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?"

Comments

I am no fan of DRM

[Enrique1218]

I am against DRM now that I have seen it implemented. The author is correct in his assertion in calling it crippleware but he should lambast Microsoft equally. Apple FairPlay works for now at least but Microsoft is a complete mess. On the Microsoft side, the openness of the system is the very problem with it. I find that either Microsoft or the developers don't implement it correctly and the content won't even play. Who do call to fix it? Apple sqeezes by this because it controls everything but that doesn't make me comfortable about the future. Particularly, that it will be used to lock me in. DRM should go! It was a really bad idea to tackle the problem of piracy.