Tonight I’m eating ice cream against my will and it’s all Apple’s fault. Because today I discovered that Apple doesn’t really love me. I had thought we had a good thing going. I had thought Apple was looking out for me and my best interests. I had thought Apple cared about me. Sadly, I’m just another number, one tiny notch among millions on the ol’ iHeadboard. And the worst of it all? I’m still in love. I’m actually hoping Apple takes me back once I get my shit pulled together. Does my hair look okay?
Theatrics aside, here’s the deal: the honeymoon for me and Apple is over. I’m at home clinging to the past pinching pennies, ripping music from CDs and scrolling with my mouse while Apple is out cruising the coast ogling young, carefree app addicts who drink Starbucks all day and iTunes party all night while they await the chance to get their sexting fingers on the next iSomethingorwhatever. That used to be me!
Okay, in all seriousness, this is what happened. I got excited about the iCloud. So excited that I didn’t bother reading anything about it. If anyone has ever purchased an Apple product, then he is well aware that “everything just works” and you should simply not question whether or not this fundamental tenet is true. I certainly didn’t. All I wanted to do was listen to my iTunes music library from my iPhone while at work. The iCloud would allow me to do this, I had no doubts about it. The application was called iCloud and it was made by Apple. It could do anything.
But first, I had to upgrade my Leopard OS to Lion. Easy enough. No, wait. I have to upgrade my OS to Snow Leopard, and then to Lion. Okay. Where’s the download button for Snow Leopard? Oh, I have to buy a hard copy of it. Okay, it’s only $29.99, it will be here in 4 days. I can wait.
Just a side note: I actually did do some research beforehand. It involved confirming that I could run Lion on my hardware.
Four days later I have my copy of Snow Leopard and I make the install. Then I have to click on the Apple icon and select “Software Update” in order to get access to the App Store, where I can then download Lion. Another 35 minutes after my Snow Leopard OS install, I have the App Store icon on my dock. Okay, here we go, only minutes until I have unlimited, unfettered access to all my music. Oh happy day!
I click on Lion and make the install. I have an hour. So I go for a four-mile run. Sweaty and tired, I return home to discover that my new, shiny OS “Install Succeeded.” Great, it doesn’t look that different. But I’m sure it’s awesome. Wait, what’s those little circles with a diagonal slash through them doing on my Adobe CS icons? Why am I getting error messages?
Oh geez. I failed to do my homework completely. OS X Lion had dropped support for all Power PC applications. That means my entire Creative Suite was entirely unusable. Yes, I know Adobe is like already on 5.5, but if I didn’t have to upgrade, I shouldn’t be forced into it! Then I noticed a few other applications that were not supported. My monitor calibrator, my SFTP client, and wait, my iTunes? Oddly enough, when I installed Lion, it made it incompatible with my version of iTunes, so then I had to run another update. Fine, it’s now been 3 hours and my computer is less of the computer it was before. But this is Apple, I am so sure everything will be okay.
Eagerly awaiting the iTunes update, I rationalize the loss of my Adobe suite. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. I had meant to upgrade eventually. This is truly for the best.
Now I have iTunes open. I have registered with the cloud, I have all my system preferences set to “open and free and vulnerable,” and I can’t access my music library on my iPhone. I must be missing some button in iTunes that says “Make it Work.” Nope. I need something called iTunes Match and it’s going to cost me $24.99 a year and it’s still in Beta. If I had made purchases from iTunes, then yes, I can have unlimited access to them on any of my devices. But, I don’t purchase from iTunes, so I’m screwed until Match becomes available and I cough up the cash.
By now I’m enraged. Why didn’t Apple tell me?! How could Apple do this to…me?
Ugh. So, what did I gain from my upgrade today? I know what I lost. I have to now purchase a full version of Adobe CS 5.5 because I can’t make the upgrade from CS. An Adobe live chat personnel insists that this is for the best and I will be quite happy with my new software package. I also need to buy a new monitor calibrating device. And a new mouse. For some reason, Apple can’t make a decent mouse with a scroll button that lasts for longer than 3 days. I think all the flashy features one cares about in Lion are enabled via swiping and tapping not clicking and dragging the scroll bar back and forth. Oh, and I have lost access to my non-iTunes music library, too. This is the one I share with my husband and it’s extensive and awesome and I’m now very sad. I am sure all that’s needed is another software update or maybe a whole new Squeezebox. Why not, right?
In the end, I know I deserve this. It’s not Apple’s fault. I should have been purchasing all my music from iTunes. I should never have tainted the purity of my Apple hardware with other non-Apple products. I should have been more diligent with my upgrades. I made Apple jealous. I made Apple lash out. I learned my lesson now. Please make it right. Please, can we just make it all work?