Et tu, Brute?

I've written many times about how much I hate Apple products. Not because they don't work well, because they do. You know how sometimes you're using a gadget and at some point you shake your head and wonder how some stupid clunky UI choice made it past quality assurance? Well you never have moments like that with Apple, and that's some of the highest praise I can confer.

But still, mainly two things soured me on the Apple experience:

1. DRM
2. Non-replaceable batteries

I have nothing to say about DRM that hasn't already been uttered, but the non-replaceable battery thing really kills me. That is planned obsolescence at its absolute worst, and I thought people would be angrier about it than they actually are. The truth is, Apple does such a good job of innovating that people are looking forward to a reason to replace their old hardware. Still, I vowed never to buy another iPod merely on principle.

Well, needing a new music player and with my anti-Apple vow still in place, I opted to purchase a Zune last week. Now, the Zune is pretty slick in its own right, and is not lacking in great ideas of its own. One of the things I particularly like is that it has a radio (unlike every iPod ever made), and if you like a song that's playing, you can tag it and download it later from the Zune Marketplace. Very cool.

Unfortunately, my Zune refused to connect to the Marketplace anyway. And it also has non-replaceable batteries! I guess that's just the paradigm now. So I caved. I exchanged it today, for an iPod Touch. My god, that thing is smooth as butter and I love it to pieces.

I hate myself for it though.