Apple locked me out of its walled garden. It was a nightmare
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Digital services and the ecosystems they accompany can be such a joy to use. Until they're not, and then where do you go from there? As the gatekeepers, big tech companies not only can impact my relationship with them but with others like JetBlue and Nintendo. Is it fair for a company to wield such control
Digital services and the ecosystems they accompany can be such a joy to use. Until they're not, and then where do you go from there? As the gatekeepers, big tech companies not only can impact my relationship with them but with others like JetBlue and Nintendo. Is it fair for a company to wield such control over its customers and the relationships we have with other companies through its ecosystem? Our dependencies on these ecosystems are becoming so complete that getting locked out can really rock your entire world. It's almost like the emotional pain and sense of abandonment you feel when a personal relationship ends.
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What happens when tech giants decide to cut us off from the services we've poured so much money into for dubious reasons? In reality, much of the digital content we buy we're really just renting for a while.
A contemporary horror story.
Terrifying story. Stephen King can probably write a best seller based on your ordeal.
I will say, though, you're about to take a rocky road.
I've never had an iPhone, always used Android phones right after my last blackberry scores ago. But I do recognize there's no match for the tight integration
Terrifying story. Stephen King can probably write a best seller based on your ordeal.
I will say, though, you're about to take a rocky road.
I've never had an iPhone, always used Android phones right after my last blackberry scores ago. But I do recognize there's no match for the tight integration Apple products and services offer. This is both comforting and scary at the same time. Just as I presumed would happen one day, and kept myself away from the closed Apple world, keeping all of my stuff in a single closed environment was just too scary for me. So I got used to all the options, variations, good and not so good products and applications, and some not so tight integrations of the android world. Fortunately today is a much more mature environment but, trust me, it was tough in the beginning, specially seeing how easily my wife and daughter would do stuff on their iPhones so easily integrate to their MacBooks and iTunes and other things, while I was struggling doing stuff in my Windows laptop and my android phone and tablets, doing magic to try to look integrated. That, again, has improved a lot and windows and Google have gotten much better at it.
But moving from a 100% Apple world to Android, has to be much more difficult. Not only you'll have to learn new UIs and ways of doing things, but learn to do them in a more difficult way. It will have its rewards down the road: openness, options and probably the future of smartphones.
I am not so sure that going to Android on your next phone will be as much of a shock as many might believe. Aside from possibly reduced ease of access to your digital entertainment library, it should be a good experience these days. Although part of the advantage for me is having all the apps I need
I am not so sure that going to Android on your next phone will be as much of a shock as many might believe. Aside from possibly reduced ease of access to your digital entertainment library, it should be a good experience these days. Although part of the advantage for me is having all the apps I need automatically installed as soon as I log into a new device, Google's integration with maps, location, security, and browser history (if you log into, and use Chrome) is greatly improved in recent years. Of course, you must "walk naked through the forest of Google"* if you really want all the advantages, something I came to terms with years ago.
I carry a Google Pixel (Google FI rocks) when I travel internationally. It is a very refreshing, pure Google experience with no carrier garbage to clutter up your phone.
*Borrowed from Prof Scott Galloway, on a Pivot podcast a few months ago.
A story to warn everyone that you usually do not own your digital assets and your digital identity.
But what is the alternative?
I lost access to my MacBook Pro, every iPhone I've ever owned, and my iPad because I forgot my old iTunes password. Thanks for that.
There are even more basic and banal walling garden and commercial issues with content that users and paying consumers need to be aware of. More than a decade ago, digitalizing was a big thing, ripped my bookshelf of CDs and vinyl into digital at 320/flac and put them on Yahoo music, but lost it all when
There are even more basic and banal walling garden and commercial issues with content that users and paying consumers need to be aware of. More than a decade ago, digitalizing was a big thing, ripped my bookshelf of CDs and vinyl into digital at 320/flac and put them on Yahoo music, but lost it all when stopped paying subscription and moved to Google Play Music (including thousands of songs uploaded from paid CDs and vinyl). Then uploaded same to Google only to discover they are not held, kept or downloadable back down in same quality or format. Buyer beware !!
This is why you don’t buy from shady websites. Only buy from trusted retailers like big box stores where you physically see the cards on display. I see this with Steam. People buy from grey market sites and people ultimately lose their games with no recourse. Providing proof of payment is meaningless
This is why you don’t buy from shady websites. Only buy from trusted retailers like big box stores where you physically see the cards on display. I see this with Steam. People buy from grey market sites and people ultimately lose their games with no recourse. Providing proof of payment is meaningless because you essentially bought stolen goods.
One positive is hopefully this may wake people up to the fact that if you sign up for the Garden of Eden, God may kick you out at any moment. The timing is ironic as I literally just got back, having had to wait for this day several weeks post digital release, from buying Endgame on Bluray because I refuse to buy digital for this very reason.
And oh no, poor baby had to use a paper boarding pass. As a disabled person on fixed income all I can say is it must be nice to be able to afford to fly places.
I have zero sympathy for this individual.
This is shocking, and much worse than I realized when I had to decide if I wanted to change to a non Apple phone. Wait, what about my music library?
I had a tiny taste when a store tech did a factory restore about three years ago, and wasn’t able to complete the download from the Cloud - because six
This is shocking, and much worse than I realized when I had to decide if I wanted to change to a non Apple phone. Wait, what about my music library?
I had a tiny taste when a store tech did a factory restore about three years ago, and wasn’t able to complete the download from the Cloud - because six of my downloaded songs, legally purchased, were no longer available for sale on the iTunes store, and had in fact been deleted from their original albums. The only solution ended up being to have the senior agent, after many calls and store visits, delete the songs completely. I agreed, to get rid of the annoying message and finish the restore, but called it what it was - theft.
Remember the days when it was easy and normal to load songs onto your ipod from your CDs? Then came iphone and the cloud.
I’m sorry to hear you had such a horrible experience.
