August 07, 2004
"riding on top of everyone else's platform"
Drunkenbatman has a fascinating essay called Convergence Kills, about where Apple might be heading with its new technologies. He argues that convergence (the gradual merging of all our digital gadgets into one) is going to take the path of mobile phones eating everything else. Why? Because your phone is the one thing you always carry. Phones are already turning into cameras and PDA's, and also Internet browsers. Apple has just partnered with Motorola to include their music technology into the next generation of phones, which will work like iPods, though only holding 15 songs!
Apple has claimed that its iTunes Music Store is mostly a loss-leader to sell their very profitable iPods. Maybe it's the other way around:
There's an old adage about magicians; if you want to learn the trick, close your ears and open your eyes. Well it might not go exactly like that, but that's the lesson I took from it.Apple has a head start, but a lot of other players will be trying to do the same thing...Good luck.When people are talking, you have a natural inclination to look at their eyes, and if they're doing something with one hand chances are you really need to be watching the other if you want to see what they're really up to. In other words, watch the hands. And Apple is particularly adept at misdirection...
. . . . . . . ....Apple is playing towards that exact same endgame, but with a twist: they're creating a new light-DRM [Digital Rights Management] platform that is riding on top of everyone else's platform. iMacs, Windows, mobile phones, everything. Google is also creating a platform riding on the backs of other platforms... except its based around becoming the access point for all things internet. Apple wants that, but for DRM content.
They weren't kidding around with their vision of the computer as a hub for your digital life, they just forgot to mention that the hub will come with a lock. And guess who owns the keys?
(Thanks to Joe Katzman)
My next cell-phone will have a camera for sure. I'm always seeing odd things and wishing I had a camera handy. And look at this--one inch hards drives for phones! It's coming.
It is precisely “who has the keys” that prevents me from buying music at Apple’s music store. If the future is DRM, we’ll all be a bit less free for it...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at August 7, 2004 10:47 AMYour comment is unclear. Nothing is preventing you from buying from Apple. Go here, download iTunes.
Perhaps you mean that you don't like the limitations of Apple's DRM. Frankly I think they are a pretty generous compromise between the traditional music industry position of "nobody copies nothin'" and the blatant thievery of Napster and Limewire.
A lot of proposed DRM schemes seem to be horribly thuggish. You should be glad Apple is trying to create a solution that gives you a lot of freedom without having the artists and companies be totally ripped off.
You can copy iTunes music to 5 computers, stream it over your network, burn CD's....What's so oppressive about that?
John, I'm wanting my laptop to turn into a cellphone rather than the reverse. Theoretically possible now, I suppose, but not user-friendly enough for me, yet.
Posted by: Alan Sullivan at August 8, 2004 07:44 AMLet me be more clear: I am pissed that someone has “keys” to products that I own. I am annoyed that apple could one day decide that I need to be shut out of my own song list. I hate the fact that if I put music onto an Ipod, I can’t copy it over to another computer...
I use Itunes as my primary music player, and enjoy it. For my birthday, my parents offered me a US$50 gift certificate for the Itunes music store. I turned them down. The DRM annoys me that much...
While you are correct that Apple’s DRM is less severe than what others want, I’m still not convinced that DRM is even necessary, let alone good. Let’s be absolutely clear here-- I’ve downloaded movies and then bought them on DVD. I’ve downloaded music and made the decision based on those downloads to buy an album...
When DRM is default, the industry is saying a priori that I am a thief. I resent that quite a bit. Yes, Apple is making the best deal they can in a piss-poor situation. That doesn’t mean that I have to buy into it. Until Downloading becomes a better experience, I’ll stick to CDs...
