“Unquestioning faith in all things [Apple and Steve Jobs] is a bad idea,” Brad King blogs for Technology Review. “The immediate response I get when I bring this up is always the same: Microsoft is soooo much worse. But I disagree. There is an army of programmers around the world who are developing applications, work-arounds, and other goodies that allow me to circumvent most of the aspects about Microsoft products I don’t like. The coolest thing that I do is record television with my PC, hack the DRM, burn it to a DVD, and take that program with me anywhere. But I know that’s doesn’t even touch the tip of the iceberg.”
“However, that’s not what really, really sticks in my craw. I reserve that (possibly irrational) anger for the iPod and iTunes, two music products that are so restrictive in their licensing and user set-ups that I have never been able to bring myself download the software to purchase music through iTunes or pony up the cash to by [sic] and [sic] iPod,” King writes. “It’s fairly well publicized that if you have music on your hard drive, music you’ve purchased a license to use through iTunes, and your computer crashes — you lose all of that music. It’s not a common occurrence for sure (at least, I hope it’s not), but when it does happen (as it nearly did to one editor here), your view of Apple suddenly, and dramatically, changes. (This doesn’t even begin to touch on the fact that the iPod was clearly not the first digital music player, and for my tastes, isn’t even the best player — but the Altoid-style packaging has certainly resonated with consumers, which is the bottom line.)”
“Every company has the right to set up the terms of use (within reason), and that is the road Apple chose to go down. The problem is they’ve been so compliant with the entertainment industry — foisting ridiculous digital rights management on consumers — that they may very well be setting the table for the music and movie industries to expand their restrictive licensing to entirely new platforms,” King writes. “Jobs has, by and large, become a proxy for the music and movie industries in the continual eroding of consumer rights in a digital age. And — for everyone who shells out their hard earned money for the latest and greatest gadget — you’ve all fallen for it. No, what really gets to me is that I think all of the Apple users around the planet know this already, but simply have stopped caring — and I can’t figure out why. However, I think I may have figured it out, thanks to one unnamed person who said to me: ‘Yes, but the iPod is so cute.'”
Full article here.
Steve Jobs on a popsicle stick! This guy thinks he’s Roger Clemens, but tosses more meatballs than Emeril Lagasse. Batter up!
• He disagrees that Microsoft is soooo much worse than Apple, but sure spends a lot of time searching through an army of programmers to find work-arounds and other “goodies” that allow him to circumvent Microsoft.
• He doesn’t own an iPod, has never downloaded iTunes, nor used the iTunes Music Store, but he’s an expert in how “restrictive” these things are for the user.
• He doesn’t own an iPod, but for his tastes, isn’t even the best player; presumably because the iPod was clearly not the first digital music player.
• He calls Steve Jobs a proxy for the entertainment industries, even though Jobs is currently fighting the music labels to keep prices reasonable.
• The “coolest” thing he does is record TV on his PC, hack the DRM, burn it to DVD and carry the program with him anywhere, so:
– He’s putting his own DRM onto things he records off TV onto his PC?
– Has he ever heard of, oh, we don’t know, how ’bout “iPodRip”.
• Because he’s never used an iPod, iTunes or the iTunes Music Store, he thinks the appeal is the “cute packaging.”
• Firmly established as an iPod+iTunes+iTunes Music Store expert, he accuses users of having been duped: “fallen for it” or “simply stopped caring.”
• In the end of course, like all good idiots who comment on things they don’t understand and haven’t even tried, he thinks he’s got it all figured out because one person told him the iPod is so cute.
Contact info:
Letters to the Editor:
Brad King, Web Producer and Senior Editor:
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Why do people think that everyone just walks around like zombies snapping up everything Apple makes just because steve says so.
People who think this are morons. If anything the Mac community is MORE critical of Apple stuff than their PC using counterparts, which is why they are Mac users to begin with.
Hank,
‘A computer is all about freedom’
You want freedom on a computer, write your own apps. You use a DIY box and compile your own version of linux while you’re at it.
Whatever computer you use you are constrained by the hardware, OS and Apps. There is no freedom there.
He probably uses the Tivo “Tivo to go” feature to transfer recorded Tivo shows to his PC, then uses some software (don’t remember the name) to remove the Tivo wrapper on the mpg file that he then can copy and view via QT. I did it at home before to get episodes of Teen Titans onto my PSP for my son. It works great.
Lets keep the emails to him logical and without emotion people. Otherwise you’ll do a disservice to your cause.
Looks like we are not the only ones who think this guy is uninformed. I see the comments are starting at the bottom of his page are similar to MDN readers comments.
As for people who think all music shouldn’t have DRM, you people are dreaming idealists. The facts are that musicians and those that represent them need to make a living – and as such DRM will need to be implemented to ensure that. It’s pretty friggin simple.
it’s amazing to see nowadays a bunch of so-called writers/pundits/journalists who are just plain damned idiots trying to show they “got it” , esp when it comes to Apple & the mac, only to openly expose their stupidness to public, funny thing is they dont know that. If this apply to you, get higher education before even speak or write ok.
“I’ve never used an iPod or iTunes, but I think people who do are dupes.”
Now THAT is great journalism.
why is it that all the critics point out so odd stuff? Okay, sometimes it might be a matter of taste or technical POV. But honestly, I would respect the naysayers alot more if they’d point out some of the truly embarrassing weaknesses of the iTMS/iPod combo. How about the fact that the music you buy at the iTMS sounds pretty crappy? Oh, forgive me, I forgot that some tone-deaf ueber-experts claimed that you can hardly hear the difference between a track encoded at 128kbps/AAC and a commercial CD. When I purchased my first coupla tracks at the iTMS I was convinced that the shitty sound of the music previews was…umm, preview-quality. Duh. After I had them downloaded I got my surprise. No more iTMS for me. There’s a myth going that Jobs himself is almost deaf on one side. Well, if that’s the case, I’m sorry for him…I just hope he isn’t part of the quality assurance since that would explain alot. Second myth to the story would be the fact that Apple would have to pay more to the majors if the iTMS sold music at higher bitrates. I can’t believe this one to be true tho.
Second minus of the iPod: why doesn’t it sport a line-in??? Is this really too much asked for these days? Even if only the largest iPod had one – but hell no.
Third minus: What part of the Apple team came up with the faux-pas of the century – to ditch firewire, say? Some heavy drugs must have been involved.
There are certainly other things one could bitch about – or wish for to happen. Why isn’t Apple givin devs a decent API for the iPod? The amount of cool add-ons, apps, games and utils would make the accessory market look like a joke compared. But then again, I just wanted to point out the most annoying things.
To all the Mac Losers with Penis Envy, He’s Right, iTunes + iPoo is crap. But hey, if you want to flock with the sheep, more power to ya.
He’s right on at least one front: you download music from iTMS, then your machine crashes, you lose the songs, and Apple doesn’t have your back. That blows, totally. It wouldn’t be hard for them to offer a service that allows you to recover music you’ve lost–they could even require many hoops to jump through, and people would probably be fine with it. They already store the machine-specific DRM info on Apple servers, so there really isn’t a concern about somebody downloading a copy of a song they’ve already purchased and dodging DRM.
And yeah, people who buy from iTMS have been duped, but not because of DRM (here to stay in the digital age, get used to it), but because the quality is very much below current CD standards. This may be a nod to the RIAA, but regardless, it also blows.
I would never take an AK47 or an Uzi to a gun fight. I have never even seen one or used one but rifles were around long before machine guns were and while rifles aren’t perfect ….
What an idiot.
i used to have my entire library encoded in 192kbps MP3; then iTunes introduced AAC. i did a lot of reading about this new format, the bottom line is that when Dolby and Fraunhofer were developing it, extensive double-blind testing was conducted to find the optimum parameters. apparently, virtually no-one could consistently tell the difference between a 128k AAC file and the corresponding unencoded file. so, i really don’t hold with these “purists” that think AAC is crappy. hidef dvd will use AAC to encode the audio; some current dvds use it now. i have listened to some very hi-end, clean audio unencoded and with AAC. i have a virtually flat hearing response from about 15Hz to about 23kHz; i can’t honestly determine any significant difference between encoded and unencoded the vast majority of the time. if a download sounds crappy (and i’ve actually had a few of those), Apple will provide a refund or another download. there have been technical problems on rare occasion.
It’s already been said, but:
It’s fairly well publicized that if you have data on your hard drive, data you’ve purchased a license to use through anywhere, and your computer crashes — you lose all of that data….
(Unless of course, you back it up…)
G Spank is right.
For once, someone gets it. It’s not JOBS doing this, it’s the record companies. I’m sure Jobs would give the music away for 10 cents if he could. They are not there to sell music in and of itself.
It is there as one part of the Apple music (and now video) holy triumvirate: iTunes+iTMS+iPod. Apple understands that you need to make the whole widget to be successful.
Why do people not understand this?
“The coolest thing that I do is record television with my PC, hack the DRM, burn it to a DVD, and take that program with me anywhere”
By coolest, i guess he means most illegal. Anyone got this guys address?Perhaps forwarding this to the MPAA would be cool too.
Did anyone notice that Brad’s website is part of MIT? Now that is truly sad. It used to be such a top notch school!
“Don’t email this guy or visit his webpage. He’s trolling for hits, that is all.”
EXACTLY. It’s well documented that if you want to get traffic to your site, or tons of e-mail, just say something nasty about Apple. The article will be posted, no matter how benign, and the zealots will open fire.
Don’t bother responding and maybe he will go away.
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MW: “answer” as in Don’t Bother.
you said: “He’s right on at least one front: you download music from iTMS, then your machine crashes, you lose the songs, and Apple doesn’t have your back. That blows, totally. It wouldn’t be hard for them to offer a service that allows you to recover music you’ve lost–they could even require many hoops to jump through, and people would probably be fine with it. They already store the machine-specific DRM info on Apple servers, so there really isn’t a concern about somebody downloading a copy of a song they’ve already purchased and dodging DRM.
And yeah, people who buy from iTMS have been duped, but not because of DRM (here to stay in the digital age, get used to it), but because the quality is very much below current CD standards. This may be a nod to the RIAA, but regardless, it also blows.”
Dolt. Macs don’t crash. EVER.
if you have a peecee, that is your fault. LOL. XP is not stable
I don’t know, but it seems a lot of folks were duped into reading this guy’s article… by MDN.
“If your computer crashes you lose the music you purchased.”
This is total BS! Back up your computer you idiot!
because you can get around some of their problems if you break the law.
That makes Microsoft better than Apple.
Even though the same is true for Apple.
Not that he would know.
There’s my summary of the nitwit.
And my favorite line “they’ve been so compliant with the entertainment industry”
Well guess what, Apple was the FIRST to get ANYTHING out of the entertainment industry. The first big-label music store online.
Apple couldn’t have done that without giving the labels the DRM they demanded. It wasn’t Apple’s wish!
No DRM, no music stores online. If that’s what he wants, he can buy CDs, not blame Apple for breaking ground.
hammer: LOL! I was thinking the same thing. What an idiot.
… that was was funny 😀 It is very unfortunate for him, his foundation of computing (Microsoft) has warped his mind, so much so he lies to himself, this is one hapless individual, MDN your retort was excellent, as always.