Why Apple is Sometimes a Horrible Company...

NOTE: This blog entry was originally published on my personal blog, Clearly Unclear. Check it out if yo enjoy technology, Apple products, movies, TV, Getting Things Done, etc.- http://www.stevend.ca

I'm often accused by friends, family and total strangers of being an Apple fanboy. I own a large amount of Apple products (3 iPod's, a MacBook, an Airport Express, and the iPhone) and can often be overheard trying to explain why these various products a great. Most of the time the accusations of fanboyism are made by people that just don't like Apple, they have irrational and uneducated opinions about the company like some do about Microsoft. I think I could do a whole blog post about the silly Mac vs. Windows arguments I hear from people on both sides, and I might do that one day... but not today.

While I do love me some Apple products, Steve Jobs and the fine people in Cupertino, California can sometimes make some rather boneheaded decisions, in my personal opinion. The folks at Apple like the word synergy. That's not usually a bad thing from a consumer's point of view, because nothing is worse in the world of consumer electronics when different devices don't work together. And of course, from a business point of view it couldn't make any more sense, just like any other company, Apple wants to sell you and and all of their products. All that's great, but when a company views synergy as a way to FORCE a consumer to buy a certain branded product, that's where the problem begins. A problem that was perfectly illustrated when Apple recently announced it's update to the iPod Shuffle.

I've always thought the iPod Shuffle was the definition of overpriced. This iteration is no different. It costs $99 CDN, and has no screen... so picking a specific song to play is out of the question. Now, they've made some special improvements in this version to limit this problem. It now has the ability for you to pick between playlists. You press a button, and it will speak the playlist names to you, and once you hear the correct one you press the button again to select. Still, no ability to select a specific song and I for one don't want to listen to a robo-voice go through 5-10 playlists... I want to listen to MUSIC. That might be cool to some, but at $99, it's far more expensive than other MP3 players with more useful features. Plus, if you just spent $50 you could get an iPod Nano, that has a screen, double the capacity, and can play video. I'm ranting... so I'll move on to the topic at hand...

In the paragraph above I referred to a button you press to use this robo-voice feature. This button is not actually on the device itself, in actuality there are no buttons on the device, just a on\off\shuffle switch. At this point you're probably asking, so how do I control the volume, and functions like play, pause, forward, and back? Well Apple, have moved all these buttons to the headphone cord. This isn't really a new feature in the word of portable audio, I had CD players that had that. What's new, and very controversial about this, is that there are no buttons on the device. So you NEED to use the Apple earbuds, you can't use your favourite head phones you currently have.

Plus, Apple has now included a chip in these earbuds that relate to the "Made for iPod" certification program. Which means that companies that attempt to clone these headphones, or make adapters for current headphones, that don't participate in this Apple certification program will probably not get any shelf space at Apple Retail Stores, or very much space at stores like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and FutureShop.

Apple has used this certification program with it's proprietary dock connector, so you're probably used to seeing the "Made for iPod" logo on devices such as alarm clocks, stereos, and car kits that make use of the dock connection at the bottom of iPod's and iPhone's. Now Apple, has extended this to headphones. What does this mean to you? Well if you want to use your current set of headphones, you're going to probably have to pick up an adapter, which means shelling out another $10-$20. There's been no confirmation that one will be made by Apple, or a 3rd party manufacturer at this point, but I hope and expect one will be available at some point. Otherwise you'll be stuck with the earbuds that come with the Shuffle, or you can choose to buy one of the new "Made for iPod" compatible versions you'll see on the shelf, but they'll come at an increased priced compared to headphones that are not certified or that don't include the REQUIRED buttons.

My recommendation before all this was to just not buy the Shuffle, and given this news that recommendation stands. The only way this kind of proprietary, synergistic nonsense will stop is if people stop buying the products. So don't buy it!!!

- Steven Davis

NOTE: This blog entry was originally published on my personal blog, Clearly Unclear. Check it out if yo enjoy technology, Apple products, movies, TV, Getting Things Done, etc.- http://www.stevend.ca

Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevendavis