How to be mad at Apple, Ford and MicroSoft at the same time..

.I know with what happened in Newton, that what is below is really trivial in comparison.  I also know that I should write something, but I don't know what to write about a senseless tragedy.   Would gun control have prevented this?  if all teachers had guns would they have shot him before he shot anyone?  What can you do to protect children without them feeling so protected that they don't grow up with the sense to take care and secure themselves?  but, I don't know these answers... so I am writing about something pretty trivial, unless you are an artist or a miffed iphone owner.

OK.. I am not really mad at Ford.
OK.. Only slightly mad at MicroSoft
and..  Apple I have a bone to pick with you.

So.. how do these all come together?  I got a new iPhone 5, at the same time I got a new Ford Fusion with their Sync technology developed by Microsoft.

So... it all starts.. with I had backed up my iphone4 and all the music to the iCloud. (Apple's version of the Matrix apparently.).  I installed my iPhone5 and after about an hour or so I thought all my content that was on the iphone 4 minus an app or two was now safely back on my phone.  Frankly, this is content I owned.  I paid for the music, and the pictures were mine also.   It appeared my photos were there but some of them weren't visible but.. I can live with that.

So.. I plugged my iphone5 into my Fusion.  For those that don't know sync is the perfectly programmed and executed voice system in Fords and I had in my Mercury Milan.  Ok.. slightly sarcastic on the perfectly programmed.  But, in my Milan with the iPhone4 I could see all my phone contacts and music in Sync and either manually scroll through the content or by voice tell it what to do such as call Mom and Dad Silverman at home and it would magically have my iphone dial mom and dad and I would hear through the car and could speak as well all hands free.

Fast forward to the Fusion and my iPhone 5.  First she just doesn't understand me the way my Milan.  We are still getting used to each other, and apparently she is still getting used to my voice.  But, I assume over time this will continue to improve.  But, the iPhone 5 has a new connector and even though it charges fine through the USB port in my car and can play music I wonder if part of my challenges are at the new connector and how it is programmed.   This may all greatly improve once I do an update of sync in my car.  By the way this requires a thumb drive and I have to do a whole bunch of steps between the car and the Internet to do an update.  It is a pain, and make you think of Microsoft.  Some days I wait for the car to tell me to pull over and restart the car.

Now... all of this is pretty trivial to me.  I love my car, and the phone is generally much better than the 4 especially the camera.  I think battery life is not as good but that could be because I use it even more than the 4 which is hard to imagine.

I have either for myself or others.. bought 3 iphones, an iTouch, two iPads, and 5 Apple Tv's.  Generally have been happy with them, and this means over the last so many years I have bought a fair amount of music on iTunes.  Now because of the magic of their cloud, and match I can play the music I purchased on my appletv or any where without it being on my phone or computer on iTunes over WiFi.  Pretty cool.. and makes like easier especially when throwing a party and my phone is not tied to my stereo.

Ok.. then why am I mad?  because all of my music that I bought and downloaded onto my iphone is now not there.  Some of it is.  But, a fair amount is in the cloud and when I go to look for a particular song on my iphone I get a sign that I own it but it is in the cloud and needs to be downloaded to my phone.  I am slightly miffed.  No where during the backup or phone restore process did they say Apple has decided to arbitrarily based on some algorithm to download a select portion of my music.

I am sure it is not arbitrary.  I am sure is based on my usage and the songs left behind in the cloud were rarely listened to.  Maybe most people don't know or have a memory of all the songs even on their phone so why waste all the network traffic and data usage to download all of what was on my phone previously.  But, I am not most people.  I generally know what is there and even rarely listened to music I want to listen to when and where I want to even if rare.  This also allows me to buy more because now I can effectively buy more content than can fit on my phone because all of the content I purchased is not on my physical phone.  Even though I purchased the largest storage possible so I could store all of my content on my phone.

Frankly, I am mad about this.  I don't think making arbitrary decisions about content that I purchased the right to listen to is correct.  They should have put a warning or a message clearly in front of me to ask me if I wanted all of the content back on my phone as before.  But they didn't... I imagine the challenge even with their new data center that they had to decide how to handle the mass of data that these migrations require.  But, Apple you told us we didn't need iTunes any more to handle this maybe that was premature.

Somewhere between this choice, the new connector, my car and Microsoft my car can not see all the music either so the choices of what to play off my iphone is limited.  I finally realized this is because all of the music isn't there and the car is actually reading off the songs not just the directory or play list.  I can start to play songs and through blue tooth or the usb it will play. But, the ability to speak to the car to select from what is a fair amount of choices is not really there cause of the decision primarily to not have all of my music on my phone.

Let me put this in perspective.  I am a gay male.  Walking down the street.  I get blocked from walking home by a stalled train so I keep walking and walking.  I think what would keep me out of funk is Cher.  Now, not to stereotype myself, do you know how much Cher music I have purchased on iTunes? but there were only 4 songs available to my on my iphone.  4 good ones, and so yes I probably listened to them more.. so that is why they were there.. but seriously where are the rest?  I maybe odd but I generally know what I bought and maybe a few months since I listened to Walking in Memphis (by Cher.. great by the way) but I wanted to hear it and it isn't there.

I may have made the choice.. to leave a fair amount of my music in the cloud.  I may have decided not to have all of the Christina Aguelera songs on my phone.  I may have decided, and would have been happy if the Nataly Merchant songs of a nursery rhyme had permanently stayed off my phone.  But, I should have been able to make that choice and instead the choice was made for me.

My question to the world is... am I purchasing a right to use that song or album on apple devices any way that I choose?  or am I really paying for a license to only be able to listen to it the way Apple or some developer thinks I should want to listen to them and when?  It troubles me enough that I am not purchasing a right to listen to a song on any device I own.  Meaning I can't easily switch to an Android or Windows phone and bring my music with me. But, in this case it is in the apple ecosystem and frankly this bugs me.  If I had extra time on my hands I wonder about the actual antitrust issue and impact to artists that I can't make the decision to move purchased music to any device I own regardless of manufacturer or software provider.

Thank to you all for letting me get this off my chest.