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Gates v. Jobs, continued...

FJCsar writes "The New York Times has an interesting story about the continuing battle between Microsoft's Windows Media Player and Apple's iTunes from the perspectives of both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs."

18 of 343 comments (clear)

  1. Re:slashdotted04 by Flatline_hun · · Score: 1, Informative

    Just in case someone doesn't know: http://www.bugmenot.com/

    --
    Yeah, free Ipod! He is innocent!
  2. Re:what battle by geniusj · · Score: 3, Informative

    They owned quite a few shares at one point which have since all been sold (should of held on to them considering apple's stock has tripled in the past year)

  3. Re:The trouble with DRM by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 4, Informative

    May I humbly suggest connecting your iPod either directly to the car player (if it has mp3 support, it might have also line-in jack) or indirectly beaming music via devices such as Griffin iTrip and similar? That's what I do.

  4. Re:slashdotted04 by strider44 · · Score: 2, Informative

    or you can just go to www.bugmenot.com and download the firefox extension!

  5. Re:The trouble with DRM by Whalou · · Score: 2, Informative
    DRM free is the way to go..

    I agree. However since that's not likely to happen anytime time soon, possible solutions are to not burn CDs but use the iPod itself to play the songs using:

    --
    English is not this .sig mother tongue...
  6. Re:Microsoft owns a portion of Apple by zpok · · Score: 3, Informative

    No they don't. You refer to the time Gates bought a bit of stock and signed a deal to ensure 5 years of Office and IE development on the Mac.

    The stock has been sold and it was a token amount anyway.

    What does help Gates is the fact that the Mac unit at MS does brisk business. So in that sense he wins either way.

    --
    I think, therefore I am...I think.
  7. Re:Microsoft owns a portion of Apple by xirtam_work · · Score: 5, Informative

    Micrsoft bought $150M of shares as part of a settlement years ago and later sold them later at a massive profit. Microsoft do not 'own' part of Apple. Please get your fact straight.

  8. Re:Choice quotation by dannywoodz · · Score: 3, Informative

    AAC may be an open standard, but the DRM Apple wraps it up with isn't. An open standard that can't be openly inspected is no better than a proprietary solution.

  9. FM sucks. Cassette sucks by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Informative

    Neither FM transmitters nor cassette adapters are a good solution - both greatly reduce the quality of the signal provided to the stereo.

    I have an MP3 player in my car, and was using a cassette adapter to interface to it until I could get the head-end adapter (that fooled the stereo into thinking it had a CD jukebox attached) for the car. The difference between the two was not merely night and day - it was night and nova. The cassette adapter had no bass, no treble, and poor stereo seperation.

    FM transmitters are just as bad - the maximum frequency is limited to 15 kHz, and the stereo seperation is poor due to the multiplexing of the L-R signal onto the 38kHz pilot tone.

    If his stereo has a CDR MP3 player function, it likely has support for a CD jukebox - go to Precision Interface Electronics and order the appropriate adapter, it will be much better.

    1. Re:FM sucks. Cassette sucks by phillymjs · · Score: 3, Informative

      If his stereo has a CDR MP3 player function, it likely has support for a CD jukebox - go to Precision Interface Electronics and order the appropriate adapter, it will be much better.

      Or go to DensionUSA and see if their ICElink product is supported on your car's stereo-- then you can keep the iPod out of sight and control it (to a degree) with your head unit's controls.

      I was using a PIE cable for a while along with a RemoteRemote RF remote, but the remote would often miss keypresses and/or I couldn't tell if I had pushed the mushy buttons sufficiently for the command to be sent. It was a distraction I didn't want to deal with while driving-- I want to hit a button, know I hit it, and have the command register, all without thinking about it or looking away from the road.

      ~Philly

  10. Re:The trouble with DRM by Chemical · · Score: 2, Informative
    I dunno. Many newer car mp3/cd players support WMA. I'm not sure if that includes DRMed WMA files from online music stores. My first generation Pioneer MP3/CD player (7400) doesn't support them, so I've never tried.

    But also, Alpine makes an iPod adapter for their decks that let you control the iPod using the deck controls and stash the iPod in the glovebox, similar to the system BMW has be touting. Most newer Alpine decks support mp3 cds too, so you get the best of both worlds.

  11. Re:More of a battle of distribution formats by Dylan+Zimmerman · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, you won't have to buy an OS upgrade to keep using your old music.

    iTunes 4.2 can and will still play FairPlay v1 protected tracks. So all you'll ever need to play your v1 encoded music is iTunes 4.2. Period. Of course, once FairPlay v2 was devised, they started selling songs using that instead of v1, but your v1 songs haven't changed at all.

    As a matter of fact, there's no way to update songs from v1 to v2 without repurchasing them.

    Thus, your FairPlay v1 songs purchased before the store updated to v2 will always work on any platform that can play v1. Your v2 songs will always work on any iTunes that supports that encoding, which (as far as I know) is 4.5 and now 4.7.

    I don't think iTunes 4.2 supports FairPlay v2, but it might. Anyone know for sure?

  12. Re:And how? by turgid · · Score: 4, Informative
    Contradict yourself much? You're right, if it weren't for Bill Gates and Windows most of the world would still be using some DOS variant or an IBM terminal.

    No. You are a victim of revisionist history.

    Most businesses realize the value of CHOICE which is why Apple didn't make it in the business sector

    Wrong! Business only values conformity. Back in the day, there were several superior architectures to the PeeCee in terms of hardware and software, including the Apple Macintosh, which is the only one that has survived. There was the Amiga, the Atari ST and the Acorn Archimedes (which was very popular in UK schools, and was about 10 times faster at the same price point that PeeCee hardware). These machines were capable of emulating the 286 PeeCees of the day at native speed or fater.

    All the business world cared about was being "IBM compatible" and being able to lock itself into running Lotus 123.

    That's what happened.

    Bill came late to the party as usual. The rest is history and has been largely forgotten by noobs and youngsters like yourself.

    Bill is where he is through questionable business tactics, and the herd mentality.

  13. Re:Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by turgid · · Score: 5, Informative
    Yes. I am actually a Fan, though not becuase of his work in computers. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is, if not one of the largest, then one of the deepest pocketed philanthropic foundations around. They do good things with the money that Bill has made over the years.

    Oh please. How the Astroturfers and sycophants wax lyrical about Chairman's Bill's never ending kind-heartedness.

    Have you all already forgotten about Bill's trip to India, where he gave $100m to fight HIV, $421m to fight Linux?

    Now, I ask you as to where this man's priotities lie.

  14. Re:Gates vs. Jobs by Raffaello · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gates- has a got wife
    Jobs- doesnt


    Jobs' official bio at Apple would seem to differ. Jobs has been married for years, and lives with his wife and 3 of his 4 children in Palo Alto.

  15. Re:Iconic stature by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Informative
    Second...the reason many people don't switch from PCs to Macs is because of all the software they have for their PCs and they don't feel like buying all new software, etc.
    I bought a Mac, and I haven't spent a single cent on software for it. Between Fink and VersionTracker, let alone all the stuff that comes with it to begin with (Xcode, AppleWorks, etc.), I didn't need to!
    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  16. Re:Iconic stature by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Informative

    They did it before. Stated in "Helloween" memo, years ago.

    They purposely broke Quicktime with a OS update. Not that plugin thing, much before!

    Its not a rumor , it was told at court:

    http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/windows/0,3902039 6,2069820,00.htm