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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 really don't understand the repeated efforts here to brand Apple as the devil over "FairPlay". I'm no fan of DRM, and don't use it because it's entirely unnecessary. I've bought about 6 songs and one video off of iTunes in the last 3 years. I just don't get the freedom-threatening nature of ripping my own CDs.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
No matter how sexy or cool things seemed early on, the day will come when you will wonder what the fuck you were thinking.
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}
Apple had to produce a DRM that was acceptable to the music industry, or else iTunes would never exist. MP3 players would still be gimmicks, much like minidisk players, and the advances we have seen across all brands of MP3 players never would have happened. Instead, Apple came up with a solution that appeased the music industry, and which doesn't remove that many rights from consumers. The really brilliant thing Apple did was allow FairPlay to be so easily cracked by burning the music to CD's. I find it interesting that the article complains about Apple locking in consumers, but the far more interesting thing is how they have locked in the music industry. The music industry would love to raise prices, make all services subscription, and restrict our rights in more and more ways. Instead, Apple is strong enough that not only can it maintain the status quo (which they improved by allowing us to buy single songs, instead of CD's with a decent song and 9 crappy ones), they are extending it to other music labels and now movies. They have created a means for more independent artists to make a living without giving into the labels (not as good as eMusic, true, but they had to give up something to get the major labels.), allowed consumers to buy music ala carte, and are changing the face of the industry. There are the vocal few who claim that all DRM is evil, and refuse to buy anything from the music labels. I admire both your stance and your dedication to it. However, most of the public do not understand the issues, and they provide enough revenue for the labels to ignore you. Apple is a middle ground now. Hopefully in the future, we will be able to move to an even better situation. However, without this middle ground, we would all be talking about buying music in a hopelessly outdated, unfair manner, or stealing it.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Allow me to present my Apple credentials. An original LC owner from around 1993 (I think), then skipped out but back in for a 12" Powerbook when Jaguar was released. Our household has a MacBook Pro, a MacBook, a dual G5 tower, an (Intel) Mac Mini and an SE/30 for nostalgia. Pro-Apple enough perhaps? Well then, I think that as announced so far, the iPhone is a poor product.
I love the look of the interface, though in practice I do wonder how well it's going to stand up to daily use (smears on the screen etc.). Right now though, the hardware itself just looks too weak to me. Not enough features for the cash - my N70 already does functionally more than the iPhone, and that came as a freebie with my contract. I'll admit the Nokia interface is terrible in comparison, but for me at least the OS X interface isn't enough to compensate for the lack of capability in the phone. Not asking for the moon on a stick here - everything I've mentioned can currently be done by other phones, all but GPS in already done by my freebie N70.
Roll on v1.x please.
Cheers,
Ian
Second, fairplay is not the primary format of the iPod, or even iTunes, and presumable not the primary format of the iPhone. The songs are not translated to a Fairplay format, or any other format, when copied to the iPod. Songs are not by default imported into iTunes as Fairplay files, and there is not even an option to so do. I do not think Apple marks files that are imported in iTunes at all. And while the default import format is the is ACC, is it easy to change it to MP3 which is compatible with most players, except maybe Sony.
So fairplay will only effect users that buy songs from iTunes, and only those songs that are bought from iTunes and not burned to CDs. This is all covered in the article, but not the summary
The article is really about the fact that Apple will not license fairplay. This is really indicates a sad state of writing. First the author decries Fairplay as crippleware, and then complains that it cannot be acquired universally. This is like complaining that polio is a horrible disease, but innoculations means most of us won't get it. The article is correct that if you use the iTMS, you must buy apple stuff. The logical response to this is not to use the iTMS, and fight for non DRM online formats.
Then the article goes onto say that MS is better because it does license formats, but then has to admit that the Zune does not use the format. What the article does not admit is that this situation indicates that there is no money to be made in licenses DRM formats and thus compete with walmart on price instead of locking consumers in to an optional online format.
The point that the article does get to, after losing all credibility, is that consumers may end up with songs a product they cannot use. They may buy Play for sure, and then buy a zune or an iPod. They may have a collection of iTMS tracks, and then buy a Sandisk, in which case they will have to butn all the tracks to CD and reimport then. What the article does not mention is that we did this all before when we copied all our vinyl to tape, and even worse when we replaced all our vinyl with CDs.
I really believe that this article is the case of an uninspired writer cribbing from old articles. The lesson learned, and probably needs to be taught to the masses, is if possible buy a used CD and rip it to your computer.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My point is that a lot of little niche markets make up one honkin' big one, and whether or not Apple is encouraging 3rd party development, if every app has to pass through Apple's screening process and be distributed (read: priced and sold) through Apple's own structure, it will significantly discourage niche products.
As a long-time PalmOS user, I look to Palm for both negative and positive examples. Palm's success was built not on the PIM applications, but on 3rd party tools, and while Palm offered certification for software programs, it didn't require certification in order for programs to run. Not only did that drive innovation by 3rd parties, but many of those 3rd party developments put pressure on Palm to extend the basic OS accordingly. Tapped drop-down menus, fullscreen Graffiti entry, running apps off SD cards, full backup (not just PIM apps) and hard button reassignment all began as 3rd party innovations, and were later adopted by the PalmOS. At the same time, though, Palm's uncertainty about whether it was a hardware, software, or OS company has led to stultification of the underlying PalmOS, to the point where the iPhone has a real opportunity not only to get Treo users but non-smartphone users like me (I use a T|X) to cross over, if it's done properly by Apple.
I'm not counting Apple out by any means, nor am I assuming that 3rd party developers won't be able to create homebrew apps that will load and run on the iPhone, Apple-certified or not. That said, I hope that Apple is looking at the PDA rather than cellphone market for inspiration. Otherwise, this Newton 2007 may rot unpicked. {Prof. Jonathan}