The Wide, Wide World of Apple

[Barrister]

The biggest problem with iWatch for me is that I don't want anything electronic on my wrist.  I'm old-fashioned like that.

Actually, the biggest shift from Apple's keynote is that aside from the entrenched "iPhone," none of the new products or services are being given the "i" prefix.  Apple Pay, Apple Watch, etc.

Oh, and I shouldn't have to point this out, but there's a huge fail inherent in the Watch, that Samsung has already addressed with the Gear.

I'm a southpaw.

Apparently it will be taken care of (likely by just flipping the watch over)

[Phillip V]

Sprint's $70/month plan for new iPhone w/ unlimited data seems like a good deal.

[Liep]

I didn't get an iPhone before the 4th edition because I thought the first few iPhones looked like round plastic crap and were kinda pointless and expensive. Now the watch might not look plasticy but it's still not very good looking and so far also somewhat pointless and certainly expensive.

I'll wait.

[katmai]

Iphone 6 purchased for mother and 6+ for me.

[Tonitrus]

Early adopter. 

[garbon]

Applehead.

[Phillip V]

Iphone 6 purchased for mother and 6+ for me.

Which carrier?

[katmai]

At&t

[Tonitrus]

If ATT weren't the only legit nationwide cell network up here, would that likely have been different?

I heard Verizon is going to try and do the same up here.

[katmai]

They are finally coming up here. And actually just few weeks ago the local paper had story how since they started from scratch the most advance verizon network is actually here in Alaska.

[Syt]

So it appears not everyone is happy with their free U2 album. There's been a (mostly academic) question raised in Austria, as gifting something to someone is a contract, requiring consent of the party who receives the gift.


https://www.yahoo.com/tech/people-are-freaking-out-over-apples-forced-itunes-97218237854.html

People Are Freaking Out over Apple's Forced iTunes Download of U2's New Album

While Bono and Tim Cook might be excited about the release of U2's new album, not everyone is sharing their enthusiasm.

Toward the end of Tuesday's Apple event, Tim Cook and Bono announced that every iTunes user would be given the band's new album for free. While that might not sound like a bad thing, many people are angry over the way Apple chose to "gift" us the album.

U2's new album, Songs of Innocence, shows up in iTunes libraries as purchased, whether users have chosen to buy it or not. That's made a lot of people angry, as it's nearly impossible to get rid of the album.

Users who have opted to download new purchases to their iPhones automatically have found the new U2 album sitting on their phones since Tuesday. But even if iTunes users hadn't chosen automatic downloads, Songs of Innocence will still be displayed as an "iTunes in the Cloud" purchase. That means it will still be shown as part of your music library, even if you delete all the tracks. The only way to make the U2 album go away is to go to your Mac or PC and hide all of your "iTunes in the Cloud" purchases, or to use iTunes to manually hide each track from your purchased items list.



Even then, the U2 album will lurk in your account, hidden until you decide you want it.

You cannot actually disassociate it completely from your account.



Angry iTunes users have pointed to Jay Z's deal with Samsung as a good example of an album being released in partnership with a technology company. In June last year, anyone with a Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S4 or Galaxy Note II was able to get Jay Z's new album for free, days before it went on general release. Crucially, customers had to choose to download an app to download the album. This meant that only Samsung customers who were interested in Jay Z's new album got to download it. By contrast, Apple's tactic forced the album upon hundreds of millions of people.

With Bloomberg reporting that Apple has more than 800 million iTunes accounts, that's a whole lot of people who have the album. In comparison, U2's total album sales to date have been estimated at around 150 million. The band's last album, No Line on the Horizon, sold 5 million copies.

Tim Cook said on stage at the Apple event, shortly after awkwardly touching fingers with Bono, that U2's new album had "the largest album release of all time." But giving away the album for free means that Songs of Innocence won't be eligible for listing on the Billboard Charts until its physical release Oct. 14.

[Barrister]

Some people will complain about anything.  I'm not much of a U2 fan, but I think the idea of being given an album for free is neat.

[garbon]

Yeah how whiny. If you want complete control of your phone - don't have automatic download. And then who cares if it is associated with your account if not downloaded?

Even then, the U2 album will lurk in your account, hidden until you decide you want it.

Teh horror!!!

[Syt]

So Apple has reacted and offers a technical solution to remove the album from your account again. After a week, 33 million users out of an estimated 500 million had "accessed" the album, including all the ones who had their auto-download settings switched on, and people who only checked out the songs without downloading them).

Austrian ORF quotes Bono as basically saying that it's because many consumers don't know what good music is anymore and that it's their loss.

[Caliga]

Got iOS 8 yesterday afternoon right after it came out.