Consumer Retorts: Apple Computer

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CONSUMER RETORTS

APPLE COMPUTER

so you’re about to use Netflix’s “instant watching” feature on your MacBook, when suddenly an error message pops up: “Sorry, blame Steve Jobs.” Huh? Wasn’t the whole point of getting a Mac to escape Microsoft’s monopolistic tentacles and have the freedom to do stuff like stream movies? The problem is that Apple won’t license its copyright-protection software to third parties like Netflix. Predictably, Apple wouldn’t emerge from behind its titanium curtain to answer our questions about why it won’t let consumers use whatever video service they choose. John Sullivan of the Free Software Foundation suspects that Apple wants you to buy movies only from iTunes. That may keep Steve Jobs in black turtlenecks, but it ticks off dedicated Mac users, many of whom have no doubt noticed that Netflix movies play perfectly fine on a stodgy PC.

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