Apple Nag

Are all these developer complaints about the iPhone app store having any affect on Apple, or do they just irritate everyone?

Developers know by now what Apple is like. How about the developers stop whining and leave? That’s the only thing Apple will listen to. Geez, this app store fiasco has been going on since it’s conception.

Consumers don’t care about developer problems as long as they get their fix of apps. When the apps stop coming, users will leave. When users leave, profits go down, the carriers get pissed and Apple will say, “Huh, WTF? Why is this happening?” Yes, it will still take awhile for them to understand that they brought this upon themselves.

Until then, as long as developers keep whining and building apps (that’s called masochism), then they’ve developed a symbiotic relationship with Apple (the sadists).

Apple might care then when it hurts their bottom line. Until then, it’s just noise they’ve tuned out.

It’s just like this blog and my Twitter feed. I’m under no illusion that Apple gives a flying fig about anything I say, or the countless poor souls pouring their hearts out on the Apple support forums.

I continue to use Apple products — not because they’re a model of excellence, far from it — but because they’re better than the alternatives. I’ve learned to live with that and use this blog and Twitter as a means of telling those who have drunk, or are thinking of drinking the Apple kool-aid, that they should be warned about what they’re getting into.

When you bite into the Apple, most of it will taste delicious but you’ll also get that musty taste of rot.

I’ve used your products primarily since March 1, 1984 when I bought my first original Macintosh and ImageWriter printer. I was proud to be a Mac owner because it was so superior to the alternatives.

In the subsequent years leading up to the present time I became a Mac bigot. Everything else was not only not good, it was trash and I wondered how anyone could use that crapola.

Then Macs started going downhill with quality problems in the hardware and software. Macs just sucked less. I stopped doing unpaid sales and evangelizing for you and kept pretty quiet. When people asked me what kind of computer to get, I would no longer say, “Get a Mac”, I’d say, “What do you want to use a computer for?” I often told them to buy a PC.

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I’ve been fortunate in my career to never have worked for tyrants. Sure, I’ve worked for some bozos, but never someone who got their kicks from intimidation. Or someone who yelled at me while spraying spittle in my face. Or someone who threatened to fire my sorry ass unless I did this or that by some impossible deadline while sacrificing my family and social life, or my health.

I’ve never worked at Apple.

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All this time I’ve been nagging you for not listening to your customers. But I had an epiphany on my walk in the park with the dogs that caused me to change my mind. Yes, your quality is still poor and arguably getting worse, but it’s just what (most) of your customers want. It’s “good enough”.

Once upon a time, your customer base was composed of people who were looking for high quality hardware and software, and most of the time you delivered. That was the differentiator. If you didn’t have that you would have vanished into oblivion years ago.

But now you’re catering to the young people who don’t know what quality is because they’ve never experienced it. And on the rare occasions that they do see quality, they shrug their shoulders and mumble, “whatever.”

I’ve seen my daughter watching a DVD on her MacBook Pro listening to the audio through those tinny speakers while she’s sitting in front of our 40″ widescreen LCD TV with a Surround Sound system! When I ask why she’s not using the TV, she says, “this is fine, dad” in that “don’t bug me” tone.

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With your one billionth download, I started to think about the apps I have installed on my iPod Touch. I was somewhat startled to realize that I had 50 apps, yet I only paid for one $1 app — and I don’t use it anymore because a better free one became available. That works out to an average of two cents per app.

I’m known to be notoriously cheap — er, frugal, yeah that’s what I mean. But even so, you would think that the legions of app developers would be able to convince me to part with more money.

Games are not my thing, so even though I have several free games installed, I hardly play any of them. I certainly won’t pay for something I don’t use. Games are hot on the app store.

After some introspection I believe I have the answer. I don’t like your policies.

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I know you’d prefer me to call the iTunes Store pricing changes to music as variable pricing, but I’m just calling it as I see it — a price increase.

When you said that the price decreases would offset the price increases, I didn’t believe it for a second. Why? Anybody who has renovated their home and listened to their contractor’s price quotes knows what that really means. The price is going up.

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A couple of nights ago, I was browsing the iTunes Store from my Apple TV and found your $1 movie specials. I opted for the $2 HD version of Rain Man.

This is a good deal considering the price of regular rentals that are between $4-$6. It’s not a great deal because you don’t have the enormous expenses of a bricks-and-mortar store, but fair given the high market prices.

When I looked at the list of Top rented movies, wouldn’t you know it but all three $1 rentals were in the top 7 movies.

I know you don’t have complete control of pricing, in spite of your best efforts, but perhaps someone at the movie studios will figure out that they can make a ton of money by having reasonable prices.

The Apple TV purchasing experience is fantastic, something you’ve really done well (except for trying to find a movie). I’m technologically savvy enough to know how to use The Pirate Bay and Bittorrent to find almost any movie I want to watch. But, it’s a horrible experience trying to download some low-res video with all the hassle of worrying about seeds and wasting my ridiculously low Rogers data cap by uploading back to the torrent. It takes hours before I can start watching, days for a pseudo-HD movie. It’s not worth the hassle.

Why would I inflict that upon myself when I can watch an HD movie on my Apple TV for $2, and start watching it a couple of minutes after I decide to do so?

So I don’t pirate movies because my time is valuable. I subscribe to Rogers Video Direct, operated by Zip.ca. But, I have to wait days, weeks, or months for a DVD. I have limited choice over what movie arrives and have to wait a long time for new releases.

Is everybody in the movie studios and yourselves daft? Can’t you see you’re walking away from money? Price online downloads at a reasonable amount and everyone — everyone — wins.

A couple of articles yesterday and today got me thinking (always dangerous) resulting in that old Beatles tune, Can’t Buy Me Love, wafting through my brain.

I’m glad for that as it got me to write about more important things than the forced restart of OS X I had to do today. How many times is that this week? Hmm.

You can never go wrong beating up Apple, and I’ve certainly got my licks in with you guys on this blog. You deserved it. But these two articles are asking more from you than a company should be expected to give.

Money can buy you love. Just ask Scott Bourne. His giveaways on Twitter are buying him followers. So are his giveaways for linking to his new web site. Does that mean Scott is some sad, pathetic loser that has to buy his love? Hell no. He’s running a business. It’s called marketing. You can’t come down on the guy because he’s spending money to make money. That’s how companies grab attention, which is what you need to get noticed in a highly competitive market. If the product he provides is crap, people will leave, his advertisers will bail, and he’ll be left with debt. It’s called running a company.

What the authors of the articles fail to understand is that you are providing a non-essential service. You’re running a business. You have competitors. You’re trying to win. Why does everyone want to beat up a winner?
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All the readers from the U.S.A. can tune out now. They won’t understand this posting since you’ve created a reasonably well-populated iTunes Store. But in Canada? I can hear the wind blowing through the Canadian iTunes Store.

No doubt you’d like to offer a wider variety of content but there are some stupid, Canadian protectionist regulations on top of the ridiculous licensing restrictions of the content providers. That leaves us with negligible content and TV shows that don’t appeal to me.
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