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Beware the Apple iPhone iHandcuffs
Nrbelex writes "Randall Stross makes a fresh and surprisingly accurate review of one of the biggest "features" in the upcoming iPhone and the iPod in general, 'fairplay'. Stross writes, 'If "crippleware" seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard "FairPlay," but fair it is not.... You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever.' Can mainstream media coverage help the battle over DRM or will this warning, like those of the pas, continue to go unnoticed?"
I read the NYT article, and this is really not a new issue, is it? The iPod has had this issue, as did Apple's previous foray into cellphones (the ROKR and now the RAZR). The bigger challenge the iPhone faces is that, according to Steve Jobs, 3rd party developers won't be able to write programs for the iPhone without Apple's blessing and distribution channels. That's a product killer, given that the most popular smartphones already on the market (especially those running PalmOS and Windows Mobile) are tremendously extensible via 3rd party offerings. It's also a huge mistake. Having a phone that plays music isn't a revolution; it's a necessity these days. Heck, the phones that are being given away by the carriers can all play MP3s at least. Rather, anyone spending as much as Apple wants for the iPhone (even before locking in a data plan from Cingular) is going to want to do whatever he or she can imagine with the iPhone in all aspects of life, not just music or telephoning. That will require 3rd party developers. Apple should embrace 3rd party development, since it will sell many more iPhones, rather than the current strategy.
Personally, I was pondering how to make the business case for an iPhone at work until I read about the current 3rd party app limitation. As someone who's used the PalmOS for 10 years, I am *not* going back to one-vendor sourced apps. {Prof. Jonathan Ezor, PalmAddict Associate Writer}
"You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff."
It's tragic and depressing, it is. If only there were a way for me to burn my FairPlay music to CDs! Then I could listen to it on any device, anywhere, anytime, or even re-rip it, thus ending up with unencumbered music.
C'mon. You're already buying compressed audio or video. If you were serious about quality - or "freedom!!1!!!1!" - you'd be purchasing the highest-quality source material possible, and using lossless compression to archive it. But you're not. Instead, you're complaining because your convenience is inconvenienced by FairPlay. Pfft.
I agree. Is anyone surprised that the iPhone (like the iPod, *gasp*) doesn't play Microsoft's music files? Did people really expect the music playing portion of the iPhone (which Apple describes as the "iPod" portion) to operate very differently from the iPod?
Wrong. Apple is now using DRM on music from labels that do not require it.
There's a significant difference between a digital audio file and a DVD. One is a physical object, the other is a bunch of bytes. Is the difference between a WMA, MP4, and OGG the same?
While I'm not generally inclined to defend Sony, I think a $400 digital audio player (such as an iPod) that won't play digital audio files is significantly more offensive. It's more like a Sony DVD player that won't play Warner Bros DVDs.
The reason I see value in the iPhone is unlimited communication, NOT FOR MUSIC! Music is an afterthought & even a distraction for me.
The wide capabilities (& wider in next gen releases) of the iPhone are such that any respecting user of technology can see the device as a VCD, Virtual Connection Device.
Whether you are doing a local simple bit of a document or image collection, it is the bi-directional communication with what is arguably an unlimited number of devices through multiple RF & potentially IR methods that means it is a programmable blank slate computing communicator.
Whether you merely do simple things sending and receiving messages, or you actually use a VCD to do complex interactive and controlling functions is entirely up to the software you will eventually load into the VCD.
Sorry, but you don't understand the logic. iTunes is the only app that purchases and downloads the music and encrypts it. iTunes is the only app that validates players and transfers music to the iPod. The mechanism is secure.
Now, it may be that you cold have a third party player "support" FairPly... but how does the music get encrypted and get on their player? You'd have to provide every vendor with the code and encryption keys so their software could work with it. Every vendor would be able to authorize players.
And every time yo do that, you run a major risk of that code and those keys being "leaked" into the wild. To my mind, this isn't so much about "locking" the market, as it is locking the door. Every time I give someone a key and alarm code to my house I run the risk of compromising the entire system.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I have bought some songs on iTunes Store. Now, not the ones I would like to collect, mainly Björk, but more random ones. Here's the kicker: iTunes makes those songs compatible with more players than there are DAP units in the world. How? By allowing the songs to be burned on CD. There are far more CD players in the world than DAP players, thus the iTunes files are compatible with far more players than people assume. My burned CD is pretty much guaranteed to work in a huge range of players, and you can't call them non-interoperable since they are. This goes for all other DRM schemes with same freedoms as well. Now, Blu-ray, THERE'S a limited system...
Maybe people are noticing and they just don't care. Maybe the people who care are decidedly in the minority. Ever consider that?