I have been reading a fair bit recently about how Apple are using their app store to fleece content suppliers, as well as cutting off their relationships with their users, and it is starting to really get me down.

Briefly, as far as I understand it, Apple are intending to force publishers of apps to fork over 30% of any and all revenue generated through that app, as well as hoarding the all-important information about the people who made the actual purchase.  Given that in many cases an app is no more than a customised window to the internet, and that people have to pay for their app to be hosted in the first place, this strikes me as a little extreme, for two main reasons.

Firstly, the beauty of the internet is its freedom.  As film studios, anti-terrorist agencies and embarrassed US diplomats will tell you, it may include the freedom to do some distinctly dubious things at times, but the freedom of expression, revolution in communications and boon to creative collaboration which the internet has brought have been incredible.  The eradication of barriers to entry in so many industries is also a great thing, and this stimulates competition enormously, which is one of the key requirements for a healthy capitalist system.  High barriers to entry mean less competition, means prices tend to go up and quality down, and the consumer gets fucked in the meantime.  Low barriers to entry are also, it must be said, just plain fucking exciting.

What Apple have managed to do with their app-based operating system is effectively fence off the internet.  When Murdoch stuck the Times behind a paywall I think he was being an idiot, not least because of the destruction of his readership and awful publicity were needless, when the concept of the app was about to enable him to do the exact same thing in a year or so, but to little or no public outcry.

Now, with apps, the internet is behind walls again with Apple telling you what is and isn’t acceptable content, and with them charging you for what used to be free.  Barriers to entry in almost everything are creeping back up again, and I see this as a very bad thing.

The other aspect of this which is worrying is that the inner machinations regarding what is and isn’t Apple-approved content and therefore what makes it to your screens are almost entirely opaque.  They can basically do what they want, and their motives are far from reassuring.  As they have just entered into partnership with News International – yes, seriously, fucking Murdoch! – to provide a news service which will be delivered on the same platform they are forcing everyone else onto, they are now in a situation where they are directly incentivised to hobble competing news services like the Beeb or the Guardian, because they now have their very own horse in this race – a race which takes place on a track they themselves own.

This state of affairs is, to my eyes anyway, fucking incredible. The internet is not only slowly being closed, but the playing field itself is now very much not level either.

The second highly worrying aspect of this is that Apple are effectively manoeuvering themselves into a position where they will completely control your contact with the outside world.  If you use a Mac in the house as well as in your pocket, then one account controls all points of access to the digital world.

Forcing everything through the App Store and iTunes gives Apple a big weapon in the battle against Paypal to control online financial traffic, and soon they will own your transactions with the news and information you choose to consume as well.

The power this gives them to pervert, censor, exploit and control almost everything we do, see, hear or buy is quite frightening, not least because they are a private company and are hence not even slightly answerable for how they abuse that power. Does anyone ever actually read the terms and conditions they sign up for in the App store?  Well we’d better start, because before too long those arcane, utterly impenetrable paragraphs could become more important to us than the bloody law itself.

As it turns out, really well designed mobile versions of websites can in many cases obviate the need for customised apps, and I very much hope this is something people continue to focus on strongly, because I find the concept of handing so much power over to Apple, or Google if you are an Android user, to be really quite frightening.

You know, I fucking hate iTunes.  I hate i-fucking-Tunes for much the same reason that I hate fucking Macs in general.  They are designed for people who don’t fucking know how to use Explorer, for Christ’s sake.  Or Finder or whatever the bastard is called on a Mac.

It drives me nuts.  If you import photos using iPhoto then you cannot find those files in Finder.  It’s fucking ludicrous.  You have to use the search function and then when it tells you where they are you can’t actually reach that path conventionally through Finder, it will only show you the bloody things through search. Basically, you have to use iPhoto, which I would frankly prefer not to do because then your old, imported photos end up in a different place from your new ones.  “Ah, but they’re all on iPhoto”, say the smarmy, gurning Macintosh twats.  Well I don’t fucking like i-fucking-Photo and I would like to be able to choose not to fucking use it.

iTunes is the fucking same.  It’s a spectacularly stupid program, and it refuses to let you organise your music properly.  It loses files, it won’t watch a folder properly, there’s no Explorer functionality in the left-hand sidebar, it’s fucking dreadful.  All my music in a great big long list, are you fucking joking?  Do you have any idea how much music I actually have?  I’ll get RSI in my bloody scrolling finger, you fucking turkeys.

The worst is the watch folder situation though.  Basically, everything I buy or I get sent to me goes into a folder called On Trial, which is always changing as things either get deleted or moved to another folder, for the keepers, called Music Library.  Winamp and Mediamonkey are both capable of keeping an eye on both of these folders and updating accordingly.  iTunes is incapable of doing that.  Most music fans like to organise their collections and keep things where they want them, but what use is software that can’t keep up with that.  Mediamonkey can’t be installed on a Mac at all, and I am raging because it’s brilliant software, and I want to use it.

Basically, Macs seem do be designed for people who don’t want to use computers and I fucking despise them.  I will organise my own files thank you very much, you fucking keep your playschool cartoon kiddie computer hands off the bastards.

Marc Carroll – Idiot World
Elvis Costello – How to Be Dumb
Close Lobsters – Just too Bloody Stupid