Apple to iPod owners: "Eat shit and die" -- UPDATED

If you're an iPod user, you would have done well to have availed yourself of iPod Download, an OS X app that made it easy to move your music from your iPod to your Mac. Of course, Apple hated that poor little app, so it was sometimes hard to find, as Apple devoted expensive laywer-hours to shutting down all the sites that were hosting copies of it. Of course, there's more dough where that came from -- they'll just pass the cost on to you in your next iPod.

As it turns out, you're shit-outta-luck even if you managed to snag a copy. That's because Apple just devoted some expensive engineering hours to updating iTunes to version 4.7, with the "improvement" of breaking iPod Download. That's right -- Apple's spending money seeing to it that features are removed from your iPod. Thanks a whole lot, Apple.

Every time I post something like this, I get a deluge of mail that makes the same tired points, so before you bother, here's some pre-rebuttal:

• Apple didn't have any choice. If they don't play nice with the suicidally stupid record industry, the industry will stop supplying music for the iPod.

  So freaking what? Who's the customer here, me or Sony/BMG? And honestly, there may be some powerful bozon emitters in the halls of the RIAA companies, but does anyone really believe that the record industry will just take its ball and go home at this point? "Sorry, we're no longer making music available for the iPod anymore because Apple has refused to break your personal stereo to our specifications." Riiiight.

• Just don't run the update.

  Yeah, that works. Until they roll the iTunes update into an OS update, like they did the last time they broke iTunes and called it an upgrade.

What's the lesson here? Well, Apple's not on your side, even if you're an Apple customer. If you buy into a proprietary platform where the music industry gets a veto, you're scr0d. Every time you buy an iPod, you are financing legal and technical countermeasures aimed at taking away legitimate features that enable you to do more with your lawfully acquired music and hardware. Link

Update #1: Why it's irrelevant that there are other tools for synching your iPod

Update #2: How to un-cripple your copy of iTunes 4.7

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