Open Letters

Dear Apple,

Congratulations on iTunes being voted the number 1 online music store. 70 million songs in just one year, wow. It's nice to hear that your marketing budget has paid off. But... why, when I click in my web browser to view the Top 100 songs available for download, do I receive an error followed by a blank page? And when I try in an alternative, am I prompted to install and run "iTunes Detector"? I don't want to install additional (not to mention dodgy-sounding) software to view a list of songs. And when I cancel the prompt window, the page loads up blank. Not only that, but when I did eventually decide to just install it, am I redirected to the iTunes download page?

The same then can be said for your entire music database - why can't I search for songs online without installing the 20mb iTunes 4.5? Gah!! I'm choking! 20mb - are you insane!? My web browser is three times smaller.

Dear Napster,

Congratulations on your successful relaunch. Unfortunately I won't be signing up any day soon, since I don't meet all of your requirements. (Makes me think about M-NET On Demand). I guess visitors with an award-winning next-generation web browser, aging operating system or all Macintosh users aren't your target market. Or maybe competing to win back some of Apple's 80% share in the online music industry isn't on your to-do list.

Dear Opel,

Judging from the ads, the new Astra is sexy beyond words. For some photos and more info I decided to check out your website. I clicked on the appropriate link, but nothing happened. So I checked out the code. Next time you decide to launch popup windows using JavaScript, please, please do it properly. Why referring to a non-existant function even works in an alternative browser is beyond me.

Kind regards,
Damien

p.s. My Provisional Driver's Licence just arrived. Yay me!