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iPhone Rumour Round-up
Coffin Black writes "Apple only has to look askance at a piece of hardware and people are falling over themselves to slap an 'i' all over it and slavering about how cool the theoretical gadgetry is gonna be. So the iPhone may not even exist — beyond a 'just once more thing' gleam in Jobs' eye — but already the column inches are stacking up. Think the iPod is dying? Never fear, says this columnist, it's merely evolving from one form into another (clue: from portable to mobile). This writer, meanwhile, is sticking the boot in early — she says she won't be buying an iPhone, when it of course finally makes it onto the shelves... Though she does add: "If Microsoft created a Phune (a phone and a Zune in one, geddit?), I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole either but that's a different story."" We also covered this story a couple months back.
From the article:
I've spent hours of my life convincing iTunes I should be allowed to play songs I either ripped from lawfully bought CDs or purchased from Apple itself on my laptop or my iPod.
First off, I've *never* heard anyone complain about DRM problems when playing music they've ripped because... uh, well, iTunes doesn't put DRM on that. And while I really dislike DRM (yes, even Apple's, you thought I was going to say theirs is tolerable weren't you?), Apple's is extremely easy to work with. When you download a track, it works in iTunes on the computer you downloaded it from. It works on the iPod that you transfer that song to. And it works on up to four other machines as well (someone can clear up the details if I got the number wrong) with some brainless simplicity - when you try and play a DRM encumbered file, it asks you for your iTunes Store username/password to authorize playback. What exactly is difficult about any of that??