Apple sucks (kind of).

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DISCLAIMER: Although my opinion in this article is essentially very hard on Apple’s choice to follow DVD standards policies, I in no way condone or agree with anyone who hates Apple products or spends their time trolling blogs and websites just to trash Apple Computers. My intent was not to enhance someone’s flame war. I have the utmost love for Apple (their legal department aside). My goal with an article like the following is to put a voice to an experience many people have, but few find a forum to express it. One of Apple’s downsides is it’s inability to listen to their customers without going through some serious PR trouble first (scratched ipods, ipod batteries, Aperture, etc…). If you find this article linked from a website or blog that is clearly all about hating on Apple, I in no way condone this, but alas that’s the power of the interwebs, no one has to get my permission to link to me. So if you’re one of those flame war people, piss off, and if you’re just one of those people that are having trouble with something Apple related, get involved but don’t put the blinders on. Don’t join the darkside.
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begin rant:

Apple sucks. there. i said it

Ya see the thing is, is that I love Apple. So when they screw up, they really screw up. royally. Let me explain:

I bought my Apple PowerBook G4 in Los Angeles. L.A. is in North America (yeah i know you know where L.A. is, but I’m telling a story – so shut up). North America is in what’s called “Region 1″ in DVD talk. That means that when you buy a DVD in North America, chances are, you’re buying a Region 1 DVD. So, what is a region and why is it important? To keep the story short, regions were established by the movie studios through a nefarious trade group to limit DVDs from one region, like say the US, from playing on a computer or DVD player from another region, like say Mexico. It has to do with staggered release dates from region to region and theoretically makes sense (note strong use of the word ‘theoretically’). Wanna know more about DVD Regions, read more here at DVDdemystified.com.

Ok, so back to my trusty mac. God I love Apple products, just like Steve says “They just work.” except when they don’t and even worse when they do stupid things that make them completely intolerable.

I bought my computer in L.A. and now I live in Mexico. When I go to the video store to rent a movie, chances are it’s in Region 4, which is the region that includes Mexico. One of the ‘cool’ things about the DVD spec is that players can only change regions 5 times. And on that fifth time, the player magically locks on the region of the last played disc. That means that if I play DVDs on my computer from the video store and then play DVDs from my fine collection of United States bought surfing videos, when I switch that one last time, the lock will be set. Of course being the nice guys they are, Apple’s DVD Player app warns you about this when you put in a DVD whose region differs from the region your computer is currently set on.

So what happens when your mac has been locked to a particular region? You have two options. Your first option is to take your mac back to the Apple store and with an overnight stay, the mac techs can reset your 5 freebie switches back to zero. You are allowed to do this 5 times, giving you a grand total of 25 region switches, if you want to go through the hassle of giving your mac up for a day, every five times. This is part of the DVD spec and the nefarious trade group’s feeble attempt at placating pissed off customers. Your second option is to download and install hacked firmware that voids your warranty. You can read more about this option at MacOsX.com. If you read further down that page you can see that the VLC Media Player actually ignores region coding all together so you can watch movies from what ever region you desire. Imagine that! Atleast there is an option for people who don’t want to have there DVD drive set to a particular region.

Here’s the rub: I don’t want to use the VLC Media Player. I wanna use Apple’s DVD Player app. I want to use it with QuickTime 7 and I want to have my mac user experience. But I can’t, because Apple adheres to the DVD standard. From an end user experience, if switching regions locked my DVD player on a region I didn’t want it to be on and I had to go to the Apple store to reset it, I’d throw the sucker out a window. Yeah, it’s not that big of a hassle to have to use VLC Media Player for Region 4 DVDs (if I want my DVD player set on Region 1). But it’s all still just so ridiculous. Boing Boing’s Cody Doctorow wrote a great article that discusses the DVD region issue with macs, way more in depth and way more professionally.

Suffice to say: I’m freaking pissed!

end rant