nightcats's Journal: Apple: So Advanced, and Yet So Retro

Despite Apple's great advances in design and technology these past four years, there are still areas in which they are persistently retro. One of the more notable of these is the company's rigid insistence on charging $99 a year for services that are widely free elsewhere (see Google, Inc.).

Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley obviously agrees. I would only add that Apple puts its customers into a double-bind with this bad habit: they sell software that takes advantage of a networking service that itself must be paid for. If Apple really wishes to ramp up its market share on the software side, they will have to cease with this dual-charging.