have to do is burn that music to a CD, then rip it back off in a format that isn’t protected. So, in short, they’ve designed an anti-piracy measure that only hurts legitimate users, will not seriously impact actual music pirates, and forces me to–in effect–pirate music that I’ve already legally downloaded in order to keep using a few years down the road. Seriously, that sucks, Apple. And this isn’t just a problem with Apple; it’s a problem with anti-piracy at large. In general, it doesn’t work. The pirates will find a way to break any countermeasures you throw at them, and the people that wind up suffering are the legitimate users. It may even drive some legitimate users to download their programs illegally, sans copy protection, effectively creating more piracy. Anti-piracy is actually one of the reasons that I generally prefer playing board games and RPGs to computer games: at least I don’t have to buy two copies of Runebound in order to play with my friends. But if I want to play a quick multiplayer game of Neverwinter Nights with my wife, I need two copies? Say it with me, people: that sucks.
