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Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'

By | October 23, 2011, 8:03pm PDT

Summary: “I don’t see an advantage of putting our own music app on Android, except to make Android users happy,” said Jobs.

Steve Jobs thought about putting iTunes on Android much like Apple did for Microsoft’s Windows platform, but the move didn’t make sense. Why? Jobs didn’t want to “make Android users happy.”

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs contains a lot of Android references. Jobs blew up when Google decided to launch Android and panned the search giant every time he could. The Apple-Android duel has led to a bevy of lawsuits. Ultimately, Jobs viewed Android as a “stolen product.”

Jobs felt the same way about Microsoft Windows in some respects, but hell can freeze over when hardware sales are at stake.

In the biography, Isaacson quotes Jobs:

“We thought about whether we should do a music client for Android. We put iTunes on Windows in order to sell more iPods. But I don’t see an advantage of putting our own music app on Android, except to make Android users happy. And I don’t want to make Android users happy.”

Jobs’ calculus works out based on real dollars. Apple makes out nicely on iTunes, but the service’s real benefit is to sell hardware—lots of it.

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Topics

Job, Steve Jobs, Apple Inc., Apple iTunes, Android, Microsoft Windows, Digital Music, Digital Media, Operating Systems, Software, Personal Technology, Consumer Electronics, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

For daily updates, follow Larry on Twitter.

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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@bmonsterman

Go crawl back under your rock. This is 2011.
1) DRM was the music industry's idea, not Apple's.
2) Regardless, music on ITMS has been DRM-free for ages.

That dead horse you keep beating has rotted away and turned to dust a long time ago.
View in thread
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Peter Perry 23rd Oct
Amazon thanks him for that!
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
camcost@... 24th Oct
@Peter Perry
Amazon is much more limited than Google. They're a book seller who goes farrrr beyond just selling books. Even their newest ebook tablet has an operating system which they didn't develop.

As for Jobs remarks. I totally understand his sentiments.
I never owned a Microsoft product until they copied Apple. It was only at that point that they offered something I could use.
Android?? The only reason I like it is because it's also a knock-off of an Apple product. Both Android and Windows are good, decent products because Apple paved the way for them. Without Apple, we would all be entering gawd-awful DOS prompts and using cellphones with a Blackberry interface (at best).
Hmmm. I can think of several other OS which have come and gone who also owed a great deal to Apple's way of thinking.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
mrxxxman 24th Oct
@camcost@... How many times do we have to say that Apple didn't come up with the desktop GUI or pointing device concepts. It was Xerox who combined both of those things together on their own computer first. Jobs stole that idea/concept from Xerox. They stole it, maybe not in the legal sense according to the courts, but they did in terms of design. If Jobs would have never seen the Xerox demo and subsequently hired away some of their top people, there would have never been a Macintosh.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
daengbo 24th Oct
@camcost@... I think everyone understands his feelings and might feel the same in his situation. On the other hand, taking action based on those feelings is riding the line of anti-competitiveness. You've got 98% of the market and are excluding a player in another of your markets because they are a competitor? Eesh.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@mrxxxman
And how many times does it have to be pointed out to you that you are wrong, and don't know what you are talking about, before you stop regurgitating these stupid internet memes, and trying pass them off as original, insightful information?
Please list what you think Apple stole from XEROX (keeping in mind that they gave XEROX $150M in Apple \sStock, and hired many of the original researchers) and how they copied XEROX (keeping in mind that I was one of the original users of the XEROX Alto, the system in question, and know enough about the system to know that you speak from total ignorance.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  Updated - 26th Oct
@daengbo
Um, news flash, there is absolutely nothing anti-competitive about not supporting a rival's platform.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
corwin1681 23rd Oct
Thank you Steve Jobs! No iTunes on my android phone - definetely makes me happy. And maybe if instead of hating you would do more inovating - iPhone would still be on the first place...
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Habiloso Updated - 23rd Oct
@corwin1681
iPhone not in first place? Perhaps iOS phones are not in first place compared to Android phones.

4 million iPhone 4S sales in 3 days - and that is only the start. You're welcome to suggest any, single Android phone or WP7 phone that has similar sales. But as you know, it takes the combined sales of many, many Android phones to outdo one, single iPhone. That would seem to be first place to me happy
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That's because there is no monopoly on Android hardware
JOB83 24th Oct
@Habiloso

These two products have two different marketing mechanisms. Apple gives you a choice of hardware manufactured by itself only. iPhone is a good product, so no surprise at its sales.

But with Android, it doesn't matter what company is building what; as long as you want an Android phone you can choose from any. It's not the banding of mobile phone manufacturers that lifted Android to first place, but consumers' preference for Android, no matter what the hardware. If there was only one company authorized to build an Android phone then that company would've been the number one bestseller. Sure it may drive the hardware companies to compete with themselves, but then again that's a good thing.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Habiloso 24th Oct
@JOB83
In some respects, I agree with what you say. It is fairly obvious. Nonetheless, you forget that Google marketed its own phone. I baulk at using the word failure, but it was certainly not a success. Google is about to market its second phone. Do you really think that it will sell better than an iPhone? Time will tell happy
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
doctorSpoc 24th Oct
@Habiloso the hoards of people buying android are buying it because it's cheap.. most people don't even know what android is.. all they know is they can get a phone that the salesman told them is just like an iPhone for $0 on contract.. they do the math.. get a crappy feature phone or an "iPhone like phone" for same price.. they get the android phone of course.. but most are not even interested in using 99% of the features of a smartphone.. this is why android users in general (not talking about people on tech blogs) don't buy or pay for apps, barely surf the web on their phone etc.. they just got a smartphone because it was the same $0 as the feature phone they would have gotten.. now that Apple has $0 & $99 iPhones and is on pretty much every carriers.. let's see how this goes.. if recent sales numbers since iPhone 4S is any indication.. this quarter is going to be a complete blow out for iPhone sales..
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
REDPINXC 24th Oct
@JOB83
the only reason the original Nexus phone 'failed' is because americans want subsidized phones which this was not. American carriers also do not allow you to walk in with your own phone and tell them to activate. If you want 1 piece of hardware with little to no selection Apple is for you.
I can get anywhere from a 3.3" screen to 4.7" now with several choices inbetween. single core, dual core, 5mp/8mp front camera/rear camera etc. If there was only one android and 1 iphone i can't honestly say who would be the top dog.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
evilcart 24th Oct
@Habiloso

nonsense, it was not 3 days. it was 3 days and weeks of pre orders.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Galidari 24th Oct
@Habiloso
I like what you said. Just watch the argument deteriorate down to one Apple hater posting, "To each his own." The great cop out. The old standby.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
businessandpolitics 24th Oct
@doctorSpoc
Do you have any evidence to back up your claims at all or is just more of the same old talking points Fanbois use to make up for the fact that the iPhone is losing market share to Android?
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
csteinola 24th Oct
@REDPINXC "the only reason the original Nexus phone 'failed' is because americans want subsidized phones which this was not."
Ummmmm... neither was/is the iPhone (subsidized). Especially in the beginning, if you wanted an iPhone you paid full price (which was right around the same pricepoint as the Nexus, and the G1 before that). So that argument doesn't hold water.

I'm not arguing with the spirit of your post, but you certainly can't state that the "only reason" Google's product failed is because it wasn't subsidized, when the iPhone faced the same circumstance and succeeded (wildly).
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
RobertMoore12@... 24th Oct
@Habiloso That's because Apple makes only one phone that its sales are that way. It still is not number one when compared Android to Apple.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@businessandpolitics
Um, iOS is in no way shape or form losing market share to Android. Care to back THAT assertion up? And not with total sales numbers, but rather numbers that actually address your contention. And while you're at it, please make a list of global carriers what have carried both the iPhone and Android phones for a considerable length of time where iPhones do not outsell all Android devices combined. (Hint: there aren't any.) The reason Android has the numbers it does is NOT because it is more popular, it is because it is available on far more carriers. Period.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@RobertMoore12
Um, yes, it is.
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iPhone still is on the first place
DeRSSS 24th Oct
@corwin1681
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
JOB83 24th Oct
Agree. I never had any use for iTunes anyway.
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Ugh
Hallowed are the Ori 24th Oct
@JOB83

iTunes. (Shudder)
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
drobinow 24th Oct
@JOB83 A lot of people express their dislike for iTunes. I don't have anything to compare it to so "What's the beef"?
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Pete "athynz" Athens 24th Oct
@corwin1681 HAHAHAHA!! You DO realize that Android is a copy of iOS right? Android was originally a Blackberry clone until it's purchase by Google, Eric Schmidt on Apple's Board, and the development and release of the iPhone then it much more closely resembled iOS.

Now WHO is it that needs to innovate?
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Michael Alan Goff 24th Oct
@Pete "athynz" Athens

Huh?

Go ahead, explain how it's a copy. I've used an iPad 2 (my sister's) and a Xoom (mine). Aside from clicking icons, there really isn't a lot of similarities between them.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Rama.NET 24th Oct
@Pete "athynz" Athens
+1
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
radleym 24th Oct
@Pete "athynz" Athens You do realize your just spreading FUD, right? Android was ne er a Blackbery clone, and boars members don't have access to technical design info. It was jn development as long as the iPhone was.
Now WHO.needs to start telling the truth.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
turgon@... 24th Oct
@Pete "athynz" Athens

Jobs liked to steal ideas; he's said so himself. So berating others for doing as he did is hypocrisy of the highest order.

"We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas".
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Skeptical Updated - 24th Oct
@Pete "athynz" Athens
"HAHA!HAHA!!" You DO realize that iOS is a copy of Unix, right? Dennis Ritchie, developer of Unix and co-developer of C died in near obscurity earlier this month. Unlike Steve Jobs, Ritchie actually invented something.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
drayphly 24th Oct
@Pete "athynz" Athens
SHow me your proof!! THe G1 was made by HTC, and HTC was making some really interesting Windows Mobile phones up till that point. In my opinion the G! fell in line to the type of products that HTC was designing running Windows mobile. and the Android software at that time was nothing like Iphone. My best friend bought a G! and it was nothing like IPhone..... What are you talking about???
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@Michael Alan Goff
The original Android from Android Inc. was a Blackberry clone. That was the stated mission of the company. This continued to be the goal when they were bought by Google. Released prototype designs, complete with trackball, make this plain. It was only after Eric Schmidt was exposed to the iPhone concepts and UI that he radically changed the focus. This is common knowledge, and a wealth of supporting evidence is just a google seach away.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  Updated - 26th Oct
@radleym
You do realize that you have no idea what you are talking about, right?
It is not FUD, it is the truth. As stated above, the original Android Inc.'s STATED purpose was to make a Blackberry clone, and that mission statement did not change when they were acquired by Google. Nor was it in development anywhere near as long as the iPhone (actually the iPad, which came first.)
And actually, Eric Schmidt was privy to quite a lot of technical information about the iPhone, as the hope was for it to have integrated google services. Eric took the information he gleaned and used it to utterly rewrite the Android playbook.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@Skeptical
First of all, you clearly know next to nothing about Unix, or its history of development. Second, OSX is not a "copy of Unix", it IS UNIX. There are many flavours of Unix, and none of the can be called copies.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@drayphly
Here, let me Google that for you:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=android+before+and+after
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Galidari 24th Oct
@corwin1681
Apple does innovate. OS-wise it's the top-selling phone out there. The only reason Android outsold it is because they managed to outstrip Apple by going across carriers and bastardizing itself with multiple manufacturers, thus horribly fragmenting the market of what could have been a really decent operating system. You're the one that needs to stop hating and get the chip off your shoulder when it comes to so-called "elitists." You'd probably do well to try to become one yourself instead of whining about everybody else.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
thoiness Updated - 24th Oct
@Galidari being the top-selling (even though this statement is a fallacy) does not equate to innovation, only the correct piecing together of collected artifacts and successful marketing.

Apple was an innovator: of marketing and stirring a cultish following.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
TSH4Life@... 24th Oct
@thoiness Someone's jealous.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
thoiness 24th Oct
@TSH4Life@... Indeed... I wish I was given the same Kool-Aide
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@thoiness

And successful marketing does not equate to a lack of innovation. Nor does making a statement on the internet make it so. Claiming Apple doesn't innovate evinces a level of ignorance and indoctrination that makes reason argument nary impossible. And you talk about Kool-Aid?!?
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Zzyzx.exit@... 24th Oct
@corwin1681 If there was just one Android phone say from HTC ... apple would still be in second place.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@Zzyzx.exit@...
Oh really? Please name a single carrier anywhere ON THE PLANEt, that has carried both Android and iPhone for any length of time, where iPhones do not outsell all their Android devices, combined.

GLWT
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
kenosha77a Updated - 23rd Oct
You can fault Jobs on his business decisions but you can't fault his honesty or his candidness.

Speaking of honesty, I doubt you will EVER come across statements from Samsung or Google stating that they took the look and feel of iOS from Apple and incorporated that same look and feel into their products.

Just like Eric Schmidt will always say he and Steve were Great Friends, right up to the end.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Heenan73 24th Oct
A rare error from Jobs; negative marketing can win battles, but has never won the war. The costs, in terms of reputation, and brand loyalty, are too high. Sure many companies build in spiteful incompatabilities to make rivals life difficult.

But bragging about it makes the spite public. It's almost as stupid as starting a patent war, but Apple are much too smart for that ... oh no, they aren't, are they?
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  Updated - 26th Oct
@Heenan73
Reality provides so many counterexamples to these statements, it hardly seems worth the effort responding.
Negative market quite often wins wars. Certainly does in politics.
Nor did Steve "brag about it in public". He answered a question in an interview.
And FTR, Apple is doing quite well in the patent war.
But there's that pesky reality again.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Nate_K 24th Oct
Just doesn't surprise me at all. Just follows Jobs's old routine of we want to run your stuff but we don't want you to be able to run ours.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@Nate_K
Care to provide examples?
Do hardware manufacturers have anything Apple wishes to run?
Does Microsoft have anything on which Apple could run something?
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
edkollin 24th Oct
Will be interesting to see if Tim Cook reverses policy on this. Putting Itunes on Windows was done to sell IPOD's yea, but also to change the music industry to make more user friendly the Apple way.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
Chipesh 24th Oct
How is any smartphone really innovative ?
They have screens with icons that run programs (apps). Some of the apps are different because the phone moves around but aren't they just small portable computers that can make phone calls ?

Should Apple be the only one allowed to produce such devices ?

A monopoly built on patenting the obvious ?
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
evilcart 24th Oct
Jobs is turning out to be a nasty piece of work according to this book,

in fact he seems bitter and angry, calling his competitors names and treating people like garbage.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@evilcart
his competitors often deserved those names, and, as bad as you think he treated people, many of those same people were loyal to him to the end. And I think they can speak for themselves; they hardly need you to stand up for them.
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RE: Apple's Jobs on Android iTunes service: 'I don't want to make Android users happy'
deusexmachina  26th Oct
@bmonsterman

Go crawl back under your rock. This is 2011.
1) DRM was the music industry's idea, not Apple's.
2) Regardless, music on ITMS has been DRM-free for ages.

That dead horse you keep beating has rotted away and turned to dust a long time ago.

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