Just Say "NO!" To Comp-u-brains!

While calling Apple Computer's support line, and later while arranging a pickup with DHL Shipping, I encountered a strange, obnoxious system in place. I've long been familiar with the insidious recent trend for corporate phonelines which requires you to say the option that you would like rather than pushing buttons on the phone as a voice reads your options. The only purpose that this can achieve is to make you feel like a Grade-A dork saying things like "tell me more" out loud in public places, between long silences.

But these menu systems were even worse. You see - they tried to make the computer sound like a human. Apparently unfamiliar with the concept of the uncanny valley, the developers of this phone support service apparently thought it a good idea for the computer to give human-like answers and self-deprecating comments that do not apply to computers in any real sense.

Here are some of the most offensive comments from the two support sessions. Keep in mind that all of these statements were prerecorded by humans trying to inflect like normal humans:

After I gave my address: "I'm sorry. I don't think I got that. Could you please repeat what you just said?"

After I indicated that the number on file was wrong: "My mistake. Can I get the new number?"

When I asked to speak to a representative: "Okay. I just checked and you might have to wait about five minutes. Is that okay?"

ARGH! Perhaps when listed these don't seem so ridiculous, but having to speak into a phone rather than quickly navigating menus, all the while listening to unapplicable usages of human conversation made me uncomfortable if not actually angry. As far as I'm concerned, a computer saying "my mistake" is inexcusable; how about "I'm sorry. Your squeaky nerd voice and my voice-recognition software appear to be at odds. Please try again, meatbag."

After all, the entire reason why we have this type of technology is to eliminate ambiguity, but all they've done is to add an inefficient layer of "pretend to be human" and voice recognition over the already perfectly good support system. I miss the old days, when the humans who prerecorded their voices for phone support lines sounded like robots.

By the way, there's a secret unlisted option that you can use with these systems to make modifications to the voice chip and behavior of the system. Here it is:

"Listen, you mothergrabbing electronic bastidge, give me a real human or pulse-based menu system before I find your Silicon Valley CPU and feed it to a goat."

I was this close to using it.

This Apple is Going Bad

Now Apple's done it. In an effort to shackle consumers to iTunes downloads and services (not to mention iTunes itself), Apple has rewritten the iPod database to remove compatibility with alternate players. The sentence from the ipodminusitunes article says it all:

"So, it's finally happened. Unhappy with other media players being better than iTunes, Apple have apparently decided to stop them from working with the new range of iPods."

I do not use iTunes on my computer. I use a program called Anapod Explorer, which makes the file transfer process simple and easy. Changing tags and labels of songs (for example to save all audio files to a given album) is easy and, above all, it doesn't force me to synchronize my music or download DRM copy-protected tracks (not a track on my iPod is copy-protected and I won't download from any site that puts such cuffs on their music). In short: iTunes is inconvenient to use. Not as bad as anything in Windows Vista, but far from great.

This makes me sick to my stomach. Reducing freedom and reducing compatibility is not the way to go. In a good few years, when it comes time for me to buy a new audio player, it won't be an iPod. Not a chance, unless something changes. (I'm aware that people will still reverse-engineer the code and make it possible to use other programs, but this is a matter of principle.

Sorry. No jokes today. I'm trying to earn the "Spittin' Nails" tag on this post.

iPod Woes (Well, Sort Of)

I never thought that I'd turn obsolete in one month.



Thirty-two days after my happy transition into the digital music world with my new black 30GB iPod Video, Apple makes my iPod obsolete and, as is their wont, introduces a newer, huger model - the inevitable new specs object for the tech-crazed blogosphere this Christmas season.

The New iPod Classic - and a New Price For an Old One

My 30GB cost $250 when I ordered it. Now the 30GB has been replaced with the 80GB at the same price point. Had I waited I would have gotten about two and two-thirds times the storage space for the same price. The 80GB's old spot has been taken by the absolutely brobdingnagian new 160GB iPod classic. "Forty thousand songs!" the advertisement reads.

One hundred sixty thousand minutes, assuming four minutes per song.

One hundred eleven days of continuous playback (by my experience, something like two hundred battery charge cycles, though Apple's inflated battery life estimates would put it closer to 66 cycles).

But I'm absolutely satisfied with what I have now (slight twinge of buyer's remorse at passing up the 160GB model notwithstanding). To give a little context, my existing iPod offers a mere twenty days of playback. I've already got 3,200 songs and something like five hours of video on the sucker (and a hearty 14GB of space remaining) and haven't even gotten close to listening to it all. So, I'll stick with what I've got for now - at least, until the inevitable moment when Apple unveils the new 3TB iPod Classic* with a Pez dispenser and flashlight (still no FM tuner, of course).



*How long can Apple keep using that word "Classic" until we realize they're lying? Let's all get on the same page: the only "classic" iPod is the first one - the one shaped like a first-generation GameBoy and a mechanical scroll wheel. A mechanical scroll wheel, for crying out loud.