iPhone's are cool and undoubtedly successful (depite el reg's numerous predictions of market failure) but what self respecting geek wants to buy in to a censored, proprietary, DRM infested platform these days? Weak.

Apple == Some old farts trying to look cool

Trent Reznor == Actually cool

if apple can control it and get a sh!tload of money out of it it's ok.

the problem with the app is that it allows you to get a piece of music for free that otherwise you would need to buy through itunes. Even if the App is made by the copyright owner of the music , apple does not like it.. So in a sense Apple does not repect copyright either. The owenerr releases it and Apple says ; you can;t do that , we want -scrap that- need money from it. If you wan;t to give it away , fine , but not through our channels...

The next thing to trademark : iGreed

wow I work at a an Apple reseller selling Apple shit by the bucketloads but i will never buy any portable music player from them now - and I had one on order for the 15th of May.

what a bunch of assholes.

I am an adult.

Am I right in saying that "The Downward Spiral" is actually a NIN album rather than a song? I mean, I know the song exists as well but surely Apple would have a bigger problem with the lyrics to Closer (from the same album).

I'd guess that it's actually that song that copped the ban. (Sorry to be a pedant ;-))

Unless Apple like emulating animals...

Penguin... 'cause he's like an animal.

hmmm, the chorus isn't exactly subtle so I can see the where apple are coming from but this is the real world, you'll hear far worse stepping outside your front door in the morning.

Paris - She seems brighter than Apple and I'm sure she likes the chorus.

Like the closing quote!

Trent should have pushed to get some of his video clips selling through the app store. It would have solved alot of problems, mainly due to those wankers all dying from heart fialure at watching the "Happiness in Slavery" clip

Thumbs down for Apple

Only the very stupid would be suckered in by Apple's shit.

I don't much care for his music but the guy talks a lot of sense.

They should try "Big Man with a Gun". The Downward Spiral is the second most tame song on the album.

The first being "A Warm Place"

It's an instrumental.

... Dopey.

Sorry, I mean Sleepy.

Hypocritical? I think not.

These words indicate some sort of moral judgment regarding the content. Apple is a corporation and behaves like all corporations - it follows the money regardless of ethics.

Don't confuse inconsistency of approval (which will be based on what Apple thinks its consumers' morality might be) with morality. In the same way, Walmart maintains a "clean" product line in its shops because it is selling to people with children, while at the same time hammering down its purchasing costs to the point of reducing suppliers to absolute poverty. This is not ethical behaviour, this is pragmatic, situational ethics.

Regardless of what the law says, corporations are are *not* people, they are a legal fiction. They are inherently unable to make moral judgments for either good or evil. Their actions tend to be consistent with lowest common denominator ethics because that gives them the widest market and the greatest income.

Apple's premium product placement means that it doesn't attack the widest market possible which allows its staff to (slightly and occasionally) make non-lowest common denominator sales decisions. This is unusual and may be reversed, but it fascinating to see the discomfort this decision causes to some people. "If I can't get every obscenity possible on my iphone then Apple is rubbish and I won't buy their junk."

And on a slightly different note... the album is called "The Downward Spiral," what makes you think its a good idea to follow them all the way to the bottom? Look at the lyrics. Who would have thought that there is so much business to be had from selling self-loathing and a desire to remove yourself from the gene-pool? Perhaps a Darwin Award should be considered.

Its interesting that The Downward Spiral is around 15 years old. Mr Self-Destruct appears to be keeping late. Life seems to be just too good to end it all just yet. Now there's hypocrisy for you. Oh wait, this is the music industry. It isn't real, its just business. Nothing like Apple at all.

At least with Apple you know the agenda is to make money. Personally, I find the music industry with its pretensions to reflecting "real life" while financially preying mostly on teenagers rather more disgusting.

you cannot be free living in CAGE.

Only accepting government approved ideas and corporate approved words is no way to live life. I might just get the iPod but certainly when it comes to phones I say all hail Android and maybe the pre.

The Android store will kill Apple sales if it takes off and allows adult content.

Sick of the dumbing down of us all - but sleepy I guess your name means ignorance is bliss eh.

Apple == Communism

You know that Reznor ain't sane himself - aside from saying the iPhone is a great product. sure if you like cracked case, blown up batteries, lackluster network speeds, over-priced, ...

Reznor himself is like the very deep blacksheep of the music business. aside from his core "fans", I don't think the band has gained much in popularity - thanks to his album releases [how many in the past 2 years?]. If his record label hasn't dumped him, I'd be surprised...

I use it to remind me of things with to do lits as calendars.........

..... because Ive got a head like a hole.

That 'Be a patriot' sticker has nothing to do with piracy. It's from the (fictional) US Bureau of Morality. Did you miss the satire? Are you American? :-)

There have been two NIN albums in the last two years, both available for download, and both under Creative Commons licensing (albeit with the non-commercial clause that even CC haven't worked out what it means yet!). Whatever you think of his music, as far as I'm concerned NIN are going in the right direction regarding the future of music distribution.

His judgement on the iPhone I'm less sure about! :-)

I believe that this is part of the art that fits the concept of the album (which is about a dystopian, near future) rather than some sort of pro-copyright message.

Trent is apparently a trendy pussy then....

" I will still use them because they work 1000X better than the competition. This is not a debate, it's a fact. The iPhone is THE most elegant, modern smartphone at this point in time and it's perfect for what we want to do with the NIN app"

His app does not work at all currently, so it's not perfect, not 1000X better and not a fact. The iPhone is THE most evil, orwellian mind control device at this point in time. Want proof, Trent still loves Apple. Free Your Mind

WinMo's really not so bad, you know, once you get past the taste...

(or so they tell me everytime they want me to work on it)

It's not that Apple banned this or any other app from its store, that's not the underlying issue.

Sure it is hypocrisy that the same album can be had at the other head of the virtual lemonade stand. The trouble is THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE LEMONADE STAND. Drink here, or die of dehydration. Or simply enjoy your featurephone with your single free hand. Even the Opera Mini, running on JVM on a dumbphone can do "save link as", can yours?

--

No, jailbreaking does not count. Hackers will hack, it's a BSD core for heaven's sake, useful in the hands of the savvy (and their lucky friends). It should not be necessary to jailbreak the fucken thing in the first place. It's nice hardware that should have gone the way of the MiniDisc. But it appears a good UI is enough to win people over to serfdom.

And no, WinMo ain't that bad in this light. And it should have been. As it stands, it's the veritable "Land of the Free" compared to this. Sadly it also happens to be the "Land of the Brave".

Signed:

Some guy who hates itunes on windows.