Weblog of a “Switcher”

Here they come...

Apple, Jobs, AT&T sued over iPhone price cut, rebates: "Apple Inc., along with its chief executive and exclusive U.S. iPhone wireless partner AT&T, have been hit with a new lawsuit from a disgruntled customer who charges the trio with a variety of offenses stemming from the recent iPhone price cut." (Via AppleInsider.)

So how many suits does that make now? 20, 30, more?

I mean really, suing because a company changed the price of something? That never happens! Plus, suing because she was forced into a 2 year contract with AT&T with a $175 fee for breaking the contract. No other cell phone carrier does that either! My God! Why are these people allowed to waste our (taxpayer) money! They should be placed in jail for wasting the courts time and taxpayer money!

Excuse me while I go bang my head on a concrete wall...

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Amp, Apple, Appleinsider, Cell Phone, Chief Executive, Concrete Wall, God, iPhone, Iphone Price, Jobs, Phone Carrier, Rebates, Suits, Taxpayer Money, Wireless Partner

Us users should be able to make ringtones out of our music without any concerns from the RIAA at all...

Slashdot | Apple, the RIAA, and Ringtones: "'Apple's interest in defending the rights of the consumer has cost them a lot of grief in the ringtone market.'John Gruber of the Daring Fireball cites Engadget, which reported that the RIAA wanted to be able to distribute ringtones of its artists without having to pay them big money to do so. It won a decision last year before the Copyright Office saying that ringtones weren't derivative works, meaning they didnt infringe on the copyright of the songwriter.' The piece goes on to explain the tense relationship between Apple content holders regarding ringtones and other pieces of IP, such as in the recent withdrawal of NBC.'"

So based on that decision, it sounds like we, the music loving public, should be able to make a ringtone out of any piece of music we purchased without paying any money at all.

I would think that such wording also means that the very talented people that make Mashups should be allowed to do so without any hassles of the RIAA as well.

Now, I'm sure that this really says that the RIAA isn't responsible for paying artists any amount of money. Which is what it has been doing for years.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Amount Of Money, Apple, Content Holders, Copyright Office, Daring Fireball, Derivative Works, Engadget, Grief, Hassles, John Gruber, Loving Public, Nbc, Piece Of Music, Relationship, Riaa, Slashdot, Songwriter, Weren

I've been looking for a different look for the site. I still haven't found anything that I really like yet. However, I found out something rather disturbing when I switched to this new theme. The Category links don't work. This theme doesn't have a "404" page so I never knew this fact. Now that I do know, I'm going to send off a note to the WordPress crew to see if they can either fix it or tell me what I need to do myself to fix it.

Since the site is hosted by WordPress.com, I can't imagine that there is a lot I can do myself to fix it. Hopefully they can.

Anyway, that's why the side bars look different now. I lost all custom settings I had with the theme. No major loss though.

Anyway, I'm still looking for something different that will work for what I like to show.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Custom Settings, Lot, New Theme, Side Bars

I don't often agree with Mr. Gruber and Daring Fireball, but boy do I agree with him on this topic: The Ringtones Racket!

During Apple's press event introducing the new iPods, Steve Jobs told all the Apple Zombies in the audience that iTunes would sell ringtones for way less than other vendors. The audience went nuts, as it usually does when God (Mr. Jobs) says just about anything. Yes, you can buy ringtones from the iTunes Store for the low everyday cost of $1.98! Even if you already own the CD that the song you want to make a ringtone out of, you "have" to buy it from the iTunes Store in order to turn it into a ringtone. This is quite a racket indeed. First you bought a CD, then you have to spend 99¢ to buy the song again, so that you can then pay yet another 99¢ for the privilege of cropping out as much as 30 seconds of that song to make a ringtone.

Mr. Gruber says that we should feel no remorse in making our own ringtones and using tools like like MakeiPhoneRingtone or iToner to move the ringtones to the iPhone. I fully agree which is why I purchased iToner. I probably would have used the free MakeiPhoneRingtone tool, but it wasn't out when I purchased iToner. I don't really mind. Ambrosia Software did a great job with iToner and is well worth letting them know it buy giving them $15. Plus, I would much prefer giving $15 to Ambrosia Software then 99¢ to the RIAA!

It's becoming clearer and clearer that the RIAA needs to get their act together. If they don't I get the feeling that they are going to lose more and more musicians over time to produce and promote their own music rather than selling their soul to the RIAA. At least that is what I personally hope will happen.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple Press, Audience, Daring Fireball, God, iPhone, Itoner, Job, Mr Gruber, Musicians, New Ipods, Nuts, Own Music, Privilege, Remorse, Riaa, Ringtone, Ringtones, Steve Jobs, Using Tools, Zombies

Stephen Hargrove posted recently talking about the general trend in Macintosh software where a specific type of software is "done to death". The examples were FTP applications and more recently image editors.

Granted there does seem to be a large choice of FTP clients for the Macintosh. However, is this really a problem? Doesn't this give the Mac user a good range to choose from? I personally use Transmit. I found it pretty early on and like the features it has. So I am happy. I'm sure others would find Transmit not to their liking, but some other client would be perfect for them. With only a few choices, a user would be stuck with something they may not like.

The recent example was of image editors. The article cited 3 new editors either released or soon to be released. Acorn, Pixelmator and Iris.

I recently took a look at Acorn and purchased it within an hour. It does what I used to use Adobe Photoshop Elements for, but now don't have to wait half an hour for Elements to load. (OK, it's not that long, but it does take way longer than I want to wait.) I am also looking at Pixelmator. I got on the beta program a while back, but I'm not willing to use a program in beta for editing that I want to do now. I am more than happy helping out a company clean up bugs, especially since that's what I do for a living. I just wish they would let me know if my reports are arriving when I send them. That and they haven't updated the program since I joined the beta program. One of the other beta programs I am on sees updates as often as 6-8 times a day! I would expect at least one update a day for a nightly build. Ah well.

One type of program that wasn't mentioned is text editors. There is a large selection here too. I own two of them and use those plus TextEdit that came with my Mac pretty frequently. This is one type of application that sees lots of choices across more than just one platform. Windows systems and Mac both have many choices and I would guess Linux/Unix has a lot to choose from too. Maybe it's the fact that pretty much every operating system has a control/object/whatever that is a very basic text editor built right in. So creating a text editor is just a matter of writing the support code to the developers liking.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Acorn, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Beta Program, Beta Programs, Bugs, Choices, Ftp Clients, Half An Hour, Hargrove, Image Editors, Liking, Mac User, Macintosh, Macintosh Software, Pixelmator, Platform Windows, Text Editors, Textedit, Windows Systems

So, thanks to a bunch of "early adopters" complaining about the price drop of the iPhone, Steve Jobs decided to give the "early adopters" a $100 store credit for helping sell the product that they decided to lower the price of.

Sure, it's not the difference that the price dropped, but it's at least something. I'm OK with that. I wouldn't mind $200, but the $100 will go towards the Leopard Family Pack when it comes out at the end of October. (Yes, I know it's supposed to come out "sometime" in October. But really, when has Apple ever put out something earlier than the very end of the month when they label a month as the release date?)

From what I have seen around the blogs I read, it looks like the $100 was a good price point.

Amusingly, I still see a few people complaining that the 4GB iPhone is now dead since they dropped that size from what they are selling. Arguments are that when new software updates come out, that the 4GB iPhone will be left in the dark. I seriously doubt that the 4GB iPhone will stop getting updates. I fully expect to see updates and games on my 4GB iPhone for quite some time to come. If not, well, I guess I'll have to get the newer phone and use the 4GB for hacking which I am still scared to death to try. (I really don't expect to be doing this anytime soon.)

written by Dave M. \\ tags: 4gb Iphone, Apple, Blogs, Early Adopters, Games, iPhone, New Software, Quite Some Time, Release Date, Software Updates, Steve Jobs

I've been pretty happy with Apple since I made the switch last year. However, that has since changed... A little.

I'm OK with Apple selling ring tones for 99¢ above the 99¢ that a song costs. I think they are making a mistake that will cost them some support, but hey if people actually are stupid enough to pay $2.50 for a 30 second snippet of music to put on their cell phone, they will be thrilled to only have to pay $1.98!

Ambrosia Software must be just dancing in their offices right now though. They come out with a nice little program to send ringtones to the iPhone for $15. iToner. iPhone and Apple blogs all over start wondering if Ambrosia software is off their rocker since Apple is bound to have ringtones in iTunes that will all but kill any demand for iToner. Then today, Apple makes their announcement and the first thing I do is jump over to Ambrosia Software to download and buy iToner.

Look, I have absolutely no problem with Apple here. It's the record labels telling us what we can and can't do with our CD's and downloaded music that we paid good money for. I don't make it a habit of paying twice or 3 times for anything else, why should I do it for music/ringtones.

Anyway, my gripe is with Apple dropping the price of the iPhone only 2 months after releasing it. I know that price drops happen. I expected it at some point. Just not 2 months after it's release. My year old MacBook cost me the same amount as the current MacBooks being sold. Mind you, it's a little slower and that's fine. However, new MacBooks are still $1,100. They are not $800.

There is some speculation that Apple is going to release a 16GB iPhone for the $499 or $599 price point. Maybe. It's a pretty good bet since the iPod Touch comes in 8GB and 16GB sizes and it's basically an iPhone without the phone.

Also, from what I am reading on the different Apple blogs I read, it sounds like there are a few bloggers/readers out there that are a little unhappy too.

Now, would I have waited 2 months to buy an iPhone knowing that the price would drop $200 in 2 months? Hmm... I really don't know. I probably would have because my wife would really have killed me if I had bought one for $500 knowing that in 2 months I would be able to buy one for $300.

Ah well, them's tha breaks.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: 16gb Iphone, Apple, Bet, Bound, Cell Phone, Gripe, Habit, iPhone, Ipod Touch, Itoner, iTunes, Mistake, Money, Music, New Macbooks, Ring Tones, Snippet, Speculation