Since I was at school, I’ve been accused of being a Mac fan-boy. In the old days, this was down to me having the audacity to suggest that Macs were actually pretty good and rather usable. Detractors suggested Macs were toys, and the Mac OS was for people who didn’t know how to use a ‘real’ computer (rather than people who just wanted to get things done). “Real men,” I was told, “use the command line.”

Not a million years later, Windows evolved from a piece of garbage into something that was actually pretty good (Windows 95), largely by ripping off the Mac OS. “A-ha!” I’d say, only to have fan-boy-accusers say that now it was obviously OK to have a GUI, because [insert spurious reason that only makes sense ‘because’]. Right.

This pattern has continued into my professional career. Of late I’ve been called an Apple fan-boy on an increasingly regular basis, due to my love of iPod gaming and taking the royal piss out of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series efforts. Shots that have been fired my way echo Paul Thurrott’s contradictions that were nicely summed up by Chris Grande a couple of days back.

When iPhone OS arrived, Thurrott derided its lack of copy and paste, saying it was “unreal” that such a feature was “inexplicably missing from the iPhone”. Anyone arguing the toss (either that the feature wasn’t really necessary, or agreeing with Apple’s stance that’s it’s better to do something right, even if that means taking longer to deploy it) was a Mac fan-boy.

Fast forward to the present day and Microsoft’s stated its Windows Phone revamp will lack copy and paste (and there’s no consensus on whether the company is working on a solution—some claim it is, and others say the opposite). Thurrott now states: “No matter”. I’ve experienced pretty similar reactions from people on the Apple/Microsoft scrap. According to some, Apple’s closed ecosystem and lack of third-party multitasking were the most stupid things in the history of tech, but now Microsoft’s doing the same, they’re somehow fine. Anyone defending Apple’s stance before was a fan-boy, but anyone attacking Microsoft for taking up the same position: also a fan-boy.

I find this a strange, somewhat deluded and often hypocritical argument, but there is of course one major difference between today’s mobile space and the early 1990s desktop PC ‘war’: the positions have been switched. Microsoft’s still using its photocopier and playing catch-up, but this is all the more apparent now it’s the underdog with a lower marketshare. It’ll be interesting to see how the two companies fare over the coming year or so. I’m hoping Apple wins the long game for the first time (and also that other rivals—Google, Palm—force Apple to innovate rather than just cloning Cupertino output)—the company cares more about experience and design than marketshare and dominance. I’m sure this stance will have me branded ‘fan boy’ for years to come. So be it.

The more I read about Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7, the more I think senior staff at the company should cut down on the gin. For being utterly drunk is the only explanation other than outright incompetence regarding the direction of its mobile platform.

In tried and tested Microsoft fashion, Redmond has got its photocopier out, and is creating its own iPhone. The only problem is that Microsoft appears to be copying Apple circa 2009, hence its decision to omit copy and paste from Windows Phone 7 (source: Engadget).

Microsoft’s reasoning is that most users don’t really need clipboard functionality. Most users don’t “really need” Windows Phone 7 either, so maybe Microsoft should just cancel the whole thing and buy Palm.

The Guardian reports that the BBC’s planning to reinvent its digital radio output around extensions to existing radio networks. In essence, it’s going to kill 6 Music—generally regarded as one of the finest digital stations, and perfectly in line with the BBC’s public service remit—and use the cash to extend 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

One exec was quoted as saying: “Just like the Xtra Factor goes backstage and tells you what happened at the X Factor, so Radio 2 could have spin-off digital shows with extra coverage from Glastonbury or the Electric Proms”. And this pretty much proves that once again the BBC doesn’t understand what it has, nor what it really needs to offer. 6 provides music you can’t get elsewhere, not extensions of existing coverage. And it’s hardly like existing extensions are working well anyway, with Radio 1Xtra’s Tim Westwood once famously stating that his audience share was so low that he’d been broadcasting to “absolutely nobody for the last three hours,” saying this was “soul-destroying”.

But the BBC seems to want to blunder on regardless, removing its one real piece of exciting and innovative radio and replacing it with ‘more of the same’. This is like the music industry closing every indie label but providing extra Top 40 play, and it’s just not acceptable.

If you’re a fan of 6 Music or independent, innovative music in general, email the BBC now.

I’m a staunch advocate of the BBC and the licence fee, but today I really want to ram my licence fee down the throat of the director general. This is because the rumours are true and Mark Thompson and friends have decided to axe 6 Music (source: BBC News).

In an age of increasing rampant commercialism in the music sector, 6 Music is vitally important. It focuses on relative unknowns, doesn’t tend to force playlists on its DJs, and is therefore the closest thing we have left to John Peel. For up-and-coming musicians or long-time ones who never troubled the top 10, the station is essential, and for anyone with an interest outside the mainstream, it’s without doubt the best available station.

To that end, axing 6 Music is an astonishing decision, given the BBC’s public service remit. The argument from various idiots (including politicians and, unsurprisingly, News International) is that this is the kind of thing the commercial sector should deal with, making 6 Music a waste of the BBC’s funds and, by extension, licence payers’ money. But musicians outside of the mainstream are often not commercially viable and are therefore ignored, hence why even stations claiming to champion genuinely ‘indie’ music don’t—they instead tend to focus on artists majors are attempting to thrust into the spotlight.

Phill Jupitus has described the axing of 6 Music as “an act of cultural vandalism,” which is bang on the money. Thompson argues that the report—including the removal of 6 Music—is about “putting quality first,” which doesn’t ring true when the teens-only disaster that is Radio 1 gets to live. Clearly, this is about commercial viability—in other words, 6 Music is simply seen as too expensive to justify. That the digital station is being scrapped on the basis of a lowish audience share just prior to the digital switchover is idiotic, however.

This all said, I have some sympathy for the BBC. Both the Tories and Labour are, for whatever reason, beholden to major media corporations and hang on their every word. Both use BBC bashing as a way to drum up votes among the ignorant who don’t understand the true value of the BBC. One minute, they argue the BBC cannot justify the licence fee, due to low ratings. So the BBC responds by becoming more mainstream. Then the politicians argue the BBC is competing against existing commercial product, which is against its public service remit. Today, all these things are clashing, and the BBC is somehow accused of being too niche and yet also competing against existing commercial product.

Ultimately, this is probably the thin end of the wedge. With Thompson caving, in anticipation of a BBC-hostile Tory government, these won’t be anywhere near the last cuts, and we’ve probably started on the path to a ‘shell’ BBC. While I’m sure that’ll make the Sky-obsessed, drunk on American imports, gleefully happy, this spells disaster for home-grown programming and television and radio that isn’t entirely advertising-dependent and therefore utterly aimed at the mainstream.

UPDATE: The Register reports that the BPI and indie association AIM claim “half of the music programming [on 6 Music] is never played anywhere else,” which rather puts paid to claims that 6 Music is treading on the toes of commercial competition, and that commercial competitors are best suited to championing the kind of content 6 Music plays.

“You can not update this software since you have not owned the major version of this software”

A year ago, I asked: when will the App Store learn to count? This question came from me getting App Store update notifications in iTunes and on updating ‘everything’ discovering that updates were still available. In the end, I tracked this down to there being multiple accounts on my machine—in order to see the updates for each account, I had to sign into the account, select Applications from the Library sidebar, and click ‘Check for updates’ at the foot of the Applications page.

For Apple, this is a pretty cumbersome process, but then a lot of things relating to iPhone and iPod touch sync are utterly dire from a UI standpoint (not least the dreadful Applications and Films tabs when you’re managing content on your device). However, I should have kept my mouth shut, because things just got a whole lot worse.

As of iTunes 9.0.3 (at least in my case), all ‘free updates’ for apps are now listed on a single page, but iTunes isn’t intelligent enough to figure out which accounts the apps come from. Therefore, ‘Download All Free Updates’ now cheerfully tells you ‘You can not update this software since you have not owned the major version of this software’ (nice copywriting, Apple). iTunes doesn’t bother saying which apps the dialog relates to, and so you have to click ‘Get Update’ on each individual app, to see if iTunes will enable you to download an update.

Presumably, Apple’s made this change to discourage multiple iTunes accounts on single machines. In my case, I have a US App Store account to redeem promotion codes so I can review apps and therefore promote them and the App Store. For reasons unknown, Apple has yet to realise that people outside of the US might like to have access to promo codes. However, plenty of other people use one Mac with several accounts, and so this change will trip them up, too.

So: well done, Apple. I’m hoping this is a bug, rather than a deliberate decision, but given Apple’s recent history on bizarre decisions relating to the App Store, it probably isn’t.

Thanks, Apple, for not noting which of my dozens of app updates I’ve ‘not owned the major version’ of. Also: sack your copywriter and whoever made this dialog.