Angry birds and mouldy Apples

This is a story of how my continuing quest to get Angry Birds Space on my iPod led me through a journey of rage, disappointment and finally, acceptance that everything is, in fact, just a bit crap.


I finally bit the bullet and updated my iPod touch. You may remember to do it from my Mac would basically require me to buy a new Mac, so I installed iTunes 10.6 on my PC, upgraded the iPod and got it running iOS 4.2.1

I tried installing Angry Birds Space again - the original reason for the upgrade - only to be told that it doesn't support that particular iPod HARDWARE because it needs better graphics capabilities..

A small red light began to blink in my brain as my rage inhibitor burnt out.

"You could've told me that....  "    I said quietly...

The skies darkened, the crackle of rage filled the air and everything fell eerily quiet. 

"...BEFORE I UPGRADED THE O/S!!!"  



The rage inhibitor kicked back in and I decided to deal with the situation. 

"Ok.  Fine.  So I can't play Angry Birds Space..  No big deal, I have a shiny new upgraded O/S - let's see what's new.."

Everything looks..   exactly the same..   Except slower..  and maps says location doesn't work because restrictions are turned on..

Oh, and I can't turn restrictions off because I don't know the passcode.
Which I never set before because they were turned off...      

I figured it would be one of the standard 4-digit default codes that manufacturers like to torture people with every now and then..  0000, 8888, 1234 - that kind of thing.

I got the passcode wrong 5 times.   I had to wait 1 minute to try again.

6 times - wait another 15 minutes.

7 times - wait 60 minutes.

For a passcode that I never set, this one is particularly difficult to remember.

"Ok, fine.. I'll fix that later..   I'll  go and re-sync my music from my Mac's iTunes.. "

To which my once-beloved Mac replied
"This iPod is not supported - you must upgrade iTunes to 10.6"

...with a handy button to press to get updates..

I press the button, the Apple software update thing comes up...  There are no updates available apparently.

Now, I'm running OSX 10.4. I don't want to have to pay a few hundred quid to update my Mac's operating system to something that, if it works at all, will run slower than the current O/S - that's why I'm still on 10.4.

So I go and download iTunes 10.6 from the site instead.  Run the installer, and no, sure enough it needs OSX 10.5.

I search the apple forums to see if there's any way around this - sure enough, people have had the same problem. Once person asked if there way anyway to make it think it was an older version, just to sync their music - the response "We don't support piracy"

The rage inhibitor light is blinking again

I read a bit more of the forum, eventually finding a response from an actual Apple "Genius" -
"Your old Mac has had a good run.. but it's time to get a new one"

So we're back to buying a new Mac again just so that I can do something I used to be able to do perfectly well before Apple decided they wanted me to buy a new Mac.

And even better than that - now my iPod will now not turn on, as it appears to be stuck in some kind of recover mode. Except it can't DO the recovery from the Mac because iTunes says it doesn't support it..

At that point everything got switched off before it went for a short unscheduled flight, followed by an abrupt landing.

Fast forward to the next morning, and I plugged the iPod back into the PC I updated it on, and managed to get it to recover, so it is at least functional again, but how ridiculous is it that all of these problems are because someone at Apple DECIDED that this should be a problem.  It's all software.  None of it is due to actual hardware limitations or actual problems.

So - next I will attempt to transfer my iTunes library to my PC, so I can at least sync my music again.
I suspect this will not work, and will end up with me burning my entire library to CDs so that I can rip them back on to my PC.

And then I'll never upgrade the iPod again.

Ever.