09.03.07

The Kerfuffle Goes On

Posted in Appleology, Rants at 8:44 am

Unrelated, actually, to the Appleology rant that is every paragraph of this post but this one, but what exactly is a “kerfuffle”? I gather from the context in which I’ve heard it that it’s a to-do of some sort; synonyms include “dustup”, “commotion”, and “spectacle”… but kerfuffle? Who the hell makes up a word like “kerfuffle”?

Ahem. Anyway, Wednesday is another Apple press event, and the blogosphere (there’s another non-word) has tagged this one with the moniker “The Beat Goes On” (after the last line of the invitations sent out). As per usual, speculation is positively pandemic among the Appleologists. Some are claiming that the Beatles will finally make it onto the iTunes store; others are claiming that a “fat Nano” will be introduced that has a widescreen display; still others are actually saying that Apple losing NBC support for the new season is going to be completely rendered moot by whatever it is they announce in 48 hours or so. All are wonderfully tantalizing, but if there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s that Apple always has something secret up their sleeves for these events. Maybe not something useful-secret (I’m looking right at you, redesigned iMovie), but something secret nonetheless.

Let’s tackle these in order. The Beatles have been the sort of Holy Grail of downloadable music, and many folks were pretty shocked when Sir Paul’s tracks started showing up on the iTunes store earlier this year. This is, of course, because of the old (and long-since settled) dispute between Apple Computers and Apple Corps Music, the Beatles’ record label. Lending some amount of credence to the theory is the fact that EMI, which controls the Beatles’ library, was the first label to sign up for the iTunes Plus (read: no intrusive DRM, just some watermarking) distribution model back in late May. Well, it’s been three months and EMI is still in business, so that ought to shut up any naysayers in the RIAA about electronic music sales killing the industry and devouring artists’ children. (Unrelated: MP3 HUNGERS! MUST EAT MADONNA’S BABY! RARGH UMM NUM NUM) Anyway, since it has been just about ninety days, I’d say that the ink is barely drying on the contract to let the Fab Four onto iTunes. All you need, apparently, is patience.

Moving on, then, to the Fat Nano. If you’ve been following my Google Reader shared stories (and I certainly don’t blame you if you haven’t– I certainly wouldn’t want to right now, but I am working on that, kind of), you’ll have noticed that there’s been a few concept photoshops of a redesigned iPod Nano. This so-called “fat Nano” is so named because of its wide screen. It makes the Nano look squat and stubby, and while it does retain the basic design of the old-school iPod Mini, it has one key drawback: it looks fat, squat, stubby, and ugly. Personally, I do not think that this design is the real deal for three reasons. First, Apple has been known to let red-herring concept drawings loose internally to see who will leak them, and this might be one of them. This could be countered by the fact that Apple sent a C&D letter to Engadget when they first posted the photo, but the terms of the letter said that it was Apple’s intellectual property; that’s a pretty broad definition and doesn’t prove that that’s the real one. Second, I’m sure someone at Apple has the sense to see that the new Nano design is not aesthetically pleasing (in the immortal words of Mr. M. Doughty, “fly”). If I were in charge of the redesign, I would have rotated the screen 90 degrees so that it elongated the Nano further, rather than widening it. Now, this does run into some problems, especially as there are other video players out there with similar configurations. But Apple might want to risk it– after all, a settlement might be cheaper than lost sales due to an ugly product. Finally, there’s the obvious answer: what the hell does the Nano need a widescreen for? Seriously, the Nano is not intended to be a video player. I don’t like playing video on my full-sized iPod, and now you’re telling me to watch it on a screen that’s even smaller? You must be joking, right? The Nano is and should remain Apple’s primary music-only player. Cover Flow, while pretty, is mostly irrelevant for the Nano.

And now, the NBC thing. Last week there was a bit of “he-said, she-said” between NBC Universal and Apple with regards to their content-providing contract. The end result of all of the argument, and the thing which people saw first, was that Apple wasn’t going to carry the new season’s NBC shows, and that mid-season, all existing NBC content would be gone from the store. (It’s unclear if this affects “classic” NBC content, like Dragnet, or Sci-Fi Channel/USA Networks content, like Dresden Files or Monk (Universal controls both channels). I’ll do some more digging on this over the next few weeks.) Reaction from the consumer base has ranged from content-deprivation outrage (”How dare you not let us buy your stuff! I’m a paying customer, give me more Office!”) to torrent-fueled indifference (”Thanks for not letting us buy your stuff. We’ll still get it, we just won’t pay for it now.”). In principle, I agree with both sides; by and large the iTunes sales model has proven to be sound enough to warrant further trust (and come on, they released the Apple TV this past year, do you think people are going to stop buying shows?), but if it is not available for legal purchase, then there are alternatives. In my case, it’s called “my DVR”. (Come to think of it, there’s nothing really all that interesting coming up this year on NBC– “Chuck”, maybe, but that’s going to get cancelled because it might be interesting, just like “Raines” was.) As time wears on, this will develop, but Apple would not have let it go if there wasn’t some grand strategy in the works that will make NBC Universal come crawling back. That revenue stream is going to dry up around December or so, and Universal is going to be left holding the bill, looking for another vendor– and who else is there, really? Microsoft? With the juggernaut that is the Zune Marketplace and the Xbox Marketplace (where if it ain’t a game, it ain’t getting downloaded)? Don’t make me laugh.

Yeah, I’m disappointed in Apple that they couldn’t shoot straight with us on the details of the kerfuffle with NBC. Apple claimed that NBC wanted more money; NBC countered by saying “no, no, there were other things, we weren’t going to ask the consumers for more money, just Apple” (in development costs, licensing fees, etc.). The root of the problem is with Universal; most folks know that Microsoft has to pay a chunk of the revenue from every Zune sale to Universal, who unilaterally declared that all non-DRMed music on those players was “illegitimately obtained”. Sure. Let’s gloss over the three days I spent in the summer of 2005 meticulously ripping all of my purchased CDs to AAC/MP3 so that I could listen to them wherever I was, either at home (on the disc) or on the road (on my iPod Mini). I obviously don’t speak for everyone, but if I’m using a poor sample size, then so is Universal. This dustup between Uni and Apple is their way of saying “All right, now you wouldn’t want to lose more money, would you Apple? All we ask is a simple offering of cash and recrimination against your users.” Apple’s done some pretty dumb things in the past (Newton, anyone?) but sticking to their guns on this one certainly isn’t one of them.

Besides, Heroes was boring. (I actually had to remember if there was anything on NBC that I cared about.)

That’s about it, folks. Catch you later, likely with that Game Clear notice (I’m on the last handful of missions in Luminous Arc).

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