You're not forced to use Apple products to keep your music--none of it is DRM'd anymore so you can use your non-Apple software to sync it with your non-Apple devices on your non-Apple computer. It's even plainly available in the file system--and Apple doesn't even require you to let it reorganize your music files into its preferred folder hierarchy.
If Apple supports interoperability, they have a mess on their hands and they're dealing with interoperability issues instead of making a better product. If they don't support interoperability, people write angsty blog posts about them breaking whatever hackish unsupported software they were using to interface with their iPod. (As for the Pre, anything that allows arbitrary devices to pretend to be an iPhone and sync jeopardizes email account information--which can be synced to the iPhone--and is a security flaw. So I'm sure Apple did intentionally lock out the Pre. But I don't think they care about gtkpod enough to intentionally lock it out.)
"On that note I'm pretty sure Apple makes way more off iTunes than it does off the hardware at this point"
Why stop at "pretty sure"? They're a publicly traded company. It's not hard to get their financials.
Here's some numbers from their Q3 report a couple days ago:
"Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter, producing $1.689 billion in revenue..."
"About 10.215 million iPods were sold this quarter, resulting in $1.492 billion in revenue..."
"Apple's "Other Music Related Products and Services" segment was responsible for $958 million in revenue..."
Interoperability with the Pre or with gtkpod? It seems like Apple broke interoperability with the pre deliberately, with the side effect (one that Apple is apathetic towards) of breaking compatibility with gtkpod. Since it's the latter this blogger is complaining about, I'd file this under "not supporting interoperability".
Well, take a look from Apple's perspective. They spent time and money developing a platform for their iPods. Why would they want to allow their free (for consumers) music platform to seamlessly work with a direct competitor's product?
So Apple gets to support iTunes and polish it for years and then Palm gets to leech off their hard work and use it for free without repercussion?
I think by disabling the Pre they're saying to Palm, "Hey, Palm, why don't you go spend your own millions of dollars and build your own damn app." When you look at it that way I can't really fault them.
What I suspect will happen is that Apple and Palm will battle back and forth for a few revisions over a few months and then Palm will cave and throw some money at Apple (or something else they want) and we'll hear about some sort of partnership and suddenly hey, look, the Pre will be supported officially. Either that or Palm will give up and make their own music uploader.
And that is why I never buy Apple. I continue to be amazed that a company which is responsible for such cutting edge technology and engineering excellence maintains such an old school attitude to business, its customers and its developers. Apple just doesn't get the concept of openness. It's stuck in the 80s.
> Apple just doesn't get the concept of openness. It's stuck in the 80s.
Apple's attitude is incredibly modern; just not open.
Do we HAVE to be 100% open all the time now, really? That makes no sense. Apple have killer products all the way from distribution to consumption; they've marketed them and sold them with effectiveness other companies only dream of!
I certainly cant fault them for wanting to keep that success to themselves :)
If a significant number of users were using iTunes to sync 3rd party devices and a future update to iTunes inadvertently broke that syncing, who do you think the consumer would blame?
If a significant percentage of Microsoft Office purchases were run on WINE, Microsoft would be forced to support that scenario. However, that's not the case.
"As for the Pre, anything that allows arbitrary devices to pretend to be an iPhone and sync jeopardizes email account information--which can be synced to the iPhone--and is a security flaw"
So any of the billions of iPod users are automatically trusted? I can't imagine the security of email on the iPod depends on trusting all iPhones? Surely they have some other mechanisms in place?
So any of the billions of iPod users are automatically trusted?
Well... yes. Right? I mean, not 100% trusted -- does anyone trust their own software 100%? But as trusted as software written or vetted by Apple can be.
iPods exclusively run software that is under Apple's control. On everything but the iPhone and iPod Touch, 100% of that software is written by Apple itself. And even on the iPhone, Apple has the power to immediately halt distribution of any app that is causing trouble until the app is fixed. (And, as we all know, they do this. For reasons far less important than security holes.)
You can, of course, run non-Apple-reviewed software on your hardware. But Apple will disclaim all responsibility for your fate -- and, as we can see, they will actively try to shake you off.
It would be nice if, when you got an iPod Touch or iPhone, you created a certificate for it that meant that was yours and any copy of iTunes that wasn't also yours wouldn't sync to it. But not letting someone plug a friggin' iPhone into someone else's computer and sucking off their sensitive data is a different question from not letting someone plug in any arbitrary USB device and suck off sensitive data. Social norms keep people from plugging their iPhones into my USB, but they don't keep people from saying, "here, I'll send you some files off my thumb drive" and surreptitously stealing your email password from iTunes because they have a custom firmware that pretends to be an iPhone.
Your metadata is yours, and Apple is not stopping you from doing anything with it. A lot of it is already in the m4a file anyway, using either ID3 tags or some newer analog to them. As for whatever metadata is stored outside the music files themselves, iTunes actually gives you all the metadata you need: it shows you the metadata plainly. What they don't do is maintain a requirement that any arbitrary device or program can reliably access that metadata, i.e. by keeping it in a consistent, well-documented format. That's an engineering decision, not a moral imperative--it allows them flexibility to do things their way instead of worrying about breaking backward or third party compatibility.
Apple's margins on iTunes are pretty low, when you consider how much they have to pay out to record labels and credit card companies even before paying for their own infrastructure. Digital media is high-margin in total, but only if you can realize all the profit. The record labels can do that, but Apple can't.
I don't know. You aren't laying out any logical reasoning behind what you're saying other than "you feel" that way.
Once my car's warranty expires should Chevy be allowed to enforce a mandatory recall in which they change the car to prevent after market products from working in it?
Depends if your Chevy gets the newest (regular) updates from the manufactory. There's nothing to stop you to use the old version of iTunes that as far as I understand still works.
The logical reasoning is that - if they don't have to support it, they can actively block it. If it is a standard, they should actively support it. If it is not a standard, they can actively block it.
The reasoning is like running a firewall - you block everything, then open up only the services you need open, and only from the sources you need things accessible to.
By analogy, Apple can make it so that nothing syncs with iTunes, then open it up so that the iPod and iPhone do.
By doing that, they cut off anyone ranting that iTunes is rubbish because it crashed when syncing their music (unmentioned: to a third party device).
Microsoft picked up an incredibly bad rap for bluescreens, enormous numbers of them were caused by poor device drivers and shoddy third party software. Apple has little benefit in allowing El-Cheapo Music System to sync with iTunes, but lots of potential downside (support calls, lowered image of Apple, people migrating away from the Apple ecosystem towards less profitable accessories, buggy integration that requires development and testing of software update workarounds).
"... anything that allows arbitrary devices to pretend to be an iPhone and sync jeopardizes email account information--which can be synced to the iPhone--and is a security flaw."
Since we are talking about USB ids here, pretending to be an iPhone would open a "security flaw" only when they have physical access to the computer iPhone's being synced with.
In which case a person already can do whatever they like with it. E.g., just copy your entire hard drive.
If Apple supports interoperability, they have a mess on their hands and they're dealing with interoperability issues instead of making a better product. If they don't support interoperability, people write angsty blog posts about them breaking whatever hackish unsupported software they were using to interface with their iPod. (As for the Pre, anything that allows arbitrary devices to pretend to be an iPhone and sync jeopardizes email account information--which can be synced to the iPhone--and is a security flaw. So I'm sure Apple did intentionally lock out the Pre. But I don't think they care about gtkpod enough to intentionally lock it out.)
"On that note I'm pretty sure Apple makes way more off iTunes than it does off the hardware at this point"
Why stop at "pretty sure"? They're a publicly traded company. It's not hard to get their financials.
Here's some numbers from their Q3 report a couple days ago:
"Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter, producing $1.689 billion in revenue..."
"About 10.215 million iPods were sold this quarter, resulting in $1.492 billion in revenue..."
"Apple's "Other Music Related Products and Services" segment was responsible for $958 million in revenue..."
Cite: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/07/21/notes_of_inter...