It’s not to our advantage that NBC wants to change the way the iTunes Store works with regard to their content. And while it’s true that this NBC/iTunes spat may hurt Apple more than it hurts NBC, it would behoove us as consumers to make our thoughts known here.
Both companies have shareholders, are profit-minded and would likely skin you if they needed something to write on. But of the two who do you think would be worse?
If you’re anything like me, you’re wary of NBC more.
[However. Paul Thurott is coming out on the side of Apple which makes me wonder if that really means Apple is in the wrong here. I mean, Thurott is never right about things.]
Tomorrow brings us a new release from Apple of “something”. And yes, we’re all waiting with bated breath. A WiFi iPod would be nice, for sure, though some might think I love my Nokia N800 more. Hm. It does Skype and stuff but it’s really so poor at everything that I find myself more than frustrated with it’s limitations. And I’m not talking about the areas I assume it would be poor – I’m talking about the areas you would assume it excels.
I find myself using the N800 at home while my partner monopolises my laptop. And as a result I find myself reading less RSS feeds, because the RSS reader is pants. And I find myself reading fewer threads on rpg.net because, well, the browser is too slow to resize and sometimes causes a slow reload. And I dislike using the email client because sometimes if it fails to connect it just exits ungracefully and for some other reason it doesn’t seem to do proper IMAP. It calls it IMAP but it’s not really. The only time it actually syncs the mailbox is on first reading. After that it really just acts like POP and the active sync between clients that I see with Mac OS X’s Mail and Webmail clients etc just doesn’t occur. It just doesn’t do IMAP right.
Skype is okay, considering I have about 10 people on my Skype buddy list and about two of them are ever online. Gizmo handles my AIM, Yahoo and MSN accounts but it’s so badly designed that it leaves me muttering. It’s so fricken slow for a start – and the text chat window when it eventually opens looks great until you start to type – and the virtual keyboard eats up 40% of the screen. Which is fine if you didn’t have a icon bar at the top of the screen eating another 30%. So the area to type in and view the history of a conversation amounts to 30% of the screen – about enough for 3 lines of text. To say the experience is wholly dissatisfying is about right – and explains to my friends who read this why I’m not online as much as I used to be (ie, it’s just too painful!)
I guess I’m going to be stuck for the “perfect device” for a long time.
Lastly I guess I have to spend some time on the reports from record company execs that devices like the iPod will soon be obsolete due to everyone thriving on a subscription model. It’s true, they’ve worked so well in the past, why the heck not.
I have a genius idea for a subscription model for music:
1) have it available for free to everyone that uses a simple electronic device.
2) have some of it supplemented with adverts – you won’t need to subscribe to these ones, they’ll be free to listen to.
3) No user choice – look, who are these people who have hours on end to figure out exactly what they want to listen to? Let’s have a subscription model that works like a giant iPod Shuffle, you never quiet now what will be next.
4) uhm… profit?
5) that’s it.
I shall call it radio (now sure how I’d pronounce it though).