Steve Jobs and co entered a large and diverse club today, filled with everyone from Tony Blair to asylum seekers, Europe and "liberal values", when Apple got its first monstering in the Mail (The Mail, for our overseas visitors, is right wing daily newspaper that sells more than 2m copies a day in the UK).
The story (sorry: can't find it online) under the headline "The great iTunes rip-off" pretty much does what it says on the tin, laying into Apple for pricing songs at 79p here, against 54p in the US, and 65p in France and Germany. The paper quotes "Phil Evan, of the Consumers' Association" (they mean Phil Evans, but not to worry) saying he feels it "makes a mockery of the concept of a single market". Meanwhile Andy Evans of "ITportal.com" (they mean theitportal.com, but not to worry) says it is "totally unfair and I feel short-changed".
His is certainly a widely held view, even if it feels a little unfair to bash iTunes when its rivals in the UK are charging more - much more, in some cases - for the same music, often with much tighter DRM. But Apple's excuse that music simply costs more in the UK sounds hollow when you consider the company's pricing policy with hardware over the years. We still await their price announcement for the iPod mini, which - according to their initial plans, at least - will cost far more in the UK than in the US.
Of course, were we in the Euro you'd imagine the extra transparency that would shed on pricing issues would make it far harder for Apple to pull its little currency conversion tricks. But, then again, that's hardly a point the Mail is likely to raise...
