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A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 143. Norway and other EU countries not happy with Apples iPod. iPods more “in” than beer on college campuses. Apple lowers Canadian iPod pricing. Apple offers new CBS content on iTunes. Rumors of new Leopard features. Will new Mac Pros offer “Quads”. MacCast One Minute Tip #15: Desktop Printing. MacBook Pro kernel panics from Airport issue, plus MacBook also suffer Airport woes. Fix strange characters when publishing iWeb sites to your own server. Restoring user account after a fresh install of OS X. Managing 2 iWeb sites from one Mac. The story behind iCal and July 17th icon.
New music, High Speed by Tourist [iTunes]
Welcome to the future. — X-Men (2000)
Shownotes: HTML or OPML
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You might be interested in the Consumer Council of Norway’s original complaint leading up to the Ombudsmen’s decision:
http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2006/1149587055.44
I thought you all would be interested that the only time that Apple has actually changed the EULA it actually gave us more rights – with the ability to authorize up to 5 computers (rather than three). Though having the ability to change the conditions of our purchase after the fact is probably not a good thing, Apple has done a pretty good job of maintaining my trust.
From using other Music Download services, they also make it very difficult to just take their downloaded file and burn it to a CD or turn it into a non-drm’ed mp3 or other non-drm file.
As much as I hate DRM, Apple is a company. Why would a company bother investing money and time into a service with no protection.
As for monopoly, I don’t see it. I can still buy a CD at my local store or Amazon..etc, When iTunes is my only source of music then I will agree.
You can even burn a Audio CD from an iTunes purchase and re-import it to anything I want. Which I always thought was a nice work around that Apple supplied while still getting the Record industry to agree.
I agree on the EULA issue, it’s not right for Apple to change the EULA for all of my PREVIOUS purchases.
They can change the EULA for future purchases just as long as I agree to it. Every time Apple did change the EULA they have always asked me. This happens when you install a new version of iTunes. During the install if the EULA changes they ask you.
Look at Credit Card companies, they change their agreement on the fly and their process is even worse! You get a little mailing with the new agreement, if you don’t agree you have to call and cancel in a certain time… if you dont you agree by default.
This is no way Bias for Apple, I would say the same for any other company.
Adam, thank you for taking the call on backups. For a while I have been thinking about doing a fresh install of my system not that I really need to but I want to clean up any potentialities. So clone (CCC), and migration tool?
I better rehear the tip.
Sounds great.
BTW, I love when you go into stuff like that, I will never forget the show you had mentioning security and standard accounts.
Keep up the great work and remember, always take a little break, don’t burn out. The show is wonderful, wish I could have a beer with you.
Cheers Adam
1- Am I wrong or do many music services not include Mac integration? I’ve looked at others (Yahoo, etc.) and only get a ‘sorry, this service not available for Mac’. Apple could make their music more available to non iPod players. Just to keep the griping down.
2- I recently updated Norton AV and was forced strip the old for the new. This is covered in their EULA. It was a big hassle. EULAs are meant to protect everyone, Apple should be able to pull the rights to someone who is using iTunes to pirate music. Still I can spread my rights over 5 computers etc. I agree that Apple could make the EULA clearer. Managing my music is less annoying (for years), then 20 minutes of downloading NAV.
3- The best back-ups for me, are disk partitions and extra hard drives. I highly recommend keeping software and files on separate drives. I started doing this when my a PC and kept losing drives (bad motherboard). It’s easier to reload when I know my data is safely elsewhere. Mac makes it so Easy! Most Mac programs let me chose where to put my library & files. Then when you reload, just remind the programs.
This is regarding your comments about iWeb and not being able to publish multiple sites on one account. I found this add-on to iWeb that claims that you can achieve this. I haven’t used it, but apparently it says it can do just what you were talking about doing without having to use seperate accounts on your Mac. Here’s the link:
http://mistergregg.com/cocoadrillosoftware/iWebSites/iWebSites%20Home.html
The program is called iWebsites.
Love the show, keep it up.
Adam, your segment on the iTunes EULA, DRM and interoperability was the worst thing I’ve heard on your show (and I am a longtime fan.)
1. Software EULA’s are well-known to be the worst contracts of all from a consumer’s point of view. There is no reason to single out Apple when the industry has gotten away with rotten EULA’s for decades.
2. No government ever tried to force Apple to license the Mac OS to non-Apple hardware. Conversely, no government has tried to force Microsoft to make Windows work on PowerPC-based systems. Where the hell do people get the idea that government involvement in hardware/software interoperability rules is justified?
3. No one is trying to make all of the other music services compatible with iPods. Hypocrites!
4. Anyone who thinks they can’t play music they purchased on iTunes on a generic MP3 player is just an idiot. Step 1) Burn your purchased music onto a CD-R (or CD-RW to save money) as an Audio CD. Step 2) Rip your CD into iTunes using MP3 format. Was that so hard?
5. Apple achieved success with the iPod/iTunes combination the right way — they brought a superior product and a superior service to a truly free market (I argue that pharmaceuticals are often not purchased freely, for example) and they won fair and square. Apple should be ready to pull up stakes in any country that interferes with the relationship it has developed with consumers. Woe to the government that does chase Apple out!
Near the end of this disgraceful segment, Adam, you did make a point that shows that you hadn’t completely lost your mind: iTunes works beautifully with iPods, but you can’t guarantee that other hardware vendors would work as well. Let’s face it: we Mac geeks have been choosing to buy into a closed, integrated software/OS/hardware system for more than two decades now. We believe the benefits of computing The Apple Way outweigh the disadvantages. Apple just brought that logic to the digital music industry and succeeded spectacularly. People who don’t like that arrangement have plenty of alternatives and should use them instead of incessantly whining.
Dave,
I think you may be getting a little more upset about my statement than you should. I was only talking about Apple’s EULA because that was the story. I take issue with all ELUAs and feel this is an industry wide issue. It was not my intent to be singling out Apple it was just the context I was reporting in. As a matter of fact I even said in the episode that if you look all software it has this bad ELUA language and it’s good that that this story brought it out in the open.
Adam, one of the local micor beer spots in Philadelphia has been serving Stones IPA for some time. Darn good stuff and I was disappointed that I couldn’t find find it in the LA /Ontario California beer stops we made at PME last November.
Jimmy,
You should have come by my hotel at PME, I had a case of Stone in my room. :)
Sorry, Adam, but I listened to that segment again and you really seem to be picking on the iTunes EULA specifically. The Norwegians are probably not complaining that the agreement uses English law, not Norwegian law, but that the English-language version trumps the translations into other languages. The Swede you had on completely misunderstood what it means to “own” a song. If I owned a song, I could perform it in public for money (if I had the talent ;-))
I believe that EULA’s have no real effect on individual home users. They are really designed to eliminate liability to people who use their wares for business. Let’s say you do digital photography professionally. If Photoshop has a bug that causes you to miss a deadline and lose money, you might want to sue them for making a defective product. The EULA allows Adobe to drop trou’ and moon you and say, “Tough crap!”
How come a EULA doesn’t require that you confirm that you are 18 or over when you sign it? Minors cannot sign contracts. I guess if I wanted to violate the terms, I’d get my young daughter to install the software, accept the EULA, and then I’d be free to go hog wild! Right?
As I listened for the second time, I got even angrier at the hypocrisy you and the Europeans espouse. Why aren’t they complaining that they can’t play WMA files on their iPods? Isn’t Microsoft conspiring to lock people “out” of using iPods? The double-standard that Apple is being subjected to indicates that there must be some hidden agenda at work. Are these efforts funded by Microsoft? Creative? Local download services?
Apple’s DRM is so easy to circumvent (two easy steps that can be done in iTunes without any hacking), that the complaints are not valid. (If you do convert your protected AAC’s to MP3’s and use them personally, you are probably OK — it’s when you share them illegally that you run afoul.) I don’t know of an easy, legal way to convert WMA’s to MP3’s (or AAC’s), so it is Microsoft that should be forced to make its media interoperable.
Dave,
Hopefully I cleared some of this up on my next show. Take a listen. I think we agree on a number of these points.
Completely off-topic…
Stone Brewery. Fine establishment. Me love the OAKED Arrogant Bas–rd Ale! :)
Shall we pop a cork of the OAB at PME 2006?