Cry me a river →
Jason Calcanis’ latest rant is chock full of stupid, like this:
Think for a moment about what your reaction would be if Microsoft made the Zune the only MP3 player compatible with Windows.
Um, heellloooooo! The Zune software (Microsoft’s analogue to iTunes) is only compatible with the Windows OS. Furthermore, the Zune software can only be used with Zune hardware (the same sin Apple is supposedly committing!) And don’t even get me started about how Microsoft screwed the entire MP3 player manufacturing industry by ignoring their own Plays for Sure certification program and going with a new proprietary route for the Zune.
I really don’t get this line of thinking. The iPod is not the only MP3 player compatible with OS X (which is what Calcanis intimates in his statement). The very first hit I got on Amazon for “MP3 player” returns the SanDisk Sansa Fuse and shows that it works under OS X.
Look, the problem here is that nimrods like Calcanis are blaming the wrong people for not meeting their needs. It’s not Apple’s responsibility to support every possible MP3 player in iTunes. It never was. The fact that the other brand MP3 players have crappy music collection software is that they’re not making their own best-of-breed stuff. Microsoft most notably is not in one key area: the Zune software absolutely should be available as a Mac OS X download… but it’s not. And that’s not Apple’s fault… it’s Microsoft’s. And the same holds true for the rest of them.
