finally going to talk about the iphone.

I haven't actually had the opportunity to NOT buy one yet, being Canadian, but I have essentially made it impossible for me to justify doing it financially, whenever it is that the iPhone gets a Canadian release. I am trying not to lust after the thing further, and the only method I have is to list the things that piss me off about it. Not the least of which is, the oft mentioned moratorium on third party development. No outside programs on your iPhone unless they run online, without flash. And over embarrassingly slow EDGE service.

Funnily enough, part of the reason I bought a Mac was to avoid Vista, because everything I'd heard had led me to believe that it was a DRM devil OS, designed to penalize me for using any non-microsoft approved software.

And yet, here we are.

I never cease to be impressed by Apple's ability to use it's position as a contender to obscure the decidedly non-little-guy-friendly stances being taken with iPods, the iTunes music store, and now the iPhone. The ubiquity of Apple branded media playing devices makes them, in my mind, one of the worst offenders when it comes to sales of locked media. At the same time, I'm typing this on a MacBook, which is connected to an iPod, and I'm saving for an AppleTV (my reasoning is at least somewhat solid on that one, see below). Obviously, I have developed a kind of cognitive dissonance that can only be described as having taken a liking to the Kool-Aid.

It was easy for me to blow off Microsoft products wherever possible, mostly because the simple act of USING them is enough to make you hate the corporation. Couple that with a distaste for practices, and I'm out the door. However, my Mac is a joy to use. The mixture of iPod and iTunes is, in my opinion, the best digital music experience (from a UX standpoint), and that makes it harder for me to flip out when I hear that there will be no third party apps on the latest Apple object of obsession.

I don't like this hypocrisy coming from my end, but I'm having a hard time seeing an out. So, I look at all the post-release hullabaloo coming from the south, and I'm repeating flaws like a mantra because there are MANY justifiable reasons to dislike the device. But at the same time, Apple has, in recent years, developed some kind of direct stimulation for the 'BUY IT' reaction in my reptile brain.

So I'm looking for a happy compromise, like maybe Jobs will wake up tomorrow and consider policies that are better for the community at large, even if they slightly complicate things in Cupertino.

[In relation to the AppleTV, I want one as a solution to two problems; 1) I hate waiting for DVDs, 2) I don't keep a TV schedule. An addendum to this is, even though I pay for cable, I think subscribing to specific shows over iTunes on a per season basis would be a reasonable and useful option for me. And, even the time spent 'finding' 'reruns' is worth enough that I would be willing to pay.

That, and the salve to my conscience that would come from actually paying for battlestar galactica.]