Apple Store Bans MySpace

by Jordan Yerman | May 25, 2007 at 12:08 pm

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The multimedia capabilities of the Mac have proven a little too easy: people have been coming into Apple Stores solely to surf MySpace and upload media created on demo macs. In response, Apple has blocked access to MySpace in its stores to battle the loitering gridlock. At least there's still Facebook.

In New York City, you can go to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in midtown 24 hours a day, seven days a week and browse the Web from the Macs on display. But due to a new Apple regulation, you can no longer access MySpace.com.

From a black MacBook laptop at the cube-shaped retail store on Friday morning, most Web sites were loading at full speed. But when an attempt was made to load MySpace's Web site, the Safari browser delayed and failed to load it. Indeed, a post Thursday night on the Apple rumor community ThinkSecret had said Apple was in the process of blocking the popular social-networking site from the Macs in Apple Stores because MySpace users were taking up too much time on the machines.

A friend of mine used to visit the Apple Store in NYC's Soho in order to check her email: backpackers around the globe see those stores as free net cafés in the same way that I see McDonald's as a free public restroom. I guess Apple wants to focus on actually selling the machines. They should take care, though, not to get too restrictive: whilst some people undoubtedly go in there with no intention of buying anything, Mac newbies who don't know what "Safari" is must be shown that the Internet does indeed work on a Mac*.

*I used to work for a Mac reseller, and folks came in all the time who thought the 'net was PC-only.