Criticism
In the first version of Unbox, a background service would launch itself upon system startup to contact the Amazon server to see if there were any new videos to download. Also, the program would attempt to contact the Amazon server when uninstalled. This automatic behavior, which could not be disabled without uninstalling the Unbox application, drew negative reviews for its implicit permission to run arbitrary code as designated by Amazon.com personnel. This is also confirmed in the video player's license agreement. In an upgrade released shortly after launch, thought to be a response to these criticisms, Amazon made "launch on startup" optional, though disabling it necessarily disables the RemoteLoad feature, and makes the program impossible to run in non-administrator computer accounts.
Rented Unbox movies cannot be transferred to a portable device. They can only be viewed on the device to which they are downloaded.
TV Passes purchased in the middle of a television season require the purchase of all previous episodes of the current season. Further, TV Passes are restricted to a single season, and the user isn't notified when new seasons become available, so the user must find out through other means when the new season starts and then manually order it.
Amazon does not support WebM for VP8 support with streaming of Prime HD movie content on computers. Dedicated devices are necessary. This is not a technical problem or bandwidth issue, as VP8 support is available with such plugins and Netflix uses Amazon for their cloud servers.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)