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Real Begs Apple for Alliance
hype7 writes "In a an extremely forward move, CEO of Real Networks Rob Glaser has emailed Steve Jobs, imploring him to open up Apple's AAC Digital Rights Management System - FairPlay - to Real. The upside for Real - all music sold by them would be compatible with the iPod. The upside for Apple - Real would make the iPod its primary device for the RealNetworks store and for the RealPlayer software. However, Mr. Glaser wasn't just dangling carrots - he implied that should Apple not be a receptive partner for an alliance, he would be forced to look towards Microsoft. There was a similar post made not too long ago, with BusinessWeek's take on the whole thing." There's a Reuters story as well.
Anyway, Apple is hedging its bets in a few places. You can easily play OGG formats in iTunes (a tutorial in this month's MacAddict tells how to use the codec), and Apple even includes an OGG icon to use in OS X, though you have to do one or two (easy) things to make it work seamlessly. I don't think Apple is afraid of opening things up except that, for instance, supporting WMA or Real playback on iPods would endanger the iTunes Music Store sales, which provide zero or very little profit to Apple, IIRC, but which sure improve the sales of iPods. Where Real fits into the risk/reward equation is unclear, but why let Real just have a piece of the action? Doesn't look like the profit to Apple is that great.
...but as a consumer I'd probably view an alliance with Real as a negative.
That's all we need: two closed source, proprietary standards getting more powerful. On the upside, only one proprietary player/codec to download. Only one proprietary player/codec for us to develop & release. Only one organizatino to rally against when they abuse their power. Also, I wonder how this would affect the standard use of Real? Would streaming video & audio suddenly becoe available in some future form of iPod?
This would be a VERY wise thing for Apple to do for many many reasons. However, if I were Apple I would ask something in return - allow the real-media format to play as a component of QuickTime.
-_-
Well... It seems to me that if it contributes to the spread of Real's official player it's a bad thing. Real's formats don't seem to me to have any technical advantage, so spreading them is a bad thing in my eyes, especially since I'm not really a fan of the idea of DRM at all.
As it is now - Real offers the ONLY player that incorporates all major music formats WMA, MPEG, ATRAC3, with exception for Apple's AAC. Real would be in a great position to offer a player that finally brings the whole mess of crap that is DRM under one umbrella and offer a music management platform to rival all others provided of course Jobs goes along with their scheme. So the real question is "Is Job's going to go for it?"
"BUT BITCH, I SAID BIIIITCH, I AIN'T GONNA GO FOR IT, NOT NOW, NOT EVEAH!" - SD
Does he think that he will "win" either way?
Apple and REAL apparently tried some sort of an agreement a couple of years ago, but it fell through because REAL wanted access to all Apple's QT code, but would not give up any of the REALplayer code to Apple.
It appears he is just looking for ANY publicity at all for REAL.
But of course, there is no such thing as "bad" publicity!
I like microcars
1. Not allowing a person to upgrade a DVD/CD drive to a Superdrive. I bought my PowerMac two months before the superdrive was released. I get to use stupid DVD-RAM disks, but I can't burn DVD's unless I buy a whole new computer.
.Mac program.
.Mac is overpriced, don't use it.
Actually, anyone is free to add any internal or external hardware device they wish, including DVD+/-R/RW drives. However, if you wanted to use *specific* software, like iDVD, with your drive, then you needed to mirror one of Apple's OEM offerings with your purchase. The reason Apple tried to tie iDVD to their "SuperDrive" systems was more one of ensuring a very cohesive user experience, as opposed to the nightmare of support issues and bad reputation for iDVD as people with 400 MHz G4s tried to use iDVD with any old random DVD recorder.
2. Apple keeps its iSync API locked up. There are millions of really cool things I could do to make Apple able to synchronize with things like LDAP servers, competing browsers, PC's, etc. But then Apple could use it as a leverage-point to keep people subscribing to the overpriced
It's only a matter of time before there's an iSync SDK. And the second statement is kind of unrelated; if you think
3. USB video cameras, like the ubiquitous Logitech QuickCam, just don't work (well) and Apple seems to have put blocks into place to refuse iChat AV from working with anything but their iSight hardware product. (I exaggerate a little bit here, but not much.)
ANY FireWire video source will work with iChat AV. Any video source at all will work with iChatUSBCam. Again, this decision was made to ensure a good user experience across the board with iChat AV, rather than letting people use any old crappy USB camera, which, right or wrong, reflects poorly on iChat AV.
There is a reason why Apple products work and look great: because Apple tries hard to keep it that way.
The iPod Quicktime-AAC is just another example. Where Microsoft fights to protect it's OS dominence, Apple refuses to make its customers' lives better if it suggests that they might loose the odd dollar in missed hardware sales opportunities.
Well, first, you have to have a monopoly to start talking about monopolistic practices. Even with iPod, Apple doesn't have nearly a "monopoly". And QuickTime, while proprietary, is one of the best media architectures out there, with free live encoding, free streaming servers for multiple platforms, ability to use open standards for playback anywhere, etc. Not to mention that it was primarily Apple and Apple alone that made MPEG-4's licensing - one of the only hopes against Microsoft's VC9 - licensing leaps and bounds more palatable than it originally was. And Apple has to keep its hardware sales up, lest the analysts start a death knell for the 1000th time.
I initially thought this was a good idea. Real gets a lot of credibility, and Apple gets someone else to sell songs for their iPod.
Then I started to think about the competing stores. It doesn't really do either of them any good to be selling the same songs, usually at the same price. I suppose it DOES give incentive to each of them to differentiate from the other store, but that's on TOP of the work that they have to do to offer more than the stores that use WMA.
I think Real's best proposition would be to somehow license the iTunes music store. Rather than set up a whole store on their own which is a huge waste of money - and arguably unsustanable - they could make it so it's possible to buy from the iTMS through their player. Steve would have to hand down some strict interface guidelines, but suddenly the Real player would have a lot of ACTUAL value added. Starting up their own store kind of looks like value added, but it's really just a gimmick when it's so hard to make money, do it properly, sell good music, etc.
So they want Fairplay? Apple should ask Real to provide that broadband content. No specifics, but I'll bet that people that own Apples tend to have broadband easily accessible. Apple can choose to pass on the content in their Quicktime channels for free, or bundle some with their .Mac service (hey, maybe I'd even consider getting it if I did that.)
It would definitely make for an interesting combination.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
That's all this is. Real has been slowly pissing off whatever customers it ever had by it's borderline spyware coding practices, and then not even giving better performance than the competition (not consistently and not by any appreciable amounts anyway).
QuickTime is far superior. Hell, even WindowsMedia is superior. Real knows their only real hope (pun intended!) is to hitch their wagon to a winning team and ride those coattails until the cows come home.
I personally hope Apple bitch-slaps them back to their hole in the wall, and I hope Microsoft just outright buys them to shut them up (in this singular case I'd be all for that tactic from MS!).
Real just annoys me to no end, and their demise, bu whatever means, can't come soon enough for me.
*
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If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Real's server model is crap (authentication is a nightmare). Its proprietary codecs aren't good enough to be worth the trouble. Its content isn't worth the trouble to register (and payf for). Helix is kinda useless compared to mplayer, xine, etc. (its browser plugin is useless in konq)
Darwin/Quicktime Streaming Server is a better streaming server solution, and it's free.
Apple partnering with Real? Why? Apple should only partner with Real if they drop Real and go with Quicktime. And at that point, why should Real even exist?
Frankly, WMP is better supported on my platform (Linux KDE/KMplayer/Konq) than Real (the KMplayer kpart bones javascript tests for rm plugins), so what's the point of Real?
Add in the asinine hiding of the free player, and the verdict is:
Death by irrelevance.
It's not that Apple/Steve is quaking in fear, nor should it. It will likely be a two company game when Real bites the dust, or basically becomes a MS serf. But, there are some legitimate concerns. Why doesn't Apple make QuickTime more open, and players for all platforms including mobiles? Why isn't there a software iTunes for most of the platforms, mobiles included? Why can't companies come to Apple to license the technology and use the store to their advantage, ala Amazon links?
Steve does need to get a grip sometimes, and become more open. I'm not sure Real is that special company upon which to bet however. But Real aside, the concerns are the same.
iChat will work with any camera that supports the FireWire IIDC profile. There are even some programs that can emulate the IIDC for USB cameras.
You can buy DVD recorders and DVD recording software for you Mac. Apple isn't stopping you.
I agree with you on the iSync part. Hopefully it will eventually be a published API.
mbbac
I've had good luck with it. It plays real video and audio streams quite well. And like the latest Real Player software there is no annoying spyware or ads.
I agree with you about the Linux Real Player 8 - it really sucked. But fortunately there's a good upgrade path.
Apple wants a vertical monopoly. They're not out to get 100% of the market share in any particular area (not that they wouldn't like to, but sometimes some reality slips in past even Steve's Distortion Field(TM)). They want to control the entire user experience for their customers. Personally, I'm happy for them to do this. As long as they don't achieve a horizontal monopoly, they can only compete by providing a good service. An alliance with Real would mean that they would lose control of a portion of their vertical stack, and this would be contrary to their established business practices (i.e. third parties are welcome to make anything they want which interfaces with Apple hardware, as long as it does not compete directly with an Apple product).
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