Former iTunes Engineer Tells Court He Worked To Block Competitors 161
loftarasa (1066016) writes Yesterday, former engineer Rob Schultz unwillingly testified in court against Apple that he worked on project 'Candy' which 'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' from 2006 to 2007. In his opinion, the work of his team contributed to create 'market dominance' for the iPod. Apple argues, and Schultz agrees, that its intentions were to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
So much for his career (Score:5, Funny)
He'll never be employed to engage in shady illegal practices after throwing his employer under the bus like this.
It's a good day.
Re:So much for his career (Score:5, Insightful)
How is he throwing them under the bus? This isn't something they contest. They have already told the court they did this, because they were contractually obliged to do so by the record labels. All he's doing is supporting their version of events.
Re:So much for his career (Score:4, Insightful)
How is he throwing them under the bus? This isn't something they contest. They have already told the court they did this, because they were contractually obliged to do so by the record labels. All he's doing is supporting their version of events.
I'm sure they fought tooth and nail to try and give their competition a fair chance to compete. Those evil record companies, forcing Apple to be anti-competitive when, before this, Apple was a model for fair business practices right? lol
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Apple was in the hardware business. The music component was a minor issue, it simplified the experience. I don't know that Apple would have cared much if people bought iPods with other services. The same way that Apple doesn't care much if I run MS-Word and not Pages on my OSX machine.
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I just looked. Apple never shipped a version with a windows virus though a windows virus maker shipped an infected version of iTunes.
You probably are getting a bad response because of inaccuracies like that. Stick to being fully truthful and you'll get a better reaction.
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https://www.apple.com/support/... [apple.com]
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That's not "yes litterally, they shipped a windows version of itunes with a virus". That seems to be a manufacturer shipped a few units with a virus that they quickly reacted to. And they didn't market a Mac off that. I'd say tying that incident to the description is a bit tortured.
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Apple never shipped a version with a windows virus
except they did.
You probably are getting a bad response because of inaccuracies like that. Stick to being fully truthful and you'll get a better reaction.
Truth, being of course, what apple wants it to be, after all, who am I to complain, I didn't pay any money for my truths.
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I agree that is plain illegal if that's what they were trying to do. But you are asserting they were trying to do that. There are far less extreme interpretations of their actions.
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No it isn't. It is the equivalent of "I didn't intend to kill that man. I was driving along the road and without looking he crossed in front of my car". Which then comes down to lots of factors. The lawsuit is that Apple was using this means to raise prices on iPods. The anti-trust claim would be that Apple was using this means to establish a monopoly in digital music sales.
AFAIK the big problem with the anti-trust argument is that Apple can call the music companies as witnesses who would agree they wa
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Except that at the time no other operating system used browser components in itself. Sure 10 years later it became the norm but at the time it wasn't. Moreover there was no reason that Microsoft couldn't have made the browser components separate from the web browser.
Though IMHO the real problem with Microsoft was their ability to charge OEMs different prices for licenses not bundling browsers.
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The situation isn't the same. Netscape went bankrupt. Browsers became a free product. The market for browsers died.
Well first off there are two engines the one Safari uses and the one the rest use. Moreover products like Opera really do u
Re:So much for his career (Score:5, Insightful)
"We only engaged in immoral activities because the alternative was less profitable. So you can see that we had no choice but to comply."
Re: So much for his career (Score:4, Informative)
Steve Jobs posted the following to the home page of Apple back in 2007 when everyone was clamoring for Apple to license FairPlay....
"If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music."
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Steve also said that American businesses should operate like Chinese ones, shortly prior to the overworked, underpaid and essentially imprisoned in company bunkhouses Foxconn workers started jumping off the building's roof to finally escape their hell.
Steve Jobs was an entitled a-hole that looked down on everyone else on the planet.
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Which one of his claims were false?
1. That when the records labels allowed Apple to sell DRM free music, Apple didn't do it?
2. That every iPod ever made could play DRM free MP3's?
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Funny how whenever Apple is into shady anti-competitive practices, it's always someone else's fault.
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" All he's doing is supporting their version of events. "
No, he is adding speculation about the intent of those actions.
Since intent is the entire point of the case, and all he can add is speculation, I don't see why his testimony was admitted at all.
Re:So much for his career (Score:4, Insightful)
"Yesterday, former engineer Rob Schultz ***unwillingly*** testified in court against Apple"
I hardly doubt that a future employer would hold him accountable for telling the truth under oath.
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I hardly doubt that a future employer would hold him accountable for telling the truth under oath.
Was that intentional, Freudian slip, or mistake? I mean, I concur 100% -- there is no doubt in my mind that the most successful US companies strongly favor a willingness to lie under oauth -- but then I've worked on Madison Ave and my brother worked on Wall Street, so I've seen the sausage get made.
Re:So much for his career (Score:4, Interesting)
How is blocking competitors from your platform shady or illegal? Does Windows support running Linux apps? No. If Real wanted to sell music, it should've built its own music player like the ipod and also an itunes equivalent. Why and how does it get the right to sell music on apple's music platform (itunes/ipod)?
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Does Windows support running Linux apps? No.
Windows does not acively support it (that's not the issue), but it certainly does not BLOCK it either:
http://www.colinux.org/ [colinux.org]
Cygwin
MingW
And then there's various VMs and so on.
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but it certainly does not BLOCK it either:
To put it politely, Microsoft does have a knack for "inadvertently" yet periodically breaking competing and usually free technologies in enterprise, and recently... competing OS on consumer hardware. The Linux guys keep up with them and fixes role 'em out, but I doubt the home user will fare so well. I don't even know if its possible to purchase new hardware that I can do what I want with, thanks to Microsoft.
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Can you give an example of that from the past, say, 10 years?
Windows doesn't stop it (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a big difference between not going out of your way to support something and going out of your way to prevent it. Windows doesn't have a native POSIX interface (it used to have a basic one) but you can add one if you like. It can be done higher level via something like Cygwin, or it can be done directly in the executive just like the Win32/64 APIs. There is nothing stopping you from adding it, they don't care.
Same deal with DirectX and OpenGL. A Windows GPU driver has to provide DirectX support. It is just part of the WDDM driver. Windows provides no OpenGL acceleration, and no software emulation. However you can provide your own OpenGL driver if you wish, and Intel, nVidia, and AMD all elect to do so. Windows does nothing to stop this and they work great (if the company writes a good driver). Indeed you could develop your own graphic API and implement that, if you wished.
There's a big difference between saying "We aren't going to do any work to support your stuff," and saying "We are going to work to make sure your stuff can't be supported."
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Cygwin is a Linux emulator it doesn't add POSIX to Windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org] (which was a Microsoft product) did add POSIX.
That being said I agree with your main point.
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There's a big difference between saying "We aren't going to do any work to support your stuff," and saying "We are going to work to make sure your stuff can't be supported."
Is the latter action illegal? If so, under what circumstances?
Off the top of my head, I can't think of any particularly compelling reason why company X should be required to permit a competitors' software to make use of the company X's servers.
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Windows doesn't stop you running Linux apps, if you install VM Ware or cygwin or an X server you can get run many of them without porting them to use native Windows APIs.
Blocking non-Apple music was an anti-consumer move. Consumers wanted choice, Real offered it. The music labels wanted DRM to stop people copying music they had bought, not to stop non-iTunes-store music playing on the iPod. Apple was protecting their profits at the expense of consumers, nothing more.
Re: So much for his career (Score:2)
You could play all of the Non-DRM non Apple music you wanted on the iPod. ITunes had built in support for CD ripping.
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This analogy is not accurate. Win3.1 and dr-dos were competing to be on a machine that was manufactured by a 3rd party PC manufacturer. If microsoft were manufacturing the machine, you can bet that dr-dos would never be allowed to install on that machine.
Apple spent billions designing, manufacturing a
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I like the word monoploy better than monopoly. Makes it more intentional.
Re: So much for his career (Score:2)
Every iPod ever made could play non-DRMd MP3 files. If Real was in fact trying to sell MP3 files their wouldn't be a problem.
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Every iPod ever made could play non-DRMd MP3 files. If Real was in fact trying to sell MP3 files their wouldn't be a problem.
No, even Apple made it quite clear that the music industry was the reason they had to sell DRM'd music, why would Real be exempt from that?
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He'll never be employed to engage in shady illegal practices after throwing his employer under the bus like this.
It's a good day.
He's just lucky that he's on this side of the pond. That kind of disloyalty to The Company might cause you to commit an unfortunate suicide over at Foxconn...
Re: So much for his career (Score:3)
Yes but will he be charged with a federal crime? Doubtful even though he knew what he was doing. I didn't have criminal intent. My Story [tminr.com]
Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' [...] to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
In what universe does this statement make sense?
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A white universe with rounded corners.
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A white universe with rounded corners.
Dude, that rounded corners line is getting rather old and tired. Can't you fandoids come up with something new once in a while?
Can't Apple?
(I kid, but so did they. Get over it. It's a joke.)
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Rounded corners may be old and tired for you, but I am happy about CSS3!
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Nope, just a regular Web monkey.
Wait, what? (Score:3, Insightful)
The logic is that when you only have to support your devices, it's easier to provide a better experience. If a shitty 3rd party device can't use iTunes, then the consumer may fault Apple for their bad experience. It's easier for Apple to say "only Apple devices".
I don't agree with Apple, but that's their logic.
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Way back when iTunes was just a reskinned SoundJam, it supported an architecture for supporting arbitrary devices, alongside the visualizer API. The visualizers are still supported and even got some improvements a few years ago, but the device support was dumped very early on, version 3.0 perhaps.
I know this because I wanted to make a plug-in for iTunes that supported one of the early cassette play
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Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' [...] to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
In what universe does this statement make sense?
In the universe where you have DRM, being able to circumvent it is a defect and/or security hole. So why is someone fixing it a surprise?
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Real were not circumventing DRM. They ADDED iPod compatible DRM to the music they were selling, to keep the record labels happy. Apple didn't want Real to be able to sell iPod compatible DRM infested music.
It has nothing to do with circumventing DRM. Anyone with an audio cable could already do that.
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It has nothing to do with circumventing DRM. Anyone with an audio cable could already do that.
Yes which makes it all about Real getting Apple devices to do what they were not intended to do.
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Because it enabled you to play Helix DRM files on the iPod. The DRM was still there.
Er what? Circumventing DRM is still circumventing DRM. I think you assume that removing DRM is the only violation of the DMCA; it is not.
But the music industry didnt want Real selling non-DRM mp3s just like they didnt want Apple doing it so Real had to sell DRM ones but make them compatible with iPods
Which makes it then Real Player's issue to either build their own player then not hack Apple's system. To be fair the music industry wanted everyone to have incompatible ones so that everyone has to buy multiple copies.
Which is play music from which Apple didn't get a cut of the purchase price. But from the user's perspective it is to PLAY MUSIC and from the perspective of the music industry that that music is copy-protected. Real accomplished the latter 2 but Apple didnt want to have to compete with Real so they worked to block Real music from working on iPods
This makes no sense at all. From the user's perspective any device has to play music formats and not all formats are compatible. But the standard at the tim
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Obviously, since those two terms are exactly the same, but this did not circumvent DRM. Perhaps you need to explain what you think that term means because all of the digital rights management was preserved, not circumvented.
I don't think you know what ,a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management">DRM means.
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a class of technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders, and individuals with the intent to control the use of digital content and devices after sale; there are, however, many competing definitions. With first-generation DRM software, the intent is to control copying; with second-generation DRM, the intent is to control executing, viewing, copying, printing, and altering of works or devices. The term is also sometimes referred to as copy protection, copy prevention, and copy control, although the correctness of apply DRM is in dispute.
How can DRM be preserved if the there was loss of control?
Oh right yes and if you dont like Microsoft having proprietary APIs in Windows you should just build your own operating system. It is the same anti-competitive behavior and the same dirty tactics, but they may be able to get away with it if they can prove they didnt have market power.
Now it is not. You are aware that everyone including MS did exactly as Apple did; build their own system. And how many different OS did Dell sell on their PCs? Only Windows. Apple to oranges. Having market power != monopoly.
It makes perfect sense to any person but an Apple apologist! The formats were fine, it was Apple's DRM layer that was the problem. Real allowed users to play music and maintained the DRM required by the publishers, Apple just didn't like that there was another competitor.
The standard for music still is MP3 and AAC, not Harmony, not FairPlay. Apple does not have to support another company's DRM
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Is there any evidence that Apple cared about a cut of the price? That's always been a very minor part of their profits, compared to selling devices. Anything that sacrificed those profits and made the iDevice more attractive was in Apple's favor.
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Real were not circumventing DRM. They ADDED iPod compatible DRM to the music they were selling, to keep the record labels happy. Apple didn't want Real to be able to sell iPod compatible DRM infested music.
It has nothing to do with circumventing DRM. Anyone with an audio cable could already do that.
Being able to do that without being licensed and thus having the proper keys and procedures would be a defect in the iPod software. If Real just wanted to put the music on the iPod, the iPod always support non-DRMed formats (mp3, AAC).
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You don't seem to understand how public key encryption works.
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They couldn't do that because the big music co's were insisting their music be sold encrypted.
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Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA [wikipedia.org]
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The perfect address for a company that survives on using circular logic.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:3)
It isn't impossible to defend, why, just imagine how much more stable & reliable Windows would be if they blocked other software companies from accessing the Registry in Windows.
It is a perfectly defensible position, supported by every product manufacturer that puts either of the following warnings on their product:
"No user-serviceable parts inside"
"warranty void if seal broken"
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Bad analogy, this is more like a Sony DVD player that only plays Sony brand DVDs.
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Actually there's more words in there, they were just spoken very small and weasely so you can't read them - allow me to magnify:
'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' [...] to improve iTunes market share, so why not curb competition.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
'intended to block 100% of non-iTunes clients' [...] to improve iTunes, not curb competition.
In what universe does this statement make sense?
In the Apple universe sadly enough.
I'm one of the rare people who finds Linux (and popular Linux Desktop Environments) to be much more user friendly than OS X. The reason for this is fairly simple, I can easily make my Linux boxes work and interact the way I want, but with Apple... not so much.
I think that's integral to the Apple philosophy of the walled garden. They figure out what they want the product to do, they figure out the workflows, then they build the product so that the given workflow works really well and seamlessly. If you want to do something a little different it's not great, but it works. If you want to do something real different like play oggs or use a different client then there's a very simple solution, don't bother.
I don't think the aim is necessarily anti-competitive, I think they're just trying to protect their walled garden. If Realplayer has a buggy client that screws up syncing that's Realplayer's problem, if they have a buggy client that screws up the sync to the iPod that's suddenly Apple's problem. If you want to understand why all the Apple fanboys go around bragging that Apple just works it's because Apple doesn't let them do any of the things that don't work.
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The reason for this is fairly simple, I can easily make my Linux boxes work and interact the way I want, but with Apple... not so much.
For someone who uses Linux and OS X, I spend a lot of time using command line in OS X. I have no problems using Unix commands. Some of the options vary with OS X but most of the commands are the same. How is it different for you?
I think that's integral to the Apple philosophy of the walled garden. They figure out what they want the product to do, they figure out the workflows, then they build the product so that the given workflow works really well and seamlessly. If you want to do something a little different it's not great, but it works. If you want to do something real different like play oggs or use a different client then there's a very simple solution, don't bother.
Maybe for the iOS products not their computers.
I don't think the aim is necessarily anti-competitive, I think they're just trying to protect their walled garden. If Realplayer has a buggy client that screws up syncing that's Realplayer's problem, if they have a buggy client that screws up the sync to the iPod that's suddenly Apple's problem. If you want to understand why all the Apple fanboys go around bragging that Apple just works it's because Apple doesn't let them do any of the things that don't work.
Because Apple never promised their customers that they would play RealPlayer's Harmony music. They promised they could play MP3s which are the standard, AAC which is the successor to MP3 and at the time FairPlay which was AAC with the
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By default OS X groups windows by application, so if I have 5 terminals open (quite common) it's a pain to find the one I want. Similarly the lack of multiple desktops is a pain. I'm sure there's a way to change both these things (I've installed stuff for multiple desktops before) but it's not as easy as I've found in Linux.
Er, what? So you don't know how to use Expose and Spaces is Apple's fault.
Plus the application management systems like ports and fink have fewer packages and aren't as well integrated into the system.
And that is a problem with all Linux and Unix. Not every package is integrated.
Then go to the store, but a Toshiba laptop, and install OS X on it.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/laptop-compatibility/106791-laptop-compatibility.html
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Oh right, it's that special definition of "corrupt" that means "it still works perfectly, but we can tell some other company modified it."
"iTunes ain't done 'til Rockbox don't run" (Score:2)
My first thought was that this sounds a lot like the famed situation between Windows and Lotus. Personally, I miss Musicmatch.
Not incompatible (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd note that the two alternatives aren't incompatible. It's entirely possible to intend to improve iTunes while also determining that the best way to improve it is to block all competitors from accessing it (doing that would, among other things, eliminate bugs due to incorrect accesses and malformed music files and remove an inconsistent user experience due to badly-written software from other vendors). After all, when AT&T was banning all other vendors from connecting equipment to it's phone network it was only intending to protect the network from damage due to incorrectly-designed equipment (or at least so it's testimony went). In neither case do intentions alter the end result.
Re:Not incompatible (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that but apple has already testified they were contractedly obligated to fix those holes.
Lastly competitors used hacks and bugs in fair play to provide compatibility. By blocking competitors he was bug fixing too.
Lastly why didn't Microsoft's play for sure work with non Microsoft products?
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I had a Creative Zen player that worked excellently with plays for sure. I had amazon linked and could play videos on it (before amazon killed local downloads for non-fire app devices). I think if creative had put more effort into their ads, they could have had the Zen line compete nicely with Ipod.
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that is true now, but amazon had lots of drm in their stuff back then. the videos transcoded inside WMP and applied DRM back in, and every once in a while, i had to re-sync the license or the player would whine at me. (audio files too) Amazon has since made the (audio) less evil, but the video has become more restricted.
side note, audible (owned by amazon) links into itunes, but to watch a amazon video, you need a separate app. odd.
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After all, when AT&T was banning all other vendors from connecting equipment to it's phone network it was only intending to protect the network from damage due to incorrectly-designed equipment
bullshit, and the legal precident set when the courts ordered AT&T to let people bring their own equipment applies. Its also the only reason we were able to have commericially available modems which spurred the development of residential internet and BBSs, which would not have happened without it.
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They were to him. Pretty much nobody believes they are a villain, even if the rest of the world disagrees.
Impressive (Score:2)
And Hitler only wanted to improve Germany, therefore his actions are righteous.
You managed to Godwin this thread on with the fifth post.
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That would make a nifty sig.
Remember... (Score:2)
"Windows ain't done till Lotus won't run"?
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
...its intentions were to improve iTunes
Then why is iTunes such a cruddy pile of shit?
Because Apple has no fucks to give about Windows (Score:3)
You discover Apple software sucks way less on OS-X. The fanboys will tell you this is evidence of how much better OS-X is, of course, but the real reason is Apple doesn't do a good job on their ports. They really half-ass their Windows ports so they end up not being good software. It is possibly something to try and make OS-X look better but more likely simply laziness and a lack of good Windows developers.
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iTunes is also shit on OSX, it's just not shit in as many ways. It is, however, shit in many of the same ways.
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..of course, but the real reason is Apple doesn't do a good job on their ports.
Why should they? Are the obligated to provide support to their competitors? Are they obligated to provided support of one of their products on a different OS at all?
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Considering Windows...
We are not talking about Windows.
A company is not required to provide technical support to a competitor.
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Apple could've posted a large disclaimer on the iTunes' download page: "We don't guarantee 100% Windows support"
They could have, but why would anyone assume different?
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Because Rob Schultz was bad at his former job, which is why it is his *former* job.
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Windows has nothing to do with it. No other music management program pegs the CPU while syncing media over USB. This is purely the fault of Apple programmers not caring or not knowing how to program for Windows.
You don't give Apple programmers enough credit -- the USB transfer routine includes a surreptitious Bitcoin mining thread. That's how Apple builds up its cash reserves.
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Windows not having the same system support as OSX for usb has everything to do with it. Itunes doesn't have any CPU/USB issues on OSX. That Apple's implementation on windows is a streaming pile is not in contention.
Project "Candy" (Score:2)
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Like Stabbing A Guy (Score:2)
It shouldn't be a crime, because I wasn't trying to kill him, I was just trying to help him be healthier by letting out some of his blood.
Big "DUH of the year award" here.... (Score:2)
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You deal with the fucking impossible demands placed on software engineers and offer liability.
Built any bridges recently for which the budget was cut halfway, you were forced to use chocolate fudge instead of cement, the location was switched every two weeks and the timescales halved, and delivered a working bridge nonetheless?
No? Fuck off back to your pitiful superiority complex then you egotistical shit.
Re:Good to Be A Software "Engineer" (Score:5, Insightful)
You know why REAL engineers don't have to deal with that shit? It's because the project can't get built until we put our stamp on the plans! Management's demands get a whole lot more reasonable when they can't replace you with some dumbfuck yes-man.
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Absolutely - but they can replace software engineers with some cheap as shit grad in India who will deliver _something_, so the choice is simple: Deal with the shit and deliver anyway, or watch the job go offshore.
Just because you have the fortune of regulatory protection doesn't diminish the skills and capabilities of people using the title software engineer, and doesn't mean that their job is as easy as yours. Any cunt can build a sewer, there's been a couple of millenia of practice to learn from.