The restriction only applies to music downloaded from the iTS. To require hundreds of blank CDs to transfer your music purchased from the iTunes Store you'd have had to have bought thousands of songs. Anyone who's done that doesn't worry about the price of a few blank CDs.
Whether you ripped your CD collection or got them from p2p Apple don't interfere with that.
The nano doesn't even include iTunes anymore. To make smaller packaging they don't include a CD. There isn't a EULA until you download software from the internet. There's nothing to stop you installing Linux on the iPod and using it with whatever player you want.
Breaking fairplay on downloaded songs is a different matter but installing software to allow DVD Jon's DRM of choice isn't a problem as long as you don't weren't that attached to your warrenty or being able to get update the firmware on the iPod.
It's not on software update either yet. I think I'll wait until firefox wants to upgrade and then I'll do one last check that all my extensions have been updated.
Or maybe the infringement happened during or shortly before 2002. IBM actually do a lot of research while Amazon didn't even exist in 1993. They were founded 2 years later.
Amazon have been quite litigious with obvious (allegedly) patents. There's a good chance IBM did most of that stuff earlier.
Can we get him to apologise to the AC grandparent for IE6 and all the issues that have caused such a strong reaction in so many other people to Microsoft and IE?
Or how might it have helped negotiating your consulting fees? What would you have done if you heard that there had been trouble over a leak of information?
Actually I found tabbed browsing very useful on dial up all those years ago using early versions of Opera.
Since there's a slow connection you could end up waiting a few minutes for a page to load. My connection was the limiting factor not the amount of RAM I had. I could be reading one page of while I was waiting for whatever else I wanted to read was downloading. Keep a few tabs open and as soon as you had everything to keep you going for a while go offline and read at your leisure.
Back then I thought tabbed browsing a pretty great innovation.
Wouldn't even be that much of a risk to Apple because it's specialized enough not to be a direct competitor. It would just be another option for Apple users with the need for a computer designed to work in harsher environments. Actually the toughbook could pick up a few things from Apple too like the magsafe power connector.
No kidding. Gartner says that Apple sales growth is unsustainable because their margins are too high. Even if margins drop to normal levels it wouldn't necessarily effect sales. It might effect profits though. The latest market share figures but Apple's worldwide share at about half of their share of the US market.
I don't think people are predicting that Apple are going to overtake Dell anytime soon but they're growing and profitable. Even if Apple were to license to Dell (or HP) their hardware is unique and desirable. The latest sales figures prove that Apple don't need Dell. What's most surprising is that almost 2/3rds of Apple's computer sales come from only 3 models of laptop. Maybe that's the reason that Gartner are missing as to why Apple have such a high margin and not anything to do with Intel discounts. Top of the line laptops typically have higher margins than beige boxes discounted in their thousands.
An alcoholic can give up alcohol. Power usage is a more complex problem more akin to someone who eats too much. You're shortening your life-span and risking ill-health. You can't stop eating though. You can stop eating fast food and still eat unhealthily. The solution requires a lot more effort and the effort is constant.
For some addictions stopping the destructive behaviour altoghether is easier than constant moderation every day for the rest of your life.
No, it's a stalemate. Users aren't forced to use GIMP (unlike some other software) they are free to use any alternative they can find.
Developers don't have to accommodate you and you don't have to use their program (or you can change it if you know how).
The end result is an application which is still developed actively and has a loyal user base but which the majority of people (outside of slashdot of course) have never heard of and are unlikely to ever use.
You wouldn't want to be paying the kind of developers that regard that as a win.
It's important to understand exactly how casual the casual market is. My sister bought a GBA because she had a 7 hour wait in an airport and it seemed like something she'd use a lot. She certainly got her moneys worth out of it. For Nintendo that's not something very untypical. It's why they include batteries with GBAs. The switch to lithium was probably inevitable though. They are the ultimate impulse purchase. An iPod doesn't compare because you have to load music onto it so it's not something that can be used out of the box.
They should see what happens if they release Opera (and Skype) outside Japan. Games are great and the system is a lot of fun. The DS already has limited VOIP capability and even factoring in the cost of a ROM with Skype it would be cheaper than some of the wi-fi Skype phones beginning to appear.
The PS2 was a relatively cheap DVD player once upon a time and that certainly encouraged some people to invest in one.
1: Switching a phone off to just use the mp3 player mode isn't a new idea. It's the only option for listening to your mp3 on a suitable phone if you're on a plane.
2: Most people are used enough to using portable devices with limited battery life to be able to overcome that. Mobile phone games have never really presented a problem and there are plenty of ways to charge phones on the go. Battery packs/ spare batteries would probably become more popular. Also from a weight saving perspective you are replacing two batteries in two devices with one battery in one device. Presumably people would be happy with slightly larger mp3 playing phones to get longer battery life when they need it. This would have the advantage of more power for phone calls/standby if that's what you want.
3: They don't have to be as good. Just good enough to do the job for most people.
4: True but people lose mobile phones the whole time and still go out and buy expensive ones. I'd see a mp3 playing mobile phone as more of an alternative to a phone + shuffle or base model nano. Spending more on an electronic device is always a risk because of their inherent brittleness and losability (sorry).
Finally and most importantly, it will still be possible to have 2 or more devices. Some people prefer one and will be willing to put up with all sorts of compromises for that convenience.
Zune's wireless sharing isn't a killer app. Jobs knows this. Ballmer should. From a technical standpoint all the ingredients are already in place in the Zune for this to be genuinely useful. Random wireless p2p sharing isn't really practical. Where the wireless sharing would be really useful would be having a base station in Starbucks, GAP, airports etc where you could download songs for free. The M$ DRM there makes more sense. But that would require a pull model instead of Microsofts push model.
You could still have a song of the day to allow people to try out new music. Record stores might like something like that. Instead of listening to headphones in a store you push a button which sends the song to any zunes within range (which accept it). You get 3 chances to decide if you like it and then buy the song. But, such usage is totally at odds with Microsofts marketing.
In fairness, Apple have made similar mistakes at times. Podcasting started and grew without them. They were very quick to tap into it though which comes back to your point about Jobs being a perfectionist who doesn't want to release something until it works perfectly. Incidentally the Zune sharing wouldn't fit too well with the iTS as it functions currently. It would however be perfect for the wide range of playsforsure stores.
Except that MSN Search is default on many Windows computers. Yahoo search is still huge. Google might be as ubiquitous as it gets but it's still only representitive of Google users.
In any case using browser information isn't a reliable method of measuring OS share and not because Firefox, Opera and IE (once upon a time) are available on multiple platforms. Browser information also indicates the how much each browser is being used to access the internet. If one OS is used more for browsing (i.e. is online more often) than others it's apparent market share would rise.
How is iTS DRM different in terms of region encoding. I live in Ireland and can only get what's available in the Irish iTS. No free single of the week, no movies, smaller catalogue, higher prices. I missed the part about any of that being better than a DVD player which takes 2 minutes of searching on the net to region unlock.
Apple laptops are much harder to region unlock. I like iTS but I wouldn't call it more region friendly than the DVD implementation.
Google has a LOT of money to lobby for changes in copyright law/interpretation of the DMCA etc. In the last few years it was a case of huge corporations which employ thousands of people losing out to tiny companies noone had ever heard of like Napster and Kazaa. There was noone strong enough to fight the fair use corner properly. ISPs, mp3 manufacturers etc. wanted just enough infringement that people would buy broadband but not enough to swamp the networks.
For the most part the RIAA and MPAA have gotten whatever they want over the last few years from regulators. Google are sensible, music videos never made money directly. They only ever sold records. Youtube still does that. The record labels will be very happy to get income from youtube/free advertising and a one click way for people to download songs after watching the video.
The other major source of copyright infringement on youtube (because clips are necessarily short) are often short sports highlights, moments from TV shows or trailers. The reason they are so popular is that there's no other way to see those highlights for many people. There's money to be made in sport highlights but the rights holders have multiyear billion dollar deals that don't really include a practical way to see that tackle everyone has been talking about in the game you missed.
This actually seems a much more effective strategy than trying to force Microsoft to behave using massive, complicated legal actions. Enforcing them has proved next to impossible at every step and when Microsoft does eventually comply it's only becuase it's too late by then to affect them.
A much more effective response for EU governments is simply to stop buying Microsoft themselves. France trying to lead the EU governments into a switch to ODF will go a long way towards removing Microsofts ability to manipulate the market in the EU.
Of course, reducing their costs in the long-term helps too.
I've been to Sweden. They all had great English so tourists won't have a problem. Learning Swedish is much more important though for working over there from what I've heard.
They're really friendly, hard working and intelligent people but the taxes there will put you off.
Revenue is more important. An iPod might be about $300 dollars. At 33% profit that's $100 profit for each iPod. 10 cents profit per song requires you to buy 1000 songs (total cost $10,000 not including the iPod). Most iPod owners don't spend that kind of money downloading songs.
Apple sells an average 20 songs or so per iPod. They're making money but only about $2 per iPod. Even if Apple were keeping 100% of the income from iTS it'd still only be $20 profit per iPod. Apple makes plenty of money from iTS at the moment but $150m (1.5b songs at $0.10 margin per song) makes iTSs profits only a little more significant than.mac (1 million subscribers X $99 makes $99m income) to Apples bottom line.
It's not that iTS doesn't make money but it's easy to see how much more important selling iPods is. iTS is just a little extra profit to sweeten things up at the moment. Later on it will become very important.
Slashdot Mirror
Whether you ripped your CD collection or got them from p2p Apple don't interfere with that.
Breaking fairplay on downloaded songs is a different matter but installing software to allow DVD Jon's DRM of choice isn't a problem as long as you don't weren't that attached to your warrenty or being able to get update the firmware on the iPod.
It's not on software update either yet. I think I'll wait until firefox wants to upgrade and then I'll do one last check that all my extensions have been updated.
Amazon have been quite litigious with obvious (allegedly) patents. There's a good chance IBM did most of that stuff earlier.
Can we get him to apologise to the AC grandparent for IE6 and all the issues that have caused such a strong reaction in so many other people to Microsoft and IE?
Or how might it have helped negotiating your consulting fees? What would you have done if you heard that there had been trouble over a leak of information?
Since there's a slow connection you could end up waiting a few minutes for a page to load. My connection was the limiting factor not the amount of RAM I had. I could be reading one page of while I was waiting for whatever else I wanted to read was downloading. Keep a few tabs open and as soon as you had everything to keep you going for a while go offline and read at your leisure.
Back then I thought tabbed browsing a pretty great innovation.
Have you heard of the RIAA?
Wouldn't even be that much of a risk to Apple because it's specialized enough not to be a direct competitor. It would just be another option for Apple users with the need for a computer designed to work in harsher environments. Actually the toughbook could pick up a few things from Apple too like the magsafe power connector.
I don't think people are predicting that Apple are going to overtake Dell anytime soon but they're growing and profitable. Even if Apple were to license to Dell (or HP) their hardware is unique and desirable. The latest sales figures prove that Apple don't need Dell. What's most surprising is that almost 2/3rds of Apple's computer sales come from only 3 models of laptop. Maybe that's the reason that Gartner are missing as to why Apple have such a high margin and not anything to do with Intel discounts. Top of the line laptops typically have higher margins than beige boxes discounted in their thousands.
... of marketing buzzwords
For some addictions stopping the destructive behaviour altoghether is easier than constant moderation every day for the rest of your life.
Developers don't have to accommodate you and you don't have to use their program (or you can change it if you know how).
The end result is an application which is still developed actively and has a loyal user base but which the majority of people (outside of slashdot of course) have never heard of and are unlikely to ever use.
You wouldn't want to be paying the kind of developers that regard that as a win.
It's important to understand exactly how casual the casual market is. My sister bought a GBA because she had a 7 hour wait in an airport and it seemed like something she'd use a lot. She certainly got her moneys worth out of it. For Nintendo that's not something very untypical. It's why they include batteries with GBAs. The switch to lithium was probably inevitable though. They are the ultimate impulse purchase. An iPod doesn't compare because you have to load music onto it so it's not something that can be used out of the box.
The PS2 was a relatively cheap DVD player once upon a time and that certainly encouraged some people to invest in one.
2: Most people are used enough to using portable devices with limited battery life to be able to overcome that. Mobile phone games have never really presented a problem and there are plenty of ways to charge phones on the go. Battery packs/ spare batteries would probably become more popular. Also from a weight saving perspective you are replacing two batteries in two devices with one battery in one device. Presumably people would be happy with slightly larger mp3 playing phones to get longer battery life when they need it. This would have the advantage of more power for phone calls/standby if that's what you want.
3: They don't have to be as good. Just good enough to do the job for most people.
4: True but people lose mobile phones the whole time and still go out and buy expensive ones. I'd see a mp3 playing mobile phone as more of an alternative to a phone + shuffle or base model nano. Spending more on an electronic device is always a risk because of their inherent brittleness and losability (sorry).
Finally and most importantly, it will still be possible to have 2 or more devices. Some people prefer one and will be willing to put up with all sorts of compromises for that convenience.
You could still have a song of the day to allow people to try out new music. Record stores might like something like that. Instead of listening to headphones in a store you push a button which sends the song to any zunes within range (which accept it). You get 3 chances to decide if you like it and then buy the song. But, such usage is totally at odds with Microsofts marketing.
In fairness, Apple have made similar mistakes at times. Podcasting started and grew without them. They were very quick to tap into it though which comes back to your point about Jobs being a perfectionist who doesn't want to release something until it works perfectly. Incidentally the Zune sharing wouldn't fit too well with the iTS as it functions currently. It would however be perfect for the wide range of playsforsure stores.
In any case using browser information isn't a reliable method of measuring OS share and not because Firefox, Opera and IE (once upon a time) are available on multiple platforms. Browser information also indicates the how much each browser is being used to access the internet. If one OS is used more for browsing (i.e. is online more often) than others it's apparent market share would rise.
Apple laptops are much harder to region unlock. I like iTS but I wouldn't call it more region friendly than the DVD implementation.
For the most part the RIAA and MPAA have gotten whatever they want over the last few years from regulators. Google are sensible, music videos never made money directly. They only ever sold records. Youtube still does that. The record labels will be very happy to get income from youtube/free advertising and a one click way for people to download songs after watching the video.
The other major source of copyright infringement on youtube (because clips are necessarily short) are often short sports highlights, moments from TV shows or trailers. The reason they are so popular is that there's no other way to see those highlights for many people. There's money to be made in sport highlights but the rights holders have multiyear billion dollar deals that don't really include a practical way to see that tackle everyone has been talking about in the game you missed.
A much more effective response for EU governments is simply to stop buying Microsoft themselves. France trying to lead the EU governments into a switch to ODF will go a long way towards removing Microsofts ability to manipulate the market in the EU.
Of course, reducing their costs in the long-term helps too.
And there was me thinking google were more concerned with sourceforge.
The pirates are working, praise be to his noodly appendage!
They're really friendly, hard working and intelligent people but the taxes there will put you off.
Revenue is more important. An iPod might be about $300 dollars. At 33% profit that's $100 profit for each iPod. 10 cents profit per song requires you to buy 1000 songs (total cost $10,000 not including the iPod). Most iPod owners don't spend that kind of money downloading songs.
Apple sells an average 20 songs or so per iPod. They're making money but only about $2 per iPod. Even if Apple were keeping 100% of the income from iTS it'd still only be $20 profit per iPod. Apple makes plenty of money from iTS at the moment but $150m (1.5b songs at $0.10 margin per song) makes iTSs profits only a little more significant than .mac (1 million subscribers X $99 makes $99m income) to Apples bottom line.
It's not that iTS doesn't make money but it's easy to see how much more important selling iPods is. iTS is just a little extra profit to sweeten things up at the moment. Later on it will become very important.