Complaint to Apple: Option to turn off the subtitles semi-transparent black background.
Hi,
I'm from Portugal and although I can understand english (british and american) very well, I like to see my HD home films with portuguese subtitles because, oddly enough, I feel it to be more natural, also, occasionally I cannot understand a couple of english words and…also, and the most important reason, I think, I watch many films from all over the world.
My question is:
In AppleTV, iTunes, etc, why is there no option to turn off the semi-transparent black background from the (soft) subtitles?
I find it to be an insult to people who really love cinema and film as an art form and all the users of Apple products. this semi-transparent black background takes your attention from the actual film, obscures the cinematography, it's annoying and obtrusive. Films are an art form, moving images art form with a careful attention to photography, lightning, etc. Maybe I can see the actual reason behind this "feature". It can be helpful to people who have difficulty reading the subtitles with background images. I get it. But not giving the user, at least, a second choice of turning that dreadful semi-transparent black background is disrespectful, from the user perspective, to say the least. It's technical issue? You can't put a black shadow behind the actual subtitles letters? From a company that makes the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad, etc, hmmm… I don't think so.
Imagine the following situation of putting the Apple TV or the iTunes sound volume very loud by default because it would be helpful to people who don't ear very well and not giving the choice to the user to turn down the audio volume? Yes, it's ridiculous, I know. It's not a very good and thoughtful designed user "feature", is it? It is not very Apple like, is it? With all the attention to detail that characterizes all Apple products.
I hope my words have some meaning to you and that you, soon, make it possible to turn off the semi-transparent black background of subtitles in the AppleTV, iTunes, etc.
Thank you for your attention (to detail),
A faithful Apple consumer since the 1990's.
Pedro Taquelim
iMac (24-inch Early 2009), Mac OS X (10.7.4), 8 GB RAM DDR3 - NVIDIA GeForce 9400