So I Bought An iPod Touch

In spite of Apple’s many transgressions, I finally caved, and bought a Touch.  What transgressions?

• They’re suing a small Victoria, BC business school over the apple logo.
• The iPhone/Touch doesn’t have cut and paste.
• The iPhone/Touch doesn’t have an SD card slot for extra memory.
• The iPhone/Touch SDK comes with a punishingly harsh NDA.

Ok, they’ve actually retired that NDA, but there are other offences.  The highly vaunted Apple user experience has been a bust for me.  I tried and tried, but couldn’t get into the App Store, which is the ONLY WAY to download programs onto the platform.

I started in iTunes on Bender (my MacBook Pro).  But it got all cocked up over my postal code.  It turns out you first have to tell it what country you’re from.  Yes you do.  It’s right up there at the top of the page.  Right where people would jump over it, looking to get on with the business of filling the form.

If they wanted to do it right, Apple would style that message with a coloured box, and possibly a different font size.  The link isn’t even highlighted in any way.

Then I went on the Apple website from my MacBook Pro (MBP, aka Bender).  On the advice of my nephew I tried registering on the online store.  Well, that worked.  Huzzah!

Eagerly and with great anticipation I went to Dogsbody (my iPod Touch), opened the App Store, selected my first program for download, and hit the Install button.  It asked for my ID and password, which I entered using the popup keyboard and my suddenly very stubby fingers, and was told that this ID was only good for purchasing products from the Canadian iTunes store.  (Insert curses here.)

But wait!  The story does have a happy ending.  I called my friend mauser, who not only is a long time Mac user, but actually works at an Apple store, so he knows the ins and outs of all this Jobsian fuckery.  Turns out I had to create an Apple ID at https://myinfo.apple.com.  (I did, in fact, already have an Apple ID, probably from my Bender purchase.)  The point is, nowhere does it indicate how to get such an ID.  But now you have it documented here.

Compliments of the Notorious Webmaster.