Apple web support doesn’t like IE 7 (which leads to a rant)

Or is it that IE 7 doesn’t like Apple web support?

As noted in my InfoWorld column a few weeks ago on security podcasts, I’m a big fan of the iPod.

I’ve been having problems with iTunes connecting to the Music Store. About three weeks ago, iTunes just stopped connecting, saying “The Music Store is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later”. All computers in my house are impacted. Nothing in our configurations have changed lately, except maybe some auto-update patches from Microsoft, plus the latest iTunes players are installed (nearly a weekly update).

I went to www.apple.com/support with IE 7 Beta1 to get some help, and low and behold the connection attempt errors out and the page doesn’t display. I tried it with a few other computers running the same browser and got the same result. Strangely, IE 7 Beta1 worked a few weeks ago. IE 6 and Firefox work fine.

Regarding my iTunes to Mustic Store problem, I sniffed my iTunes to Music Store connection to see if Windows Firewall or my network firewall was causing the problem. I tried to use Microsoft’s Network Monitor for a change to see how it would do, but I missed Ethereal’s better interface and Follow TCP Stream feature too much. Ethereal’s Follow TCP Stream feature is great on HTTP problems, collecting the browser and server response activity in one screen (like you can do with Paros Proxy, but without the trap feature).

The dump revealed that my iTunes was connecting to the store alright, but the store immediately connected back and sent a re-direct request, which said, “Access denied by access control list”. What? Has my IP been blacklisted?

[itunes rant on]

No problem, I’ll call iTunes support, get a tech on the line, and then spend my hundreds of dollars that I want to spend (I’m the only guy I know who actually pays for his music ). Guess what, iTunes and the Music Store has NO TELEPHONE SUPPORT. Your only option is online reading and email (with a 72-hour response). Yes, get this. iTunes is the largest online seller of music in the world, and they don’t have phone support, paid or otherwise. Yeah, that’s the way to keep customers loyal. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on iPods, I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on online music from the Music Store, and they may lose a customer because the largest online music store in the world doesn’t have phone tech support.

My wife thinks iTunes incredibly slow response and other Windows-only issues is Jobs way of getting the world to switch to iMacs. I was getting ready to buy a new iMac this upcoming week (so I can learn more about OS X…and many of my security friends are raving about it), but if this is representative of Apple’s support policies (and I’ve heard the horror stories), forget it.

Jobs, maybe you should sell songs for $1.05 and get some real tech support.

Of course, an even worse sin is how (if you didn’t back up your songs or playlist locally) if your computer crashes, you can’t just re-download your purchased songs from iTunes. It’s easy enough to backup your Playlist, but if I’m buying all my music from the Music Store, why doesn’t the Music Store allow me to automatically re-download my purchased songs to my same PC again without a big hassle? I heard of many people who had to re-buy the same music again.

Or how about how you can’t install iTunes without installing QuickTime, which always installs itself to your System tray. And iTunes always adds itself to the Quick Start tray, without asking.

[/itunes rant off]