Dear Apple

Hi,

It’s me again. I know I don’t mean much to you and all that, being that you are basically that really hot girl in high school that everyone thought was awesome and you just don’t have time for guys like me. I’m overweight, I have a beard and long hair and I drink too much coffee.

But listen, since we’re sitting in the back of the theater just before drama class starts, and you’re asking me if I’d like to buy some of your magazine subscriptions for the Cabo trip next year ( read: iTunes New Music Tuesdays E-Mail ) I want to take a moment to be perfectly, clearly and true to formely honest with you.

There are two things I really dislike in this universe of high tech gadgetry and know-it-alls. I can’t stand Windows, and I really, really can’t stand custom ringtones. I hate having people standing in line at Subway shaking their nuts in my face about how they know who 50 cent is because it’s the ringtone they’ve assigned to their “boy” who goes by the nickname “Dre” (short for anthony, andrew, or any name with the hard consonant T, D or in some cases a middle name with such.) I like the standard ringtones, they sound like a phone to me and that’s just fine.

This shit with the ringtones has to stop. I wouldn’t buy a ringtone if you were giving them away 3 for 1, 10 for 1 or 100 for 1. And I’m certainly not going to buy a song from iTunes, and then buy it again whenever I want to put it in some form on my phone. This smacks so much of something anyone But Apple would do I really am beside myself when people talk shit to me as I pull out my iPhone to take a call or check my mail.

As a result I’m taking a stand. There are a couple of albums I want from iTunes, I’ve been mulling over the Tunstall album, and Eddie’s new solo gig but because of this whole “ringtone racket” I just can’t in good faith buy anything else from your iTunes store until this policy gets fixed.

Instead, I want you to make a phone call to your buddies over at Universal or wherever the fuck they make up these stupid policies that I’ve gotta pay two and three times for the same bits of data, in addition to the commodity price I paid for the phone, and tell them something for me.

“That jackass that is downloading illicit copies of their highly valuable IP. Guess who that is, and then try and guess why.”

Yours,

Geek-in-the-back-of-the-theater

ps. No thanks on the magazines, I’m getting most of my news from Gruber and Sir Hoofs-a-lot these days. Next thing you know, I’ll have to pay to have RSS feeds on my phone too.