I love Apple’s products, but, over the years, it’s become increasingly clear that the company was defined by Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs was an epic d-bag. How much of one? One lawsuit alleges that Apple, between 2007 and 2009, forced you to delete any songs on your iPod that you didn’t buy from them.
The accusations are part of a much larger case that Apple tried to stifle competition in the legal music downloading industry. But see if this sounds familiar: You download music from something that’s not iTunes. You put it on your iPod. Suddenly, you get an error message, saying your iPod needs to be restored to factory settings, and somehow, all the music you downloaded from somewhere else gets wiped out in the process.
The best part of all this was Apple’s reply in court. It’s such a perfect summary of Apple’s corporate philosophy, it should be in a plaque at Cupertino:
“We don’t need to give users too much information, we don’t want to confuse users.”
Is this true? I believe so. It’s in line with the passive-aggressive way of forcing you to use only Apple products and systems, whether clinging to useless proprietary connectors or its deeply held institutional belief that anybody copying even their most basic idea must be destroyed in court. Technology companies in general are built on the idea that anybody who uses their products is officially their serf and should be treated like a mushroom. But they all learned that attitude from Apple.
Will the suit win? Possibly. But in the long run, consider this an objective lesson. Absolutely nothing has changed at Apple, and the company tends to work in cycles. So, if you’ve got your music backed up on Apple’s servers… maybe keep a spare on a thumb drive. Just in case.