iPhone requires iTunes account?
I just got the second email from Apple after signing up with them for breaking iPhone updates via email. I read the mail a little bitterly, since I felt the least they could have done was to send me an email when they had the ship date nailed down. Well, the tone of the email was mostly, "Here are things you can do to get ready for your iPhone...", but it ended with this:
To set up your iPhone, you'll need an account with Apple's iTunes Store. If you already have an iTunes account, make sure you know your account name and password. If you don't have an account, you should set one up now to save time later. To set up an account, launch iTunes, select the iTunes Store, and click the Sign In button in the upper right corner of iTunes. Sign in and you're ready to go.
My first thought was sure, you'd need one if you wanted to use protected iTunes content, but on second thought, I wondered, could this be something more? Could it be that you'll need an iTunes account for other iPhone features to actually work, like maybe purchasing music from the store over WiFi? Could this be how ring tones are purchased? Could this be the mechanism for adding Apple applications and features to your iPhone? Maybe some integration with a new and improved .Mac service, like real time sync? Maybe to make up for the forever lost hidden features in Leopard, there will be some "sweet" hidden features in the iPhone? Nah, never mind.
1 comment:
Well, this is bad news. You see, there are many small countries in Europe without iTunes store (approx 20% of population). The reason for this is frankly speaking very understandable. The artists have mixed representations (a typical one - small independent company at home and some bigger one globally) and to negotiate all the deals with record companies is time and money consuming. Not worth the efforts for those small countries. So no iPhone for me, ever.
The other obstacle is of course the contract and the provider. Scandinavian countries (home of Ericsson and Nokia) for example are global leaders in mobile phone penetration and use. No O2, Orange, T-Mobile or Vodafone there (Vodafone has some kind of partners).
Plus the one operator per country cuts off some 70% ore more potential customers, globally.
Or course it's their product and they can do whatever they wan't with it - still, such creativity of setting limitation after limitation is mindblowing. I wonder what Steve is thinking next - accepting only American Express for payment?
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