6 ms·

Taken alone this might be unfortunate, but given Apple's long-standing trend of upselling storage at hugely inflated prices it's pretty damning.

jamil7 5y ago
For Apple Music it's probably a case of Hanlon's razor, it's been buggy and busted forever.
- willis936 5y ago
  What if the incompetence is maliciously decided upon? Hanlon's razor works for individuals, but falls apart for larger institutions.
  - Ken_At_EM 5y ago
    I believe that you may be significantly underestimating the incompetence of most organizations.
  - jklein11 5y ago
    If all of the individuals are acting without malice, how could the institution act with malice? Isn't the institution just the collective will of the individuals? I could see it playing out like this, incompetence causes the problem, incompetence fails to identify the problem, incompetence fails to fix the problem.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - willis936 5y ago
      That betrays the cooperative principle. Such an institution could not survive.
    - 8organicbits 5y ago
      > If all of the individuals are acting without malice, how could the institution act with malice? Isn't the institution just the collective will of the individuals? I think we are on an unproductive tangent, but these are quite important questions. An institution doesn't have its own free will, so I don't think I can claim it can have "intent to cause harm", but it can certainly cause harm. An institution is not just a collection of people, it is also the business processes and policies. While these are created by people within the institution, they stick around over time. As the world changes around the organization, well intentioned policy can begin to harm. Individual employees following policy and normal business practice (i.e. just doing their jobs) can behave maliciously without their own intent to do so (sorry, my hands are tied). An institution needs not only non-malicious members, it needs to constantly re-evaluate its practices. Importantly, when harmful outcomes are observed the institution must re-evaluate and adjust, otherwise the harm will continue. It's not enough for members to conduct their own behavior without malice, they must also observe outcomes and actively fight against the inertia of existing policy.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    It also falls apart any time there is a legitimate responsibility to do something. Negligence is malicious even if it’s convenient to blame incompetence.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    Incompetent management wouldn’t be able to be consistently incompetent. That’s the big issue with incompetence. Apple is unique in that their product marketing has a big role in the product design process. If you step back and look at what they do objectively, there are a few journey mapped “happy paths” that Apple designs to. They actively remove features that distract from the true paths. It’s noticeable with them as Apple has no sympathy for legacy. But you can see it with other companies. An easy one is Google Drive/Docs - they make it easy to find a file, but didn’t consider that you may want to see the folder context of where the file is.
    - smugma 5y ago
      Less true in music. For example, iTunes Match is still a thing, even though it’s (mostly) obsolete if you have Apple Music.
      - Spooky23 5y ago
        Sorta. I'm an iTunes Match person. They sort of integrated it as Apple Music lite. They wrecked the UI completely. Which makes sense - I imagine that the program management of iTunes Match is probably a low priority. Basically, i use search history as a sort of playlist.
- exikyut 5y ago
  My vague understanding (just from reading blog articles) is that iTunes became an insane metamorphization of the Eye of Sauron, an infinite pit of quicksand (blub blub) and Yes™, Inc (all things to all people). Y'know, iPod (and later iPhone) sync, music browsing and purchasing, (payment handling), intelligent media organization (or some approximation thereof), working with giant media libraries... I get the idea that everyone just feature-piled on top of the SoundJam code without fully scaling the design to the point of being able to coherently load-bear the additional functionality. So basically failure to adequately PM where it counts. That requires PM that understands engineering, which is sadly a tall order out of the gate and generally the most crucial before projects get big and the need for support becomes obvious. *IFF* that happened in this case (I have absolutely no concrete idea), my question would be a) where "Steve really wants this - put a good PM on it" and/or b) where "this code explosion is killing everyone, we need PM help", ended up. iTunes history anybody? (Genuinely curious, wondered for a while)
  - JKCalhoun 5y ago
    Curious as well. All I can add is that iTunes also needed to run on Windows (and I believe QuickTime had, in effect, the old MacToolbox running cross-platform). So add throw that on the pile. iTunes had to move fast. There was not time, from what I understand, to step back and refactor it in any meaningful way.
    - at_a_remove 5y ago
      There never is time to refactor.
  - easton 5y ago
    Adding on to this, I heard a rumor (probably here) that iTunes for Windows was ported by Apple porting Objective-C and Cocoa to Windows, which is part of the reason it acted so funny. I have no idea if that's true though.
    - kitsunesoba 5y ago
      Objective-C and Cocoa for Windows dates back to the NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody days, but yes it’s true. Safari for Windows also utilized this, perhaps to a greater extent, because its UI looked significantly more like its Mac counterpart than iTunes did, to the point that even the text rendering was the same between Windows and OS X.
- codyb 5y ago
  Yea, the idea this is some concerted effort to sell more iCloud storage is kind of funny to me. I'd love to see those discussions - "The OKR was to sell more iCloud storage so the Music team added half a meg of junk to every song file" "Great!" ... I mean... weird shit has happened, but... I dunno, I've worked at quite a few companies and I just don't get the sense that that's Apple's MO. The bad publicity if it became public that they actually did this on purpose would be terrible, it seems pretty conspiratorial in this thread. Also, Music is a real shit, buggy app that constantly annoys me.
emsy 5y ago
It’s not a good sign for a company when these allegations become more plausible over time, which is definitely the case for Apple.
marcellus23 5y ago
Why would ripped CDs not exhibit the same thing if this was intentional?
- arbitrage 5y ago
  The fine article addresses this point.
  - thefreeman 5y ago
    Not really. the article posits that this space was originally reserved for album art and when that was moved to external storage nobody remembered to remove the reserved space. OP is suggesting apple did this intentionally for some sort of profit motive.
  - marcellus23 5y ago
    Where?
throwthere 5y ago
Devil’s advocate— 1.25gb additional storage for 2500 songs isn’t really with the effort to scam people, particularly when you’re already one of the most profitable companies in the world
- crossroadsguy 5y ago
  The other advocate - that’s exactly how they’re one of the most profitable company in the world. Fleecing customer - by making them buy chargers, earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other), extra storage, open repair hostile devices. List is quite long really. Besides that’s not the only place they eat storage. Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening.
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    > by making them buy chargers. I'm still using the charger I got with my 2008 (pre-unibody) MacBook Pro for my 2014 MacBook Pro, which is perfectly operational in 2021. I'm using a Spigen 48W USB-C + USB-A charger (and a 60W, 2m Baseus USB-C to USB-C cable) to charge my Macbook Air M1 2020. I'm using a Belkin wireless charging mat for iPhone X. So, no. > earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other) Making rugged plastics requires a lot of nasty chemicals. Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. Also none of my Apple devices' cables have frayed (incl. a 30 pin connector cable for my now lost iPod Nano 2G). How come? > extra storage I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck, and even I can't fill it up with normal usage. > Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening. System preferences -> iCloud provides pretty good rundown of which application is saving what, including the ones you can't see in your drives (i.e. game saves, application stuff, whatnot). So while Apple is not the best company out there, it's not that worse either. P.S.: Repairability is a problem. I have nothing to say about that, but at least battery change program is very good. They've even found and changed some damaged parts in my phone, for free, when I sent it in just for a battery change.
    - Mogzol 5y ago
      For chargers I believe they're referring to the fact that apple stopped including chargers with new iphones. > Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. In my experience apple cables are both nasty and less durable than most other cables I own. I have multiple old 30 pin cables that are frayed at the connector, my old ipod headphones had electrical tape on the cable where the rubber was breaking, and all my apple cables are a gross yellow color, while similarly old non-apple cables I own are all still perfectly white. > I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck It's average at best. It's the same price as google for monthly payments, but google is cheaper if you pay yearly.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pkulak 5y ago
> I believe the 500 kB block was originally reserved for album art. Apple’s servers would inject it on-the-fly into the metadata at the time of delivery. This absolutely seems like the most reasonable explanation.

jamil7 5y ago

For Apple Music it's probably a case of Hanlon's razor, it's been buggy and busted forever.

willis936 5y ago
What if the incompetence is maliciously decided upon? Hanlon's razor works for individuals, but falls apart for larger institutions.
- Ken_At_EM 5y ago
  I believe that you may be significantly underestimating the incompetence of most organizations.
- jklein11 5y ago
  If all of the individuals are acting without malice, how could the institution act with malice? Isn't the institution just the collective will of the individuals? I could see it playing out like this, incompetence causes the problem, incompetence fails to identify the problem, incompetence fails to fix the problem.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - willis936 5y ago
    That betrays the cooperative principle. Such an institution could not survive.
  - 8organicbits 5y ago
    > If all of the individuals are acting without malice, how could the institution act with malice? Isn't the institution just the collective will of the individuals? I think we are on an unproductive tangent, but these are quite important questions. An institution doesn't have its own free will, so I don't think I can claim it can have "intent to cause harm", but it can certainly cause harm. An institution is not just a collection of people, it is also the business processes and policies. While these are created by people within the institution, they stick around over time. As the world changes around the organization, well intentioned policy can begin to harm. Individual employees following policy and normal business practice (i.e. just doing their jobs) can behave maliciously without their own intent to do so (sorry, my hands are tied). An institution needs not only non-malicious members, it needs to constantly re-evaluate its practices. Importantly, when harmful outcomes are observed the institution must re-evaluate and adjust, otherwise the harm will continue. It's not enough for members to conduct their own behavior without malice, they must also observe outcomes and actively fight against the inertia of existing policy.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  It also falls apart any time there is a legitimate responsibility to do something. Negligence is malicious even if it’s convenient to blame incompetence.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Incompetent management wouldn’t be able to be consistently incompetent. That’s the big issue with incompetence. Apple is unique in that their product marketing has a big role in the product design process. If you step back and look at what they do objectively, there are a few journey mapped “happy paths” that Apple designs to. They actively remove features that distract from the true paths. It’s noticeable with them as Apple has no sympathy for legacy. But you can see it with other companies. An easy one is Google Drive/Docs - they make it easy to find a file, but didn’t consider that you may want to see the folder context of where the file is.
  - smugma 5y ago
    Less true in music. For example, iTunes Match is still a thing, even though it’s (mostly) obsolete if you have Apple Music.
    - Spooky23 5y ago
      Sorta. I'm an iTunes Match person. They sort of integrated it as Apple Music lite. They wrecked the UI completely. Which makes sense - I imagine that the program management of iTunes Match is probably a low priority. Basically, i use search history as a sort of playlist.
exikyut 5y ago
My vague understanding (just from reading blog articles) is that iTunes became an insane metamorphization of the Eye of Sauron, an infinite pit of quicksand (blub blub) and Yes™, Inc (all things to all people). Y'know, iPod (and later iPhone) sync, music browsing and purchasing, (payment handling), intelligent media organization (or some approximation thereof), working with giant media libraries... I get the idea that everyone just feature-piled on top of the SoundJam code without fully scaling the design to the point of being able to coherently load-bear the additional functionality. So basically failure to adequately PM where it counts. That requires PM that understands engineering, which is sadly a tall order out of the gate and generally the most crucial before projects get big and the need for support becomes obvious. *IFF* that happened in this case (I have absolutely no concrete idea), my question would be a) where "Steve really wants this - put a good PM on it" and/or b) where "this code explosion is killing everyone, we need PM help", ended up. iTunes history anybody? (Genuinely curious, wondered for a while)
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Curious as well. All I can add is that iTunes also needed to run on Windows (and I believe QuickTime had, in effect, the old MacToolbox running cross-platform). So add throw that on the pile. iTunes had to move fast. There was not time, from what I understand, to step back and refactor it in any meaningful way.
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    There never is time to refactor.
- easton 5y ago
  Adding on to this, I heard a rumor (probably here) that iTunes for Windows was ported by Apple porting Objective-C and Cocoa to Windows, which is part of the reason it acted so funny. I have no idea if that's true though.
  - kitsunesoba 5y ago
    Objective-C and Cocoa for Windows dates back to the NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody days, but yes it’s true. Safari for Windows also utilized this, perhaps to a greater extent, because its UI looked significantly more like its Mac counterpart than iTunes did, to the point that even the text rendering was the same between Windows and OS X.
codyb 5y ago
Yea, the idea this is some concerted effort to sell more iCloud storage is kind of funny to me. I'd love to see those discussions - "The OKR was to sell more iCloud storage so the Music team added half a meg of junk to every song file" "Great!" ... I mean... weird shit has happened, but... I dunno, I've worked at quite a few companies and I just don't get the sense that that's Apple's MO. The bad publicity if it became public that they actually did this on purpose would be terrible, it seems pretty conspiratorial in this thread. Also, Music is a real shit, buggy app that constantly annoys me.

emsy 5y ago

It’s not a good sign for a company when these allegations become more plausible over time, which is definitely the case for Apple.

marcellus23 5y ago

Why would ripped CDs not exhibit the same thing if this was intentional?

arbitrage 5y ago
The fine article addresses this point.
- thefreeman 5y ago
  Not really. the article posits that this space was originally reserved for album art and when that was moved to external storage nobody remembered to remove the reserved space. OP is suggesting apple did this intentionally for some sort of profit motive.
- marcellus23 5y ago
  Where?

throwthere 5y ago

Devil’s advocate— 1.25gb additional storage for 2500 songs isn’t really with the effort to scam people, particularly when you’re already one of the most profitable companies in the world

crossroadsguy 5y ago
The other advocate - that’s exactly how they’re one of the most profitable company in the world. Fleecing customer - by making them buy chargers, earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other), extra storage, open repair hostile devices. List is quite long really. Besides that’s not the only place they eat storage. Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening.
- bayindirh 5y ago
  > by making them buy chargers. I'm still using the charger I got with my 2008 (pre-unibody) MacBook Pro for my 2014 MacBook Pro, which is perfectly operational in 2021. I'm using a Spigen 48W USB-C + USB-A charger (and a 60W, 2m Baseus USB-C to USB-C cable) to charge my Macbook Air M1 2020. I'm using a Belkin wireless charging mat for iPhone X. So, no. > earphones (ensuring its wire gets dirty faster than any other) Making rugged plastics requires a lot of nasty chemicals. Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. Also none of my Apple devices' cables have frayed (incl. a 30 pin connector cable for my now lost iPod Nano 2G). How come? > extra storage I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck, and even I can't fill it up with normal usage. > Actually it’s so opaque you don’t really know what’s “really” happening. System preferences -> iCloud provides pretty good rundown of which application is saving what, including the ones you can't see in your drives (i.e. game saves, application stuff, whatnot). So while Apple is not the best company out there, it's not that worse either. P.S.: Repairability is a problem. I have nothing to say about that, but at least battery change program is very good. They've even found and changed some damaged parts in my phone, for free, when I sent it in just for a battery change.
  - Mogzol 5y ago
    For chargers I believe they're referring to the fact that apple stopped including chargers with new iphones. > Either be nasty and durable, or be less nasty and be less durable. In my experience apple cables are both nasty and less durable than most other cables I own. I have multiple old 30 pin cables that are frayed at the connector, my old ipod headphones had electrical tape on the cable where the rubber was breaking, and all my apple cables are a gross yellow color, while similarly old non-apple cables I own are all still perfectly white. > I think their 200G plan has good bang for the buck It's average at best. It's the same price as google for monthly payments, but google is cheaper if you pay yearly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pkulak 5y ago

> I believe the 500 kB block was originally reserved for album art. Apple’s servers would inject it on-the-fly into the metadata at the time of delivery. This absolutely seems like the most reasonable explanation.