![\"Luther](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/paulmccain.worldmagblog.com\/paulmccain\/95theses.jpg?w=584\")
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I apologize for the duplication of content from the distributed conversation<\/a> regarding iTunes U, but I thought it might be interesting to post my five “what would it take for me to be satisfied with iTunes U?” items here and invite comment, additions, deletions, etc. to the list. With apologies to Martin Luther<\/a>, then, here are my five theses.<\/p>\n I will be grudgingly satisfied:<\/p>\n 1. if Apple makes it easy to copy URLs from iTunes to other podcatchers.<\/p>\n 2. if Apple drops the specious talk of liberation. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve too much Orwell in me to think that the words don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter. \ud83d\ude42 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that the fact we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all sophisticated enough to recognize their jive for what it is furnishes a good justification for overlooking their appropriation of this language. I resent seeing all the passionate appeals for educational transformation that many tireless and unrewarded visionaries have crafted over many years become nothing more than ad copy. (But hey, I also resent Pete Townshend’s selling “Bargain,” a song he elsewhere calls a prayer, for use in car ads.)<\/p>\n 3. if Apple doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allow colleges or universities to configure iTunes for closed, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153secure\u00e2\u20ac\u009d access to content.<\/p>\n 4. if Apple explicitly disavows any responsibility for copyright enforcement for school-generated content.<\/p>\n 5. if Apple drops branding services\/opportunities to make iTunes U look like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153your college or university but act like iTunes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n EDIT: 6. if Apple makes the Music Store link an “opt-in” item rather than a default link on the standard iTunes U menu. This item is probably the most quixotic of all, probably impossible from a technical point of view, but if I knew the primary interface didn’t promote a store in this way, I’d feel better. I don’t want to deliver teaching and learning materials inside a store, just as I wouldn’t want my reading of a novel to be interrupted on every thirtieth page with an ad. If you tell me that the ads would make the novels cheaper, that they’d help to put quality literature into the hands of more people at a lower cost, that I can just skip the darn things by turning the page, I’d respond that the price for these savings is just too high. When I read, I don’t want the merchants at my elbow. That’s why I paid for the book: to get some time with another human being, not to be targeted by commerce over and over.<\/p>\n Why grudgingly and not completely? Because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to create a de facto iPod campus, and iTunes U reaches maximum effectiveness as the campus gets closer to being iPod only. That prospect bothers me. Maybe it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. There are plenty of campuses that support only one computing platform for students, and for very good economic reasons. (Ironically, that single platform is usually Windows, not Mac.) So far, though, the argument for diversity seems more persuasive to me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to note that for all its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153think different\u00e2\u20ac\u009d talk, Apple isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thinking different. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to leverage market dominance into a near-monopoly, just the way \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evil\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Microsoft is. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be less outraged, though no less troubled, if Apple hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dressed itself in robes of righteousness for so long.<\/p>\n One more thought: Alan and Chris and others (I imagine) don’t take the verbiage on the iTunes U page too seriously. Alan writes<\/a>, “The ad material Gardner finds offensive (and i just find dull and glazing) seems to be totally written by marketing people, not the people behind the program.” But that’s exactly what I’m alarmed by: the marketing people are<\/em> the people behind the program. The program is, at heart, a marketing program.<\/em> Thus there’s no distinction between “the marketing people” and “the people behind the program.” But it’s telling that Apple’s marketing tactics are aimed at helping us forget that fact. When I read all the technorati links to blogs saying “yippee, Apple to the rescue!” I see a reality distortion field<\/a> that’s effective. Worryingly so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I apologize for the duplication of content from the distributed conversation regarding iTunes U, but I thought it might be interesting to post my five “what would it take for me to be satisfied with iTunes U?” items here and … Continue reading