My IPod or Apple's?

I too find signing up for the free Realplayer just a bit annoying. In their defence, Real must try extra hard given that Microsoft bundle their own media player with Windows.

As for the iPod, I'd never go near such a closed system. mp3, ogg and flac all the way!

But doesn't the iPod accept MP3s? I don't see why all the fuss.

It just seems to be their way of doing business. OS X will only run on their hardware, Apple software only runs on OS X, you can only buy AAC from iTunes, the only place it makes sense to buy a Mac is directly from Apple etc. etc.

I thought Apple had learned from similar mistakes in the past where they excluded parts of their market (not allowing clones, marketing only to 'creatives', etc) but I guess not. It seems they are still pretty picky about where they use or allow open software and technology to work.

I will never sign up for Real Network's products, they have always spammed the entire Internet.

However I don't agree with Apple at all. They will only sell more Ipods.

I recently got an iPod, and it is not a closed system as such. It plays other file formats including MP3 perfectly!

The only way it is closed is that the only DRM files it plays must be from the iTunes store. But if you have normal music files (non-DRM) in other formats, it will play those fine).

This is a trend which has been creeping up on us slowly and, I'm afraid, seems to be prevalent in many areas of retail. Suppliers in the retail and service industries are too concerned about proprietory issues and setting out terms and conditions which are prohibative for consumers, who after all are paying the buck in the final analysis. Who do Apple think they are serving with all this? Whatever they say they are serving only themsleves and, as Harry McCracken states, this can only impact negatively on them in the long run. I want to choose my music player independently from download software without pressure to use any format over another. Does Coca Cola limit consumption of its soft drinks to be taken only from only a Coca Cola glass?

It is fine saying that it is going to cause incompatability problems in the future but we have to be aware that if everybody went round reverse engineering software then all the anti piracy laws are in fact useless, as it will mean if people create something then everyone will be allowed to "hack" it to their benefit, Which means that no body is going to be creative anymore. What about all the agreements that these big companies have anyway, to use each other's technologies. In the future all these different products will be compatable, it will just take time and people need to agree to abide by the rules and if needed to wait untill contracts are agreed. Boy, I could write a lot more on this subject....

Marcus: AAC is a completely open format that anybody can use. It just so happens that the iTunes store is the only store using it.

The only "closed" system here is FairPlay, the DRM that apple uses.

Why does this article restrict itself to Apple and the iPod? Microsoft with WMA, Sony with ATRAC3, Apple with the iPod, etc. All the major players want control over what they sell to us. Why not write about THAT?

>>>But doesn't the iPod accept MP3s? I don't see why all the fuss.

The iPod plays a variety of formats. Creative reverse engineered the _DRM_, which will allow Creative to sell copy-protected music for the iPod.

I abhor Real Networks. It's such a rip off and their Website makes it difficult to download just the basic free player. I don't really see this as a problem unless Real starts selling songs for 50 cent. If Apple carries every song that Real does, at the same price, and in a superior format...what's the problem with getting all of your music from iTMS? Even if Harmony worked on iPod, I would NEVER buy anything from Real. Bastards want $15/month for their crappy player. What kind of idiot would pay that money for something you can get for free if you do a little bit of work on Google.

Real are, historically, way more evil than Apple (in terms of internet user friendliness) - but Apple's DRM lockout is counterproductive.

Imagine Blockbuster selling the coolest DVD players to their customers - and then announced that they could only play films bought or rented from their stores, or films you'd made yourself. Imagine they didn't stock any MGM or Universal titles.

Video Ezy down the road figure out how to put extra software code on their MGM and Universal discs that allow them to be played on the Blockbuster players.

This, according to Apple, is called "hacking".

If you create the conditions to necessitate this kind of reverse engineering, then you only have yourself to blame.

The problem, though, is DRM itself. But that's a much longer conversation.

Thanks Apple! I've been on the fence about iPod for a month now. Once I was considering a Mac and the printer change my mind. Apple printer $329 and same printer from Canon $149. Bought a PC! As more competition emerges, music downloads will get cheaper. But Apple will not feel the pressure because iPod owners will have no choice. Apple iPod download $.99 same track for any other player from any other service $.49. "Fair Play" HOGWASH! Just what I expected from Apple!
I'm gettin' a Dell.

I think the iPod is really a big rip off. I accept it has many beautiful design features, but the fact it is a "closed system", the fact that the battery is so limited, the fact that I'm paying $300 before I even buy an itune, all add up to wasting a lot of money for very little. Do you really need to carry 10 000 songs around with you?

helixcommunity.org

RealNetworks is trying to be a parassite, since they aren't able to make it on their own.

The iPod can handle MPs's and I can convert almost any music file to an MP3. Just not the ones from Real's service (nor would I want to - that serivice is a waste of time and money)

And if you don't like Apple and/or the iPod, just take a hike. Therer are plenty of other alternatives out there .

At least on the surface, it sounds like Real has violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act -- aka the USA Patriot Act of intellectual property rights. While common sense suggests that you own what you buy, US legislators suggest that you do not. Reverse engineering is illegal. Taking apart the machine or software that you purchase is no longer a learning exercise, it's been officially designated as ``piracy'' by our leaders in congress.

This crosses political lines. Hatch(R) and Leahy(D) are now teaming up, via the Induce Act, to take this further and make it illegal to build anything that might influence someone else to break already-overreaching laws. Whatever your political stripes, you should seriously consider acting now to stop a dangerous trend.

On a slightly different point, Marcus Vorwaller suggests that what Apple is doing follows their existing pattern because OS X only runs on Apple Hardware and and Apple software only runs on OS X. Neither of these suggestions is true unless you make a particularly miopic interpretation. In fact, Darwin is the open source version of OS X that runs on Intel hardware and a variety of Apple software products, such as Quicktime and iTunes, run under Microsoft's Windows operating systems.

The issue is convenience...it's no more, and perhaps less, convenient to download a song from Real vs. Apple. The iPod and iTMS is a superior player and music store to everything else out there--by far. And I use a Dell for my main system. After my experience with the iPod, I'm seriously considering a Macintosh for my next system. My feeling is that anyone who gets a Dell Jukebox or an Archos or Creative player is either a cheapass or just hates Apple. How can you hold an iPod in your hands and then buy a Dell Jukebox or a Creative or RCA...only if you're a cheapass, idiot, or hate Apple. I used to hate Apple because they were expensive...but I'm quickly learning you pay for what you get.

I stayed away from MP3 players for several years: too many incompatibilities, a sense of fairness to the music industry and future legal problems. When Apple came along with a total system that worked seamlessly, I jumped in. I could not be happier. My fear is that others are going to screw up an almost perfect computer-based system. I use both Mac and Windows systems, and the anarchy of the Windows world is the source of great disappointment. I am going to be real pissed if Apple is not allowed to keep their "closed system" and be prevented from updating it as they alone see needed for my enjoyment.

It doesn't take a genius to see the repurcussions of such a doomed policy, and parallels of a flawed Apple ethic applied to other products/industries: buy a dvd player from Blockbuster only to have to purchase and rent dvd's exclusively from Blockbuster, purchase your next car from ABC dealership...and return to that dealer to get all your gas, buy a computer from Apple and have to return for all your software needs (oh, I think they tried that crap already)...you get the picture. Just boycott the ignoramous corporation that try and create closed systems forcing consumers to funnel all their hard earned money into one proprietary technology. Vote with your dollars, folks...it beats the heck out of complaining about it all day long.

Apple - as far as I can gather - have no plans to let the Ipod play mp3Pro files - the best way of compressing files - they wish to promote their AAC.
Head in the sand time for Apple - they're on a roll - but I'm looking for alternatives as I prefer the mp3Pro system.

I'm a PC tech and I have refused to use Real products for some years now. If there's a movie that requires Real, then guess what? I don't watch it. Just a little word here...standards. Like .mp3 and .avi that will work on any player. I do fault Apple somewhat for their elitist practices, but what does anyone expect? They've been playing that line for many years!
Message to Apple: Your service is great. You don't have to be so draconian though. If a stream produces clean clear water, people will come to drink *that* water.
Message to Real: You suck and you have always sucked. Please stop treating your customers like AOL users.

Look if I thought for a minute that Real Player's intentions were to make downloading to the masses, I would back their plight. But it is for Corporate rip-off of other Corporate Copyrighted Idea. Yes Apple stands accused of a tight grip on thier download software labeled. DRM, but after all they did spend the money to software engineers to write it and their lawyers to protect it and they did it legally, and it is against all patent copyright infringement laws to reverse engineer it. So what Real Player is doing is clearly against Copyright Laws. They need to do business with their own DRM and get on with it. What another has is not ours just because we want it. Hard work and cost is the way of our lives and business. We know innately what is right and what is wrong, and you can't convince yourself otherwise unless you are corrupt. Leave Apple alone. They have survived for decades on only a tiny fraction of the PC world and finally they have something that other Giants in the industry want to take away.

Mikey--

It doesn't take a genius to see that your comparison is hogwash. Having to physically drive to the blockbuster store that is 2 miles down the road to get dvds, because the dvds at hollywood video store which is just a 1/2 mile away won't play on your DVD player is a TRUE inconvenience.

Downloading music is the laziest of activities, and is not a TRUE inconvenience to be limited to one site, which happens to be the best. The problem with this is that many people don't like being told "you can't do this." Apple fans will never use Real unless they are significantly less in price.

Mac vs. PC is not at issue here. Nor is iPod vs the other players. Nor is iTunes Music Store (iTMS) vs. the others. What is at issue between Real and Apple is Real's deliberate violation of Apple's copyright protection of the DIgital Rights Managements (DRM) software, FairPlay, that's included in every iTunes Music Store download.

I believe it's fairly well known, that at approximately $.34 per song sold, Apple (as well as other legal download providers) aren't making a lot of money. In Apple's case, it's no secret that the music sales drive the sales of iPods (which sold over 800,000 in just the last quarter!)

Since the DRM is an integral part of the iTMS, reverse engineering FairPlay could direcly impact sales of iPods.

Here's an analogy - Shell Oil. ExxonMobil Oil. Both companies issue credit cards for their particular company owned gas stations. Shell customers buy Shell and, likewise, at ExxonMobil. Closed system. Now suppose that Shell would 'reverse engineer' the credit card algorithms that ExxonMobil uses so that ExxonMobil card holders would now be able to purchase gas at a Shell station. Do you think that ExxonMobil would be just a little upset with that prospect? And so it goes between Apple and Real.

To the guy that said he was going to buy an Apple printer but it was too expensive, he must have been looking at a used printer because Apple hasn't sold printers for many years now..

As for being open the ipod is as "open" as any player on the market. When are people going to understand that the ipod will play mp3!!! It has from day one. If Real sold their music in the mp3 format then it would play on the ipod no problem and no extra software to make it work. But Real like Apple has to install DRM in the music that they sell. The record companies require it. So my comment is know your facts before you make up some information that isn't true...

Bottom line Real sucks.
Apple has class.

I really don't see what all the fuss is about...
You can get legal downloads which are iPod compatible for 1cent per 1MB from allofmp3.com. It's Russian - that's why it's so cheap.
I highly recommend it.

For what it's worth, RealPlayer annoys me but I need it to listen to the BBC.

Well, lets see... Apple has pretty much full control over their user's experience... Apple hardware only works with Apple Software, etc. But look! Apple users are pretty much safe from viruses and hackers, their computers don't crash all the time, and they are a joy to use. Not to mention, Apple actually makes a profit with their products, compare that to Gateway and others.

The point is, Apple might keep a lot of control, but that same control is why there are no cheap (low quality) Apple products, and their user experience is so good!

IMHO, I hate the Realplayer and have never really used it anywhere beyond a week. The sound on the player is lousy and the same can be said for their streaming stuff.
I'd rather use an established and improved program where the upgrades actually matter, such as Quicktime or Windows Media Player.
I'm sure that the quality of their reverse-engineered iPod MP3s sound like crap and are not worth the money.
SUPPORT APPLE!

I refuse to install any Real product on any of my machines--their lousy history with spyware and adware has turned me off from them for good. Personally I'm happy that Apple is locking them out of the iPod: it's one less place for me to have to worry about data-mining and buggy content.

Stick with Apple folks. They don't have a monopoly on MP3 devices or even music downloads, they just did it right and are now seeing the benefit of their engineering and packaging. Let the late-comers suck hind teat and be glad with what they get.

To Harry McCracken...
Tell me Harry, who is a bigger monopoly then Microsoft? They should have been limited to producing operating system software years ago. They constantly make sure things dont work right unless you use their products. They WILL go down someday....Ill see to it.

This article both confused me and angers me. If the guy owns an iPod then he realized at that point that he was buying into a closed system as far as AAC file were concerned. And if he understood this, as well as the many other iPods purchasers, then why are they complaining. They bought it knowing that it would not play windows based fileswith their DRM encoded in it. Yet Apple made it possible for the wma files that were NOT encrypted to play on their system. Did he and others compare the music libraries for each service? Do they compare to each other for offerings? Aside from the volume of songs offered, are they different artists or are they offering the same libraries? I don't know, I don't own a iPod, and I have not bought anything from the iTunes store... yet.
Some people also forget that Apple is not the only proprietary system out there. Realnetwork has there own proprietary DRM. Windows also. Why is it that Apple is the one being confronted by a company whiose service has failed to take off? Their "Harmony" software also converts the WMA format to work on the iPod.
What Real Networks has done is to indirectly steal business from another company and claim that it is legal. The same way the Phone companies used to when you made a Phone Call with one service and your phone bill all of a sudden shows calls routed thru another service for twice as much.
Apple should be allowed to control their own business model and decide on its own if, or when, other formats will be playable on the iPod. They have software that is tightly intergrated with their own software and hardware and to allow someone else to break it in the guise of helping the consumer is very misguded. It is in fact hurting the consumer in the long run when they can no longer se the poduct. Apple rightly should change their software so that harmony is not compatible. How long will it take Real Networks to come up with a new version of Harmony so that the songs will play again? Who will the consumer blame. Realnetworks, the company that caused the problem? Or Apple, because they fixed the problem.
As far as Flac and .ogg file formats,. THey play just fine in iTunes but not the iPod. I will wait for Apple to make ALL DRMS compatible with the iPod before I buy one rayther than depend on a hack by a angry, envious, competitor who resorts to something like Harmony instead of making their own seervice more vialbe.

What's up with the Shell and ExxonMobil credit card analogy Dru??? What kind of logic is that?

Real sucks. Apple sucks. DRM sucks. Closed systems suck. Yay Kazaa!! I hope Apple loses the case and its profits plummet!

I've seen a lot of posts saying "Real Sucks" "I hate Real" "I will never install Real on my system" etc....

Does anyone actually like Real or think they're great?

PC options are so bad that even the folks at Real's want to do iPod and iTunes!!! The public has spoken, the iPod and iTunes are just better, and Real just has to follow. As for the price of Apple products, comunism is dead.

Where does everyone get such wrong information? iTunes can convert and load into the iPod a variety of formats, including WAV, AIFF, MP3 -- as well as the proprietary format. I have a mixture of formats on mine - mostly MP3... The only ones that have to be in the proprietary format are those songs bought in the iTunes store. And you don't have to buy them there, folks! I have my whole CD collection on mine. It's not a closed system folks!

Im pleased to read all the negative comments about Real - I totally agree from my own experience.

But, if Apple wants to sell a product that is limited to their 'purchased' music that is their business. If you don't like it don't buy it. It doesn't affect me or anyone else.

Apple doesn't deserve to be attacked on this.

'Reverse-engineering is how we've lost so much technology that has been turned around and, with thanks to NAFTA, been sold back to us.

Both Realnetworks and Apple have never respected the public. The non-competive premium markup one has had to pay on Apple products since day one has always been a turn off... for them computing was never for the masses. And Realnetworks' shrill "look-at-me!" approach to marketing has always been a turn-off. Also, the fact that their products would also exhibit an obtrusive presence on your PC after you installed them was a further big negative to ever wanting to deal with them.

I think that Apple is out to lunch....they have always had great marketing.......but there downfall is the BS like what they are pulling now. ITunes is not the best place to download music. There are many other places such as www.allofmp3.com and www.emusic.com...etc. that are much better ( and cheaper ). You couldnt pay me enough to buy an apple product again.....at least not untill they decide to play ball with everyone else.

As far as the USA Patriot Act of intellectual property rights goes....if i purchse something ex: Windows XP......and I decide to tear it apart and modify it I can do that all I want....as long as I dont turn around and sell it for PROFIT...this is not "hacking" per say.....it is modifying. I do beleive that the digital encoding used by Apple is free for all, as is mp3 or wmp formats. Yes apple may have put in the work to develop it but I do believe it was developed for the music vendors...which actually means it is owned by the vendors in which case if real is also doing downloads of music with agreements with music vendors who require them to use the DRM format so be it.....appple has got no say.

First thing when I do a check on someone's computer is uninstall RealPlayer. It hogs memory, spyware and an overall headache for most common users!

Oh, and The Daily Show on Comedy Central...

Buy something other than apple ipods. Simple as that.

Real is the George Dubya Bush of media players...It sucks.

Steve-

You can still get several BBC Channels over the internet using Windows Media Player. (i.e. Five Live, Sports Extra, BBC6, BBC7.)

Real Player: Is only monitoring your software and products you use. when you sign up you give them your privacy rights as in AOL\ Netscape lawsuit.
Apple on the other hand is forced in swimming against Microsoft.
OSX is a solid product Apple Computers Rock.
APPLE GET OF THE PROTECTED SIDE OF THE IPOD. REAL PLAYER SUXS

Everything now adays is intrusive......almost any free software you download (even itunes) installs spyware and other crap on your pc......its almost the same thing we dealt with when the free internet came around with banners for advertiseing.........real is a good product....i dont think they have done anything wrong.

...Ipods... another step in the chain of crummy sounding music. Nevermind that CDs sound colder than LPs (most of you probably don't even know what a turntable is, or think of it as that crummy sounding plastic thing that came with your crap sony combination stereo from the 80's that you never used) Ipod's compression takes the sound quality another step downward. Sure, you can cram thousands of cookie cutter songs produced by corporate music whores onto your little electronic device and enjoy inferior sound quality and songwriting, but don't you feel cheated yet? ...buy a Technics 1200 and go dig for vinyl. . .

Real is a very bad product. It is splatterware. I have downloaded it to only play Real-compatible files, and yet it forces itself into my task bar, task tray and puts icons everywhere. That being said, Apple is the villain in this case, trying to censor Real.

Really? I thought it was just through RealPlayer. It doesn't make a big difference to me anyway - I don't have to open the player anyway - I just listen through the webpage (the (RealPlayer) plug-in).

That's interesting though. They must have changed it recently because when I started listening I had to install RealPlayer and it was a bit of a pain in the arse.

banners with free internet? How easy were they to circumvent? I'm still laughing about it, no wonder they didn't last..

CDs sound a LOT better than LPs. I am not one of those who prefers music filled with POP SNAP SIZZLE that you got with records.

and by the way $0.99 per song is a rip off.......since when is it more expesive to download an album than to go buy the cd in the store..........

a little tip........if your running windows xp...go to start>run and type msconfig........go to startup tab and uncheck all the realplayer stuff and voila........no more resource hog.....only will start ounce u use it.

"...the only place it makes sense to buy a Mac is directly from Apple etc. etc."

What a load of crap. I currently own four macs (two iMacs and two PowerBooks), I've owned perhaps another six or so over the past ten years, and never ONCE bought a Mac from Apple.

Is the rest of your comment as clearly thought out?

Seriously though : http://allofmp3.com .
1 cent for 1 MB. That's about 5 cents a song. You can pay more or less if you want to get better quality (you can get CD quality for about 50 cents) or if you're really cheap.

I'm not joking - it's great.

I like the Real Player it has great streaming capability. I didn't use my real email when I downloaded it so I never saw any spam from their marketing attempts. It is Apple's quicktime I hate - it asks you to upgrade EVERY time.
Just remove the DRM and everyone is happy.

The iPOD already supports MP3 - and REAL's attempt to add it's own propreitary (and useless-to-me) format is a waste of time.

I think the real problem is that the iPOD and almost all other MP3 players do not support OGG. Fortauntely, REAL has shown that it COULD correct this oversight by the industry... if it wanted to.

Why doesn't REAL step up to the plate and do something useful with OGG, instead of layering on their proprietary format which is incompatible with virtually everything I have???

So what Apple double-prices its songs. Its machines cost twice as much as PCs and are somewhat slower. The iPod will die rather soon once someone comes out with a less-crippled one that holds more, costs half as much, and does not have the bettery problems of the iPod.

I was dissapointed by real networks although the idea of harmoney was a good one. However, I'm going to stick with iTunes for now.

ya allofmp3.com is the best by far....... :-)

Looking at this historically, RealNetworks has the unfortunate habit of reying on the courts to help them pollute their competitors' well-designed, user-friendly applications with their inferior technology. They whine when MS displaces their noxious spyware-laden RealPlayer from the dektop, they whine for their over-priced music offering to be given equal access to Apple's seamless HW/SW music delivery vehicle.

Let's face it: both Apple and Microsoft legitimately won these respective battles in the marketplace by offering superior consumer value. I would argue that there is a distinction: while it is undeniable that MS used their OS monopoly to squeeze Real out, Apple had to out-innovate and out-market their competitors to create the best digital music player and download service.

I guess Real is upset that their "innovations" just aren't very popular; there just aren't many folks out there who are willing to pay for streaming baseball games!

Duh!.... With all the GOOD products and services out there, why would anyone want to buy an Apple product or use Real's services anyway?

In the final analysis,this It is only a piece of software we are talking about Do people get this emotional about their toasters and the software that runs in their ATM machines? How did this mind set ever sneak up on society? Why the self righteous attitude. Take a chill pill dudes. Enjoy the music wherever and however it comes to you. lLife is short.

OGG is unnecessary: another redundant, totally incompatible format introduced for no reason than to confuse things and give Slashdotters a warm fuzzy feeling. Stick with MP3.

The crux of the issue is that Real is a failing company that is grasping at anything to stay alive. Maybe it is a deathwish; they'll be sued by Apple out of business.

On another point, it occured to me that Realplayer is as proprietary as it comes and just so happens to be in direct competition as a streaming media format with Quicktime from Apple. It would be sweet justice if Apple announced that they have reverse engineered the Real codec and that Quicktime player will now play all Real format streaming media. I know I'd delete Real from all my machines in a heartbeat.

ya sony has announced an mp3 player to compete with the ipod....i will wait for sony.......

Apple is focused on quality. They've created the iTunes iPod closed system because they can control the ease of use and design of both items. If they were to open up the iPod to windows and such then they would no longer be able to guarantee some of its uses. I've tried the harmony beta. Buying music and putting it on your iPod is really complicated. If apple were to open it up, it would make the iPod less desirable.

keep dreaming if you think apple will put real belly up

If you want an alternative to RealPlayer, look at
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.htm

ya nothing like a no name product as an alternative.......lol

I agree with Mr Warner (or O as I lie to call him). Pointless discussion. What I'm trying to do here (with a little acknowledgement from Blair there) is actually help people. Don't worry about what the big companies are squabbling about, save yourself some money and go to allofmp3.com now.

You'd think I was being paid by them or something, but I'm not - this is purely altruistic. Good catalogue efficient downloading system and cheap. What more can I say?

>>Why does this article restrict itself to Apple and the iPod? Microsoft with WMA, Sony with ATRAC3, Apple with the iPod, etc. All the major players want control over what they sell to us. Why not write about THAT?

Because the author is an iPod owner, smart guy.

OK. I just want to point out that that's a fake Steve promoting the no-name product. There really can't be two Steves in the world can there?

There is a lot of good debat here, but can we not all agree that RealPlayer and Real Networks sucks?

Wow. Here's the rare situation where I despise both sides equally. I don't know which is more annoying, Real Player or QuickTime. Neither is installed on my computer. I can only hope that they sue each other and lose millions to the lawyers.

Apple is OK to make a closed system. For years Apple has made products that are compatible on PCs and do not create a problem with Microsoft. For years Microsoft products have caused problems on Macs, effectively crashing systems and lagging behind in development for MACs -making use of MS products useless on MACs, so why shouldn't Apple play the same way the other guys play?

I can't think of anything I hate more than Real. They do everything possible to annoy me, and now they try to make stealing from Apple sound like Robin Hood. I couldn't care less about Apple's rights and profits, but Real is just evil.

I think that Real has done the right thing in the wrong way. Frankly, it's about damned time someone worked their way past Fairplay, and made things "fair". (Sorry for that awful pun.)

That said, People need to stop Antagonizing both companies. Both have screwed up, but at the same time both are doing what they have to do. Now, I'm not sure precisely how Real's Fairplay workaround works, but I imagine it throws the concept of authorization right out the window. Authorization is a necessary step for Apple to take in order to maintain the support of major record labels. If they could not control what hardware could use songs bought from the iTMS, the entire plan would backfire, pumping more illegitimate music into the p2p community for users of Kazaa and other such software to download. That's the good spin on Apple's practices with the iPod. But as I said, there is no need for antagtonization. (I'm aware that's not a word.)

Real Software did contact Apple Computers requesting that Fairplay be licensed to them. Apple did not respond, for whatever reason. This was a bad move on Apple's part. If they had any good reason to deny Real its request (such as the one I stated above, regarding distribution), it should have given Real proper notice.

On the one hand, Real just did what they felt they had to do, for the music listening community on the whole. (Though there are already tools to cripple Fairplay, such as hymn [http://hymn-project.org/]). On the other hand, Real should not have gone and taken matters into its own hands by circumventing encryption that Apple clearly felt the need to keep private.

In closing, I simply want to restate that I am not trying to make either company out as a "bad guy". Both are sort of in the wrong, but also in the right.

-iMav

I guess I`d be a little worried too If I were Apple. Remember a guy who used to work for Apple named Bill Gates?

Blair:

The sony "ipod killer" player won't even play (without lossy-transcoding) mp3s only ATRAC3.

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20040728.html

Have fun.

The irony here is Apple's product line would still suck if FreeBSD followed the same prinicples as Apple.

SO NOW IF I'M DRIVING THE "EASY PASS" MONITORS WHERE I GO, IF I'M BANKING ANYONE KNOW, AND IF I PREFER CLAPTON TO SPRINGSTEEN THAT'S NO SECRET EITHER. DAVID PARKER KETCHUM, IDAHO

The problem is neither Apple nor Real but us the consumers. Enough people have been happy with all these proprietary systems that Apple, Microsoft, etc. are making enough money that they don't have to listen to the unfortunately few of us who desire more. But this is the beauty of the system; Apple can do whatever it wants with what it produces, but if you don't like it you don't have to buy it. If enough people care about this issue to stop buying all this proprietary stuff, companies will be forced to change in order to stay in business. So what can WE do? Three things: complain (which you all are doing a great job of doing, just make sure to send all these complaints to the companies they are against), educate the masses about why non-proprietary systems are worth their time to think about, and, should you be up to the task, create a product that is better than what is already out there. Just remember that the wonderful thing about capitalism is that you DON'T have to buy anything.

I am so glad that the thinking of the Betamax-Era has returned.

Point is, most people who buy an iPod are NOT under the impression that they are going to be restricted to iTunes. The bigger a deal Apple makes about this and the more publicity they give it, the more they are going to raise awareness about the iPod's restrictions, and the more I think they'll hurt iPod sales. Of course, it'll have to go pretty far for that to happen significantly, but they're facing that direction.

I have to chuckle about all the flames over RealPlayer. I also have been annoyed over the past 6 years to be required to install it on all the PCs I support, due to the fact the media services department on campus chose Real to do video streaming. If it weren't for that requirement, I too would never have been installing it.

However, having said that, it (as someone has put it, 'just software'). Spyware? Um, no, not by the definition I've or any of the AdAware, Spybot, Symantec, software vendors definitions. True, I always uncheck any of the 'feedback' settings, the notifications, the startup features, basically anything that makes it do the annoying things I assume you all also find annoying.
If you configure it properly, it's just another player which happens to play Real's formats, along with just about everything else, although I use Mediaplayer or Quicktime for everything else, which again, you can easily set if you know how to.

Now, one thing about the latest free version of RealPlayer, I have to grudlingly give them a point for, they allow a really cheap person to play DVDs on a Windows XP system, which as you know, doesn't come with an MPEG2 decoder. For the $43+ billion in cash reserves Microsoft has, I can't believe they aren't able to come up with a legal way of just giving out an MPEG2 decoder in their OS, license fees or no.

I'm kind of surprised I read this many posts and hardly anyone here flamed Microsoft. In any given day, I'm annoyed more by a Microsoft issue than I have ever spent time on RealPlayer. Configure it properly and only use it when you need to play a Real-only codec, or if you don't, then it just sits there like any other useless piece of software. It's not the source of all evil. Real is a parasite on a gnats ass on the back of the true evil giant.

It seems the author and many of the responders have confused file formats and digital rights management (DRM), when speaking of "closed systems". The iPod plays many formats beside its own AAC format, the AAC format only being a requirement for files that need to be protected by DRM. Sure, Apple could license every other proprietary DRM technology out there, but why should they? The expense in license fees would make the business model cost prohibitive. Apple the Music Company is being no different than Sony or Microsoft in this respect. Apple the Hardware Company has actually been actually more "open" than the other companies by making a music player that not only just works with Windows and Macintosh, but the iPod's entire feature set is supported on both platforms. How often do you see that?

Wow, all these years and years since real has been out, I thought I was alone in hating them. The people at PC world should do an article on real and its reputation, they would find a big audience. I hate their banners, I hate their intrusive nature on my desktop, task bar and making me do alot of work to get them off my start up. If they were actualy a better product, I wouldnt mind. I take pleasure in selecting something non real player when i have to play media on the web. I am glad there are others that feel the same.

As far as Ipod, the battles are temporary, soon it wont matter when there is tons of competition from sony, panasonic, hp, gateway, dell, yada yada yada. More hard drive, more battery, cheaper, cooler looking, etc. Look at what happenned to palm when they owned 90% of the market. oh and apple products are cool, run smoother but who would pay 1500 for a mac when you can get a pc for 799 that has so much more.

I think the point to take away from this is that Apple, Sony, Microsoft, (etc), are trying and will always try to come on top. Who will win? What happened to Big Blue?

Anyway, it's been mentioned that you can find anything you want for free.

Pacman: more compitition from hp? they're selling rebranded iPods.

anyway, this author has no clue what he's talking about. how open can you get? i buy a cd, rip it to 192kbps mp3, can put it on any media player i want (except sony's apparantly).

real's the one who sues that pants off anyone who tries decoding their media streams. funny then don't feel the same way about encoding other company's media streams

Think about it, this discussion is brought to by the folks at RIAA. If it weren't for them none of this would be happening. And for those that scream "artist's rights", I have news for you, very few artists make any money on cd sales through the "record industry". I have many friends in bands, both in Chicago, where I live, and in Austin, where I lived for several years, who told me as much. And these are people who have had major label contracts.

For iPod owners that ask what has Apple done for them lately, remember there was an iPod long before there was an iTunes Music Store. While I use iTMS, I like allofmp3.com and used to love eMusic before they changed their fee structure.

Oh, and any DRM is a bunch of shit which can be decoded by anyone with a little dedication.

Hey Matt.......not to burst your bubble on apple.....but if they didnt make the ipod compatible with Windows OS how many do you think would have sold..........apple pcs have a VERY small market share in the pc world(I think approx 10%). We see it because it is vital for the success of the ipod not because there are being nice guys.

I would also have to agree with cgox.......if you know how to configure your pc....real is just like any other media player

Don?t believe 90% of the statements against either Real or iPod posted in the diatribe above.

Rather than contest all the errors and omissions posted above, I would like to suggest fence-sitters to download the free RealPlayer and free iPod player, the search for tunes yourself on both servers.

For me, Real has a better selection of tunes. RealPlayer works on all my computers, and my pocketPC.

Unfortunately, I don?t think anyone has hacked Reals copy-protection ?yet?.

Simply put, Ipod is an Apple creation, as is Itunes. If you purchase any other kind of MP3 player - I.E Creative Nomad Xtra, which I so own - you can only use their propertiary software bundled with the device.

What Real Networks did is Illegal, reverse engineering software that is copyright. Now they are trying to put it out so that you can use it with the Ipod?

Ratfink do your homework before saying that the sony wont play mp3s......the newest coming out this month with 20gb harddrive plays mp3s and sonys own ATRC format......heres a link so u can get back up to speed.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/27/sony_mp3_vid_player/

Apple will learn that like it's initial lead in personal computing, you can either become an open standard or wither in the vine. While Microsoft is proprietary, it's not a single use product either; we are talking about playing music here. Apple has now drawn a line in the sand and the entire industry is going to decide if they are going to cross it. Apple could have been what Microsoft is but they were ignorant of customer needs. So be it.

'tis a matter of time...

...'til all DRM is a thing of the past.

apple are still being ignorant to customers needs.....they will lose market share again because of ther arrogance

I am on Apple's side here. I believe they are just protecting the integrity of thier product here and will eventually allow other services to function with iPods. Just not REAL's services.

Putting anything REAL has on an iPod is like using AOL. They figure you as stupid, uninformed and suckers.

Example:

You just shell out for REAL PLAYER. You use it for a few months. You start getting endless pop ups stating a "new free upgrade is available" for your REAL PLAYER. You figure "it's free!" and do so. You find out that it is really a "trial" and you have to pay all over again to get the same features you originally paid for. You then decide you'd rather stick with your older, previously purchased REAL PLAYER. Guess what? It's gone. The "free" version has no completely replaced your purchased version. Guess what? It's a HUGE chore to remove it, and replace it with your purcahsed version. You will end up calling REAL for assistance. Most people ( and this is what REAL thrives on ) end up just paying again rather than go through the hassle of uninstalling ( which is no simple one-click uninstall BTW ) and then reinstalling.

I detest everything about REAL. More analogies? OK, here are a few more:

Allowing REAL on your iPod is like putting Ford Escort seats in an Audi.

Allowing REAL on you iPod is like playing 8 Track Tapes on your $5,000 sound system.

Allowing REAL on you iPod is like putting Windows 3.1 on your Alienware custom computer.

Allowing REAL on your iPod is like believing OJ when he says to you "trust me".

By the way, for those of you who keep calling AAC, "Apple's format" - AAC is a subset of the MPEG4 standard, licensed for use by Apple. It has a music quality and compression ratio comparable to the newest versions of Windows Media, RealAudio, OGG, and MP3Pro. Just as in all other formats, AAC can be set to compress so much as to render a degraded audio quality, but this is not the default setting.

http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/standard.html

apple OSX is just a revamped Linux OS.....why cant they get on board with everyone else....at least make there OS compatable with linux software

Hmph. There's a lot of screaming about nothing here. I bought one of the first iPods, and I've never had a problem with it, iTunes, or ITMS. My wife and I ripped most of of our 400+ CD's (collected since 1985 or so), and we've purchased some items via ITMS. It all works fine, and if I can't find an album I like via ITMS, I just buy the CD and rip it. No big deal.

A couple of other comments:

1) I've been supporting damn near every type of computer over the past 16 years. For those who say Apple's gear is more expensive, guess again. Name brand to name brand, it's all a wash. Also, their current generation of systems seem to be much less costly to support. Purchase price isn't everything.

2) DRM sucks, but I can live with it. In the case of Fair Play, I can play the tunes on any iPod I own, as well as 5 of my computers. Fine by me.

I say the more music the better. DRM will continue to be a contentious issue until the entire industry agrees on the same standards. This latest tiff between Apple and Real shows just how desperate companies are getting. Artists sign contracts to have their music distributed with various companies. Apple already has the lion's share of them, which is evident when you shop at the iTunes online music shop. MusicMatch has a fair portion, though nowhere near what Apple has. I imagine Real is someplace on the sidelines with the leftovers. I got pretty tired of Real products and their incessant popup advertising and "your version has expired, please click here to pay for another upgrade". That's crap. I have no sympathy for them. And talk about hypocrisy. Real's format is about as proprietary as you can get. They don't let anyone else play in their space. Now they're pissed that Apple won't let them in the game? Serves 'em right. Buy your music at iTunes.

So..you are in favor of real breaking another company's copy protection? What about the music industry or movie industry? so, you feel it's acceptable to break their copy protection schemes also?

Also, you can load MP3's onto an iPod so, as others have said, i don't see the problem really. It just seems that Real wants in on the success of the iPod (like everyone else in the industry).

PLEASE NOTE... THIS AUTHOR IS A MICROSOFT WINDOWS USER.

So that means he is use to closed systems, what is he bitching about?

I don't know what all the fuss is about over Apple's supposedly closed system. I use an older PowerBook (Pismo), and iTunes has never supported the SCSI CD burner I use. Therefore, I had to develop a workaround in order to burn my music purchased from ITMS to CDs. Frankly, it was a no-brainer. I can't be bothered with Real, in fact, I just checked it for something ITMS doesn't have, and Real doesn't have it either.

If Real encoded their tracks without a marker that the iPod won't play, they wouldn't need to reverse engineer Apple's work. But isn't it the music industry that demands those protections? Didn't Apple open the door to legal downloading by producing software that limits copying? Haven't others been able to develop legal download sites because they developed their own copy protection schemes?

Real is a mess.

No one wants their freedom to use whatever player taken away -- with any player. This is what the fuss IS about. All this limiting our fair-use is a bore. Times will change.

if i purchase music online I should not have to play it on a vendor specific device......i didnt have to do taht with LPs, tapes or cds and i dont see why I should have to do that with downloaded music.

I must admit, Real in the past has used shady practices with it's software. Once you install it brands your desktop, quicklaunch, systray, startmenu, and the foreheads of the people you love. This time around, they're just trying to get into a market of users who own iPods. Both companies I feel are using shady practices here. If anyone feels like I do, they should go out and buy a Dell or Creative mp3 player and use kazaa or something like it! P2P forever!

REAL sucks!
Apple Blows!

So its give and take, let them self combust.

you would have thought that the music industry(and everyone else for that matter) would have learned by now that there will always be people who will break there encoding to be able to share there media......if i remember correctly they tried doing this with DVDs.......lol....what a joke....anyone can rip a DVD now a days even with the supposed encryption that manufacturers and movie rentals place on the DVDs.

allofmp3.com (BIG SMILE GOES HERE)

I think what Steve jobs did was genius.
He brought order to a market that had degraded into chaos.
He brought us into alignment. AWESOME move...
In other words, the artists are getting paid, and itunes is easy to use and the ipod is cool.
Without all this working together everyone would continue to fight forever.
My friends have ipods and I see them all over.
The price of the ipod will come down as technology and competition increases. I can play everything that I need to on my ipod. I love my IPOD and I invested in APPLE. Go Steve GO!

P2P.....i dont think so........welcome to virus/trojan/worm city, the P2P network is a hackers dream come true.

WWW.ALLOFMP3.COM

only place you need to go to get music at any bit rate 128, 192, 320, etc...

$10 per 1gb downloaded.

Any format ex. wma, mp3, etc....

Best music site on the internet

GOOD MAN - spread the word

Why don't they just agree on a standard and make all the players compatible ? It's kinda like buying a DVD-R drive - they're all different formats.

Apple shot themselves in the foot over 20 yrs ago when they decided not to license their hardware and they seemed "surprised" at that time when PCs got over 90% of the home computing market.

Easy compatability and lots of vendors making "add-on" products for your product is key to expandability and Apple will never grab a significant market share until they realize this.

lol

WWW.ALLOFMP3.COM :-)

by the way.....i still use a cd player..... i have a network mp3 player that scans all 15,000 mp3s on my server for at home and I burn my cds for the odd occation I am walking....i have an mp3 player in my car as well as XM radia at home and in the car. I think the Ipod is a waist of money.......who needs that many songs with them for a day.....lol

I don't have an iPod - too expensive. I don't use my CD Walkman either. I think I like to live in the real world - you know, hear the traffic and people and whatever.

But at the end of the day I do think they're a great idea - you know, for long trips or whatever. The argument here is a waste of energy though.

Erm... allofmp3

Don't go to iTunes! Stop moaning about it.

... allofmp3. I love those Russians. Maria Sharapova, Anna Kornikova. Good at tennis.

iTunes allows you to rip songs as mp3 files. As well, you can convert WMA files. Please check the hot tips page from Apple's.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/hottips/

I think you should do your research before you write these articles.

yeah - Mr Anonymous is right, but at the same time... allofmp3.com

You don't see Apple going out and making other mp3 players like the Dell jukebox working with it's Music Store.

(Disclosure: former PC user, now a Mac user, used to work with Microsoft)

In this world and in the world of computing, you get what you pay for. Apples are expensive but they provide a better user experience. I've used 2000/XP etc. Hell I used to work with MS. But in the end -- to me-- my Mac kicks ass. Those who don't think so are entitled to their own opinion and hopefully they have used OS X long enough to form an educated one.

Real products remind me of the worst of the dot.com days. Intrusive and not very polished. The fact of the matter is anyone could have done what Apple has done with digital music. Many have tried. But Apple made it work well and provided a model for the industry.

I agree with Apple. Real has basically hacked Apple's revenue stream. Real's 'consumer' stance is a sham because they would do the same exact thing if the tables were turned and they invented the iPod. But they didn't.

Real should save their money and design that kicks the iPod's ass in terms of attractiveness and easy to use. Let's face it. The iPod is the gold standard, whether people believe it deserves it or not.

Former PC user now MAC user....and u used to work for MS.........sounds fishy......lol.....I am a Senior network engineer.......you are the first I have heard of going from PC to MAC and not the other way around......linux I would understand but MAC.......u obviously dont do much on your computer....

There is a great discussion going on here...

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222233&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

That explains everything in a little more detail. It is a really good read if you are interested.

While I have little sympathy for Apple because they run a closed system (their greed is why they have such low market share) I absolutely dispise Real Networks. Installing Realplayer is an offensive process, they want to take over your computer and get all sorts of personal information. I've removed anything associated with Real Networks from my PC and don't return to sites that insist you use it (Microsoft media player works fine and is free). If Apple or any other company can do harm to Real Networks I'm all in favor of it regardless of merit.

The music industry has declared allofmp3.com illegal. The reason it is staying up is because russion copyright law enables businesses to publish copyrighted content without the consent of the copyright owner. Do you really want to support that?

It's amazing how much misinformation there is in this thread.

Or is that DIS-information?

Anyhow, I hate RealNetworks and I was about 85% decided on buying an iPod Mini but there is no way I'll let myself get locked into only buying music from one source.

I've seen the artist lists at iTunes and they really don't cover my taste which runs a bit toward the obscure/bubbling under.

I simply could not be satisfied with what's available from one store. And I won't buy a player that tries to lock me into it.

Mr anonymous......maybe u should read the links you are sending

I Quote:
"In iTunes for Windows, you can convert your unprotected WMA files to AAC files (or whatever file format is chosen in the Importing pane of iTunes Preferences) "

The files you download from Itunes are already AAC files and therfore can only be played with the Itunes player.

That link refers nothing as far as acc encrytped to unencrypted files.

It is also illegal to buy mp3s from allofmp3.com outside of russia. Buying these tracks in the US or Europe is as illegal as downloading them using P2P.