Of course it has occured to me. That's not the issue. The issue is that forcing a company to open up something that pulls in maybe 10 million USD in a country like Norway is ridiculous. Actually, Apple still
supports other mp3 players via iTunes on Mac OSX, just not for the iTMS.
Here's the problem with the Sony logic. Sony could very well do what you said. However, they got smacked around for trying that (ATRAC3, I believe was their format). People didn't buy it. Yet 70% of mp3 owners' buy iPods. Dominant form won. If they don't want the iPod, then burn a CD of their bought music from iTunes, convert it to mp3. Problem solved. There are plenty of work arounds to get their iTMS music store music to play on these generic crap mp3 players.
Why am I against it? Because it takes the quality control out of Apple's hands. iTunes and iPods just work together. And if there is a problem, Apple will resolve it. They control the entire process, allowing the simplicity of use and quality to be owned by them alone. If they were to allow 3rd party products to work with iTunes easily, then people might associate any issues that arise, or even just the crappiness of the mp3 player, with Apple instead of pointing fingers at the company who produced the mp3 player.
Apple is trying to develop an excellent brand reputation for itself. It is trying to avoid the wonderful reputation that Windows has. If Apple owns the complete experience, and if most people like that experience, it gives Apple a good name. However if someone is using a creative mp3 player with iTunes, and there is an issue with the player, they may assoicate any non-reparable by apple issues to apple when it's creative's fault thus leading to a bad reputation for apple.
Also, trying to support the multitude of other mp3 products out there would be costly for apple. Why should they have to bear those costs?
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Originally Posted by Tommo Has it not occured that there is plenty of choice because other people are not as restricitive as Apple have been. Go back to iTunes 3 and it supported most of the MP3 players on the market. Apple in their usual restrictive way removed all support apart from the iPod.
It is not unreasonable (especially in view of the companies view on piracy) following your arguement that Sony restrict all media from it's DVD and Music arms to only play on Sony equipment.
Why do you find it unreasonable that users of other MP3 players are not able to access music via the iTunes music store ? |