Yeah, I don’t think that it’s Apple with the entitlement problem here. Look in a mirror.

Your example of Apple taking away a core UI feature (in this case volume control on what is supposed to be a music player…) is, sadly, not unique. Hell, we’re still waiting for feature parity on OS X with the “Classic” MacOS. They threw us Dock Extras as a bone (which no longer function…), and finally brought back Labels (guess they realized that multiple third parties with hacks to bring them back made their position that they were “not able to be supported in OS X” untenable?).

But, Apple has a strong history of breaking things for the user and never fixing them, apparently in hopes the user will eventually forget that the functionality ever existed.

My view is that one should feel free to do whatever is needed to get their functionality back. If, in the process, users enable additional functionality and start diverting money away from the company… Well… They kind of dug their own grave.

And my impression (I don’t own an iPod/iPhone, let alone a Jailbroken one) is that Cydia doesn’t carry “pirated” software, and it’s the usual place for Jailbroken users to get software. So, I’d have to argue that they’re not losing money to piracy, they’re losing it to their own lack of caring about their customers.

As for Android, it’s run by Google. And I don’t believe that Google’s definition of “evil” meshes with my own. :)

What I always find amusing in these sorts of things is how people make no mention of Windows Mobile. It may have the “taint” of Microsoft, but it certainly doesn’t generally get these sorts of “OMG! The sky is falling! Users are becoming empowered!” articles.

“Piracy” abounds. It always has, and probably always will. Anecdotally, my observation is that it happens most on systems where the users feel repressed, whether they admit to it or not. Perhaps the real answer to piracy is to pay more attention to your customers, and make them feel like they’re getting their money’s worth? Hell, it’s worth a shot. :)

Although this is not merely about engineering.

Piracy doesn’t kill Apple, but it kills the iPhone developers market (yes, I know it helps their apps to be distributed to larger amount of people, or “free marketing”, as they always said).

Some people respect appulo.us for their reason on their website. But, a lot more people don’t care whatever ethics behind the act of iPhone app piracy.

There are even paid apps in Cydia / Rock ( Jailbreak -accessible app stores ).

This post was mentioned on Twitter by adelamidi: Apple Deserves the $450 Million Piracy Loss: Free a concept to them, and they’ll get their hands on freebie.. http://bit.ly/5doQgP...

Please list the expectations that were not met.

An expectation, which is a belief that is centred on the future, may or may not be realistic.

I get that you are upset about what you thought you should get but didn’t. But, I feel that I got more than my money’s worth with my iPod Touch. I don’t know any product that does everything that every possible customer could possibly want. Maybe there is a market for that. Maybe you should build it. You seem to know more than the people who work for large tech companies.

Apple likes people who spend real money on their goods. The iPod market is not important to them. They want people who invest real money in high end products that cost and arm and a leg.