{"id":509,"date":"2006-09-25T18:35:36","date_gmt":"2006-09-25T10:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/http:\/www.nargalzius.com\/blog2\/archives\/2006\/09\/2006_09_25_1835.php"},"modified":"2006-09-25T18:35:36","modified_gmt":"2006-09-25T10:35:36","slug":"oh-apple-we-thought-we-knew-ye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nargalzius.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/09\/25\/oh-apple-we-thought-we-knew-ye","title":{"rendered":"Oh Apple, we thought we knew ye."},"content":{"rendered":"

I just have to rant. I know I’ve had beef about Apple with regards to some of the stuff they do\/release. And those points are always wonderful sources for futher debate… especially if you start bringing in the whole fanboy culture into the fray. Make no mistake – there are<\/strong> people out there who are so<\/em> dense, that they still see Apple as this knight in shining armor even if they’re already taking it in the ass.<\/p>\n

This time, I just have to say I’m sorely disappointed with what Apple’s doing the past few weeks. For those who didn’t know, they are trying to claim the whole “pod” name for themselves. What does this entail? Any branding that has “pod” in it is now in danger. And as far as I know, they’ve already succeeded and are now closing in on the “podcast” monicker. While this is probably a brilliant move as far as cutthroat business is concerned, I must say my disillusionment is in full effect. I can say without a doubt that Apple has become (or is well on its way to becoming) one of the big bullies in business. An evil empire, which was previously reserved for the likes of Microsoft.<\/p>\n\n

The “Apple culture” the fanboys loved to preach was the fact that Apple, while small compared to Microsoft, will always value the interests of their end-users… hence Apple has always had a fierce group of loyal users – regardless of market share.<\/strong> Wether you admit it or not, this is the reason why Apple was able to gain traction and become a contender once again.<\/p>\n

Of course this doesn’t mean they don’t innovate,<\/strong> they most certainly do. For me though, the company’s charisma,<\/em> if there was ever such a thing, was because they really cared about the people. The innovation was because they recognized what people really wanted… and while part of that may still be true, what’s left of their “situation” is sorely disappointing.<\/p>\n

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Now for the legal side of it all, I have no idea what is doable and not, so I won’t even try to say things like “they could or couldn’t<\/strong> do that!”<\/em> But even assuming that they’re well within their legal rights to do so, wether by a technicality or otherwise – the whole ethical issue involved with what their doing is embarrassing.<\/p>\n

I hope Line6 (or anyone who has used “pod” way before Apple) sues their asses as well. Wether or not it goes anywhere, I’d very much like to see Apple spend too much<\/strong> in legal cases that they’d finally realize how ridiculous their agenda is, and drop it altogether.<\/p>\n

As for the word podcast,<\/em> we all know that Apple should be thankful<\/strong> that people dubbed audio webcasts as that. When they first introduced podcast support in iTunes, it was because the phenomenon had already started – they didn’t revolutionize anything as far as podcasts are concerned. 1 <\/sup><\/a>I’d attribute it more to the availability of broadband on a wider scale, and the fact that portable music IN GENERAL was becoming the norm. And this availability of bandwidth also made it possible to get video more easily – hence the availability of video-casts.<\/span><\/span>