Beware the Apple iPhone iHandcuffs 406
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?"
Locked music? What about locked OS? (Score:5, Interesting)
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} [typepad.com]
Forever and ever, amen. (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:"Fresh"? More like -1 Redundant (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Apple picked the least evil option (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is dumb! (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
iPhone ? iPod: The Article Misses The Point! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Don't buy it if you don't like it... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:It's about iTMS, not iPod (Score:3, Interesting)
Unnoticed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe people are noticing and they just don't care. Maybe the people who care are decidedly in the minority. Ever consider that?