Consider the apple cart officially rocked, this month has seen a new reason to debate music piracy, digital rights and computer use in general. That reason is more often than not, the recently released apple music store.
But why is the apple rotting? please be patient and I will try and take you on a backwards journey from cause to effect and then to computer use and politics...
Apple recently launched the new service with a much hyped event and, like many mac fans, I watched Steve Jobs' speech live online. But something was different this time.. he was not happy, he was not exited about some fantastic new technology or hardware, his jokes had become contrived and his demonstrations awkward. "whats wrong?" I wonder, I was about to find out.
What is it? It is the first of its kind, it is the first online store that sells digital music and I am not talking about ordering a CD from amazon. You open the program, you browse the music, you can download it as fast as the money is uploaded from your credit card. Transferring music online is defiantly not new, but paying for the privilege is.
As Steve went on, my view of MAC was changed forever.
The music service does essentially remove the production and distribution costs. An obvious improvement. Whatever bad karma I receive by using napster, audio galaxy (and now, direct connect) to "steal" music is wiped clean by my environmentally friendly side. Go down to the music store and look around! That's alot of plastic man!!
Established that alot of money (and plastic) is being saved, where is it going? Well, its going to the same place it always has, the pockets of the greedy and stale music industry.
Why not offer service to the thousands of independent labels that are dying to get there music heard? Well the current line up on the apple music store does not interest me in the slightest, most of the music on my hard drive currently is either an independent label AND/OR made by an artist I have met personaly at a party! Apple, nor anyone else, can emulate that kind of open source music base. not with the fastest internet connection, or the bestest cheapest deal on the new britney spears and eminem album.
Now my dad. He is a pretty clued up father and recently bought me an MP3 player for my birthday (rock!).. I dont know if it was because he never saw me buying CDs but still heard a constant stream of new music coming from my bedroom door but anyway, the MP3 player is an apple iPod (and I do love it, 10 gigs of music in a deck of cards is what it is and it is). But wait, apples new iTunes music store uses a different music format, the MP3 killer named AAC.
"But my iPod doesn't play ACC!" I thought, "Not a problem.." whispered apples marketing department while slipping me a firmware update. But they also released a new iPod model at the same time. In itself not so strange, but then the shit hits the fan.
The guts of the new ipod are the same as mine and yet it has many new software features and games that mine doesn't. I could not but help ask, "WHY THE HELL NOT?". Well the answer was obvious. Apples marketing department decided they wanted to sell more iPods than support its current user base. I was outraged, my "old" ipod was less than 2 months old. I hit the various ipod forums and caused quite a riot.
Now this is a company I had grown up with, this is the company that enabled me to do what I do today.. but I do not feel enabled anymore, I do not feel happy about using mac. Today, I feel like an adult afraid to give up his trainer wheels.
If a PC user is unhappy with a device or a component that makes up his system, he uses that knowledge the next time he is on the market. Money speaks for him and things change. If a mac user is unhappy with his computer... well, tough titties! His software collection is mac only, most of his peripherals are mac only and more than likely, the average mac user doesn't even know his computer is made up of separate components because he bought the computer like one does a household appliance. The idea of upgrading a mac goes about as far as a new hard drive or some more ram.
"How could I be so blind." I thought in the moment of realising what was going on. My PC friends had been putting up with my mac zealot preaching for years and I had not heard their comparatively quiet logic for all the yelling.
Mac is an addiction. Mac is an inviting moist vagina of glossy, easy to swallow products which is easy to slip into and very hard to get out of.
Whenever I got a glimpse of the things possible on a PC, and had enough money in the bank to forget about all my mac only software and hardware, I thought about switching.. but I was always torn along the line of "hrrrm, my mac may be an appliance but it does work. PC requires alot of downtime to keep it up and running and, the assumed OS, windows is.. well.. undesirable to say the least."
So I always shrugged it all off and went back inside the protective shell of MAC.
But that shell is rotting around me, and fast, today I got a link from a friend yesterday and realised I am not alone.
I cant tell you what apple will do in the future but I can tell you why I am using a mac today and that is its past. I mean Apple computer! the company that started off with the commercial "1984" and continued to blow my mind all though highschool enabling my creative pulses and teaching me things I would not have learnt on a PC of the day.
I have no regrets about being a mac user because of this, but people change and so do corporations.
So I am here now to say that I am switching platforms.
Not for any external advertising or other unwholesome reason, but for my ethics and a desire to be part of something open.. something free and evolving, and that's really what I am all about.
(now I must stress that the issue of retarding the ipod software is not the reason I am switching, people will get the wrong idea. this music thing was only the wake up call after a bad one night stand with customer support and the built up shit I have had to endure regarding mac in general.. if you want more grisley details, check the links in this page)
It might not be perfect, and it is going to be very hard but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it burns oh so brightly.