Subscribe by EmailiPhones + iTunes = iProfit
June 15, 2007 by Kiltak |Cupertino’s latest announcement should, without any doubt, make quite a few future iPhone owners grimace in frustration.
According to a memo recently released on Apple’s Web site, consumers planning to get their hands on an iPhone when they come out in June will need to open an iTunes account before they can start using the device.
With this announcement, the firm encourages future clients to be pro-active and to register on the iTunes Web site as soon as possible, just so they can save time later. In my opinion, this requirement is yet another clever move from Apple to sneakily acquire an additional share of the online music/movie market at the expense of unsuspecting users. But let’s face it: Apple, as a corporation, exists to make money. So can we really blame them for turning a buck any way they can?
If everything goes as planned, the iPhone will be available for sale in the United States on June 29 and in Europe on the fourth quarter of the year. Apple plans to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, capturing approximately 1 percent of the cell phone market.
You Might Also Like:
- No iTunes for China - that pesky Dalai Lama suspected!
- 3G iPhone Stumbles On Launch
- UK iTunes rival to provoke a “price war”?
- Universities hand out free iPhones to students
I don’t really know why a lot of people are getting all upset about this, all you need is an iTunes gift card to open an account, you don’t even need a credit card at all. That is how I buy my iTunes stuff, by purchasing an iTunes gift card and using it in the iTunes store.
How can they make you sign up for this? Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Maybe class action…hey, maybe we should initiate the proceedings.
I can’t imagine there are that many people in the market for an iPhone who aren’t already iTunes account holders.
Brief philosophical banter: Saying that Apple as a corporation exists to make money is like saying that I exist to pass on my genes to the next generation; true, but not relevant to assessments of whether we should blame Apple for its actions. Sure corporations that make the most money tend to survive best, but that doesn’t mean we should agree with everything they do to make money. If I were a head-honcho in Apple I would want to provide a “good” service (one that I would enjoy using), having such qualities as user-friendliness and compatability with other services provided by other companies.
Of course we shouldn’t necessarily agree with them, and I think the blogosphere is the perfect vehicle to let companies know about whether people agree with their decisions or not…
In this case, just head over to technorati and have a look at the discussions going around this issue…you’ll quickly learn that people are clearly frustrated about how the iPhone will be dependant with the iTunes service.
Who knows, there still may be hope yet