Functionality

It seems I’m on a tear about DRM and its associated software lately. Not sure why, probably a conflagration of the NBC thing and the Apple’s recent press conference, followed by Schiller’s offensive interview.

Anyway, a couple days ago for some reason I decided to try and get ringtones to work. I don’t really know why I would do this, I’m not at all sure I would want some song to play when my phone rings. I have never had a ringtone before other than a very simple one and I don’t think I planned on doing it now. I was just bored and it seemed like something to do. So apparently Apple left open a silly little thing where you can rename the file extension of a previously existing aac file and it will become a ringtone. That works fine, but in the process I somehow deleted the non-ringtone song from iTunes. I then deleted the ringtone, and tried to add the original song back. Somehow iTunes thinks that it has the song already, so it will not re-import it. I had to poke around in its xml file, re-build the library (a completely non-human readable file btw) etc. All this time I’m thinking. You know, I own this song. I bought it. It’s on my phone already in a different directory. Why can’t I just play it as a ringtone?

Apple, according to Phil Schiller (VP Worldwide product marketing) would have you believe that:

Sure, the labels and publishers get the rights for songs to be remade into a ringtone. So part of what we do is to work with those content owners to make sure that there are rights in place for every piece of content to be made into a ringtone.

Which is bullshit. The RIAA in fact fought that ringtones NOT be licensed in this way. The RIAA basically screwed the music creators out of any rights at all for their ringtones, signed a contract with Apple saying Apple couldn’t distribute ringtones if they got “their” music, and not Apple is lying about it. For more analysis of the original suit this article by the senior copyright counsel for google is very good. I wonder what Apple’s counsel thinks about anything…

The point is, I have long decided my software and hardware based on functionality. I like to be able to do things. The software on a mac is great, everything works pretty well, but there are a lot of useful tools built in. People that never used macs I think, think of them as simplified versions of windows. I think this is largely due to an ignorant stance on design that makes people think pretty things are simple. I like that the system preferences on mac are laid out nicely. I also like that they come with curl, php, gcc etc. Lately it seems like Apple is pandering to the 14 year old girl audience, which is code for greed. I don’t care that the new iPods can detect when they are near a Starbucks. Why don’t they have google maps? I’m also not really excited about buying songs while I am on the move, and I don’t consider plugging a silly ringtone issue as value-added service. I do want third party applications on the iPhone. The worst part about Schiller’s lying in that interview was that I honestly think they are working on an API. There have been fairly credible rumors from Yahoo and some other places that they are working on apps. So, I guess he doesn’t want to be open.

Anyway, the point is, these are all little things now. I can’t do everything I would like on my phone. I can’t take screenshots of other apps while I am watching a dvd, but I feel Apple is moving more in this direction and I don’t like it.

Right now I think Apple still has better functionality than Ubuntu, but I wouldn’t assume it will be this way for long. They seem to be heading in opposite directions in this area, and while I’m not sure when they will cross, I do think that transition will occur unless Apple pulls its head out of its ass. Markets are conversations, information wants to be free and all of the other slogans that apparantly Apple hasn’t paid any attention to.