dandelionpatch.net

People love iPods (including me; my family of four has purchased 12 iPods in the past few years).

Good for you.

But iPods come bundled with iTunes. Want to buy music from Apple? Guess what? You must install iTunes.

"buy music from Apple" ... yes - if you want to buy music -from- Apple you have to go to their site and use their tools. How is this different than any other music player and music site? In addition, this completely ignores the fact that you can go out and buy a frak'n CD and rip it using any number of different tools.

Want an Apple cell phone from AT&T? Yep! ITunes is required even if you want only to make phone calls.

No. iTunes is not required to make phone calls. I start my iPhone and iTunes is no where to be found. Its true that you need iTunes to register and enable your iPhone and to provide updates to the firmware but its also true that every phone (whether it be "smart" or otherwise) requires some proprietary piece of software to be installed to perform the same tasks. If you don't care about updates - then uninstall iTunes.

Want to buy ringtones for your Apple phone? iTunes.

Ugh. God forbid that Apple wants to provide a consistent user experience by using the same interface for all the services it offers. But let us not forget three things: every other cell phone provider sells ring-tones through a proprietary interface, its more expensive, and hacks are available to bypass this.

Apple not only “bundles” iTunes with multiple products, it forces you to use it. At least with Internet Explorer, you could always just download a competitor and ignore IE.

But you can't "ignore" IE. You can't "remove" IE. Its always there. No matter how hard you try - you can never ignore IE because IE heavily integrated into the "Windows Experience."

At least with Windows, you could reformat your PC and install Linux or any number of other PC-compatible operating systems. Can I reformat my iPod and install something else?

Yes, you can. Can you do this on a Zune?

Can I uninstall iTunes but keep using the iTunes store and my iPods?

Not if you want to use the iTunes store but you don't need to use the iTunes store.

Apple strongly discourages all that, claiming that the iPod, the iPod software and iTunes are three components of the same product. But that’s what Microsoft said about Windows and IE.

Of course Apple strongly discourages that. But that is not what Microsoft said about Windows and IE. Microsoft controlled the desktop and wanted to force every user to use IE for every thing that was internet related. Apple doesn't control the desktop and iTunes runs on Windows and Mac OS X. This is where Mr. Elgan is having problems with the word Monopoly. Microsoft was using its almost unfettered control of the desktop market to force users to buy their other products.

Dad opens the present and is excited. He follows the directions, installs iTunes and immediately splurges on a few dozen songs at the iTunes store. He loves it, and is an instant convert to portable digital music. The only downside is that he works out every day at the gym, where cardio machines face TVs that broadcast sound over FM radio. Six months later, when his iPod is stolen, he goes to buy another player — this time, he hopes, with an FM radio in it. Several competitors offer this feature, but not iPods. He’s about to choose a new player with an FM radio when it hits him: None of his files — now totaling 300 songs and 50 movies — will play on the new player. He bought and paid for all this content, but it only works with iPods and iTunes.

This is not a problem with Apple. This is the problem with the content industry who is hell bent on enforcing DRM on everything. Blame the content industry for being whole-fully behind the times and clinging to a business model that no longer works.

Apple has an iPod customer for life. Microsoft never had this kind of monopoly power. Sorry, dad. I should have bought you a tie.

No Apple doesn't. Dad will merely buy another device and buy their content or realize that this whole buying content thing over the Internet sucks and does something else. There is nothing chaining Dad to the device.

Another clue that a company has monopoly power is when you find yourself suffering sticker shock. How many times have you stood in line at the theater megaplex and marveled at the chutzpah required to charge $4.50 for a soft drink, when the same beverage is one-third the price at the quickie mart 50 feet outside the theater doors? But — so sorry! — no outside food or beverages are allowed in the theater. The theater has a monopoly on soft drink sales, and you’ll pay what they charge.

Its quite clear that he has Mr. Elgan has no clue what a monopoly is.

That same shock rippled through the iPhone enthusiast community yesterday when Jobs announced with a straight face that iPhone ringtones based on iTunes songs would cost the full price of the song, plus 99 cents extra. What? The full song costs 99 cents! How on Earth can Apple seriously charge the same amount again for the ability to hear just 30 seconds of the song — the same length as the free iTunes “samples”?

Lets ignore that everyone else charges more for ringtones that Apple does. There are free alternatives to this.

Apple fully understands the power of monopoly pricing. The company has sold the 8GB iPhone for two prices in its short, three months of existence: $599 and, now, $399. When the iPhone was the only way to get the whole multitouch, big-screen, Wi-Fi iPod experience — when the product had no alternatives — the price was $599. One analyst estimated Apple’s cost to build an iPhone is $245.83. I don’t know if that’s true but, if so, more than half the user cost was profit. That’s theater soda pricing. But as soon as Apple introduced an alternative to the iPhone — the iPod Touch — Apple dropped the price by one-third.

Apple priced the iPhone and sold out within a week. Its called Supply and Demand. Now that the initial demand is over they reprice the phone for the market. This also completely ignores the fact that there are hundreds of phones out there available and that the number of iPhone sold is not equal to a drop in the ocean that is the cell phone market. Apple does. Not. Have. A. Monopoly.

Imagine if another company were allowed to compete in the OS X media player market. These players would all drop to below $300. Don’t hold your breath, though; it’ll never happen. Apple has the power to exclude all others from software than runs on its media players. Microsoft could only dream of such power.

Read this statement again. And again. Makes sense now? Nope - it doesn't to me either.

But who’s innovating now? The LG KE850 was winning awards for its full-screen, touch-screen, on-screen keyboard before Jobs even announced the iPhone.

That's great. That's completely awesome. Go out and by the LG KE850 then.

The best thing about the iPhone and iPod Touch — the warm-and-fuzzy multitouch UI with gestures — wasn’t new, either. Various labs have been demonstrating similar UIs for more than a decade, and even Microsoft demonstrated a fully realized 3G UI in May, well before Apple shipped the iPhone. Microsoft will ship its tabletop UI, called Microsoft Surface, in November, and Apple will likely enter this space with a 3G UI months or years after Microsoft does.

Here is the difference between the labs, Microsoft, and Apple. Apple shipped a product. Not only did they ship a product, they shipped a product that worked.

And Wi-Fi in a media player? Ha! Microsoft’s funky Zune had that almost a year before Apple did and SanDisk’s Sansa Connect with Wi-Fi was released last June. Apple even stole the name for its iPod Touch product, according to HTC, which sells a touch-screen smart phone called the HTC Touch.

If Wi-Fi was such the killer feature why does the Zune or Sansa have such a small market share? Oh yea that's right, Apple has a monopoly or something....

Don’t get me wrong. I think Apple’s execution of these features is far better than its competitors’. And it would be horrible decision-making to not build the iPhone simply because others pioneered key features. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Apple doing what Microsoft did: dominating the market with features other companies had first. If it was fair to slam Microsoft over Windows, it’s fair to slam Apple over the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Microsoft owned the desktop and attempted to force users to use their products by leveraging the desktop. Microsoft called this "innovation." What innovation really means is improving on something that was already there. Apple is really good at that. They take existing technologies, they take existing processes, and improve on them. Microsoft doesn't. That is the key difference between the two companies. If you want proof of this look at IE. Microsoft stopped all development on IE until Firefox was stealing market share left and right.

Microsoft used to be the big bully, pushing everyone around and dictating terms to partners. Microsoft has lost its edge in this regard — most of Microsoft’s major resellers brazenly hawk Linux. Even Intel — the “tel” part of “Wintel” — is powering Macs these days. Microsoft is still profitable, but it has lost control — and has lost its reputation as the bully nobody can say no to.

Microsoft is still the big bully and Apple's leverage with Intel is basically zero since Wintel is still the dominate market in the industry.

Although full details haven’t been revealed, NBC apparently wanted more “flexibility” to charge higher prices for its TV shows on iTunes. Apple said no, and NBC was sent packing. NBC now plans to sell shows on alternative locations, such as its own Web site and on Amazon.com. Prediction: NBC will come crawling back to Apple and beg the company for inclusion, and on Apple’s terms. Why? Because iTunes is increasingly becoming the only venue in which media companies can succeed selling music and TV show.

Really? Hmm.... that seems to ignore Amazon, Microsoft, YouTub, and the dozen projects under development from the various studios. But here is the thing - they will fail not because of Apple's position - they will fail because Apple does it better.

You see, my point isn’t that Apple’s growing bad reputation is deserved, but that Microsoft’s wasn’t. All that evil monopoly hype, court cases and public posturing directed for so long at Microsoft drained energy and resources from the entire industry. The market, however, corrects issues such as that. In the case of Microsoft’s “monopoly,” Linux, Firefox and now Apple prove that customers always had choices.

Who is saying Apple has a growing bad reputation. By all accounts customers enjoy using their products and they are provide a product worth purchasing. So far the only whiners I hear from are Microsoft Fanbois, movie and music industries being handed their hats, and pundents like Mr. Elgan.

As pundits, bloggers, users, politicians, Hollywood big shots, regulators, lawyers and competitors increasingly bash Apple, accuse it of unfair play and call for legal and regulatory action, I will defend it, as I defended Microsoft. It’s fun to slam big, powerful companies that are dominating their markets. But in the final analysis, Apple has earned its growing power and influence, just like Microsoft did.

Pundits, bloggers, users, politicians, Hollywood big shots, regulators, lawyers, and competitors are not calling for legal ore regulatory action. Unless you count some small european countries which matter little in the scheme of things.

Is Apple a monopolist, copycat and bully? Yes, and deservedly so. And if anyone thinks Apple’s success is a problem, well, bringing in the lawyers wasn’t the solution for Microsoft, and it won’t be the solution for Apple.

You haven't proved that Apple is a monopolist, copycat or a bully. Nice try though. Better luck next time.