Freaking Apple products. From the iPod to taking over the universe, Apple has cornered their market on MP3-listening hipsters, birthers...well everyone. I can't really complain about their music and multi-touch devices without being a hypocrite as I own an iPad and an iPod Touch. I can, however, gripe about iTunes.
The features of iTunes started off as a pretty simple idea. You could add your own music, regardless of where you got it, onto your iTunes library and playlist - no sacrifices or redundant spending, iTunes allowed all MP3 files in their library and, in turn, on your iPod device.
I like things that are simple and I like spending money on purchases that I can do what I please with. I used my money to buy them, so I should be able to enjoy them in my own form. This is no longer the case with iTunes.
Because of my own closet preference for Apple products, regardless how Wal-martized they are (I use this term to explain any big business take over of their market), I chose to remain hush-hush about all things Apple. Well, the corporate greed in cornering the MP3/computer market is out of control.
I downloaded a whole season of one of my favorite shows recently, Sons of Anarchy. I used iTunes for two reasons: one I could watch the shows on my iPad and two I could not find the most recent season in any stores. I think I spent $29.99 for the season, not too shabby.
But, I wanted to enjoy the show with others and thus, I found a problem. Some stupid encrypted/coding system iTunes uses now does not allow you to burn your own purchases onto a DVD. I bought the season, I should be able to watch it however I choose. No, after dabbling with some free encoding applications that I thought might mitigate this issue, I still couldn't. Of course not, I needed to purchase a FULL program to this, which would cost another 30 bucks.
Resilient as I often am, I tried a new method. I hooked up my XBox to my computer to use a Microsoft service that will allow you to play TV shows and such from your computer through the XBox and onto the TV. Hello error messages, no such luck. Apple in their protection coding or whatever, has forbid this - all of their iTunes products are given a super special file name, only readable through iTunes.
Well, well I chose to give my money, yes mine, to Apple for a product rather than Amazon or some other misc. video-selling store and now I can only use said product through iTunes.
Is this necessary? No. It's called greed. And like Netflix, another big company has chosen to limit the use of a product you spent money on, in order to move out their competition.
This is the same company that recently got caught with child labor in China. Skim some bucks from production and limit the use of your products among your consumers - well, thank you. We all appreciate your greed. Capitalism, fascism, communism - whatever. It's my money that you are controlling to fund your overpriced lifestyles.
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