A hypothetical Apple iCloud scenario

Posted by: bob on Wednesday July 13th 2011

Here is an imaginary scenario I have thought up as I was reading about Apple’s iCloud service.

All purchased music is pushed to iCloud so I can listen on all my devices. I even go through the hassle of letting Apple scan my music library so I can repurchase CD’s I ripped through their service so I can have that music too.

Now, an insecure mother uses her child’s iPad one day and is upset by the filth her child is listening to. She petitions Apple to remove the music. News catches and now half the christian nation is petitioning. Apple gives in, and deletes the music from the store.

I start my iPhone up and go to listen to my music, but, alas, the band I wanted to hear is gone! After some debugging and emails Apple support sends me to a press release saying how they had to delete it to make half the christian nation shut up.

The odds of this happening? I do not know. But Apple has demonstrated many times how they feel they have the right to manage morality for people by removing apps from their App Store. They are also easily pressured by outside forces to manage morality too. Basically in the end I can trust Apple to do “The Right Thing” which generally is just going to piss me off.

On top of that, it seems you cannot even add music to iCloud that iTunes does not have for you to rebuy. Currently about 48% of my music library iTunes does not have available, and it is the music I listen to the most. So I say “no thanks” to Apple iCloud.