Authorising imac 2006 to play itunes music files

Thanks for at least being honest tt2. That is refreshing compared to the patronising run around I got from the Apple centre and Apple care.

I would suggest that Apple need to address this as a priority of ethics, integrity and reputation. Forcing people to buy a new computer (that usually cannot even interface easily with old back up drives) for the simplest of offline functions is a breach of all three.

I have been an Apple user since the 90s and turned many of my PC friends onto Apple computers over the years. As it stands I will never purchase anything from Apple again.

Apple's lack of interest in or empathy for its customers and even second hand authorised dealers has gone on for years now without being addressed.

You may likely call this a rant and delete it. I would say it is extremely valuable customer feedback that Apple should be taking onboard.

I am not alone in these sentiments and nor have I expressed them rudely. The first person I mentioned my concern about this matter too said "Apple don't care. They think they have us all pinned to the wall where we have no choice."

Well I do have a choice and a voice. Complaining to Apple might be like shouting to the wind (as an authorised mac second hand dealer I know said to me once) but there are plenty of other people out there ready to hear me.

"Apple doesn't listen and cares even less."

I will add that a company authorising computers it has manufactured to play music, doesn't classify as a transaction to me. I doubt any other body would hold any authority over that. I am sure someone at Apple already has the ability to do this. Not offering this service to customers looks much more like a poor Apple policy decision to me.

The 'form' you mention has not gone unnoticed by me. I have been an Apple customer for over 20 years. Not responding to customers needs is something customers, authorised dealers, repairers and service agents have endured without action from Apple for many years. I have written a response to Apple in the survey I was sent after talking with Apple care yesterday.

I would like to share this response and any further correspondence from Apple. Where do you suggest is the best place to post this? It addresses my current issue but also Apple's sociopathic corporate culture that unless explored and exposed can only get worse.

Apple marketed themselves heavily as a new music industry platform with itunes and the ipod. They have dropped the ball so badly that they have left me and millions others with big libraries with zero reasonable solutions.

Rather than revolutionise the music industry they in fact killed it just as much as CD's and pirating. Pirating has always existed - but when the paid alternative became as crappy as it did with itunes, what hope was left for musicians and genuine collectors?

What do I do now? I am not putting my music onto my macbook pro, no way - I found out the hard way how vulnerable they are to damage from liquid. Parties are not a macbook environment. Buying a new dedicated machine for music would give me my itunes library back but what about all the CD's and records I ripped and threw away? I cannot plug my old hard drives into a new machine. Move my entire massive library to the cloud and pay for monthly storage? Not enough trust for that sorry and what a time and money consuming PITA.

So Apple dropped the ball and lost the game with the music thing. Fair enough. Allowing customers to authorise older computers to use itunes would be a simple fix to a massive problem they dumped on us.

If this was my only beef, sure I guess it would just seem like something to just get over, but the run around their agents gave me instead of just being honest is a whole different problem.

Expecting a big company like Apple to include customer feedback in their R&D is not unreasonable. Why plan to take over the music industry and not talk or listen to anyone who works in it.

No wonder they failed.

They did not listen - they're not listening still - perhaps they never will.

...Starry Starry Night ...

I know I have come to this late in the game - but unfortunately I spent many years looking after my mother who was dying of cancer and didn't have time to organise my library until now. I was ahead of the trend initially. I left the music industry (where I worked as an executive) in 1991 and got into graphic design and book publishing. I saw it was over then. Everyone thought I was crazy and argued with me. Six moths later there was a 50% reduction of staff in the industry nationally in Australia. It never recovered. It is not too late for Apple to restore its reputation. There is an opportunity now in the market for them to develop dedicated machines to solve music collectors problems. The field is now wide open.