Crippling consumer electronics one device at a time…
There’s an interesting article by Bill Palmer at the iPod Garage site about why iPods have the auto-sync feature, which can cause the unit to erase all of its music if the iPod is being used in a certain manner that might be implicated for ‘piracy.’ As Palmer points out, it’s insulting to constantly be treated like a criminal-in-training when facing the practical realities of how people choose to listen to their digital audio files, especially when they are placed on multiple computers. Here’s a brief quote from the article, which is definitely a good read (even if you don’t have one, like myself):
Since the record companies had forced Apple into restricting the iPod into being used with only one computer anyway, why not just set things up so that when the user did connect their iPod to their one designated computer, all of the music on that computer would automatically copy into their iPod as well? I can just picture Steve Jobs and company sitting around a table, trying desperately to figure out how to make the iPod marketable in spite of the fact that it was now a crippled device, and coming up with the auto-sync thing and thinking, “”Yeah, that’s something that we can market.”" Advertising your weaknesses as strengths, if it works, can kill two birds with the same stone.
Fortunately, though, Apple also did something that in my mind, has meant the difference between the success and failure of the iPod. Within iTunes, they included a little “”iPod preferences”" panel (which is only visible when an iPod is connected) that allows you to turn the restrictions off. I can tell you right now that if not for the fact that they included this particular option, I never would have bought an iPod. And I wouldn’t own one today. Not in a million years. And if I’d bought an iPod without knowing ahead of time about the auto-sync crippling, and then hadn’t been able to turn it off, I would have immediately taken it back to the store in order to get my money back. You’d better believe there wouldn’t have been a restocking fee.
