WTF Apple... force U2 on everyone?
I'm not sure who this move will hurt more... but its probably U2.
Anyway... Apple decided to give everyone on iTunes the new U2 album for free. Nice eh? Well, they didn't simply make it available for free... they gave it to you whether you wanted it or not. So, millions of people who have auto-downloads turned on, or stream their music from the cloud woke up to music they had never asked for, authorized, or in many cases ever even wanted.
And to top it off... apparently, if you inadvertently streamed it from the cloud it gets added to your local device in some weird-ass limbo state where it cannot simply be deleted.
I really do wonder how Apple ever became a success.
And its sad that between moves like the hilarious failures their map feature made to their inability to figure out a map of Canada (potentially related I guess), to their inability to properly secure their OS's and services as they become ever more popular to things like this that it is hard to remember that there was a time when Apple didn't royally screw something up every 6 months.
I'm still not a fan of Apple or their products. But I can appreciate the products they pushed out historically. Sure they still had failures, but they weren't this as hilariously bad as they are these days.
And seriously... who couldn't think of how forcing free albums on people who wouldn't want them might be bad thing? It is like some woke up, had an idea and pressed a big red button that made it automatically happen without any time to think about why it might be a bad idea or run it by someone else.
Let's start with the obvious. Cost. Apple didn't not pay for this atrocity (sorry for the double negative, but it made my point better). By pushing it to every fucking person with an iTunes account, they gave away something they paid for to people with inactive accounts, people who based on settings and usage may be active but may still never actually download or even know they have it, people who hate U2, people who don't know/give a fuck who U2 is and there are probably other groups of people whom this "gesture" was wasted on. And Apple paid for all of them.
Now, I don't doubt Apple got some crazy "volume discount" on the bat-shit crazy idea, but I have to think that even if they paid full retail price and only gave it to the people that actually wanted it, it may have ended up costing less than whatever it is they paid to do this.
They clearly have too much money on their hands. This is like winning the lottery and buying all of your friends a car. Except, instead of being something useful like a car, it is buying them all the exact same album with no resale value. Even though you know they may hate it.
User satisfaction is next. As I mentioned above... depending on your settings or how you stumbled across it, it may have invaded or even Trojan horsed itself into your music collection. A goodly number of people from the comments and Twitter seem to echo the fact that this really isn't doing anything to improve what they think of Apple. One person was proclaimed a god for telling people who had it stuck on their iPhones how to actually get rid of it. That person was INCREDIBLY popular on that particular thread.
My music and my playlists are a very personal thing. Don't you EVER go acting upon assumptions about what I would or would not want in my music collection! I'm not alone in that either based on comments I've read.
And I'm getting tired so I think I'll end on violation of trust. When I buy a personal device like a PC, tablet or phone I want to control the content that goes on it. Apple's software engineers built in the capacity to have music auto-download, so whether or not the people involved in this decision knew that their actions might lead to people having stuff downloaded to their device without their knowledge, let alone their consent is still their fault. But, I haven't seen any claim even to that end, or any word of an apology. This, for me is the biggest faux pas here. I don't care whether it is reading or writing of data, no service should, without my explicit consent modify or take actions that would lead to the modification of the contents of my personal devices. EVER! This should be pretty straight forward. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there is out reviewing the ToS on iOS and iTunes to see if they have a case for a class action lawsuit right now.
Anyway... Apple decided to give everyone on iTunes the new U2 album for free. Nice eh? Well, they didn't simply make it available for free... they gave it to you whether you wanted it or not. So, millions of people who have auto-downloads turned on, or stream their music from the cloud woke up to music they had never asked for, authorized, or in many cases ever even wanted.
And to top it off... apparently, if you inadvertently streamed it from the cloud it gets added to your local device in some weird-ass limbo state where it cannot simply be deleted.
I really do wonder how Apple ever became a success.
And its sad that between moves like the hilarious failures their map feature made to their inability to figure out a map of Canada (potentially related I guess), to their inability to properly secure their OS's and services as they become ever more popular to things like this that it is hard to remember that there was a time when Apple didn't royally screw something up every 6 months.
I'm still not a fan of Apple or their products. But I can appreciate the products they pushed out historically. Sure they still had failures, but they weren't this as hilariously bad as they are these days.
And seriously... who couldn't think of how forcing free albums on people who wouldn't want them might be bad thing? It is like some woke up, had an idea and pressed a big red button that made it automatically happen without any time to think about why it might be a bad idea or run it by someone else.
Let's start with the obvious. Cost. Apple didn't not pay for this atrocity (sorry for the double negative, but it made my point better). By pushing it to every fucking person with an iTunes account, they gave away something they paid for to people with inactive accounts, people who based on settings and usage may be active but may still never actually download or even know they have it, people who hate U2, people who don't know/give a fuck who U2 is and there are probably other groups of people whom this "gesture" was wasted on. And Apple paid for all of them.
Now, I don't doubt Apple got some crazy "volume discount" on the bat-shit crazy idea, but I have to think that even if they paid full retail price and only gave it to the people that actually wanted it, it may have ended up costing less than whatever it is they paid to do this.
They clearly have too much money on their hands. This is like winning the lottery and buying all of your friends a car. Except, instead of being something useful like a car, it is buying them all the exact same album with no resale value. Even though you know they may hate it.
User satisfaction is next. As I mentioned above... depending on your settings or how you stumbled across it, it may have invaded or even Trojan horsed itself into your music collection. A goodly number of people from the comments and Twitter seem to echo the fact that this really isn't doing anything to improve what they think of Apple. One person was proclaimed a god for telling people who had it stuck on their iPhones how to actually get rid of it. That person was INCREDIBLY popular on that particular thread.
My music and my playlists are a very personal thing. Don't you EVER go acting upon assumptions about what I would or would not want in my music collection! I'm not alone in that either based on comments I've read.
And I'm getting tired so I think I'll end on violation of trust. When I buy a personal device like a PC, tablet or phone I want to control the content that goes on it. Apple's software engineers built in the capacity to have music auto-download, so whether or not the people involved in this decision knew that their actions might lead to people having stuff downloaded to their device without their knowledge, let alone their consent is still their fault. But, I haven't seen any claim even to that end, or any word of an apology. This, for me is the biggest faux pas here. I don't care whether it is reading or writing of data, no service should, without my explicit consent modify or take actions that would lead to the modification of the contents of my personal devices. EVER! This should be pretty straight forward. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there is out reviewing the ToS on iOS and iTunes to see if they have a case for a class action lawsuit right now.
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