iTunes and App Store for iPhone and iPod touch make it to Malta

Living on a sun baked rock which is akin to a backwater province more than the locals would care to admit has many drawbacks for the geek, especially the macgeek such as yours truly. The Maltese have long equalled the Chinese in their propensity to choose illegal pirated music and films. Video and computer games soon followed.

I recall going to shops to buy copied games for my Amiga – some even rented them out for the explicit purpose of allowing people to copy them. Those were the day when the government was more permissive, things haven’t changed much in spite of many anti piracy laws. You can order ps2 games for €5 a pop from your local dvd rental outfit… after you have your machine chipped that is. You can buy any of the latest blockbusters from market stalls. Films which at times haven’t even been released at the local multiplexes. I myself are very guilty of illegally downloading files (don’t tell anyone now will you). the reason for all this? Well the fleecing of the Maltese consumer by the robber barons that import and distribute media. Oh and hey we all like a free lunch don’t we?

Personally, I’ve always tried my best to stick 2 fingers up at the local importers’ added tax (I understand economies of scale but some price hikes are just indicative of sheer greed) by importing what I can myself. Sometimes things can go wrong (I broke an hdd, a modem got fused as did my ps3 by lightning strike) but for the most part I’ve been satisfied because that could’ve easily happened had I bought them locally. One thing I definitely rarely ever buy here are movies or music. Play.com has come to the rescue as has Amazon. Maltapost are thriving by the number of deliveries they have to make and this has definitely hurt the local media suppliers. this has obviously not been without problems as so many items fail to get delivered some websites allegedly considered stopping exporting to Malta. Genuine cases of human error? In many cases yes, I’ve been sent wrong books and had items shipped to Malawi first. In other cases it’s the typical Maltapost inefficiency which means that an item that should arrive within 2 weeks max might take up to 6. So there have been occasions where I’ve had to have an order refilled only to have the original order arrive a month later. Though we all know a lot of items used to go missing…

So what’s my point? Well what about a nice online alternative for digital content? You know like iTunes – that brilliant move on Apple’s part to add value to their hardware. And the only real alternative to pirated music that has worked so far. Wouldn’t it be great if I could get the latest and greatest music at a decent price without lining the pockets of the greedy local retailers? Wouldn’t it be great to download episodes of my favourite TV shows without subscribing to the only channel on the island which might show it (don’t get me started on Melita – that’s another post). Well obviously being in Malta has meant that the service was not available. Until yesterday! Now we get iTunes. Er not quite. We actually get the App Store and the App Store alone.

I understand that music, TV and film rights are very tricky, but the EU should take a lead and centralised their rights issues or at least do it on a language based model . Ah well at least all those iPhone users can now avoid having to crack their phone or sign up with a foreign address in order to add more functionality to their phone which was promised to them my Vodafone Malta. Finally! One thing that does annoy me a bit is that in the drop down menu to select the store in iTunes, I almost couldn’t find Malta listed because for whatever reason, those lovely engineers at Apple (because anyone that works for Apple is an engineer and not a webmonkey responsible for a little bit of html coding…) decided to list us as “Republic of Malta” – probably the first and only time we were ever listed in a country selector on a website as such. Yes Apple you are correct – Republic of Malta is the full title but now I’d like to see all the other countries use their full titles too. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – catchy! But at least it’ll still be easier to find.

And yes, a frogbat is never happy.