I agree with Paul’s general thrust in that Apple’s now more than recently doing choices that don’t mean the best for the consumer, like the ridiculous checksum on the new internal iPod database. It’s moving towards a tipping point.
I think Paul misses out why he’s less than well-loved, though; even considering he does look after consumer rights, he only does it when Apple’s involved. Real and Microsoft have been able to pull pretty ridiculous crap and save face as far as he’s concerned, and he almost never attacks Microsoft about consumer rights, despite their far worse track record. (And no, like Paul, I don’t believe every single person inside Microsoft is deliciously evil; I do however think that the corporate strategy is incredibly arrogant.)
It’s almost as if he had a day job that required working with and writing about mainly Microsoft products and having to maintain a ton of contact with people inside Microsoft, and deciding that it wouldn’t be tactically advantageous to treat all market actors consistently. I might actually be okay with this as long as he was honest about it and disclosed it.
The checksum on the iPod database is just there for stability’s sake — it’s not intended to lock out other programs, and it won’t.
By http://openid.aol.com/fredblasdel · 2007.09.20 18:30
No, we don’t know what it’s there for, plain and simple. Yes, it could be a means of ensuring the sync operation was atomic. It could also be a silly, futile attempt at locking out third parties.
The fact is, we don’t know, because Apple has made no statement to either effect; not even a miniscule tech note somewhere on ADC. And that’s the really sad part: they’re letting people go amok with conspiracy theories when all it would have taken is a sweet, short, simple explanation.
By http://chucker23n.livejournal.com/ · 2007.09.29 08:26