Slashdot Mirror
iPod on Windows
niola writes "A story on Yahoo mentions the XPlay -- a cool software package that allows a Windows box with a FireWire port to mount the iPod as if it were a drive (gives it a letter too) so that you can upload songs to it. Looks really cool and has the ability to integrate with Windows Media Player." Will Apple sue over this? I guess it'll depend on whether or not they stand to lose money in lost Mac sales or gain money in extra iPod sales.
Why would Apple sue? It's not in any sort of violation of their copyrights, etc. Unless there's something funky in the license, people can use their hardware whenever and wherever and however they like. It's not like it's a song, it's a song player.
How different is this from connecting my Apple USB keyboard to my PC?
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Is there a Linux program that can do the same as this Windows application?
Does it work under Wine if not?
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but the answer is yes. Sort of. I know several people personally who wanted to get into the whole digital media thing: MP3s instead of portable CD players, digital cameras instead of film, digital camcorders and DVDs instead of plain old videotape. The combination of OS X plus iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, and iPod won them over. About $2,000 bucks later-- counting the iMac and the camera and iPod and whatnot-- they were in business.
I've seen it happen more than once among my little circle of friends.
They just asked, and Mediafour did it, it wasn't a big deal.
Free Mac Mini
Apple generally does not litigate against third-party applications of their products. That would be silly--it would ultimately discourage software and hardware additions such as PCI cards and software which might augment the Mac OS or its hardware. A computer is a computer, and Apple learned long ago to allow other companies to play when the rewards work both for Apple and others.
Other products which have had third-party adaptations, although not necessarily with the tacit blessing from Apple that XPlay has includes:
--the original iMac (an early expansion slot was used for video cards, although Apple discouraged use of the port and discontinued it on later models)
--LinuxPPC, other operating systems
--USB floppy drives (when the iMac dispensed with them)
--The Outback (the first, but unofficial, Mac portable, which used the ROM from a Mac Plus)
--Basilisk (PC software which emulates an early Macintosh, ala Virtual PC for Macintosh)
Apple tends to keep to themselves unless someone appears to be directly violating their copyright, trademark, or intellectual property rights. Using the iPod is, well, using an iPod. Apple probably expects other companies to adapt it for their work. Saves Apple the trouble of manpower to create any software, but also releases them from supporting the iPod since a third-party (and non-Apple) product is in use, which may be a warranty violation.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
There are several reasons why Apple won't think this is the greatest news.
1) People really are buying Macs just to use the iPod. I know that the slashdot crowd doesn't fit that mold, but if you go into an Apple store and actually ask one of the salespeople, you'll hear story after story about customers that heard about the iPod, and walked out with an iBook to go with it.
2) This might raise Apple's support costs substantially. Every call to Apple's support line costs money, even if the customer doesn't really deserve the support. Does someone who buys an iPod knowing Apple doesn't support using it via Windows deserve 90 days of toll free assistance from Apple if XPlay corrupts data on the iPod? Should Apple have to support callers who are having problems with their FireWire ports on their PC? These are just examples, but keep in mind that Apple exists because these are exactly the kinds of problems PC users have all the time. What should Apple tell the users who call support with these problems?
Now, I don't think Apple should sue anyone over this software. But this isn't the excellent news most people think it is. Apple will be making less money per iPod sold because of this. The iPod's reputation of no-brainer ease of use might be tarnished.
In the end, hopefully Apple will sell more units, make more money, and get positive exposure to new customers.
-pmb
Who said $2,000 was pocket change? I have three friends who each wanted to get into the whole digital media thing. One of them is about to have a baby, one of them just did, and one of them is just kind of a gadget freak. Then there's me, of course.
We each decided to buy (new or first) Macs for pretty much the same reasons: iPhoto, iMovie, iTunes, et cetera. For my friends the parents, it was to have an easier way to document their kids. For my gadget freak friend, it was so he could listen to MP3s while he rode his bike. (Not the safest thing maybe, but he's a grown-up, so it's not my problem.)
None of us thought $2,000 was pocket change. If we were just throwing money away, we probably would have bought some high-end PC, because depending on your point of view you do get more bang for your buck that way. But the thing we all had in common was this: none of us wanted to waste time or effort. Make it easy, we said, and we'll buy it.
For us, that $2,000 or so was a sort of investment. The proposition was basically that I gave Apple an extra $600 to promise me that managing my MP3s and movies and pictures and whatever else would be as simple and foolproof as humanly possible. So far, they've kept up their end of the bargain.
Since my post is apparently +2 interesting and +1 funny (even if a bit -1 overrated) I might as well elaborate.
:)
Said coworker is a programmer-geek type, not a sysadmin-geek type. He hates all things Microsoft with the appropriate level of passion, and has been using Linux for a while, with mixed happiness -- very impressed with the power and flexibility, totally happy with the *nix environment, but a little underwhelmed by the lack of polish on the graphics and multimedia end of things. (No flames please -- these aren't my opinions; I'm just conveying.) He'd been eyeing OS X for a while in a casual sort of way, but not with much seriousness.
When he got the iPod-gift, I suggested that hey, we might be able to play with some stuff to try to get it working on his Linux box -- there's others out there working on it. Hmmm, he said.
But then he came in the next day with his new Powerbook.
Remember this...
Steve Jobs is still the CEO of Pixar. He has an interest in the MPAA just like Disney does. Maybe not to the same extent, but interest nevertheless.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
From Mediafour website:
" What happened to the "XPod" name? Why did it change?
Apple Computer, a company with which Mediafour has always had an amicable relationship, expressed concern over our use of the name "XPod", due to its similarity to the "iPod" name. We chose to change the name to XPlay early on in the project."
read more, click here!
Yes Apple is aware of this, and I believe that Apple will benefit from XPlay.
It runs LaTeX, and all those other geeky things I need to run
LaTeX has been ported to just about any platform, anywhere. Shit, you can run it on a plain MS-DOS machine. Pick up a used 286 laptop at a garage sale for $5.
OS X has done for Apple about the same thing as Windows 2000 did for Microsoft. It's pretty good, it's a hundred times better than the previous generation of OS from the respective vendors.
And they're both killing a lot of the fire that was pushing for Desktop Linux.