Slashdot Mirror
Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31
dirk and a large number of other distressed readers let us know that Apple is shuttering Lala, the music service they bought last December, on May 31. "Apple will transfer any remaining money in a user's account to iTunes, and will credit users (via iTunes) for any web songs that were purchased. It's a real shame, as Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format. Its web service was innovative and ahead of its time. And it was one of the few places that would let you listen to an entire song to sample it (after one complete listen, you then could only hear a 30-second sample)." Reader Dhandforth adds: "10-cent favorites will now cost 9.9x more. What's worse, a community of music fans (followers and followees) will disappear on May 31. Evil. Sigh."
...I know people who did, and none of them are happy about this. I've herad nothing but good things about Lala, it's a shame that it will be going away :/
Living With a Nerd
Because anyone actually thought that Apple was going to keep running two competing music stores?
Steve jobs sticks his fingers in his ears.. "LALALALALALALALALALA"
There was a bit of a storm forming as it started and the wind picked up when Steve Jobs took the stage. The CEO of Lala looked very nervous. Heat lightning started arcing through the clouds as Steve finished his speech. Then he gestured to the Lala CEO who obediently got down on his knees. Steve drew a giant claymore from behind the podium and said very loudly as the storm climaxed, "There can be only one." And lopped off the head of Lala's CEO. Steve stood there shaking with ferver and excitement as user after user account was transferred to iTunes Music Service, rendering him many millions more in revenue. While particularly gruesome, heartless and violent to the eyes of women and children in the crowd, in the business world it's a perfectly natural cycle.
My work here is dung.
Yeah, I was distressd about that.
someone doesn't want the remaining balance transferred to iTunes? Can they get a cash refund? (I don't use Lala.)
Embrace
Extend
Extinguish
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
LaLa Hey Hey Kiss It Goodbye
Fellowship 9/11
Now I might be missing something, but what did they gain through this acquisition? Why buy a one of the many competitors.. I mean yes it was a great service but there are others out there as well... I just don't get Apples gain from this purchase in the first place... Having two services is pointless one had to go and I have a feeling iTunes is kinda bigger..
Oh and, "Damn the man, save the empire"
~Mekkah
Don't worry, someone at /. will go back and change it. Post first, then let the users do the editing....
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I just wanted to thank each and every Apple fanboi for supporting this company by overpaying on standard PC parts for YEARS.
Hey man, get with the program - it hasn't been standard PC parts ... they've got a certain je-ne-sais-quoi embedded in each apple branded piece of hardware that gives it crazy-high resale value. (Although other than that, spot on... depending on your definition of standard PC parts - PowerPC?).
You should get a refund of your money, not have it be transferred to iTunes.
What you agreed to pay for was Lala's service, not iTunes'.
Apple has always been more innovative than Microsoft. Their desktop OS has been years ahead of Windows for most of the past decade, and now their malicious business approach is beginning to surpass that of Microsoft's.
Mod parent up.
This is getting out of hand.
What's this distressd, and what's this disturbing trend to daemonize all our emotions?
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Can slashdot
a) create a Steve job version of the Bill Gates borg icon.
b) change the MS icon Ms instead of the Bill Gates borg icon.
I just think it's time.
use rhapsody - as much music as you like for $10 / month. Now works on iphone and ipod
So if I have an account at lala already (they're not taking new accounts now), I can buy a bunch of web songs at 10 cents a piece, and in return I'll get full downloadable versions from iTunes next month?!? That's an absolute bargain! I'm off to go do some shopping.
Reader Dhandforth adds: "10 cent favorites will now cost 9.9x more. What's worse, a community of music fans (followers and followees) will disappear on May 31. Evil. Sigh."
Evil? Evil?
You keep using that word but I don't think you know what it means.
Apart from the 'cool' factor, why do people use Apple's locked down crap?
Apple hasn't sold DRMd music for a couple of years now.
Video through iTunes is still DRMd, but so is Amazon video.
buy it while you can afford to, and then dismantle it..
I requested a refund check in the mail instead of a iTunes credit for the 20 cents left in my wallet... If only I could get a refund for my hundreds of web songs :(
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format.
If the format is your sole criteria, then you have made a grave mistake. If you meant DRM-free, then you should have said that, but all of the formats Apple offers through iTunes are technically superior to mp3. And the DRM is not tied to the format, meaning, I use the formats Apple uses, but I don't use DRM. And my music library just sounds better than your mp3 library.
The real reason it's bad that Lala is going away is that variety and competition is good, less variety and competition is not as good.
The Admin and the Engineer
> Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format
Are you calling AAC homosexual?
Chances are the technology will resurface in a web-based iTunes client one day soon. What are the dates for WWDC again?
When CMP shut down Byte right after I renewed my subscription they didn't send me a check, or even offer me one.
Best Slashdot Co
Commandant Jobs?
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Or maybe it's just that their business model didn't work.
Bizarre that Apple would front cash money for a failing operation. It would probably have been a bit smarter to simply let them fall flat on their face instead of spending so much cash, right?
Everyone's favorite companies are those that are giving free services and running at a loss, and then they complain when they turn to advertising, subscriptions, or just go belly up. iTunes is a sustainable business model, and Lala is not. Deal with it.
What the hell are you talking about? On Lala, you could pay 10 cents per song to stream it as much as you want, or $.99-1.29 to own it outright. And that was not sustainable? They simply offered more options than Apple, they didn't give songs away. Where are you getting your information ... ?
My work here is dung.
despite all the sour stunts they pulled just in the last week (nearing 5 in number), and eclipsing microsoft in regard to evilish behavior per week rating, apple still cant be evil.
...
because it just cant.
if a friend of any of us behaved like apple, i wonder how many of us would keep him/her around them
Read radical news here
Yeah, I lost my hair too.
The whole reason I was using Lala was because my computers (Linux) don't seem to work with iTunes.
Replacing my purchased web songs with an iTunes credit that I can't use doesn't really help me out.
So sad, I love LALA. Tuesdays were filled with random new albums. I'm guessing my next best option is to go with zune monthly pass. Nice job on pushing me towards your competition Apple.
Apple hasn't sold DRMd music for a couple of years now.
No, but they still want me to pay [a total of] $100 to get non-DRM versions of the music that I already bought and own...
Presumably, the same things that keep our cars from flying: time and money.
Whatever it is, it's notablog.
this sucks.
(Interview with Notorious Lawyer Jacques Vergès).
'There Is No Such Thing as Absolute Evil'
He has met Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Che Guevara. He defended 'Carlos the Jackal' and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. Jacques Vergès, 83, is probably the world's most notorious attorney. His latest client is Khieu Samphan, the former head of state of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, who is on trial for war crimes.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Vergès, are you attracted to evil?
Jacques Vergès: Nature is wild, unpredictable and senselessly gruesome. What distinguishes human beings from animals is the ability to speak on behalf of evil. Crime is a symbol of our freedom.
SPIEGEL: That's a cynical worldview.
Vergès: A realistic one.
SPIEGEL: You have defended some of the worst mass murderers in recent history, and you have been called the "devil's advocate." Why do you feel so drawn to clients like Carlos and Klaus Barbie?
Vergès: I believe that everyone, no matter what he may have done, has the right to a fair trial. The public is always quick to assign the label of "monster." But monsters do not exist, just as there is no such thing as absolute evil. My clients are human beings, people with two eyes, two hands, a gender and emotions. That's what makes them so sinister.
SPIEGEL: What do you mean?
Vergès: What was so shocking about Hitler the "monster" was that he loved his dog so much and kissed the hands of his secretaries -- as we know from the literature of the Third Reich and the film "Der Untergang" ("Downfall"). The interesting thing about my clients is discovering what brings them to do these horrific things. My ambition is to illuminate the path that led them to commit these acts. A good trial is like a Shakespeare play, a work of art.
SPIEGEL: Are there any people whose defense you would not take on out of principle?
Vergès: One of my principles is to have no principles. That's why I would not turn down anyone.
SPIEGEL: Let's say, Adolf Hitler...
Vergès: I would have defended Hitler. I would also accept Osama bin Laden as a client, even (US President) George W. Bush -- as long as he pleads guilty.
SPIEGEL: You can't seriously be mentioning Hitler, Bin Laden and Bush, and their failings, in the same breath.
Vergès: Every crime is unique, and so is every criminal. That alone makes such comparisons impossible.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
It's the absolute worse bloat/security nightmare.
The best part of LaLa was the ability to listen to music once to decide if it was worth purchasing. Sure other places provide samples or a song or two, but having a centralized location to listen to the album being reviewed on pitchfork or anywhere else that included the LaLa link was a great feature. Perhaps Apple intends to still provide such a service to be used as direct advertising to Itunes. Not a bad strategy at all.
As opposed to "crooked" AAC with better aural quality at lower bitrates, and no DRM? You know AAC is the modern industry standard for audio encoding, don't you? There's nothing about AAC audio files on iTunes that is any more or less encumbered than MP3 audio files from Lala.
Get a grip.
Edith Keeler Must Die
i started using this service after it was included in Google SERPS... billboard music also had integration with it... i payed in like 20$ and still had a balance on my wallet. its a very small option in the legal terms but you can request a check for your refund... i really dont care for apple store and thats why i was using lala in the first place... i could feel this happening when they aquired the company a couple months ago apparently they just wrote enough code to kick everyone off
1. iPod
2. iPhone
3. Windows Media Player
last I checked, you're still able to buy music from any record store, Amazon.com, or Wallmart online to name a few. I don't think that puts it in the monopoly category.
because if it did, you could, you know, go to a Windows computer, download your music, and put it on a flash drive/CD/network share to transfer to your Linux machine...
It remains to be seen exactly what Apple will do with the assets they acquired when they purchased Lala. Since most companies don't make purchases without intending to use them (Assuming Apple didn't buy the company just to keep it out of the hands of Google.) in some manner, it's likely that they have something planned. There's always the possibility that those plans won't come to fruition, but Apple seems to have been executing well lately.
It would be nice if they incorporated some of Lala's features (e.g. full song previews, web access to purchased songs.) into iTunes in the near future. I liked being able to use Lala to preview an album that I wanted to hear before buying, but I never bought anything from Lala itself. Web access to purchased music (They offered 25 free web-access songs if you registered an account.) was nice, but only really useful if you forget to bring your portable music player or other device with your music collection along.
I think that this just highlights that issue with renting music rather than actually purchasing it. If you don't actually own the music, you're completely at the mercy of the other party. We've already seen other music stores with the rental or DRM model vanish, leaving their customers stranded. I don't know if Lala was profitable, so it's entirely possible that their web service would have vanished of its own accord without Apple pulling the plug. Anyone who actually paid the full $.89 to download the mp3 won't have any problems. At least Apple is giving users some form of credit (Albeit to their own store, so it's not exactly the most selfless act.) which is more than most users get when a company goes out of business or discontinues a service.
Let's hope so.
About a week after lala goes dark.
Music videos are DRM-free too now, apparently. Movies, however, still have DRM.
Why don't the people responsible for it just make a new service that does functionally the same thing?
That would not change what the service does. Patents affect what something does not where it came from. So it does not matter at all where the code came from, you could have written it yourself, if it does functionally the same thing as what is covered by the patent, then it is infringing. That goes even for functionality that does something you think is wholly new and original, but turns out to have been granted a patent 16.999999 years ago. That's why software patents suck and should stay out of Europe and why, in the case of patents, US law should be harmonized with EU law.
Don't confuse patents with copyright.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
your idiotic comment could really be made about anything: all cars are basically blends of different standard metals and plastics... There is such a thing as design, marketing, software... You should read up about it, or shut up.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I was actually listening to a totally FREE, CLEAN MP3 from Lala (found by Google search) when I clicked on Slashdot.
Will this cause me to run out and buy Apple products? H*** no. The only reason I even know that Lala exists, is because stuff got yanked off YouTube, and I started Googling for replacements.
Look, I grew up making cassette tapes off the radio. There's no way I'm going from free to paying. Not gonna happen.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Apple will introduce a streaming music service. Apple knows revolutionary ideas when they see them. They do have to renegotiate the licenses.
Am I happy? No.
But I realize there is evidence that Apple is launching such a service.
Can a company but a competitor just to shut it down?
friends, neighbours, schools, libraries, your local computer store. Surely you can find a Windows box somewhere nearby that you can use/borrow long enough to download your music from iTunes. Once you've used your credits up, you won't need to use iTunes again. Which begs the question, why don't you have all your songs already downloaded and saved in MP3 format from LaLa?
Apple is preparing for Steve's departure. by consolidating their IP and becoming draconian in it's fenced garden. This is very simial to the last time steve started preparing to leave.
I honestly don't see apple surviving long without him at the helm.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Easy fix from the distress(oo) manpage: /sbin/distressd stop.
#
# stopping distressd
#.distressd stopped
it is that people will never learn from history. During the good old days, the Apple II came out and revolutionized the industry. Their systems supported a a community of enthusiasts who build great software, and ushered in the revolution. Then they became arrogant. They developed the Macintosh. It was now my way or the high way. You could no longer build / buy expansion cards. People moved over to the IBM PC, which all though it was ugly, did not force you to be what apple wanted you to be.
For a long while after this apple sucked. Mr. jobs was forced out. Then the competition became arrogant and bloated. Mr. Jobs came back, OSX was introduced, and Apple no longer sucked.
Now I am happy to say the tide is once again changing. ITunes used to be a good music player. Now it is a combination Music player, Video play, video game player, shopping store, all wrapped in one file that take up 900 GB of space. Apple is forcing you to program the way they want you to program (witness flash). They are shutting down sites that are better at music then they are. Hence the cycle is complete. It is only a matter or time before someone new (or old comes back into the game).
This cycle corresponds to the cyclical nature of world powers. Once upon a time. China, and Europe with all those kings, emporers, and endless wars sucked. The cool people left and came to the USA, or were kicked out and went to jail. The USA was so great, that we kicked everyones butt. Then we too became arrogant, and allowed to many lawyers into our country. Now China rocks, and Europe is cool. So it is all one big cycle.
-Time to sell you stock in Apple.
You agreed to buying it DRMd at the time. If you didn't like it you shouldn't have bought it.
Vergès: I believe that everyone, no matter what he may have done, has the right to a fair trial.
It's a sad day for the world when opinions like this are enough to make you "notorious"
Apple hasn't sold DRMd music for a couple of years now.
No, but they still want me to pay [a total of] $100 to get non-DRM versions of the music that I already bought and own...
Music you bought and own knowing at the time of sale that it was wrapped in DRM. Apple hasn't taken away anything, thrive simply made an offer for you to download a non-DRM track if you want, for the difference in price (at the time iTunes Plus was announced, variable pricing which the studios required for all music to be DRM-free). You also get the music in 256k instead of 128k.
Anyway, point being you knew what you were doing, and apparently didn't have too much of a problem with it since you did it over 300 times.
...Although I'm having some connection problems. "Server not found?"
Wait... are you SURE about that? I've been buying music off Amazon for over a year now. I recall right as Amazon rolled out their service, Apple started offering Apple+ (or some such name) without DRM for a 30 cent premium. That's when I flipped Apple the bird and started buying off of Amazon - why should I pay 30 cents more?
But buying from Apple straight onto my ipod would be a lot more convenient, if it's DRM free...
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Well......
I hear people objecting about media consolidation.[...] so they can control what gets shown or not shown on broadcast
Except the Internet is a totally different world.
Old world distribution channels are limited by the number of venues, whether those are radio stations, TV channels, concert halls, or feet of shelf space on record stores. In the old world, artists would be shut out if radio stations wouldn't play them or if Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble wouldn't put them on the shelves. Consolidation in the old world meant even fewer venues, and fewer venues meant less variety.
iTunes sells every song it can get a license to sell. There's no limit to its shelf space, or how many channels it has. New artists aren't going to be shut out of iTunes because there isn't enough room.
The only risk for consumers is that the lack of competition will drive up prices. Luckily, there are still Amazon and other online stores competing with iTunes. And really, since the RIAA cartel restricts the prices for iTunes and everyone else, that's not really an issue anyway.
So many different good things are killed off when they get threatening to the commercial sellers. LaLa of course being very cheap compared to Apple's iTunes songs! I understand the implications for Apple, of course I do, but still a shame. If you can listen to a song fully before downloading (and paying for) it a lot of people will undoubtedly record them and keep them for themselves, but still.....
Be yourself and aim high!
It's not just for Microsoft anymore!
Yes, Apple is going to charge you to upgrade to a different version of the music you already bought. I believe at the time you bought said music it was understood that music was DRM'ed. Now there is another version out there that is not DRM'ed. It will cost more. Apple will charge you an upgrade price not the full price. So what is your complaint? That you have to pay for different versions? That's why I avoided buying much of anything on iTunes until there was a non-DRM version.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Embrace
Extend
Extinguish
This gets +5 insightful?
EEE does not mean "buy out your competition." EEE means "subvert and discredit your competition, forcing them out of business."
An EEE strategy in this case would be:
1. Embrace: Announce that iTunes will become a Lala client, with full support for all Lala features
2. Extend: Offer new, proprietary features through iTunes that are not available through the regular Lala website, fostering dependence on iTunes as a Lala client
3. Extinguish: Remove support for Lala from iTunes, leaving all Lala users dependent on iTunes
In an EEE strategy, Lala would not have gotten a dime from Apple. Apple did not EEE Lala, Lala sold out to the man, plain and simple.
After 1 complete "listen" (is that noun now?), I don't need to bother your web-site for the same song ever again, thank you.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Apple hasn't sold DRMd music for a couple of years now.
No, but they still want me to pay [a total of] $100 to get non-DRM versions of the music that I already bought and own...
I can't tell if you're speaking of 1) music you already bought from Lala, or 2) music you bought from iTunes while it was still DRM'ed and would have to pay extra to get non-DRMed versions.
For 1), this post says that if you already bought it for $.99 to $1.29, you already have it in DRM-free mp3 and don't need to buy new ones. If you paid $0.10 for each of them, you do not in fact own it, but could stream that song whenever you wanted, for as long as the service remained (which again illustrates why low-cost music streaming services aren't good for building collections--the service can disappear at any time).
For 2), yeah it sucks you have to pay to upgrade to DRM-free iTunes versions, but a) they're higher quality, and b) you're only paying the difference , i.e. you're paying $0.30 to replace the song, not $1.29. Assuming this wasn't a limited-time upgrade offer, that's a much better deal than studios usually allow, where you had (and still have) to pay full price when changing media (e.g. vinyl/tape/CD/download, VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray/download).
If only I could get a refund for my hundreds of web songs :(
Serves you right for paying for a license to listen to music instead of a downloaded file that you keep.
Anyone know of a service that sells downloadable, DRM-free music that you can copy to unlimited computers, burn to CD, back up, and maybe use with iPods?
I think the Amazon music store can do that. I wonder if there are any others....
Apple started offering Apple+ (or some such name) without DRM for a 30 cent premium.
A couple of years ago, Apple split the sales model of songs, with normal DRMd songs at $0.99 and non-DRMd songs (encoded at a higher bitrate) for $1.29.
Around a year ago, Apple dispensed with this model and started offering all tracks DRM-free and encoded at the higher bitrate, but in exchange they had to acquiesce to label demands for variable pricing. So some non-DRMd songs are offered at $0.69, some are offered at $0.99 and the rest (usually newer releases) are offered at $1.29. But none are sold with DRM.
What Apple is actually going to do is shove a beam saber through Lala's head...
Bow-ties are cool.
Steve Jobs said today that they shut down Lala because "Flash causes most of the Safari crashes". The apple faithful who attended the press conference looked confused for a moment, but then Jobs waved his hand around for a second and then they smiled and started nodding their heads.
It's very difficult to find people that are pure evil. One memorable conversation a few nights ago revealed that Pat Robertson, for all his horrible business dealings and grotesque perversions of Christianity, is not completely evil: He is environmentally conscious and was one of a handful of demagogues to appear on a series of commercials imploring the public to unite to preserve the planet's health.
Sure, he's still 99% evil, but not 100%. Jobs isn't even 99% in my book.
~ C.
./~ If you don't know Tux from SCO, GTFO. ./~
since you're so strong in your conviction to not use the iTunes store ever, can I have your iTunes credit when Apple sends it to you?
If the price goes from $.10 to $.99, isn't that 8.9x more, and not 9.9x more as stated?
MP3 isn't the only way to distribute non-DRM music.
An M4A file from iTunes is an AAC file in an MPEG 4 Audio envelope. AAC provides better quality at the same bitrates, generally speaking.
Audacity may or may not support opening the file, but it is *not* DRM'd or locked down in any way. You can convert it to a MP3 if you really want to.
That's what they want, but there's no reason to do so. Just use an old version of iTunes, QTFairUse6.exe and a windows box. Strip all the DRM and you're done.
That's what I did with all the free Pepsi bottle-cap, and Free-this-week songs I got off iTunes. Not one to buy downloaded music, still a CD luddite myself...
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
That was funny. Sorry you got modded down for it. (For casual readers, "distressd" was another mistake in the summary.)
Put identity in the browser.
Really? They own LaLa now?
sigh.
Of course, I had to google that. Here's the full interview:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,591943,00.html
An extraordinarily interesting interview, to say the least. Well worth a full read.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
No, but they still want me to pay [a total of] $100 to get non-DRM versions of the music that I already rented ...
FTFY
Put identity in the browser.
AMEN to everything you wrote!
Apple hasn't sold DRMd music for a couple of years now.
They don't have to. Ever try sharing an MP3 with someone that owns an iPhone without installing iTunes? You can't.
Yes, I know. And I didn't particularly care. But they are still charging me to change that. If they really wanted to show good will and really change their position on DRM, wouldn't it have made sense that they would actually GIVE me DRM-free copies?
Yes. I knew what I was doing. My point is that Apple has not gone away from the dark side. They appeared to realize they had better offer DRM-free music or people would start getting REALLY upset; yet they still want to make money off their previous DRM'd music. In other words, they don't think DRM'd music is "wrong" suddenly; they just are going with the popular opinion/popular desire. And try to make money off the shift while they're at it.
My point? Just because Apple now sells DRM-free music doesn't mean Apple is anti-DRM.
If I am not mistaken (and I may be), aac is MORE open than mp3. aac is an open standard (IIRC), whereas *technically* you're supposed to pay for an MP3 encoder/decoder. Not withstanding the fact that there are free mp3 encoder/decoders (which are technically illegal though not in any way likely to get you in trouble). At worst aac is no more encumbered than mp3, but I think it's actually more open.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
as Lala was a much better music service, offering songs in straight MP3 format
iTunes offers 256kbs DRM-Free AAC. AAC is a much, much, much better format then MP3.
No, I will not work for your startup
... not Apple's. Apple has always been very Machiavellian.
However, it's made up for it by providing the best toys and by using those somewhat slimy?? slick?? hmm... liquid ethics in the service of usability. Apple was never about "Do no evil". Apple has always been about "Do neat (and, occasionally, insanely great) things while retaining a healthy profit margin."
Nothing to see here - just another company buying market share.
That is all.
Why does a Citroen C1 cost less than a Peugeot 107, despite being literally the same car (and I do mean literally), but with a different badge on the front?
Packaging makes a lot of difference, and the external design of the box that holds all those standard PC parts, as well as the OS that runs on it differentiates a Mac from a PC. It's really no surprise that they cost different amounts - they are priced at a point the market will bear, and clearly people buy them.
Whether the price is worth it to an individual consumer, however, is a personal decision.
For me the cost of my iMac was well worth it for the form factor of the machine itself. I could have built a hackintosh for a lot less, but then I would have been missing out on the iMac's form factor, which was a big part of the reason I bought it.
Not everything about buying a computer boils down to "what specific RAM does it have, and specific hard drive type, and specific CPU". There are other things that go into making a product.
It's also not a stretch to see why some things cost more - the MacBook Pro case is made from a single piece of machined aluminium - is it any wonder that costs more than the plastic case a Dell is made out of? I'm not saying the Dell is junk, but the fact of the matter is that it is literally cheaper to make the case, even if the internal parts are the same (like the Ram, HD and CPU).
Some things cost more, some things cost less.
You can request a refund from Lala if you do it before May 31st.
I have.
I don't know if it will help with the songs you purchased for unlimited streaming, but you can try for a refund, at least. The situation is still disappointing, even if you do get a refund. :(
It won't.
Or rather, I should say that I won't fight tooth and nail for a nicety. I enjoyed it while it lasted, and at the price I paid, I ought not complain.
You can also burn that DRM'ed audio to CD, stripping off the DRM using iTunes.
Apple even strongly encouraged you to do so when you bought it - displaying a suggestion when you downloaded it.
It's clearly not ideal (format shift) but it's not like the option is "pay money" or "be stuck with DRM tracks".
Isn't it just the worst when people don't recognize the obvious superiority of your opinions and get in line? Stupid fucking free will.
They wanted DRM free from the start - it was a stated goal of Apple's that there be no DRM. Remember the "Rip, Mix, Burn" adverts? Their extension of that was to be able to buy music online as well as rip it from your CDs.
However, they had no choice - the labels had the content and would not allow it to be sold without DRM, so they had to add it. They made it as weak as they could get away with, and even included the ability to burn your tracks to Audio CD, stripping off the DRM.
In their later negotiations to remove DRM entirely, they reached a compromise with the labels that involved the introduction of tiered pricing for the removal of DRM.
Um, Jobs was the first music industry figure to call for DRM-free music. Charging 30 cents is required to pay the labels. Do you think the labels would be fine letting you redownload a DRM track DRM-free? On the other hand, what motivation does Apple have to charge you to do so? They make very little money on their Music Store. The purpose of the store is to add value to the iPod (and there's little doubt that this has worked very well for them).
My point? Just because Apple now sells DRM-free music doesn't mean Apple is anti-DRM.
Not a single person said they were. They are anti-DRM with regards to music, though.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
This was written before there were any truly above-board, major-label, DRM-free online music stores.
Just burn them to CD and re-rip them, and stop whining. You knew they were DRM-ed at the time. When CDs came out, you had to re-buy all your old tapes/records on CD.
And you are completely omitting the fact that the products are different.
Apple aren't simply putting an Apple badge on a Dell and putting the price up, they are building a different computer.
Yes, the internal parts (HD, Ram, CPU etc) are indeed commodity parts - I am well aware of that (and in fact, use that fact to my advantage since I do a lot of upgrades and it's nice to be able to buy off the shelf parts). The box that they put them in, and the software supplied is where the added value comes in *to some people*.
You are being disingenuous that it's like putting a Ferrari badge on a Mustang - there are differences that separate the products.
I mentioned in my post that a Dell laptop and a Macbook Pro have very similar internal parts, but that the case of the Dell is injection moulded ABS plastic and the Macbook Pro case is made from a single piece of machined aluminium. The Macbook pro costs more - do you really think it's merely that they are charging more for the internal pieces?
Not to mention that the OS is different - buying a Mac is the only way to officially get OS X, and that is worth it for some people.
I think it is you who is blinded by Apple hate or some other misunderstanding of how a market works to see that for some people, the value of an item is not solely determined by how it is made up.
What if you took two products - a Mustang and a Ferrari 360 and melted both of them down in a giant furnace and recovered all the base elements from them and separated them out. Which one is worth more now? Presumably the heavier one - so likely the mustang, since you'll get a lot of steel out of it. The 360 has a lot of carbon fibre, so break that down and you get elemental carbon as a large potion of that, which is very cheap.
The value of products is not just about the parts it is made from. Commodity PC parts are part of Apple's products - this is not what makes them more expensive.
The cost of commodity parts from Apple is pretty standard - look at the price for extra RAM in BTO models. The costs are very similar to what other retailers are charging, even retailers like Crucial, who sell the same modules for almost the same price (within a few dollars/pounds). Their upgrade prices for hard drives are also similar.
I'm extremely glad Apple uses off the shelf parts. It was very handy when I put a new hard drive in my iMac.
That je-ne-sais-quoi is the Mac OS X: the secret sauce that makes everything work nicely.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Seems I was partially wrong (Slashdot user admits to error! Film at 11!). aac is patent encumbered, just like mp3. On the bright side, the licensing requirements are considerably looser.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Man, your history is off.
Before the IBM PC, before the dark times, there were numerous personal computer manufacturers, the predominant home computers being made by Apple, Radio Shack, and Commodore. Apple was arguably dominant, but there were thriving communities around all of them. However, you can't judge them by today's standards. The communities were very small by today's standards, and there weren't many computers. There are thriving communities around a lot of Linux distros today, and that might be a good explanation.
Then IBM issued their Personal Computer, and personal computing changed irrevocably. IBM was able to sell into the business in a way that no previous personal computer company had been able to. The size of the personal computing market increased dramatically, but it was almost all due to the PC business. Various companies tried to compete in the business market, and were unsuccessful. To name one, Radio Shack did its best to produce computers better than the IBM PC but not quite compatible, but that didn't last long.
The other problem was that the IBM PC was, at least potentially, much more powerful than the older computers. The 8088 had upgrade paths much better than the 6502s and Z80s and 8080s that had dominated personal computing, and it was already capable of directly addressing much more memory. The Apple II got upgraded to the 65816, if memory serves, but it wasn't a match. This meant that the old communities were doomed. There was no smooth upgrade path for the Commodore owner to something comparable to the IBM PC AT, with a screaming 8MHz 80286.
They developed the Macintosh not out of arrogance, but out of necessity. The Apple II line was running out of steam. The Apple III was a failure. No attempt to come up with something that wasn't an IBM PC clone was working. At this point, Radio Shack sold IBM PC clones, Commodore and Atari were limping along with dead-end products, and Apple wasn't in better shape.
Apple needed to come up with something different from the IBM PC, and succeeded. At first, there were the "toaster Macs", which were very hard to upgrade. (I upgraded the RAM on one, and it wasn't easy.) Then they moved to an open chassis, which was far easier to get into, similar to IBM PC clones. They always provided good developer support, aside from coming along and changing things unexpectedly.
So, you're wrong in several ways. The Apple II was not the industry leader, but rather an industry leader. People had been moving to the IBM PC (and far more of them just started with it) for a long time before the Macintosh, and the Mac is what started them moving back.
If we learn one thing from history, it's that people will never learn history. Instead, they'll mash together some odd anachronistic facts to suit their own prejudices.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Not every day, but it does seem to be increasing every week, or perhaps just every month.
Consider that it may be due to changed circumstances. A few years ago when Apple acted evil, it only affected those who were committed to it...often idealistically committed. These days it is having a much bigger impact on the average user. So it's more significant when they do something evil.
If you ever though that Apple was a good company, you just weren't paying attention. This was safe, as there was a large space to go to when you didn't like something they did. If, however, you invest a lot of money in something, say a collection of LaLa music, and you are suddenly told "That music is going away, but we'll give you the cost of it as credits at our new store, where things cost 10 times as much" (I'm relying on another poster for that figure.), then it's understandable if you are less than enchanted with the company coercing you thusly. These aren't people who CHOSE to use Apple, these are people coerced into using them.
An analogous action happens whenever a company ties you into a long-term service agreement, and then raises the price a lot in the middle of the agreement. This is clearly "Bait and Switch", but the usual laws don't usually cover this technique. So the people who get shafted are unhappy with the entity applying the shaft. (N.B.: In some of these deals, the entity applying the shaft had no say in what would happen. Like the way the phone company collects taxes. There are commercial analogues to that measure, which insulate the malefactor from public anger over the results of his misdeeds.)
Apple has deserved bad press ever since the days of the Apple ][. They also generally deserve all the good press they get, and that's been continuing. (If you check, you should see that there are also more stories praising Apple ;than there were in an equivalent period a year or two ago.) But when most of the people affected by Apple's actions were committed to them, bad press wasn't interesting to anyone, and good press was mainly interested to those committed. Now there's a broader base for the stories, and a lot fewer of them are willing to uncritically praise Apple.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
it's a song about the topic, how the fuck is that off topic?
-1 horrid maybe, but certainly not off topic.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I have multiple 8GB SD cards loaded up wiith different kinds of music.
That sounds very inefficient and awkward. It's 2010, and you're still using music in a similar way to CDs and vinyl records? You're needlessly tying your music to a physical object in an era where that is totally unnecessary.
... and then they built the supercollider.
They don't have to. Ever try sharing an MP3 with someone that owns an iPhone without installing iTunes? You can't.
Why not? You can give them the file on any number of media - CD, USB drive, SD card, FTP server, email, "cloud" service, etc. Why do you need to install iTunes?
... and then they built the supercollider.
MPAA has not given up on DRM yet.
RIAA did. End of story.
If Apple really was truly DRM-free from the start, why did they force DRM on independent artists and labels music if they wanted to sell on the iTunes music store, even if the artists and labels didn't want DRM on their music? Apple only changed their stance on this when the big labels allowed Apple to sell music DRM-free. Asn far as I'm concerned, Steve Jobs is full of shit. He was very pro-DRM and pro-lockin, and only changed his mind when he realized he could make more money by going DRM-free.
It was part of their contract with the big labels.
Your paranoia and pre-judgement is clouding the issue, that somehow Steve Jobs is some sort of Machiavellian character with a villainous moustache, an evil laugh with echo sound effect and a long black cape.
As soon as the contract was renegotiated, the DRM was gone - from everyone.
It wasn't the labels "allowing" DRM free - it was negotiated with them. They were quite happy to continue the status quo, but they did want variable pricing. The compromise was variable pricing structures for DRM removal.
As a whole, Apple are pretty anti-DRM - their install DVD is completely devoid of it, there's no phone home, no online activation, no serial number. It just contains a text file that says "please do not steal OS X" that you can remove and then reburn the image to a DVD to create an installer that works on a hackintosh.
They support open formats and standards, especially in interoperability. Their production apps (iWork, iLife) store files in an open and documented XML format (in contrast to the closed .doc, .xls etc MS Office formats) so anyone can write compatible software/converters, they use .mbox for mail, they support NFS for file serving, they store their address book data and calendar information in open formats, and provide open source CalDAV and CardDAV servers, their primary audio and video formats are AAC and H.264, which while patented (like mp3) are open and not controlled by Apple (there's no "lock in" to Apple products by using these codecs).
I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time seeing just how "pro-lock in" and "pro-DRM" they are, other than the fact that the iPhone features a controlled software ecosystem.
Given that the existing Lala subscribers all had contracts with Lala, and any changes that Apple are making will be within the terms of those contracts, perhaps it's fairer to blame Lala for writing such evil contracts in the first place? If the founders of Lala had really been focused on the interests of their customers, they would have given them fairer contracts, or held on to their company, rather than selling out as soon as they got a good-enough offer.
The world has changed and we all have become metal men.
I stand corrected. However, I don't think these change the original premise (that apple got arrogant, and declined because of it).
The 68K processor was better the the 8088. If I recall the Motorola line of processors was alway considered better the the Intel line (back in the day). The Macintosh just never had the support that the Intel based PC's developed. I would claim that this was because they insisted on 'controlling the scene' rather then let the scene develop and play itself out.
I would say that apple only came back because the competition really sucked, and things were ripe to be shake up. Would Microsoft still be selling some updated version of windows XP, if OSX had not come out?
If the major record labels tried that, it would be a pretty blatant antitrust violation. That's not to say that they didn't do exactly that, as we don't know the details of the deal Apple struck with the record labels. However, if that's the case, then Apple knowingly went along with something that their lawyers almost certainly told them was illegal and blatantly anti-consumer.
But Lala didn't change the terms of the agreement. Apple did. So Apple deserves at least the majority, and perhaps all, of the blame.
You could say that the contracts gave Lala the opportunity to act in an evil way, but that they never chose to act in that way. It might have been better if they had written a more decent contract, but even though they had the opportunity they still chose not to act evilly. (I can think of several possible reasons as to why they might have written the contracts that way, and I have no way of knowing which of these stories is true. So it's more reasonable to judge them based on their known actions.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
WOW. Thanks for the info! I'm going to go back to buying stuff on iTunes now. I dunno if it's just in my head, but it seems the Amazon songs are of lower sound quality - never bothered to look up the bitrates though.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
FYI, that trick won't work if the account for which the DRMd song are "authorized" has ever logged in with a later version of iTunes. Fortunately, I only had to go to a back version of iTunes to get a song that no one else sold one time.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
You say that like it's a good thing.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Really? That's weird, as I had a PC (work's) with the old version of iTunes for stripping the DRM, and a Mac (personal) which I kept iTunes up to date on, and did the actual downloads from iTunes of the DRM'd songs.
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