A few weeks ago I found something that I thought was a great idea executed horribly. It was a reality show called Start Ups: Silicon Valley. The premise is to show what it’s like to be in a startup in the Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, the show is pretty much just a cookie-cutter reality show, in a genre that could be accurately titled Pretty White People Throw a Party. But I won’t be reviewing that this week. I wanted to, but I can’t. I tried to download it on iTunes, but that’s what I get for being stupid. I’ll download it on my Playstation and probably review it next week. Now, on to the main event.
iTunes is probably the world’s biggest digital marketplace. If you can put it on an iPod, you can likely find it there. It’s really hard to believe that something so popular would be so darn difficult. It started out fine. I installed the program, and unlike the first time I did it, Apple did not take over my entire computer. That’s progress. I found the episode of Start Ups and clicked download. What’s this? I need an Apple ID to download it? Fair enough. I go to make one and it turns out I need credit card information. Yes, to have access to free, non-subscription based content I needed credit card information, reminiscent of shady online websites that require your social security number to play free online checkers.
Pictured: an Apple tech-support employee hard at work.
Since I don’t have a credit card and apparently my PayPal wasn’t good enough, I turned to the internet. After about an hour of hopping from forum to forum I found the problem. See, iTunes doesn’t just give you an option to not put in payment information. Oh no, that would make sense! You have to follow a hidden sequence of steps and the option will appear magically. Just like a video game cheat code! Isn’t that nifty? Turns out that you have to download an app (the last thing I wanted to download on iTunes). Oh, and if you tried to make an account before without getting an app first, say if you TRIED TO DOWNLOAD A TV EPISODE, your account is bad forever. If you don’t want to put in payment info you need to make a brand new account. So now I have an iTunes account with my Hotmail address. The Hotmail address that I only use for work and that one friend I have.
Well it took a long time but at least it’s smooth sailing from here, right? Of course not, you joker! After downloading the episode in 1080p (because I like my pretty white people to be in full HD), iTunes tells me that my computer can’t play it because it’s 1080p. What? Yes it can. It’s done it before, you dumb program. After resigning to redownload the episode in 720p, iTunes decides to bug out. Yeah, now I can’t download anything.
Well, that’s my rant. Unfortunately, I can’t just go and drop iTunes. Not because I have an iPod, but because of Apple’s stupid digital monopoly. It’s the only place where I can buy the entire Kappa Mikey series. It’s also the only place where I can get John Dies at the End a month before it comes out in theaters. And I will not let my hatred of iTunes deny me of cheesy cartoons and the movie version of my favorite book. But just know, that as soon as I download either I am de-DRM’ing the crap out of them.
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To reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming you do not go utterly mad in the attempt, check out The Late Night Gamer’s Tumblr. Also, if you got the JDatE reference, you win the internet.
The Late Night Gamer 