[Ti] I won't sign the petition [was: Canadians need not apply!]

[David Remahl]

The real issue is that they don't tell us _why_ it is US only. They 
could state a reason (laws, copyright, payment options, the desire to 
try it on a smaller market before going global - all of those are 
acceptable reasons to me as a european) and perhaps give us an idea of 
approximately _when_ they plan to expand it to other areas of the 
world. Right now, it seems like they care more about Windows users in 
the U.S. than about faithful customers in non-U.S. countries.

This is only the latest in a series of discriminations against Europe 
and other regions. During the last two years, we have been forced to 
live with just being able to use part of the full potential of the 
products we bought. Sherlock still lacks useful channels for me (I'm 
from Sweden). It is still not possible to purchase iPhoto prints from 
Sweden. And now the music store...

At least in this case there is hope. Since there is a great potential 
for Apple to make BigBucks(tm) by offering the music service to Europe, 
that gives them an incentive. It isn't like offering European channels 
in Sherlock is going to increase the sales of Macs or Mac OS X - 
probably not even so much as to cover the R&D costs associated, so 
therefore it hasn't been done yet.

/ Sincerely, David

On Thursday, May 1, 2003, at 06:15 PM, Victor Eijkhout wrote:

>> we sit here and watch as Apple does as it sees fit
>
> Bull. They do the best they can. Should they have waited another year 
> with rolling out the service, so that they could do it world wide? By 
> that time they may have been scooped, or someting else may have 
> changed.
>
> Steve Jobs said that they were working on making this accessible to 
> people without a credit card from the US. I'm taking his word for 
> that. They are working on it. You'll get the service as soon as they 
> straighten out the legalities.
> -- 
> Victor Eijkhout <eijkhout at cs.utk.edu>, 329 Claxton, Comp Sci, UT, 
> Knoxville TN 37996.
> tel: 865 974 9308 (W), 865 673 6998 (H), 865 974 8296 (F)
> http://www.cs.utk.edu/~eijkhout/