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.

Reverse engineering has been around since the early days of PC's. Compaq and Phoenix reverse-engineered IBM's BIOS. Cyrix and AMD successfully reverse-engineered Intel's microprocessors. At the end of the day, the consumer has directly benefited as a result of reverse engineering.

www.allofmp3.com for life.........man i am tired of paying 15$ for a cd or to download an album so that a record label can make billions........i will support anyone who is helpingthe cause. A blan cd cost what.......$0.25 cents max.......the cost the producer is about $4 per cd (if it is burned to a cd) ( about $1 for downloadable media) why should be be taxed so much...if they were to be reasonable about the cost of purchaseing for consumers (like $5 for a complete download of an ablum) than i would buy from them......by the way what label companys website can you go to to download music from......i dont know any......why arnt the record companys publshing albums n there own site to download.

"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?"

This isn't actually true. Copyright in Russia is controlled by an organisation called ROM. They are basically the RIAA of Russia. They have authorised allofmp3 to use people's music. It's as legal as iTunes or Harmony - but Russian. I like vodka too. I'm thinking of moving to Russia. Pretty cool guys there. Nice hats.

The RIAA may have labeled allofmp3 illegal but they would, wouldn't they? These are the people that sue grandmothers and teenagers for downloading songs for free.

The ipod may be a superior player, but the iTunes downloads are not superior to the Realnetwork counterparts. It's annoying to realize that, as cds are inferior to records, these downloads are inferior to cds, and Apple's iTunes are inferior, in data transfer, to those of RealNetwork. Why wouldn't the public want to get the best version of those tunes so they can play them on the best player?

I live outside the U.S. (where we don't get the iTunes Store). After evaluating all options, I still bought an iPod.

I don't think that Apple is a closed system anymore than buying a BMW or a Ford is a closed system. You still need to get critical parts from BMW and Ford, but nothing stops you from buying Goodyear tyres, or a Nakamichi tape deck. You can use a Creative Player with the Apple, and an HP printer, and a Sony Camera, and a...etc, etc.

This is a PC ("Windows") site. Why hasn't anyone commented on Microsoft's "closed" system?

i agree with mark reverse engineering has been around for ages and only benefits us (the consumer)

And anonymous.......we heard the same about napster and all the rest........they are still up and running and there is jack shit the US government can do about ....whooohoooo

The ipod may be a superior player, but the iTunes downloads are not superior to the Realnetwork counterparts. It's annoying to realize that, as cds are inferior to records, these downloads are inferior to cds, and Apple's iTunes are inferior, in data transfer, to those of RealNetwork. Why wouldn't the public want to get the best version of those tunes so they can play them on the best player?

no one has commented on microsoft because they are not the issue today and secondly because they are giving there share holders (like my self) money back.......:-) That will keep me from bitching about MS for at least a week or 2

yay! Realplayer is an evil spying pain in the arse! and the majority agree! there is a god in heaven!

What a silly little tempest in a teapot. Of course what Real is doing is illegal, and will be legally found as such. iPod is the gold standard in personal mp3 players, and the numbers prove it. This whole "I should get what I want for free" mentality is childish. I blame the early days of hobby computing for this. The idea of "if I can figure out how to take it, it's OK" is nothing more than a rationalization of stealing.

What I don't understand is that most of the articles about the iPod have no idea what it is and how it relates to the iTunes Music Store. It is quite clear that the author of this piece also has no clue.

The iPod (not IPod) is not a closed system. Using iTunes (free on windows and mac, no spyware) you can convert any format to .aac or .mp3, or lossless aac, or wav, or .aif.

You can import your entire CD collection, or you entire mp3 collection, and play it on your iPod. You can download mp3s, (non-DRM) and play them on the ipod. You can go out and buy new CD's and import them (as long as they are not copy-protected) and they play on the iPod.

If you really want to pay and download a song, load up the iTms and do it. It will play on your iPod.

If you do not want an iPod there are at least 5 other system that work the exact same way.

"The iPod (not IPod) is not a closed system. Using iTunes (free on windows and mac, no spyware) you can convert any format to .aac or .mp3, or lossless aac, or wav, or .aif."

Key word: convert.

Any system which isn't designed to accept and codec of the user's choice is to my mind a closed system.

It's interesting to see all these people riled up against Apple and its proprietary products. Believe it or not, Apple is at the forefront of delivering products that actually create a better user experience. It's not to say that Apple's products are simple, just easier to use (which would probably not satisfy those who crave tinkering with little-known files in their system folders, to whom I say a lot of us simply choose not to live our lives in front of the screen). At any rate, Apple develops innovative products that others love to copy. Now, isn't that good for the rest of the market? Real is just being lazy. They don't even seem to want to emulate ITMS and the iPod - they just flat out hijacked the latter. Meanwhile, it's Apple who developed the iPod, imagined the user interface and dealt (fairly) with the music industry. In other words, they did all the work. Isn't all this a lot like Delta hacking into JetBlue's reservation system and seating passengers who paid Delta yet fly on JetBlue's planes? Seriously, people! We get it. If you want cheap music, then put it into cheap music players. If you don't agree with Apple or their prices, you have a choice not to buy any of their products. Yet many of you continue to assail the company. No one is putting a gun to your head. Many continue to say that Apple's practices are self-destructive. So be it. If you're right, it'll wither away soon enough, right? Unless of course stupid consumers continue buying Apple products. Unfortunately, Apple's average buyers, research has shown, is more educated and has a higher income average. So I say to you all: Let. It. Go. It'll do wonders for your anger management.

I cannot help but think.... What would real do if they invested millions into a portable media player. And then apple or MS etc decided to reverse engineer their media device and make it so that it could download any of their DRM based file formats eg. WMA . NOw they can open a music site and sell their tunes for a cheaper price because they didn't have to invest all that money into engineering a media device. Somthing tells me Real would be suing the pants off MS... Bottom line Real thought they could turn a fast buck by selling their own DRM file format to iPOD users for cheaper then the aac files from apple. Just my thoughts though,

Suppose for a minute that this battle between Apple and Real was over your ability to watch movies on a media appliance you own at home for entertainment.

No? Bad argument. Everyone owns a DVD player, right?

DVD players are built by a bunch of different companies, but they all play DVDs. There is a standard here for watching movies that is good for the customer and the people that release movies on DVDs. Everybody wins.

Nobody has to buy one of five or ten different and incompatible player formats to watch their movies. Nobody has to buy movies in a half dozen media formats. There is only one DVD format, and we all use it.

Now apply this back to music. Soon there will be only one format, and everyone who sells players (and songs) will use that format.

Real is not being noble here by trying to take over Apple's player, or Microsoft's player, or everybody else's player, in order for all these different media devices to play their inferior music format.

There should be fewer formats for music, not more. Portable music players need to play fewer formats not more.

If AAC is a better format than MP3, or WMA, or Ogg, then that is the format everyone aught to be using. Apple is the clear winner here. AAC is the new DVD for music. Get over it.

(BTW, what's with PCworld and Linux? My Linux generated text looks like crap! But only here.)

This forum is full of a bunch of people that have no idea what Real networks is actually doing. They aren't "hacking" an iPod.

Everyone agrees here that an iPod can play WAV files, MP3 files, and unencrypted AAC files from any original source. If I burn a CD I own as an mp3 using real's media player it will play on my iPod.

Now, the iPod also supports a another format. It is an encrypted version of AAC using fairplay technology. What exactly is fairplay technology? Nothing very technological. Simply an encryption method that also keeps count of how many times the song is copied. Fairplay is not the only DRM algorithm, but it is the only one that an iPod supports.

To appease their music suppliers, Real networks also has a DRM, but they cannot license the fairplay DRM from Apple. Now, Real networks was forced to reverse-engineer the DRM. Before you get all huffy-puffy, remember that Apple pulled the same sh*t with Adobe PDF technology. Rather than license the technology from Adobe, they reverse-engineered it, build Quartz, which uses the reverse-engineered code and preview which opens PDF files. You don't see Adobe threatening action because this is not illegal. If I use open office, it can save files in Microsoft Word format. Also not illegal.

All that real networks does it converts an encrypted file in their format to a new encrypted file format that is compatable with the fairplay DRM engine. They copied no code, but simply messed with the inputs and outputs of an AAC file.

So what? Apple now has a a competitor to the iTunes music store that can run on an iPod. This is a good thing. Rather than 99cents a song, competition might bring this down to 89cents. Apple has a huge monopoly (read 60% market share) on hard-drive based music players. It is ridiculous that they be allowed to sue Real networks for creeping in on the legal digital music market.

The only thing you should take notice of is that Real networks software tends to suck @ss. They install spyware type programs on your computer and have always proven inferior to other online content providers. Chances are few people will want to use their service anyway. But give them a break, Apple is in the wrong here.

I agree with Mark, reverse-engineering is not blanket illegal and usually ends up being good
for the consumer. (All PC users should thank AMD for making an x86-compatible processor,
even if they've never bought a non-Intel computer in their life; they've saved you
a ton of money over the years!)
Real didn't *hack* Apple's Fairplay DRM, they just figured out their own way of using it,
by looking at how it worked and using their own code to make it compatible with their software.
From what I've read on many different sites, the consensus seems to be Apple pretty much can
only do the two things they've done: 1) talk trash about Real, 2) change Fairply enough each
upgrade to break Real's code, forcing them to play catch up on their code.

There two other examples just like this currently in the computer world:
1) The reverse-engineering of CSS (DeCSS) to (originally) allow DVD playback on Linux systems
2) Trillian and other multi-IM clients versus Yahoo, for one, who likes to break it during each upgrade

Are all you (Real) playa haters on the side of the MPAA and Yahoo on those examples of reverse-engineering
for compatibility?

Rob Glaser, CEO of Real, used to work for Microsoft.

That's why RealNetworks treats customers like captive prisoners. They do not respect the customer. They demand full control of your PC, if you like it or not. It's the Bully mentality that Glaser took from Microsoft to RealNetworks that has always made Real such an unappealing piece of low-quality software.

RealPlayer is worthless. It's for newbies.

Apple innovates. Microsoft and RealNetworks steal ideas.

Glaser wants to break the law to succeed. Another facet of behavior he learned at Microsoft.

I think there is a lot of trashing going around here that has nothing to do with the essential fact of it.

First of all, i do not agree with Apple reaction on this one.

Second, i do understand why they HAVE to react like that in a commercial system and with there little marketshare, in relation to there contracts with music bussiness.

Third, i want to see all Mac-bashers here do the same about palladium or the operating system with incorperated license technology they are using now.

If you say it is normal for real to act like that, than you can say the same about Apple/Quicktime as they have an equal marketshare. Now say the same about Media Player/Microsoft.

I use both macs and pcs and I can tell you about a lot of people swithcing from pc to mac and not the way around. Lucky for everybody.

Now the essential part: It looks like apple is the only one that has to open up systems as soon as they are a bit of succes.

You all must understand that Apple is upset with Real because they make no profit (or very little) from the actual iPod. They were using the iPod as a way to get people to use the ITMS.

Therefore Real's cracking of the iPod with Harmony is a direct threat to their profitibility in this sector. This isn't unlike the console market, where the console maker actually loses money on the console so that they can make lots of money on the game, which must be licensed to them.

What Real has done in not unlike what Tengen did in the NES era. They found a way to make cartridges that worked in the NES, without licensing them from Nintendo. Nintendo later prevailed in court, and shutdown Tengen, because they were such a significant threat to their profitibility.

.......real has done nothing wrong. Reverse engineering has been around for ages and only benifits us(the consumer) AMD, Adobe, Apple, etc...the list goes on.

And no, more and more poeple arnt switching to apple.....they have had the same market share for ever and a day.......linux is what more and more people are switching to which is what MAC OSx is built on.

I agree with some of the other posts. Why is nobody complaining of Microsoft's closed WMA system. If not for Apple, I would have had to buy a WMA player as WMA (with DRM) files would have been my only choice for legal downloads. Apple gives me another choice using another technology, I am free to buy whatever I want, I chose the iPod - THIS IS CHOICE, WAKE UP!

Apple doesn't close up the system anymore than the other on-line stores (Napster, Wal-mart etc.) who ran and licensed Microsoft's DRM'd WMA - I'm sure they didn't even talk to Apple about Fairplay - wrongly assuming (and saying to the media) Apple would not be around long in the music download game once Wal-amrt came on-line, or when Virgin came on-line, or when Napster came on-line etc. etc. etc. - now they are all saying, well it's early and Apple won't last 'cause it's closed fairplay system, but they are really concerned now.

Now it's Microsoft to the rescue for them (PC industry) this fall as MS is expected to roll out MSN music (ohhhh, ahhhh) and iTunes will finally die (predicted yet once again) - oh wait it (MSN) will be the same offering as everyone else like Real and Napster and iPod owners won't give a ***k 'cause their players (smart move for Apple) don't play WMA in any form. This is a smart marketing move in consumer electronics (remember these MP3 players are in a new arena - the rules or trends of the computer industry do not apply any more) and Apple is going to stand out to consumers.

I think there are many PC people that simply don't like Apple getting all this attention and the fact they have a very popular product.

Consumer Choice (generally a oxymoron in the computer industry) Just like wintel gives the consumers the illusion of choice - consumer PC manufacturers all use the parts and chips and RUN THE SAME Windows OS!!! how in the hell is this choice??? What, because my HP is a different color than your Dell we have a choice - look at our screens Windows's XP looks exactly the same regardless if you have a Dell or an IBM. So there is in reality not very much choice already when buying a PC. Apple and OS X does give you a choice, as does LINUX. You can easily run Linux software on Apple OS X and I believe OS X on top of Linux giving you even more choice. The hardware is all made in the same asian factories side-by side, just put in different wrapper - some losers/fools are actually putting neon lights!!! in their PC'S - TO STAND OUT.

In the end - no matter what anyone says - Apple GIVES CONSUMERS CHOICE IN BOTH THE PURCHASE OF A COMPUTER AND MP3 PLAYER - end of story.

Roger.....AAC is not a format it is an encryption.....mp3, wma...etc....these are formats that get enctpted.

BIG DIFFERENCE

David, let the courts decide, then, but I'm dubious on Apple's prospects of stopping Real.

I go back to what a few have said in this thread, though, ***DRM is the problem here***.

The more DRM gets cracked, hacked, reverse-engineered, the more it will send the message, consumers don't want to pay money for something and then be locked into a specific way of listening/viewing that material.

When I buy a CDs, I *expect* to be able to rip the tracks to MP3 and create custom RWs of music, to play in my car or to just double-click on my computer to bring up in WinAMP.

I *paid* the money for the music, but now the RIAA wants to tell me I have to tote around a 100-CD binder around with me 24/7, so I can listen to the music I bought *when* I want to?
DRM is all about telling us we are only *renting* the music or movies we always thought we were buying.

Apple fanboy and/or Real hater or not, DRM is the problem. I'm sorry, but Apple can't even make iPODs fast enough for people who want to buy them, I'm not shedding any tears about their sales. Come on, give me a break.
Every business decision Apple/Jobs makes shows they/he only *wants* a certain percentage of any given market.

For those of you who are on the copy protectionist side of the argument, just think of all the countries with millions of programmers who are in the jurisdiction of copy protection laws.

Music and movies are electronic transmissions these days, they are not CD's or DVD's the old model is dead and apple and everyone else needs to get over it. The war is over and all these battles are pointless.

Fairway, can you submit your post a few more dozen times, sometimes I scroll to fast and miss a line or two of it.

Fairway I dont know what your smokin but I want some........there are over 18 different OS's out there that run on PC hardware.....there is only 1 OS that runs on Apple........you show me the choice apple is giving u....even sun microsytems realized to stay in teh game they need to give consumers the choice...hence the reason they started supporting Ix86 systems again.

Both Apple and Rael can get lost as far as I'm concerned. I well remember how Apple treated their 2E and 2C purchasers. The 2s financed Mac developement and then Apple abandoned the platform. That was after providing absolutely no support for years and years. "See your dealer" was their line... The "dealers" were dumber than sticks when it came to technical questions.

Reals continuous "upgrades" and money grubbibg ways alienated me soon after purchasing their products. I actually had to purchase Real twice and still they hounded me for more $ just to keep using their second rate product.

I'll not use any product from either company, ever.

You should all just go and watch "The Corporation".

iPod is not a closed system. People seem to forget that the iPOD plays unencrypted MP3s just fine.

You should all just go and watch "The Corporation".

What you can and cannot carry on your iPod.
Software
Documents
Calendars
Ebooks
Audio Books
Lossless formats
MP3s and AACs ripped from your home library
Audio notes made directly on your iPod etc.

Can't carry stuff with DRM from sources other than the iTunes store.
This rules out very little, but its the same kind of supply side strong arm marketing that Microsoft is famous for. But what can people expect given that MS has been allowed this guerilla marketing?

Gee Whiz where have all you people been? ( I assume you are people and not from an alien planet) -
Why do you suppose Apple has never approached the size of Microsoft, HP, IBM or any other computer company - it is called proprietary software! Get a grip and learn to say - OK, how much does that cost and will I get any change?
Music is a product.

to be honest I think that it is appple who may need to be concerned....if they push this to far and enough media gets it they may find them selves being charged by real for the bad publicity they are creating for real.

Ounce agin real has done nothing wrong.

The problem is that if Apple keeps blocking Real's software, it runs the risk of (a) a restraint-of-trade lawsuit, and (b) a lot of negative publicity. Real's strategy might not lead to commercial success but it could become much more than an annoyance, and I think the tone of Apple's response suggests that it's more than an annoyance.

f..k them both, ANY Music is for Morons!!!!!!!!

Realplayer haters: the enterprise version of free realplayer is less bloated than the regular version of free realplayer. you can download it from real.com. It still tries to load realsched.exe at startup, but you can erase the .exe file from your HDD easily enough.

iPods are just like all other Apple products - cool, but way overpriced. Remember in the 1980's when Jobs tried to sell laser printers for $10,000?

And don't even get me started on RIAA. $1/track is at least double what it ought to be.

I would buy an iPod, but too much money. WAY too much. I'll wait another year, then buy a better player, with a replaceable battery, from another company for about a third the price.

The point is--Real Player hacked into the system and didn't make an agreement with Apple. I don't think it would have been a problem had they not committed such an unfriendly act. So Apple's angry about the way it was done and I don't blame them. Talk to Apple, make an agreement and be a partner with them. Why go "behind their back?" What's the purpose? Just shows the type of people who run Real Player are on the sleazy side.

fwiw ... microsoft, REAL, and apple have relied on a business model that requires you to license their technology. sometimes they're ready to license it ... and sometimes they're not. if something's licensed too early on or too late, it can disperse it's intended market.

i agree with the other poster above that states the author hasn't really researched the idea of a closed system very well (the +ve spin), or may just be contrarion in order to bump up the hit rate on his site. the more hits--the more secure his employment contract (-ve spin).

either way, apple has finally got a leg up in the marketplace, and the predators condemn it for the same tactics they use to get ahead. if you like it--buy it. if not, buy dell. they have to practically give away their crap.

Let's clear up some misconceptions. The RIAA has never gone after anyone downloading pirated music. They go after people who make their collections available for UPLOAD over the internet. However, RIAA propaganda intentionally confused the issue by using the term download to mean upload. Most mainstream media have followed the RIAA's lead in this either intentionally or through ignorance.

As for allofmp3.com, until the RIAA or some other agency sues them for copyright violation and wins that suit in a Russian or U.S. court, the issue of its legality is a moot point for downloaders using the service.

There is one area of allofmp3 that might get a U.S. user into legal trouble. The service offers free downloads to people who supply them with albums allofmp3 wants to post on their service.
If you rip an album and upload the files to their service, you have breached U.S. copyright law, which specifies copying for personal use is OK, but not for general distribution.

The RIAAs silence regarding allofmp3.com is puzzling isn't it? You would think they'd be screaming to the heavens. If anyone knows of a press release or interview spelling out the RIAAs legal opinion on this service, could you post it here?

Look... Apple has enough trouble retaining their 5% Market Share .. get off their asses for trying to run a business... if you dont like it .. go jump on the other boat! ;)

Let's let the courts decide whether Real did anything illegal, because at least Blair and I don't think they did. Again, what does Apple have to be angry about, they are capitalists, right? We all know the people at Real Networks are, for sure. If Apple would have worked on licensing Fairplay, it is quite likely RN would have happily made their lawyers less nervous and worked out an agreement. Instead, they wanted to be the most compatible media player on the market, whether you like them or not, and so they went about doing what they lawyers I'm sure told them they could do.

RealNetworks != SCO
RealNetworks != Rambus

Apple wants to be a monopoly in the on-line music biz - maybe they are capitalists? - and now are acting like a spoiled child that someone else is playing *their game*, but at their own house, when they could have invited them to their house in the first place.

I've never cared for Real's products and I'm indifferent to Apple, except that Apple fans make being a consumer of a product into an almost cult-like experience. It's a hunk of metal and plastic; it's a tool. You're self-identity shouldn't be tied up into whether you use OS X or an iPod... you have a preference, great, glad it works for you, really, but spend more time using your Apple products then and enjoy them, instead of trying to make them seem more important by slamming everything else.

I can't believe you people. Apple makes overpriced products and fools people into believing they are cool. Snap out of it, it's a scam, just like any other. Support your local computer guy and buy a PC. Fsck corporate dogma.

Real Player was useful in the early days of streaming audio, and is useful today for streaming content.

However, Real Player never encouraged recording of content. That irked me. One could find a way to record using other software, but Real didn't care.

Real player seems to sometimes crash the streaming connection a little too often. And it can't seem to automatically reconnect. Who want's a software radio or any radio that has to be manually reset. It shold be smarter with a built in timer.

It had a good algortihm for early streams made for low bandwidths.

For streaming radio it was ok. As bandwidth got higher, the quality did improve. Streamers complained of the fees Real networks was imposing.

It went downhill fast with potential customers feeling offended by their Marketing and Licensing schemes. Now it has come to this with the iPOD fight.

I am a happy Apple customer. I have been one since 1977 way before the Mac. I have worked in the computer industry from about 1980 until 2000. I worked for 10 years as a system analyst for a college. I have worked on IBM DEC SUN and others on a systems level programmer, making drivers and such for non supported printers, scanners and various communication equipment and probably a few things a cant remember. Which in my view is the same thing that Real has done. They wrote a driver for dissimilar equipment. I have watched the computer industry mature. Some meaning Apple, seem to lack the maturity that time, brings to us all. The Apple ll was out years before IBM made the first pc, what happen Apple. Listening to the rhetoric then is similar now. The Mac had a smoother interface with icons, and the PC which didn?t have icons in DOS moved up to a shell that ran over DOS with icons. Now Apple is running a shell and what was discounted as a child?s interface by the pc community is now implemented on the pc with icons, it is to bad the interfaces are not more similar. This is more of Apples doing. It?s a good thing the automotive industry was out before such marketing strategies. Who knows which side the gas peddle would be on and on which cars. Apple does seem to be anal retentive about sharing. It is a clear fact they come out with incredible technology and are followed by the rest. Just one example is their implantation of WIFI and Bluetooth they were first to let its users use them so easily, Apple in their recent past has boasted about how they are now conforming to and implementing standards in their designs. Yet apple feels quite at ease creating something that is counter to there open standards brag. Sure its not right but its marketing,. They should think about reaping the benefits of their hard work in development through licensing their technology to others. Their short sightedness, if nothing else, should be a lesson to us all. The Lesson is certainly is wasted on Apple. And it is a shame. I am still waiting to see the new iMac and sight unseen Im thinking about one. In some ways Apple makes no sence but in otheres they are way, way ahead of the game.

It's Microsoft Windows all over again.

Apple has invested the $$ to create the vast majority of great computer experiences we have today ? from the original "windowing" environment (which Microsoft reverse engineered to make "Windows"), the mouse, the laser printer, ethernet, firewire ? shall I go on?

The lesson here is quite simple: the people who do the innovative, creative work that truly enhances our lives are never rewarded. Unethical hacks like Bill Gates, and now "Real Networks", will wind up leading us down the road to inferior products in order to make billions.

I won't support Microsoft and now Real. Microsoft made its money by playing dirty within the industry -- buying up great, innovative technology only to shut it down, lest it hurt the bottom line.

This why 90%+ of the PC market lives on the crap technology called windows. If you support these PC Pirates, don't complain when the market is dominated by such CRAP.

Another good editorial on this subject is here: http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2004/07/31/review/
Real, Apple, Sony, BMG, BMI, Micro$oft, etc., etc. Stop trying to control the things we "consumers" started owning when we bought them from you! Stop trying to create monopoly situations for yourself and crying foul when competition arrives on your doorstep! Don't like this? I have a concept for you: Open source. We're right on your heels. You know it, and it's only a matter of time till we take back our piece of the pie.

Apple always gets copied. Now the iPod is being "hacked" by Real. Give Apple a break. (Apple's biggest problem is cost of hardware, but I have never had a serious Apple hardware problem. Apple stuff is quality!

Am I alone in thinking that the iPod looks like a bar of soap? The Philips one, with the gorgeous white-on-black display, is far prettier, not that it matters.

Unfortunately, the pitiful battery life has kept both of them off my shortlist. A player that can carry X,000 tracks but run for only 8-12 hours seems rather like a plane that can carry 9,000 passengers 300 feet. Obviously, the battery issue isn't a problem for a lot of people, but they'd need to at least double it before the player was of any use at all to me.

But this is all off topic...

I think Apple needs to keep the iPod/iTunes thing closed for a while longer. They need this current, leading position to make deals with other distribution technologies (like mobile cell networks) as well as consumer electronics manufacturers like Alpine for compatibility. I think once Apple has fulfilled their goals in this area, they will license AAC Fairplay technology to others. Real caught them by surprise. It what Real did illegal? the courts will decide, if Apple decides to push it. These are all common practices in this industry it seems.

Apple has a small market share with excellent products and a religious base (now including myself - after iPod). However they need extra leverage when battling MS and friends, and choose 'closed' systems when it suits them (to their advantage) - right or wrong as it may be. Time will tell, but apple is on a roll and will be hard to stop.

I don't think you can compare legal on-line music markets to the computer industry in general - they are completely different animals.

Oh, and Sony is taking the same route with Atrac and nobody is saying boo, because Sony doesn't have the huge market share Apple does. Real isn't getting it's service to work with Atrac, it would be interesting if they did, What would SONY do in Apple's shoes?

I hope Apple wins. If Real wanted to partner a compatible brand they should have gotten Apple's permission to do so, now they have spoiled the broth. I used to like Real until I found they embedded spyware into RealPlayer, now it seems their tactic is: if you "lock" us out (for whatever reason), and we don't want to partner or buy our way in, or invent & market our own proprietary tecnology, then we'll hack yours, and sell the hack along with our product. Sounds like something you would find on cracks.am

Just one thing to say. My next computer will be an apple. I hate windows.

Real Network adds ZERO value.

Apple is positioning itself as the PREMIER electronic music distributor. Countless (self anointed) gurus counted them out, and, continue, to make unfounded iPod pronouncements, and, predictions. ALL false. Apple does not wish to allow carpetbaggers to jump aborad for a free ride on Apple's R&D. Is this a decision that is good for Apple? The jury is out. If I were head of Apple I would tend to make same decision. Apple's decision suggests that they are confident that the iPOd platform, and, the Apple music store, will come out ahead, by going it alone

This is not about the product or the service, this is about protecting corporate profit.

For those who dislike Apple for its exclusive practices, this is another platform they will enjoy hacking at and Real has become the first of many to challenge their format. For the 3% of the user market that find value in Apple's products, they will remain zealots who defend the fortress at all cost.

But the truth is that Apple needs this new line of business to support the company and its shareholders. Even within their annual reports, trends are showing the profits and volume is down in the computer sales (even with their launch of direct retail outlets) and the health of the company is depending heavily on this new music model. The device drives sales of the music and the iTune site drives device sales.

For now, there is a happy co-existence, but as Apple has seen in the past, this too will be short lived. Yes iPod has become a cultural icon, but in every case, the majority of the world turns to flattering replicas that offer slightly different features, new designs, slightly improved performance and lower cost.

In summary, when the iPod falls from grace, Apple will have little to fall back on. As I hear it, Apple's R&D are working on a new proprietary version of the George Foreman Grill!

If this was any other company getting screwed, I'd be appalled but real networks has it coming.

Poster John Baker is "getting a Dell".

John, Dell runs WINDOWS. The KEY concept is WINDOWS, not the brand of your generic WINDOWS box, consisting of generic, off-the-shelf components. The REASON you're not getting a Mac is NOT because you're "ounishing" Apple, but, because, you are wallet challenged to the point where the known WINDOWS annoyances are less costly to you than the TIME You'll spend in correcting them. Put anoyjer way, the TRUTHFUL way, this is ALL about the (low) value of YOUR time. The best solution: go back to school, increase your IQ score, attain a VALUALE skillset; then, your TIME will increase in value, exponentially, and you won't be reduced to buying garbage.

Real Networks is as close to a virus as you can get. Ever tried to delete Real off of you computer? It just keeps popping up. I don't even think Norton could write a definition to get rid of it. For this reason I could care less if Real does anything with or without the iPod. This iPod must be way ahead of the pack otherwise Real would jus do their own player.

Dear All:

If you cannot cook up a fake email ID whenever you need to install something, then you are a "none-too-smart sheep ripe for fleecing" (quoting Editor in Chief Harry McCracken). However you can always rely on me to do so for you.
You can contact me at the following genuine email ID.

I notice two, distictly different, posters. 1) the THIEVES. 2) the consumers The THIEVES have a thive's sense of entitlement, in their view, Apple should spend $$ on R&D, and, forego profits via "open system". The CONSUMERS are willing to pay, provided they perceive VALUE.

ATTENTION THIEVES. Nothing is "free", even your delusions, induced by drugs, co$t, unle$$ you $teal drugs, in which case you won't be arpound for long, therfore you won't need an iPod, besides, death is the ULTIMATE open system.

i agree w/rik. NEVER USE REAL's SHIT. good luck to apple. they need a good hit after all these years

I think the key point here is how much we let Apple control our music. If, in the future evryone starts to use the Ipod like Apple wanta them to, and if we can't buy music anywhere else except Itunes, then we'll pretty much have to listen to what Apple wants us to listen to. That sounds too Orwellian for my taste.
And its weird that Steve Jobs is railing against something that increases the functionality of his Ipod for free ! Kind of like Microsoft suing Winamp for making a competing media player for its Windows OS.

Well as far as I can see the iPod is a rip off compared to what is offered these days in the mass storage media player market...
Not only can you get players with twice the storage for the same price, u can also get extra features that cost hundreds of $$$ xtra for free. The system is not user friendly when it comes to copying files, you can't delete files/ rename files etc, has dodgy battery problems, a small screen with limited graphical ability. It looks like apple has put together the cheapest system they could, developed the cheapest user interface, then added the most extensive protection and a flashy cover. Waste of money!!!
Ipod seems to be designed for a proconsumer market, one that is dependant on image!

Real player probably does suck but get over it... Just don't use it if u don't like it!

People should research the market before they buy!!!

John baker says:
"Apple printer $329 and same printer from Canon $149"

If you did your research you'd see that the Canon will most likely work with OS X too.

Blair says:
"linux I would understand but MAC.......u obviously dont do much on your computer...."

You obviously have never used OS X. As an ERP consltant my company buys me a Dell so I'm forced to use it there. At home, my Mac does everything I need it to. Talk to anyone who uses OS X and XP on an equal basis and by far the majority will tell you the Mac is superior. Unless you are one of those people, why do you think you have the knowledge to express an opinion like you did?

Blair says:
"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"

And I think any form of compressed music is a waste of time other than a portable format when traveling/working out/etc. I'd never consider using a compressed format for my home stereo or car. The sound quality of mp3's, AAC's, WMA's or any other format is poor at best, even at high encoding rates. You have a right to your opinion on what you wish to spend your money on. If you think the iPod is a waist (sic, I think you meant waste) then you shouldn't buy one.

Real is doing the smart thing and is succeeding in getting publicity... such as this, and trying to get in on the action the iPod and has generated. I don't mind paying a little extra for useability. I think consumers will realize that tech doesn't have to make you feel like a complete idiot. Thanks Apple!

Wow Longest web page i have seen.
Computers are like motorcycles
HARLEY = Mac Dual Processor
Indian= UNIX \Linux
Rice Burner= windows
real Player is just plain trash, all APPLE is doing is keep out 3rd party trash

The DRM and related laws were made to protect the intellectual property of innovating companies and reward their efforts.

To Apple, the reward is in it's position when it negotiates with record companies and licencees. This position is good thanks to the iPod/iTunes concept it invented and realized, which took tremendous risks and efforts.

When Real hacks the DRM of Apple, this is genuine stealing and they should be punished really hard.

By the way: the iPod is really about MP3, like all harddrive based players except Sony's.

To first order no one buys online music and very few people buy players for that capability. Apple, with the only "successful" online music store on the planet, has sold about 3 CDs worth of music to each iPod owner.

I surveyed several hundred non-student iPod owners last Spring and found an average of over 2000 tracks on each one. Somewhat larger than the 30 Apple sold them.

The reality is that most iPods are filled with cleartext mp3 and aac.

Does anyone here actually shop at Real's online music store? I sure as hell never have...

Which begs the question: who cares?

Well what about this. Why does not Microsoft release its code to everyone?

I didn't see this mention but isn't the xbox the samething only plays games that Microsofl lets you, or is that camparing apples to oranges

"it makes me feel like Apple's not interested in helping me get the most out of my Apple products"

Your so far of the path. Are you of you rocker or something. This like saying since apple doesnt give me a house to live in when I buy the ipod they are not helping me get the most out of my Apple products.

There is a cost to everything you dork. When apple makes a decision on whether or not to licence its format to others (or give a free house with an ipod), it makes it based on profit maximizing (like every company does and should - take econ 101). and it seems like its not profit maximizing to licence its format.

Let apple make its ipod compatible with whatever it wants. when you go to buy the damn thing you make up your mind if its worth it to you or not. apple is not forcing its ipod down anybody's throat is it?

Thats how it should be. Thats what should happen for everyone to be better of. This is what we economists have been saying for such a long long time with such beautiful explanations and such structured thinking but you idiots never listen.....

Hey, John Baker...Apple doesn't make printers anymore, Dude! Go get your Dell. You really think Apple is going to go out of business because of your ignorant comments?

To Everyone else bashing Apple...How many of you are just Anti-Apple and have no clue about what you are talking about. Apparantly most of you. The iPod, at it's core, is an MP3 player. AAC is a free and open standard. Windows Audio is not. Get a clue.

I don't get it, there is no value at all for Apple to allow Real to allow users to use iPods with their music. OH, and by the way, Real isn't downloading the music in Apple's iPod compatible format. It is converted to that format on your computer after it is downloaded.

And to S Watson...buy a spell checker
"then we'll pretty much have to listen to what Apple wants us to listen to. That sounds too Orwellian for my taste."
-You need help
"And its weird that Steve Jobs is railing against something that increases the functionality of his Ipod for free !"
-In what way doe HArmony increase the functionality of the iPod? Does it have a new game to install????

"Kind of like Microsoft suing Winamp for making a competing media player for its Windows OS."
-No, kind of like Microsoft suing Lindows, or MikeRowe Soft, or any one of the hundreds of lawsuits that Microsot has brought against others in order to protect their own intelectual property.

>Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 07:13 AM (PST)
>
>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?

I want THE BEST products and services out there. That's why I use Macs.

Blair, you have hardly said one thing that is correct so far.
Going back to what you can do with WP. Two pages from Microsoft's site:

http://www.microsoft.com/permission/copyrgt/whatis.htm

This states what rights are granted to a copyright owner.

http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.mspx

This states under "Personal and non-commercial use limitation", what rights you have as a licensee, not owner of their software.

You will see that you are NOT granted the right to do anything that you have claimed to be able to do.

This is the link to the Copyright Office summary of the DMCA:http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

On page 5 and 6 it states exceptions "to the extent that such acts are permitted under copyright law."

It doesn't allow modification here either.

If you can find CURRENT applicable law that states that you have such a right, please don't blather on with your own interpretation.

"everything now adays is intrusive......almost any free software you download (even itunes) installs spyware and other **** on your pc"

iTunes doesn't install spyware. If you think it does, show us what and where.

"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........."

If you want to buy songs from Walmart, go ahead. Just remember that it was Apple that brought on line songs down from much higher levels. The other much cheaper sites, such as the one cited in Russia, are illegal. But that's ok, if you don't care about such things. A case doesn't have to be brought against an international illegal service to make it illegal. It just is. The Russians don't abide by international copyright laws, so it's tough to sue them. They are very upset about all of the "unauthorized" manufacturing of the AK-47 being done in plants that they "authorized" during the Cold War.

"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"

OS X is not Linux. First of all, Linux is just the kernel, it's not an operating system. Most Linux software does work in OS X, just use Apple's X11 software which comes with the system, or other windowing software. Most Unix software works on OS X as well. Go here, and learn something about Linux:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/

Or here to learn about OS X Unix:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/

OS X is based on the FreeBSD System, using the MACH kernel.

"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...."

From your spelling it hardly seems possible that you even have a job. Quite a few people have been going from MS to the Mac, esp. JAVA engineers.

ww.allofmp3.com for life.........man i am tired of paying 15$ for a cd or to download an album so that a record label can make billions........i will support anyone who is helpingthe cause. A blan cd cost what.......$0.25 cents max.......the cost the producer is about $4 per cd (if it is burned to a cd) ( about $1 for downloadable media) why should be be taxed so much...if they were to be reasonable about the cost of purchaseing for consumers (like $5 for a complete download of an ablum) than i would buy from them......by the way what label companys website can you go to to download music from......i dont know any......why arnt the record companys publshing albums n there own site to download.

It's sad, but again you're wrong The royalty costs per song eat up most of the cost. Also who pays for the millions that it now costs to produce just one album of a mainstrean Star? And what about the promotion costs, etc? None of this counts, I suppose? Also don't forget that all of those albums that don't make it, by those little known artists that so many of those here love so much, wouldn't get produced at all if the music companies didn't take the risks. After all, they lose money on most of what they produce. Mostly they don't break even until at least 200,000 albums have been sold. If it takes three years to sell that many, they won't make money then either. Your costs are way out of line. No one who knows the business has said that even making a profit at $.99 is assured. Apple only makes a small one (to everyones surprise) because thay sell so many.

"i agree with mark reverse engineering has been around for ages and only benefits us (the consumer)"

Unfortunately, the type of reverse engineering that produced the Phoenix BIOS clone of the IBM Pc is no longer permitted. It's too bad, I agree with that.

"To appease their music suppliers, Real networks also has a DRM, but they cannot license the fairplay DRM from Apple. Now, Real networks was forced to reverse-engineer the DRM. They (Real) install spyware type programs on your computer and have always proven inferior to other online content providers. Chances are few people will want to use their service anyway. But give them a break, Apple is in the wrong here.

The first part of this is a little tougher. So far no one is quite sure of what Real has done. Therefore it's not clear if it's wrong or not.

Real does not install spyware either.

Before you get all huffy-puffy, remember that Apple pulled the same sh*t with Adobe PDF technology. Rather than license the technology from Adobe, they reverse-engineered it, build Quartz, which uses the reverse-engineered code and preview which opens PDF files. You don't see Adobe threatening action because this is not illegal. If I use open office, it can save files in Microsoft Word format. Also not illegal."

Apple and Adobe have indeed had a licensing deal for PDF. Apple licensed the format so that PDF would be the default. Adobe was (and I'm sure still is) very happy about that. They announced it together. Quartz, however, has nothing to do with either PDF or Adobe. Quartz off-loads GUI graphic work to the GPU, if the graphics board has at least 32MB of RAM. Microsoft is copying that, apparently not patented idea, for Longhorn.

And no, more and more poeple arnt switching to apple.....they have had the same market share for ever and a day.......linux is what more and more people are switching to which is what MAC OSx is built on.

Wrong again. Apple's market share has gone up, at least for this past quarter. From 2.8% to 3.7%. Not much, it's true, but it's a start. We'll see if they can maintain that when the new iMacs come out in September. And again, no, it's not Linux.

"Roger.....AAC is not a format it is an encryption.....mp3, wma...etc....these are formats that get enctpted.

BIG DIFFERENCE"

Of course AAC is a format and Fairplay is the encryption. And yes, there is a BIG DIFFERENCE.

"Fairway I dont know what your smokin but I want some........there are over 18 different OS's out there that run on PC hardware.....there is only 1 OS that runs on Apple........you show me the choice apple is giving u....even sun microsytems realized to stay in teh game they need to give consumers the choice...hence the reason they started supporting Ix86 systems again."

True, there are more OS's on x86. But most of then are just distro's of Linux. Linux runs on the Mac as well. The point is?

"Ounce agin real has done nothing wrong."

Maybe, maybe not.

"The problem is that if Apple keeps blocking Real's software, it runs the risk of (a) a restraint-of-trade lawsuit, and (b) a lot of negative publicity. Real's strategy might not lead to commercial success but it could become much more than an annoyance, and I think the tone of Apple's response suggests that it's more than an annoyance."

a.I doubt that. That's a tough proof. They would have to prove that they are preventing Real from selling their product, which this wouldn't be doing. Apple has the right to improve their product, and in doing so, might change whatever hooks Real found to latch onto. No problem there.
b. Yes, that is true. But Apple must respond legally, if at most to make it known they are looking into it, and mentioning the upgrades. If there is a copyright question here, they must be seen, in the eyes of the law, to be attempting a defense.

Ok, rip into me.

There is a good discussion which includes comment about RIAA's attitude to ALLOFMP3.COM here : http://www.delldjsite.com/forums/showthread.php?s=fcef2e2d5b470f8cd070e1588ca04b45&t=2147&page=2&pp=15
Please read it and then use ALLOFMP# and forget about iTunes and Real.

Blair, you're a moron.
>ya sony has announced an mp3 player to compete with the
>ipod....i will wait for sony.......
It's not an MP3 player! It's an ATRAC3 Player.

>Posted by Blair on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 09:03 AM (PST)
>
>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.
-That's what you get with Sony. You may think you can CONVERT the ATRAC3 files into MP3, but that's like saying you could convert iTunes bought songs into MP3. Oh wait, you can!!!!!

>Posted by Blair on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 11:18 AM (PST)
>Roger.....AAC is not a format it is an encryption.....mp3,
> wma...etc....these are formats that get enctpted

AAC IS a format. Fairplay DRM is an encryption scheme.

For a senior Netowk Analyst, you really have no idea about anything that isin't Windows based do you. Open your eyes.

Oh yeah, and Look up the usage of "There" and "Their". Have fun in the second grade.

Hey melgross, Bravo!!

You could have posted it 10 times and I would have read every word

Something's very wrong. Multiple posts are flying left and right

That was a bit rough. Point out errors, but why be personal about it? As for the 'there' and 'their' thing... you've never done that?

Here's the analogy - Apple has set up valet parking in their shopping mall (the ipod) and is called this space AAC M4P. a) you don't have to shop there or if you do, you don't have to buy from Apple but like real life valet parking, it's a tradeoff you make for convenience - the cost, finanacial and otherwise is clearly spelled out for you - no hidden tricks.

In the real world, if REAL decided to set up a competing valet service on Apple's property, no one would be complaining that it's clearly an open violation but because REAL is clouding the issue, people cannot see past the smoke.

Because right now, today customers can load any track they purchased from the REAL store onto the ipod - they do have to burn it to a CD but they can re-rip it - and the ipod even accepts THREE lossless formats!

And same with the so-called locked Apple AAC M4P that's only locked because you're too lazy or find it UN-NECESSARY to convert it. If Apple stopped selling AAC M4P tomorrow - you can burn them to a CD that will play on BILLIONS of devices worldwide. And as digital files - as long as you preserve it - you can then shuffle it on a Blu-Ray DVD in a few years or whatever they come up with.

REAL is clearly intruding on private property ... but that property has public access right next to it so NONE of Real's claims hold any merit!

Would Coke let Dr. Pepper put their drink in the coke can? And mix it with the coke to boot? And, if it somehow started poisioning the drinkers, or burning holes in the cans, wouldn't that tend to reflect badly on coke? The iPod has a copyrighted DRM that Apple negotiated on their own with the record companies in order to use the iPod to sell music on. It is theirs, they can license it, but it is wrong to (1) circumvent it, or (2) disable it. They wouldn't license it to Real probably because Steve Jobs knew the guy running Real is unethical and can't be trusted. So, the guy breaks in the back door. Apple is going to fight it to keep Real out. And they should. Real is a competitor, anyone ever heard of that concept?

Remember Power Computing? They had a license to build computers that would run Mac OSs. This almost broke Apple because they would undercut Apple on price and they were marketing their machines effectively at a point when Apple was going through a tough series of bad CEOs. One of the first things Jobs did when he took contol was to buy back the Power Computing license ($400m). This was done to pave the way for Apple to continue to innovate, leading to the production the iMac, the G5, and now the iPod.

Apple participates in Open Source far more than any other computer company...that's profitable. Look at xcode. This system offers amazing opportunities and is being managed professionally.

i think all this market needs is a true solid competetor to iPod which supports all major audio formats,isn't bound to any particular music store and is equally good.

than only consumer will have full options to choose

Here's the analogy - Apple has set up valet parking in their shopping mall (the ipod) and is called this space AAC M4P. a) you don't have to shop there or if you do, you don't have to buy from Apple but like real life valet parking, it's a tradeoff you make for convenience - the cost, finanacial and otherwise is clearly spelled out for you - no hidden tricks.

In the real world, if REAL decided to set up a competing valet service on Apple's property, no one would be complaining that it's clearly an open violation but because REAL is clouding the issue, people cannot see past the smoke.

Because right now, today customers can load any track they purchased from the REAL store onto the ipod - they do have to burn it to a CD but they can re-rip it - and the ipod even accepts THREE lossless formats!

And same with the so-called locked Apple AAC M4P that's only locked because you're too lazy or find it UN-NECESSARY to convert it. If Apple stopped selling AAC M4P tomorrow - you can burn them to a CD that will play on BILLIONS of devices worldwide. And as digital files - as long as you preserve it - you can then shuffle it on a Blu-Ray DVD in a few years or whatever they come up with.

REAL is clearly intruding on private property ... but that property has public access right next to it so NONE of Real's claims hold any merit!

Newsflash to the world: Apple isn't telling everyone "you can only get music from us". Applet is telling everyone "if you choose to use an iPod, you can only get music from us". Don't like it? Get a non-iPod device. I don't see what you're all bitching about. Why doesn't Real Networks spend a couple millions developing an iPod-like system, then spend a few more millions marketing it? Apple has invested a lot of hard work in iPod and it is fully their right to limit its usage as they sit fit. Give them a break.

Newsflash to the world: Apple isn't telling everyone "you can only get music from us". Applet is telling everyone "if you choose to use an iPod, you can only get music from us". Don't like it? Get a non-iPod device. I don't see what you're all bitching about. Why doesn't Real Networks spend a couple millions developing an iPod-like system, then spend a few more millions marketing it? Apple has invested a lot of hard work in iPod and it is fully their right to limit its usage as they sit fit. Give them a break.

Real could just sell real MP3s, and not only live up to their concept of "fair compatiblity", but also load them onto the iPod. But, of course, they just want another system exactly like Apple's. It's not about opening up the market, it's about keeping the market closed, but divided between two companies.

I can not build a Mac from parts I have researched and purchased myself so I will never buy one. Even though I am a designer. After purchasing my first PC (386) I have never bought another "branded" PC. ( I have never had any PC freeze so hard I had to physically unplug the damn thing either which seemed to happen alot on the Macs(OS9) at work) I feel the same about the music players I want the hardware detached from the software so I can do what the heLL I want with it. Like put in a new battery or a bigger drive for god sakes.

If you think DRM is about helping artists you are a mouth breathing moron. Musicians will continue to make the bulk of thier money from live performances. Do a little research if you dont believe me. Profits from t-shirt sales for some bands are better than profits on CD sales. The labels are the ones getting fat off of CD sales and DRM protects the label not the artist. The artists need better protection from the labels not thier fans. Musicians (ie Metallica) need to swallow hard and except the fact that visual artist have lived with forever. Your product is salable for the moment once you share it with the world you can no longer control it. Seen a Got Milk? type bumper sticker - seen Calvin pissing on everything sticker on the back of a pickup truck window? Think those were authorized usages? For you LP people - when you buy a LP from the local used store are you robbing the artist? They did not get a red cent from your usage either even though you paid for it. If I can sell my CDs how do artists feature in that transaction? Should I be mailing the RIAA a check? Basically what I am pointing out is that charging for use is not going to work while you have physical media still in existance. People expect ownership rights when paying the rates the RIAA is promoting. You can go into practically any grocery store and rent a 120min movie that cost $50 million dollars to make for $.99 .825 cents per minute. You want me to buy usage your prices had better follow suit and i better freakin well play on whatever I want. If its good enough for Hollywood its more than good enough for you too.

I can not build a Mac from parts I have researched and purchased myself so I will never buy one. Even though I am a designer. After purchasing my first PC (386) I have never bought another "branded" PC. ( I have never had any PC freeze so hard I had to physically unplug the damn thing either which seemed to happen alot on the Macs(OS9) at work) I feel the same about the music players I want the hardware detached from the software so I can do what the heLL I want with it. Like put in a new battery or a bigger drive for god sakes.

If you think DRM is about helping artists you are a mouth breathing moron. Musicians will continue to make the bulk of thier money from live performances. Do a little research if you dont believe me. Profits from t-shirt sales for some bands are better than profits on CD sales. The labels are the ones getting fat off of CD sales and DRM protects the label not the artist. The artists need better protection from the labels not thier fans. Musicians (ie Metallica) need to swallow hard and except the fact that visual artist have lived with forever. Your product is salable for the moment once you share it with the world you can no longer control it. Seen a Got Milk? type bumper sticker - seen Calvin pissing on everything sticker on the back of a pickup truck window? Think those were authorized usages? For you LP people - when you buy a LP from the local used store are you robbing the artist? They did not get a red cent from your usage either even though you paid for it. If I can sell my CDs how do artists feature in that transaction? Should I be mailing the RIAA a check? Basically what I am pointing out is that charging for use is not going to work while you have physical media still in existance. People expect ownership rights when paying the rates the RIAA is promoting. You can go into practically any grocery store and rent a 120min movie that cost $50 million dollars to make for $.99 .825 cents per minute. You want me to buy usage your prices had better follow suit and i better freakin well play on whatever I want. If its good enough for Hollywood its more than good enough for you too.

All ya'll iz a buncha bitch3s!

All ya'll iz a buncha bitch3s!

The problem with digital media is not that it casn be copied. The benefit of physical media is not that it can't be copied, or resold.

It's that digital can be so EASILY copied, and then flung out like chaf on the wind. If you resel a cd, maybe onec, or twice over, that's fine. But when you send out a file to hundreds or thousands, that's different.

And you know that.

The problem with digital media is not that it casn be copied. The benefit of physical media is not that it can't be copied, or resold.

It's that digital can be so EASILY copied, and then flung out like chaf on the wind. If you resell a cd, maybe onec, or twice over, that's fine. But when you send out a file to hundreds or thousands, that's different.

And you know that.

QUOTE
"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
"
The link above refers to a press release for AAC.

In independent tests AAC comes fof farw orse than Vorbis or Mp3Pro.

I've no objection to Apple using AAC for their system but would they please humour those of thus that prefer Mp3Pro and set up their ipods to allow us to use the things with the music we've already encoded?

http://ff123.net/64test/results.html

The problem with digital media is not that it can't be copied. The benefit of physical media is not that it can't be copied, or resold.

It's that digital can be so EASILY copied, and then flung out like chaff on the wind. If you resell a cd, maybe once, or twice over, that's fine. But when you send out a file to hundreds or thousands, that's different.

And you know that.

To Blair -

First, some background:

Lessee here - I've got five Macs.

(1) PowerMac Dual G4, 2GB RAM, 2TB Disk Space
(1) iMac 17" 80GB, 512MB
(1) 15" iBook G4 1GHz, 512MB, 60GB
(1) G4 Cube 450MHz, 265MB RAM, 20GB Hard Drive
(1) G3 iMac (Cherry)

Looking around, I've also got:

(1) Toshiba Tecra 8100 (P3/500) Laptop running Win2k
(1) Thinkpad T23 (owned by my company, it's my work laptop) running Win2k
(1) Dual Athlon 2100+, 1GB Ram, 80GB HD, running FreeBSD 5.1.
(1) P4 1GHz running Slackware 10 (256MB/ 40GB)

Been using Macs since 1984. Been using Windows since 1993 (anybody remember Trumpet Winsock?), been using Linux since 1993, been using FreeBSD since 1994. Of course, been using UNIX (AT&T System V, Release 3, 4, and 5) since 1985.

Therefore, I think I've earned the right to know a thing or two. In the past 15 years I've been a BoFH, SysAdmin, NetAdmin, website designer, programmer, and now work in Information Security where I'm a Chief Systems Engineer for a Fortune 25 Company.

That said -

First, AllOfMP3.com *is* great. I've spent over $500 there. All 128 kbit AAC files, too. I have no need for MP3s, since I've found MP4s (AAC) files to be of higher quality.

Second, the iTMS is great, *also*. I've spent well over $500 there, too.

Third, CD's are also great. Kudos to cdbaby.com for turning me on to so many great indie artists. I've spent about $250 with them, and growing.

What are all my CD's ripped into? 128kbit AACs.

With the exception of the files purchased from the iTMS, none of my music has any DRM, and the DRM supplied to me by the iTMS is more than generous. There is not one Mac that I own that I can't play any of the files on - even at the same time. There's not one Windows box that I can't play them on, either --- since Fairplay now allows up to SEVEN (7) installations of iTunes to be authorized.

Of course, I can't play any of my music on my *BSD or Linux boxes, but then again those are *SERVERS* and I wouldn't *WANT* to play my music on them.

Oh, and I'm on my 2nd iPod having just given my G2 iPod to my nephew who's about to start college.

To be accused of not doing much with my Macs is a brash statement. To accuse ANY Mac user of not doing much with their computer is insane.

PGP; Microsoft Office; OpenOffice; LaTeX, LyX, and emacs (for my writing); Poser, 3D Studio Max, Lightwave Studio, MojoWorld, Vue d'Esprit (for my 3D renderings); RealBasic, Objective C, Perl, Python, Java (for my programming); mplayer, mencoder, vlc, ffmpeg (for my audio/ video); DiVX, AVI, QuickTime; X-Windows, 3270 emulation, ssh, VNC (for remotely administering local and remote machines I'm responsible for); IPSEC, SecurID (for securely connecting to those remote machines and networks I'm responsile for, as well as to work); Quicken 2004 (for my finances); Quickbooks 2004 (for my business's finances); TurboTax (for my taxes)

With my Macs I can run *any* Windows application right on the box, thanks to Virtual PC. I can run 99% of all Linux apps natively with a simple compile (which is no different than any other *NIX or *BSD user - only lamers rely on 'rpm -ivh foo') either console apps, or via X using Windowmaker, KDE, gnome, or the native Aqua Window Manager for OS X-Windows.

With my Macs I am not susceptible to copy-protected CDs purchased in the stores since my Macs blindly ignore any "autorun.exe" files which may be embedded.

With my Macs I'm not susceptible to any Windows virus.

And to say that Macs cost more money than PCs? So far this evening, I have rebooted my Win2k laptop no less than 15 times going through all the bullshit WindowsUpdate patches and installs. 9:10 times I install an app on Windows it wants me to reboot.

To insall an app on my Mac I usually drag it to the Applications folder. Likewise, to uninstall I simply drag it to the Trash.

Creatives aren't the only people who would want to buy a Mac. ANYONE who wants something that "just works" would buy one. But hey, if you're happy mucking around with your PC for hours each week fixing this or fixing that, then that's your choice. Some of us buy computers to actually be productive with them.

I challenge anyone to email me personally with something they can do on their PC (other than games because that's what I have a PS2 for) that I can't do on my Mac, but I haven't even begun to go into those things that I can do on my Mac that would make PC users drool with envy.

Apple rules. RP is stupid. I wouldn't even use RP if it wasn't for the fact that most streaming sites use it.

"It's that digital can be so EASILY copied, and then flung out like chaff on the wind. If you resell a cd, maybe once, or twice over, that's fine. But when you send out a file to hundreds or thousands, that's different."

Fine then. Just leave artists the hell out of it then. You are rooting for record labels who are screwing artists and contorting copyright law to control people access to music. And if muscians main priority is money perhaps they should no long be called artists. Music Designers perhaps.

Real Player has a failed media player. They are desparate, that is obvious. This is a last gasp for a company that is not needed in the marketplace. As if anyone actually enters their real email address and other info in downloading their useless software!

I am amazed that "tiredofthis" only had a Mac that he had to pull the plug from. I've had to strip Pc's down to their component parts before I could get them going again.

All compressed digital songs sound worse than an unencoded, or losslessly encoded song would sound. Turefully, Real, MS, and AAC encoded songs sound about the same at the same compression. Slightly different, maybe, but equally good (or bad). MP3 is worse, at the same rate. OGG and Flack are no better, though there are those who won't use anything from a major company. Whether better or not, there's a point that they're making.

Don't forget that Apple might, in the future, make some of these other formats available, if there is really enough demand for them. The thing is that there really hasn't been much demand, no matter what some may state here. Most likely, of the 4 million who have bought an iPod or used the iTunes store (no, you don't need an iPod to buy and use songs form the store), no more than a few tens of thousands have even heard of OGG or Flack, and less care.

I am amazed that "tiredofthis" only had a Mac that he had to pull the plug from. I've had to strip Pc's down to their component parts before I could get them going again.

All compressed digital songs sound worse than an unencoded, or losslessly encoded song would sound. Turefully, Real, MS, and AAC encoded songs sound about the same at the same compression. Slightly different, maybe, but equally good (or bad). MP3 is worse, at the same rate. OGG and Flack are no better, though there are those who won't use anything from a major company. Whether better or not, there's a point that they're making.

Don't forget that Apple might, in the future, make some of these other formats available, if there is really enough demand for them. The thing is that there really hasn't been much demand, no matter what some may state here. Most likely, of the 4 million who have bought an iPod or used the iTunes store (no, you don't need an iPod to buy and use songs form the store), no more than a few tens of thousands have even heard of OGG or Flack, and less care.

Smart people use Macs
Dumb people use PCs

Apple sells very refined products for a bit more in price.

The iPods released last week have much longer battery life. A price drop of $100 also happened last week. You get MORE than you pay for when you buy Apple stuff...

OSX is the very best operating system in common use today.

Thanks for reading.

Smart people use Macs
Dumb people use PCs

Apple sells very refined products for a bit more in price.

The iPods released last week have much longer battery life. A price drop of $100 also happened last week. You get MORE than you pay for when you buy Apple stuff...

OSX is the very best operating system in common use today.

Thanks for reading.

I wouldn't touch anything made by either company if it was bundled with 2 gorgeous lesbian blondes.

Apple does it again. Bite the hand that feeds.
Consistantly bad products always viewed through "Job's" colored glasses.
Quicktime utterly useless C__P!! Always was always will be.
Real Networks, bunch of spamming, adware jerks.
Both real losers. Just wish they both would be a little quieter while they sink beneath the waves of reality.
MPEG and MP3 Rules.

P.S. Yes MS media player sucks too..... ;-)

>>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....

It's amazing how little most of the people involved in this thread seem to know about any of the systems or applications being discussed here. The iPod is a PROPRIETARY device, AS IS the iTunes Music Store. Apple doesn't owe it to anyone, and certainly not to Real, to add additional compatibility. It will take more development time, more license fees, for a questionably marginal return serving only to satisfy the few geeks and dorks who care enough about saving that 10 cents per song not to use iTunes. And why would you want to use anything but iTunes anyway? It's hands down the best digital media player available, runs on Mac and PC, and the library is comparable and in many areas superior to most other music stores. Ya'll are just crazy.

And as for the quote above... i'm not even sure whether I should bother to respond, except to say that you must be the stuipdest g** d** network engineer i've ever had the displeasure to hear of. Here are a few words and phrases you might want to google sometime: darwin, quartz engine, cocoa, safari, photoshop, g5.

Cheers,
s

"Fine then. Just leave artists the hell out of it then. You are rooting for record labels who are screwing artists and contorting copyright law to control people access to music. And if muscians main priority is money perhaps they should no long be called artists. Music Designers perhaps."

Well ANON (no real name, I guess), you obviously are not an artist, because all the artists I've ever known all want to make money. Of course, there are those who play for change here in New York, on the street, or in the subway. I suppose that you NEVER buy music because the artists get royalties, and that would make them greedy, and out of your definition. All artists should be poor so that you could buy whatever they do for less and keep the money in your own pocket.

Who do you think pays for the tours that new artists go on, BEFORE they're well known? Who do you think pays to produce the albums? Pays for the ads? Pays for their clothes, their hotel rooms, their limo's, their drugs (oops!)?

I guess that Beethoven wasn't an artist either, because the music publisher he had, sold the sheets, and gave him a royalty? Or perhaps, Picasso wasn't because his gallery paid him after they took their commission? These fees are always more than the artist gets. Certainly, in the beginning.

I don't understand your point. If the artist gets little, we shouldn't buy, because the label makes too much. But if the artist get a lot, we shouldn't buy, because then the artist has no talent to move us, and so we shouldn't buy. ????

The more people use APPLE iPOD's and pay for Music the more music will be on iTunes to download. APPLE needs lot's of customers to download music to keep it working well, spending the money. The problem APPLE has is that it's loosing the international market. You can't buy APPLE music if your in Australia, New Zealand, Poland, India, Japan, Singapore, most of Europe. So other systems will get the jump.... Why can you buy a CD from Amazon in the US and ship it to Australia but you can't buy music from APPLE and download it to Australia.

"Apple does it again. Bite the hand that feeds.
Consistantly bad products always viewed through "Job's" colored glasses.
Quicktime utterly useless C__P!! Always was always will be."

Boy, are they coming out of the woodwork tonight!

Read some reviews of Apple's products at either PC World, or PC Magazine. They get pretty good reviews. Jobs "field" doesn't extend that far. Also ComputerWorld, Infoworld, E Week, etc.

Virginia Tech, and the Army (ours!!) might disagree as well.

Also be careful, because most drug companies use Macs in their research labs. Gene splicing is a good area to look, as well as NASA.

Apple also has an interest in maximizing market share sales of music from iTunes. If others sell music for iPod legally and take market share away form Apple, then Apple will not have clout in negotiating with the music copyright owneres. So they (music copyright holders) will support DRMS that work across sellers, but why shoudl Apple.

It Apple is happy selling a million iPods and earning some X amount of dollars, why should it act it the consumers best interest. Any company has the right to self destruct if it wants to, or if it knows its core customers will not abandon it, then act in ways to leverage that.

I mean companies need only act in the best interests of their shareholders and employees, it has no obligation to act in the best interest of its customers. Customers are free to abandon Apple and use other devices.

People should buy other mp3 players and not Apples. But open systems are not always in the best interests of companies, so I would argue they should act only in their best interest, just as we as individuals often do.

Hmm. After looking over the posts, it seems that the prevailing opinions are a) Apple shouldn't be so proprietary and b) Real shouldn't be hacking without permission. Seems like Real forgot two wrongs don't make it right.

poo poo

I hate Real. In fact I no longer download the player since it's too hard to find on their website and Real tricks you with spam and such. Forget it, I'll stick to Media Player.

"I mean companies need only act in the best interests of their shareholders and employees, it has no obligation to act in the best interest of its customers. Customers are free to abandon Apple and use other devices.
People should buy other mp3 players and not Apples. But open systems are not always in the best interests of companies, so I would argue they should act only in their best interest, just as we as individuals often do."

Sometimes companies shareholders interests and their customers interests are the same.

Apple makes the best product they can, if customers like, they will buy it. What's the problem?

Apple's store has as many, or more songs as any other store has. Yes, they have some others don't, and others have some they don't, but that's up to the labels, or atrists. Maybe a certain artist doesn't want to be on Apple's store, or Real's, or Sony's, or...

No one is going to be happy all the time. Some people won't be happy any time. Don't forget that it was Apple that got these prices down. Not Real, or anyone else. Sony, for example, was selling singles for $1.50-2.00, and the cheapest albums were $15. It was Apple's clout, as you did say, Mohan, that brought the prices down. Customers ARE happy, thats why.

It's not an easy discision about being proprietary or not. It seems easy here, where the numbers don't have to be met, where a business doesn't have to stay in business. We can tell Apple, or anyone else what to do, but we don't really know, do we? It's possible that iTunes isn't only there to sell iPods, we don't know.

"I mean companies need only act in the best interests of their shareholders and employees, it has no obligation to act in the best interest of its customers. Customers are free to abandon Apple and use other devices.
People should buy other mp3 players and not Apples. But open systems are not always in the best interests of companies, so I would argue they should act only in their best interest, just as we as individuals often do."

Sometimes companies shareholders interests and their customers interests are the same.

Apple makes the best product they can, if customers like, they will buy it. What's the problem?

Apple's store has as many, or more songs as any other store has. Yes, they have some others don't, and others have some they don't, but that's up to the labels, or atrists. Maybe a certain artist doesn't want to be on Apple's store, or Real's, or Sony's, or...

No one is going to be happy all the time. Some people won't be happy any time. Don't forget that it was Apple that got these prices down. Not Real, or anyone else. Sony, for example, was selling singles for $1.50-2.00, and the cheapest albums were $15. It was Apple's clout, as you did say, Mohan, that brought the prices down. Customers ARE happy, thats why.

It's not an easy discision about being proprietary or not. It seems easy here, where the numbers don't have to be met, where a business doesn't have to stay in business. We can tell Apple, or anyone else what to do, but we don't really know, do we? It's possible that iTunes isn't only there to sell iPods, we don't know.

Real networks use to match user lists with their tuned music and content. In other words they snooped users information. Who knows how much money they generated from user emails and info.

This was published by a reformed hacker/writer of zd net.

Real networks hacking ways has led them to play .rm files on Ipods. This seems like a great way to keep monopolies such as Apple from charging too much for their 200 GB+ Ipods and increase the selection of music.

A hardware company should come up with an all types of media player. To play both video and music file types. This would allow for more freedom to its users and fill their eyeballs as well as their ears.

I say screw all the "Legal" Downloads and just go out and download the songs you want without any DRM. DRM is the problem and all the big companies are just towing the line and bowing to the draconian practices of the RIAA. I'll send money to the groups I like but the RIAA can get bent.

Player says -
'You can't buy APPLE music if your in Australia, New Zealand, Poland, India, Japan, Singapore, most of Europe.'

Nor can you get any of the other services their either. Not Apple's fault. Check with the record licensing authorities in those countries.

As for 'So other systems will get the jump....' You might want to speak with the EU's former #1 legal download service, OD2. Had been n business for a long time. Sold over 500,000 songs from January through June of this year. Everybody was commending them on how well they were doing and how Apple was going to be no challenge to them. Apple came into UK, France, and Germany in July. Sold 800,000 songs the 1st week! OD2 closed it doors [was sold] 1 week after Apple entered the market.

Napster was there before Apple as well. Look how well they're doing.

So much for being 1st to market

Do record companies rip off the artists? Of course, that's a gimme. See the gory details from the inside out here - http://www.machelpdesk.com/courtneylove.html

Is it Apple's fault? Nope. Incompetent lawyers, foolish band members, greedy labels, and worse. Stealing, for example...when you don't agree with a company's efforts to insure that the artists make a least some money from the sale of their work. Small, meager, to be sure. But better then nothing.

why can't we all just get along

I believe Apple has the right to be upset for Real reverse engineering their technology. If you buy an ipod you are agreeing to download music only from their online store. Not only is Real breaking the DMCA but they are illegally helping customers circumvent purchase agreements. Real needs to be prosecuted on two accounts.

iPod is also a portable FireWire hard drive. You can boot from it, sync address books, calendars, and other info (not to mention copy files). That added to the fact that you can take your entire music library with you makes it well worth the price tag. People need to quit complaining. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

What real did is wrong. They should have gotten permission.

New vinyl has no pops or scratches. It is much better sounding than a 16 bit 44.1k CD )making a feeble attempt to reproduce a sound wave).

I say that Real has the right as a matter of law to reverse engineer and come out with a product based on it. However, Apple also reserves the right to come out with constant software/firmware upgrades for the iPod to block these newly created music files. I believe Real never realized that two minutes after coming out with this "revolutionary" file, there will be a conveniently times "update" for all iPod essentially blocking the files. Way to waste your time and efforts Real. Someones gonna get fired over this at Real.

iPod is also a portable FireWire hard drive. You can boot from it, sync address books, calendars, and other info (not to mention copy files). That added to the fact that you can take your entire music library with you makes it well worth the price tag. People need to quit complaining. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

What real did is wrong. They should have gotten permission.

New vinyl has no pops or scratches. It is much better sounding than a 16 bit 44.1k CD )making a feeble attempt to reproduce a sound wave).

iPod is also a portable FireWire hard drive. You can boot from it, sync address books, calendars, and other info (not to mention copy files). That added to the fact that you can take your entire music library with you makes it well worth the price tag. People need to quit complaining. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

What real did is wrong. They should have gotten permission.

New vinyl has no pops or scratches. It is much better sounding than a 16 bit 44.1k CD )making a feeble attempt to reproduce a sound wave).

I say that Real has the right as a matter of law to reverse engineer and come out with a product based on it. However, Apple also reserves the right to come out with constant software/firmware upgrades for the iPod to block these newly created music files. I believe Real never realized that two minutes after coming out with this "revolutionary" file, there will be a conveniently times "update" for all iPod essentially blocking the files. Way to waste your time and efforts Real. Someones gonna get fired over this at Real.

I say that Real has the right as a matter of law to reverse engineer and come out with a product based on it. However, Apple also reserves the right to come out with constant software/firmware upgrades for the iPod to block these newly created music files. I believe Real never realized that two minutes after coming out with this "revolutionary" file, there will be a conveniently times "update" for all iPod essentially blocking the files. Way to waste your time and efforts Real. Someones gonna get fired over this at Real.

I say that Real has the right as a matter of law to reverse engineer and come out with a product based on it. However, Apple also reserves the right to come out with constant software/firmware upgrades for the iPod to block these newly created music files. I believe Real never realized that two minutes after coming out with this "revolutionary" file, there will be a conveniently times "update" for all iPod essentially blocking the files. Way to waste your time and efforts Real. Someones gonna get fired over this at Real.

I have been using MAC's since they first came out. I was in art school in Savannah when our AMIGA lab was suddenly converted to this "new computers called Mac"
So I guess I am that generation of students who lived the Mac revolution from ground zero. After many years using Mac's, I trust them more than any other computer system on earth. I am a Mac user 100%. I also have two PC's, one with XP and the other with Linux.So you know.

Yet, I won't buy and Ipod. This is how I do it:

A) I Download illegally from the web.
B) I use an mp3 player from Radio Shack to carry around my music, which never amounts to more than 30 songs at the time as that is all I usually need when on the move.
C) If I like the album, I go to the store and I buy the CD. if not, I erase the tracks. I also keep copies of music I already own on CD. If the band/artist is an indie label or online-only, I either buy the CD online or I try to go to their shows when playing local, which in most cases is the best way to support indie or start-up bands.
D) I took out my car cassette player out , took the wires and just added a little 1/4 inch jack. When I want to listen to my mp3 player in the car, I plug it in. Voila!!!

Done.

I always found ridiclulosu to play 300+ dollars for a overhyped hard drive with a music player built into it. Sorry, but I work in the entertainment business and I am a GIG-per-dollar freak and I just could never bring myself to paying for such a bad storage ratio Ipod get. I can't care less about formats, corporate politics, and design issues. And yes, I know it is a player more than a hard drive, which only supports my point even more.

When is the last time you listen to 1000+ songs in your car?...When you go running, do you need all 1.000+ songs?. And as far as portable hard drive space, I will be better off with just a simple removable firewire drive. I think Ipod was always an overkill, which is the reason I am so EXCITED about the the NEW MOTOROLA PHONES DEAL. How come you Apple critics who accuse it of monopoly do not mention this deal. I think Apple finally caught on to the fact that some of us JUST want to take a few songs along for the ride or a walk, not the entire freaking music collection. THIS IS LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC!!! Precisely what the few morons here are accusing Apple of NOT doing. That without ALSO mentioning the new INDEPENDENT LABELS LICENSE DEAL Itunes is putting together so independents can sell their music using Itunes, thereby BYPASSING THE UGLY AND AWEFULL CORPORATE MUSIC BUSINESS. I don't think Ballmer or Gates would have been that creative, They never were. Hitting a home run for being the middle man on a one-in-a-lifetime deal (DOS) does not make you a talented business person. Gates and Ballmer would have just cut a deal with the record labels and stuck whatever corporate music label they cut the deal with. Actually, this only shows how untalented they are they ddin't even think of that one, monopoly and all.

As far as Real Player, they are to Digital Music what Network Solutions was to Domain Names: An evil, mediocre company whose only clain to fame is being one of the most disliked companies around with a format that sucked and a corporate mentality that makes Microsoft seem like a Mother Teresa by comparison. They are do for an ass whipping and I hope Apple let's them have it. Real Networks is just pissed the could not beat neither Apple nor Windows and got left out.

My prediction: Apple will mess with Real Players, hopefully win in court and leave them hanging by a thread. If Jobs and his lawyers are smart (and they are) they will go after Real Networks and either destroy them, or buying them out, therfore putting Quicktime one step closer to Windows Media in the "other" battle.

The real evil here : The record labels, middle men, non-creative floozies and overall leaches that populate the music business. I am in L.A., I have lived it. I see it.
They are scared and they are pissed because they LOST their business to a bunch of computer nerds. Burn, baby burn. The ripper is in town and he is coming to collect. Tiem to put down your capuuccinos, forget your beach house and hang on to your hair tupe. Would you please grab your ankles....

The day each artist can sell their music directly to the public without the interferance of ANYONE I will be truly a happy man. Whoever gets us there first will be the winner on my book. Apple so far is the one leading the pack by far, so be it.

Guys, I have to apologize again. I'm clicking once, and it's posting twice. I'm going to try that with my paycheck. If it works, I'll let you know.

"Real networks hacking ways has led them to play .rm files on Ipods. This seems like a great way to keep monopolies such as Apple from charging too much for their 200 GB+ Ipods and increase the selection of music."

It might increase the amount of music available on the iPod by a very small amount, but how would that bring the price of the iPod down? If anything, it might make it even more desireable, and bring it up.

While I wouldn'r say no to video, if it didn't bring the price up too much, and kill the battery life, which it would.

Don't forget that the iPod and other players base the time on the presumption that the drive will only be on for a short time. The music to by played is dumped to RAM as much as possible. A video will need the drive most, or all of the time, dropping the battery life to unacceptable levels.

Besides people don't want 3" screens. Look at the portable DVD players. The screens have gone from 5" to 10.5".

Also don't try to watch a video when walking down the street, driving a car, sitting in a lecture (alright, you shouldn't do that anyway), watching tv!!!

I have been using MAC's since they first came out. I was in art school in Savannah when our AMIGA lab was suddenly converted to this "new computers called Mac"
So I guess I am that generation of students who lived the Mac revolution from ground zero. After many years using Mac's, I trust them more than any other computer system on earth. I am a Mac user 100%. I also have two PC's, one with XP and the other with Linux.So you know.

Yet, I won't buy and Ipod. This is how I do it:

A) I Download illegally from the web.
B) I use an mp3 player from Radio Shack to carry around my music, which never amounts to more than 30 songs at the time as that is all I usually need when on the move.
C) If I like the album, I go to the store and I buy the CD. if not, I erase the tracks. I also keep copies of music I already own on CD. If the band/artist is an indie label or online-only, I either buy the CD online or I try to go to their shows when playing local, which in most cases is the best way to support indie or start-up bands.
D) I took out my car cassette player out , took the wires and just added a little 1/4 inch jack. When I want to listen to my mp3 player in the car, I plug it in. Voila!!!

Done.

I always found ridiclulosu to play 300+ dollars for a overhyped hard drive with a music player built into it. Sorry, but I work in the entertainment business and I am a GIG-per-dollar freak and I just could never bring myself to paying for such a bad storage ratio Ipod get. I can't care less about formats, corporate politics, and design issues. And yes, I know it is a player more than a hard drive, which only supports my point even more.

When is the last time you listen to 1000+ songs in your car?...When you go running, do you need all 1.000+ songs?. And as far as portable hard drive space, I will be better off with just a simple removable firewire drive. I think Ipod was always an overkill, which is the reason I am so EXCITED about the the NEW MOTOROLA PHONES DEAL. How come you Apple critics who accuse it of monopoly do not mention this deal. I think Apple finally caught on to the fact that some of us JUST want to take a few songs along for the ride or a walk, not the entire freaking music collection. THIS IS LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC!!! Precisely what the few morons here are accusing Apple of NOT doing. That without ALSO mentioning the new INDEPENDENT LABELS LICENSE DEAL Itunes is putting together so independents can sell their music using Itunes, thereby BYPASSING THE UGLY AND AWEFULL CORPORATE MUSIC BUSINESS. I don't think Ballmer or Gates would have been that creative, They never were. Hitting a home run for being the middle man on a one-in-a-lifetime deal (DOS) does not make you a talented business person. Gates and Ballmer would have just cut a deal with the record labels and stuck whatever corporate music label they cut the deal with. Actually, this only shows how untalented they are they ddin't even think of that one, monopoly and all.

As far as Real Player, they are to Digital Music what Network Solutions was to Domain Names: An evil, mediocre company whose only clain to fame is being one of the most disliked companies around with a format that sucked and a corporate mentality that makes Microsoft seem like a Mother Teresa by comparison. They are do for an ass whipping and I hope Apple let's them have it. Real Networks is just pissed the could not beat neither Apple nor Windows and got left out.

My prediction: Apple will mess with Real Players, hopefully win in court and leave them hanging by a thread. If Jobs and his lawyers are smart (and they are) they will go after Real Networks and either destroy them, or buying them out, therfore putting Quicktime one step closer to Windows Media in the "other" battle.

The real evil here : The record labels, middle men, non-creative floozies and overall leaches that populate the music business. I am in L.A., I have lived it. I see it.
They are scared and they are pissed because they LOST their business to a bunch of computer nerds. Burn, baby burn. The ripper is in town and he is coming to collect. Tiem to put down your capuuccinos, forget your beach house and hang on to your hair tupe. Would you please grab your ankles....

The day each artist can sell their music directly to the public without the interferance of ANYONE I will be truly a happy man. Whoever gets us there first will be the winner on my book. Apple so far is the one leading the pack by far, so be it.

I have been using MAC's since they first came out. I was in art school in Savannah when our AMIGA lab was suddenly converted to this "new computers called Mac"
So I guess I am that generation of students who lived the Mac revolution from ground zero. After many years using Mac's, I trust them more than any other computer system on earth. I am a Mac user 100%. I also have two PC's, one with XP and the other with Linux.So you know.

Yet, I won't buy and Ipod. This is how I do it:

A) I Download illegally from the web.
B) I use an mp3 player from Radio Shack to carry around my music, which never amounts to more than 30 songs at the time as that is all I usually need when on the move.
C) If I like the album, I go to the store and I buy the CD. if not, I erase the tracks. I also keep copies of music I already own on CD. If the band/artist is an indie label or online-only, I either buy the CD online or I try to go to their shows when playing local, which in most cases is the best way to support indie or start-up bands.
D) I took out my car cassette player out , took the wires and just added a little 1/4 inch jack. When I want to listen to my mp3 player in the car, I plug it in. Voila!!!

Done.

I always found ridiclulosu to play 300+ dollars for a overhyped hard drive with a music player built into it. Sorry, but I work in the entertainment business and I am a GIG-per-dollar freak and I just could never bring myself to paying for such a bad storage ratio Ipod get. I can't care less about formats, corporate politics, and design issues. And yes, I know it is a player more than a hard drive, which only supports my point even more.

When is the last time you listen to 1000+ songs in your car?...When you go running, do you need all 1.000+ songs?. And as far as portable hard drive space, I will be better off with just a simple removable firewire drive. I think Ipod was always an overkill, which is the reason I am so EXCITED about the the NEW MOTOROLA PHONES DEAL. How come you Apple critics who accuse it of monopoly do not mention this deal. I think Apple finally caught on to the fact that some of us JUST want to take a few songs along for the ride or a walk, not the entire freaking music collection. THIS IS LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC!!! Precisely what the few morons here are accusing Apple of NOT doing. That without ALSO mentioning the new INDEPENDENT LABELS LICENSE DEAL Itunes is putting together so independents can sell their music using Itunes, thereby BYPASSING THE UGLY AND AWEFULL CORPORATE MUSIC BUSINESS. I don't think Ballmer or Gates would have been that creative, They never were. Hitting a home run for being the middle man on a one-in-a-lifetime deal (DOS) does not make you a talented business person. Gates and Ballmer would have just cut a deal with the record labels and stuck whatever corporate music label they cut the deal with. Actually, this only shows how untalented they are they ddin't even think of that one, monopoly and all.

As far as Real Player, they are to Digital Music what Network Solutions was to Domain Names: An evil, mediocre company whose only clain to fame is being one of the most disliked companies around with a format that sucked and a corporate mentality that makes Microsoft seem like a Mother Teresa by comparison. They are do for an ass whipping and I hope Apple let's them have it. Real Networks is just pissed the could not beat neither Apple nor Windows and got left out.

My prediction: Apple will mess with Real Players, hopefully win in court and leave them hanging by a thread. If Jobs and his lawyers are smart (and they are) they will go after Real Networks and either destroy them, or buying them out, therfore putting Quicktime one step closer to Windows Media in the "other" battle.

The real evil here : The record labels, middle men, non-creative floozies and overall leaches that populate the music business. I am in L.A., I have lived it. I see it.
They are scared and they are pissed because they LOST their business to a bunch of computer nerds. Burn, baby burn. The ripper is in town and he is coming to collect. Tiem to put down your capuuccinos, forget your beach house and hang on to your hair tupe. Would you please grab your ankles....

The day each artist can sell their music directly to the public without the interferance of ANYONE I will be truly a happy man. Whoever gets us there first will be the winner on my book. Apple so far is the one leading the pack by far, so be it.

I have been using MAC's since they first came out. I was in art school in Savannah when our AMIGA lab was suddenly converted to this "new computers called Mac"
So I guess I am that generation of students who lived the Mac revolution from ground zero. After many years using Mac's, I trust them more than any other computer system on earth. I am a Mac user 100%. I also have two PC's, one with XP and the other with Linux.So you know.

Yet, I won't buy and Ipod. This is how I do it:

A) I Download illegally from the web.
B) I use an mp3 player from Radio Shack to carry around my music, which never amounts to more than 30 songs at the time as that is all I usually need when on the move.
C) If I like the album, I go to the store and I buy the CD. if not, I erase the tracks. I also keep copies of music I already own on CD. If the band/artist is an indie label or online-only, I either buy the CD online or I try to go to their shows when playing local, which in most cases is the best way to support indie or start-up bands.
D) I took out my car cassette player out , took the wires and just added a little 1/4 inch jack. When I want to listen to my mp3 player in the car, I plug it in. Voila!!!

Done.

I always found ridiclulosu to play 300+ dollars for a overhyped hard drive with a music player built into it. Sorry, but I work in the entertainment business and I am a GIG-per-dollar freak and I just could never bring myself to paying for such a bad storage ratio Ipod get. I can't care less about formats, corporate politics, and design issues. And yes, I know it is a player more than a hard drive, which only supports my point even more.

When is the last time you listen to 1000+ songs in your car?...When you go running, do you need all 1.000+ songs?. And as far as portable hard drive space, I will be better off with just a simple removable firewire drive. I think Ipod was always an overkill, which is the reason I am so EXCITED about the the NEW MOTOROLA PHONES DEAL. How come you Apple critics who accuse it of monopoly do not mention this deal. I think Apple finally caught on to the fact that some of us JUST want to take a few songs along for the ride or a walk, not the entire freaking music collection. THIS IS LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC!!! Precisely what the few morons here are accusing Apple of NOT doing. That without ALSO mentioning the new INDEPENDENT LABELS LICENSE DEAL Itunes is putting together so independents can sell their music using Itunes, thereby BYPASSING THE UGLY AND AWEFULL CORPORATE MUSIC BUSINESS. I don't think Ballmer or Gates would have been that creative, They never were. Hitting a home run for being the middle man on a one-in-a-lifetime deal (DOS) does not make you a talented business person. Gates and Ballmer would have just cut a deal with the record labels and stuck whatever corporate music label they cut the deal with. Actually, this only shows how untalented they are they ddin't even think of that one, monopoly and all.

As far as Real Player, they are to Digital Music what Network Solutions was to Domain Names: An evil, mediocre company whose only clain to fame is being one of the most disliked companies around with a format that sucked and a corporate mentality that makes Microsoft seem like a Mother Teresa by comparison. They are do for an ass whipping and I hope Apple let's them have it. Real Networks is just pissed the could not beat neither Apple nor Windows and got left out.

My prediction: Apple will mess with Real Players, hopefully win in court and leave them hanging by a thread. If Jobs and his lawyers are smart (and they are) they will go after Real Networks and either destroy them, or buying them out, therfore putting Quicktime one step closer to Windows Media in the "other" battle.

The real evil here : The record labels, middle men, non-creative floozies and overall leaches that populate the music business. I am in L.A., I have lived it. I see it.
They are scared and they are pissed because they LOST their business to a bunch of computer nerds. Burn, baby burn. The ripper is in town and he is coming to collect. Tiem to put down your capuuccinos, forget your beach house and hang on to your hair tupe. Would you please grab your ankles....

The day each artist can sell their music directly to the public without the interferance of ANYONE I will be truly a happy man. Whoever gets us there first will be the winner on my book. Apple so far is the one leading the pack by far, so be it.

I have been using MAC's since they first came out. I was in art school in Savannah when our AMIGA lab was suddenly converted to this "new computers called Mac"
So I guess I am that generation of students who lived the Mac revolution from ground zero. After many years using Mac's, I trust them more than any other computer system on earth. I am a Mac user 100%. I also have two PC's, one with XP and the other with Linux.So you know.

Yet, I won't buy and Ipod. This is how I do it:

A) I Download illegally from the web.
B) I use an mp3 player from Radio Shack to carry around my music, which never amounts to more than 30 songs at the time as that is all I usually need when on the move.
C) If I like the album, I go to the store and I buy the CD. if not, I erase the tracks. I also keep copies of music I already own on CD. If the band/artist is an indie label or online-only, I either buy the CD online or I try to go to their shows when playing local, which in most cases is the best way to support indie or start-up bands.
D) I took out my car cassette player out , took the wires and just added a little 1/4 inch jack. When I want to listen to my mp3 player in the car, I plug it in. Voila!!!

Done.

I always found ridiclulosu to play 300+ dollars for a overhyped hard drive with a music player built into it. Sorry, but I work in the entertainment business and I am a GIG-per-dollar freak and I just could never bring myself to paying for such a bad storage ratio Ipod get. I can't care less about formats, corporate politics, and design issues. And yes, I know it is a player more than a hard drive, which only supports my point even more.

When is the last time you listen to 1000+ songs in your car?...When you go running, do you need all 1.000+ songs?. And as far as portable hard drive space, I will be better off with just a simple removable firewire drive. I think Ipod was always an overkill, which is the reason I am so EXCITED about the the NEW MOTOROLA PHONES DEAL. How come you Apple critics who accuse it of monopoly do not mention this deal. I think Apple finally caught on to the fact that some of us JUST want to take a few songs along for the ride or a walk, not the entire freaking music collection. THIS IS LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC!!! Precisely what the few morons here are accusing Apple of NOT doing. That without ALSO mentioning the new INDEPENDENT LABELS LICENSE DEAL Itunes is putting together so independents can sell their music using Itunes, thereby BYPASSING THE UGLY AND AWEFULL CORPORATE MUSIC BUSINESS. I don't think Ballmer or Gates would have been that creative, They never were. Hitting a home run for being the middle man on a one-in-a-lifetime deal (DOS) does not make you a talented business person. Gates and Ballmer would have just cut a deal with the record labels and stuck whatever corporate music label they cut the deal with. Actually, this only shows how untalented they are they ddin't even think of that one, monopoly and all.

As far as Real Player, they are to Digital Music what Network Solutions was to Domain Names: An evil, mediocre company whose only clain to fame is being one of the most disliked companies around with a format that sucked and a corporate mentality that makes Microsoft seem like a Mother Teresa by comparison. They are do for an ass whipping and I hope Apple let's them have it. Real Networks is just pissed the could not beat neither Apple nor Windows and got left out.

My prediction: Apple will mess with Real Players, hopefully win in court and leave them hanging by a thread. If Jobs and his lawyers are smart (and they are) they will go after Real Networks and either destroy them, or buying them out, therfore putting Quicktime one step closer to Windows Media in the "other" battle.

The real evil here : The record labels, middle men, non-creative floozies and overall leaches that populate the music business. I am in L.A., I have lived it. I see it.
They are scared and they are pissed because they LOST their business to a bunch of computer nerds. Burn, baby burn. The ripper is in town and he is coming to collect. Tiem to put down your capuuccinos, forget your beach house and hang on to your hair tupe. Would you please grab your ankles....

The day each artist can sell their music directly to the public without the interferance of ANYONE I will be truly a happy man. Whoever gets us there first will be the winner on my book. Apple so far is the one leading the pack by far, so be it.

I have been using MAC's since they first came out. I was in art school in Savannah when our AMIGA lab was suddenly converted to this "new computers called Mac"
So I guess I am that generation of students who lived the Mac revolution from ground zero. After many years using Mac's, I trust them more than any other computer system on earth. I am a Mac user 100%. I also have two PC's, one with XP and the other with Linux.So you know.

Yet, I won't buy and Ipod. This is how I do it:

A) I Download illegally from the web.
B) I use an mp3 player from Radio Shack to carry around my music, which never amounts to more than 30 songs at the time as that is all I usually need when on the move.
C) If I like the album, I go to the store and I buy the CD. if not, I erase the tracks. I also keep copies of music I already own on CD. If the band/artist is an indie label or online-only, I either buy the CD online or I try to go to their shows when playing local, which in most cases is the best way to support indie or start-up bands.
D) I took out my car cassette player out , took the wires and just added a little 1/4 inch jack. When I want to listen to my mp3 player in the car, I plug it in. Voila!!!

Done.

I always found ridiclulosu to play 300+ dollars for a overhyped hard drive with a music player built into it. Sorry, but I work in the entertainment business and I am a GIG-per-dollar freak and I just could never bring myself to paying for such a bad storage ratio Ipod get. I can't care less about formats, corporate politics, and design issues. And yes, I know it is a player more than a hard drive, which only supports my point even more.

When is the last time you listen to 1000+ songs in your car?...When you go running, do you need all 1.000+ songs?. And as far as portable hard drive space, I will be better off with just a simple removable firewire drive. I think Ipod was always an overkill, which is the reason I am so EXCITED about the the NEW MOTOROLA PHONES DEAL. How come you Apple critics who accuse it of monopoly do not mention this deal. I think Apple finally caught on to the fact that some of us JUST want to take a few songs along for the ride or a walk, not the entire freaking music collection. THIS IS LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC!!! Precisely what the few morons here are accusing Apple of NOT doing. That without ALSO mentioning the new INDEPENDENT LABELS LICENSE DEAL Itunes is putting together so independents can sell their music using Itunes, thereby BYPASSING THE UGLY AND AWEFULL CORPORATE MUSIC BUSINESS. I don't think Ballmer or Gates would have been that creative, They never were. Hitting a home run for being the middle man on a one-in-a-lifetime deal (DOS) does not make you a talented business person. Gates and Ballmer would have just cut a deal with the record labels and stuck whatever corporate music label they cut the deal with. Actually, this only shows how untalented they are they ddin't even think of that one, monopoly and all.

As far as Real Player, they are to Digital Music what Network Solutions was to Domain Names: An evil, mediocre company whose only clain to fame is being one of the most disliked companies around with a format that sucked and a corporate mentality that makes Microsoft seem like a Mother Teresa by comparison. They are do for an ass whipping and I hope Apple let's them have it. Real Networks is just pissed the could not beat neither Apple nor Windows and got left out.

My prediction: Apple will mess with Real Players, hopefully win in court and leave them hanging by a thread. If Jobs and his lawyers are smart (and they are) they will go after Real Networks and either destroy them, or buying them out, therfore putting Quicktime one step closer to Windows Media in the "other" battle.

The real evil here : The record labels, middle men, non-creative floozies and overall leaches that populate the music business. I am in L.A., I have lived it. I see it.
They are scared and they are pissed because they LOST their business to a bunch of computer nerds. Burn, baby burn. The ripper is in town and he is coming to collect. Tiem to put down your capuuccinos, forget your beach house and hang on to your hair tupe. Would you please grab your ankles....

The day each artist can sell their music directly to the public without the interferance of ANYONE I will be truly a happy man. Whoever gets us there first will be the winner on my book. Apple so far is the one leading the pack by far, so be it.

I have been using MAC's since they first came out. I was in art school in Savannah when our AMIGA lab was suddenly converted to this "new computers called Mac"
So I guess I am that generation of students who lived the Mac revolution from ground zero. After many years using Mac's, I trust them more than any other computer system on earth. I am a Mac user 100%. I also have two PC's, one with XP and the other with Linux.So you know.

Yet, I won't buy and Ipod. This is how I do it:

A) I Download illegally from the web.
B) I use an mp3 player from Radio Shack to carry around my music, which never amounts to more than 30 songs at the time as that is all I usually need when on the move.
C) If I like the album, I go to the store and I buy the CD. if not, I erase the tracks. I also keep copies of music I already own on CD. If the band/artist is an indie label or online-only, I either buy the CD online or I try to go to their shows when playing local, which in most cases is the best way to support indie or start-up bands.
D) I took out my car cassette player out , took the wires and just added a little 1/4 inch jack. When I want to listen to my mp3 player in the car, I plug it in. Voila!!!

Done.

I always found ridiclulosu to play 300+ dollars for a overhyped hard drive with a music player built into it. Sorry, but I work in the entertainment business and I am a GIG-per-dollar freak and I just could never bring myself to paying for such a bad storage ratio Ipod get. I can't care less about formats, corporate politics, and design issues. And yes, I know it is a player more than a hard drive, which only supports my point even more.

When is the last time you listen to 1000+ songs in your car?...When you go running, do you need all 1.000+ songs?. And as far as portable hard drive space, I will be better off with just a simple removable firewire drive. I think Ipod was always an overkill, which is the reason I am so EXCITED about the the NEW MOTOROLA PHONES DEAL. How come you Apple critics who accuse it of monopoly do not mention this deal. I think Apple finally caught on to the fact that some of us JUST want to take a few songs along for the ride or a walk, not the entire freaking music collection. THIS IS LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC!!! Precisely what the few morons here are accusing Apple of NOT doing. That without ALSO mentioning the new INDEPENDENT LABELS LICENSE DEAL Itunes is putting together so independents can sell their music using Itunes, thereby BYPASSING THE UGLY AND AWEFULL CORPORATE MUSIC BUSINESS. I don't think Ballmer or Gates would have been that creative, They never were. Hitting a home run for being the middle man on a one-in-a-lifetime deal (DOS) does not make you a talented business person. Gates and Ballmer would have just cut a deal with the record labels and stuck whatever corporate music label they cut the deal with. Actually, this only shows how untalented they are they ddin't even think of that one, monopoly and all.

As far as Real Player, they are to Digital Music what Network Solutions was to Domain Names: An evil, mediocre company whose only clain to fame is being one of the most disliked companies around with a format that sucked and a corporate mentality that makes Microsoft seem like a Mother Teresa by comparison. They are do for an ass whipping and I hope Apple let's them have it. Real Networks is just pissed the could not beat neither Apple nor Windows and got left out.

My prediction: Apple will mess with Real Players, hopefully win in court and leave them hanging by a thread. If Jobs and his lawyers are smart (and they are) they will go after Real Networks and either destroy them, or buying them out, therfore putting Quicktime one step closer to Windows Media in the "other" battle.

The real evil here : The record labels, middle men, non-creative floozies and overall leaches that populate the music business. I am in L.A., I have lived it. I see it.
They are scared and they are pissed because they LOST their business to a bunch of computer nerds. Burn, baby burn. The ripper is in town and he is coming to collect. Tiem to put down your capuuccinos, forget your beach house and hang on to your hair tupe. Would you please grab your ankles....

The day each artist can sell their music directly to the public without the interferance of ANYONE I will be truly a happy man. Whoever gets us there first will be the winner on my book. Apple so far is the one leading the pack by far, so be it.

As for Microsoft being sued by Real1, Quicktime, and all the other media players in the European antitrust suit because they include Windows media player in their OS, that is exactly the same as GM being sued by Pioneer, Kenwood, etc. for selling cars with stereos included in them. Those media player makers need to make their own damn OS.

I say that Real has the right as a matter of law to reverse engineer and come out with a product based on it. However, Apple also reserves the right to come out with constant software/firmware upgrades for the iPod to block these newly created music files. I believe Real never realized that two minutes after coming out with this "revolutionary" file, there will be a conveniently times "update" for all iPod essentially blocking the files. Way to waste your time and efforts Real. Someones gonna get fired over this at Real.

"Posted by David Hayes on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 11:03 AM (PST)

You all must understand that Apple is upset with Real because they make no profit (or very little) from the actual iPod. They were using the iPod as a way to get people to use the ITMS.

Therefore Real's cracking of the iPod with Harmony is a direct threat to their profitibility in this sector. This isn't unlike the console market, where the console maker actually loses money on the console so that they can make lots of money on the game, which must be licensed to them."

What the hell are you smoking? Its the other way around, Apple makes nothing from the iTMS and their profit comes from the iPod. What Real has done is circumvent the agreement that Apple has with the music industry. This will only make it more difficult for the industry to want to play in Apple's sandbox next time if Real gets away with this. Apple spent the time and moey to develop this product and bring it to market, now Real wants to slide in the backdoor? Naw, thats WRONG!

"Posted by David Hayes on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 11:03 AM (PST)

You all must understand that Apple is upset with Real because they make no profit (or very little) from the actual iPod. They were using the iPod as a way to get people to use the ITMS.

Therefore Real's cracking of the iPod with Harmony is a direct threat to their profitibility in this sector. This isn't unlike the console market, where the console maker actually loses money on the console so that they can make lots of money on the game, which must be licensed to them."

What the hell are you smoking? Its the other way around, Apple makes nothing from the iTMS and their profit comes from the iPod. What Real has done is circumvent the agreement that Apple has with the music industry. This will only make it more difficult for the industry to want to play in Apple's sandbox next time if Real gets away with this. Apple spent the time and money to develop this product and bring it to market, now Real wants to slide in the backdoor? Naw, thats WRONG!

Posted by AppleMaster on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 04:59 PM (PST)
Blair, you're a moron.
>ya sony has announced an mp3 player to compete with the
>ipod....i will wait for sony.......
It's not an MP3 player! It's an ATRAC3 Player.

>Posted by Blair on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 09:03 AM (PST)
>
>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.
-That's what you get with Sony. You may think you can CONVERT the ATRAC3 files into MP3, but that's like saying you could convert iTunes bought songs into MP3. Oh wait, you can!!!!!

>Posted by Blair on Sunday, August 01, 2004, 11:18 AM (PST)
>Roger.....AAC is not a format it is an encryption.....mp3,
> wma...etc....these are formats that get enctpted

AAC IS a format. Fairplay DRM is an encryption scheme.

For a senior Netowk Analyst, you really have no idea about anything that isin't Windows based do you. Open your eyes.

Oh yeah, and Look up the usage of "There" and "Their". Have fun in the second grade.

...Look who's criticizing another poster's spelling!
Aplpematster..what's with the ISIN'T and Netwok spelling.
First of all, your punctuation and grammar stinks. Here is a voucher to attend first grade.

Stick to the topic at hand.
Mipselled wrods
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn?t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Something everyone has missed is the regular iPod does more than just hold songs. For 1, it's a fully bootable hard drive. I have OSX 10.3.4 and OS9 so i can go to any Mac on the planet and boot / carry my entire world with me. Yes, a battery powered, full version of Unix in a less than 6 oz case. Try that with windows or linux... NOT! 2) I carry a few thousand photos with me at all times on that very same iPod. 3) Audiobooks! You may of not experienced this as of yet, but Audiobooks rule! you can carry 100's of books on this very same iPod. If you didn't know... POD means Piece Of Data. So people just thinking it's a Music Player are only seeing the edge of its usefulness.

To Windows Users: Please understand this is a very high quality product, probably something you've never experienced if you only know Microsoft and Intel. Get a Mac and an iPod and you'll see what all the excitement is about.

http://www.apple.com/hardware

Dude, if I want portable hard drive space, I buy a hard drive. Like I said in my post above, if it is not a "player only", then it is a waste of money because the ratio price-storage space is nothing but absurd. For the same price I can pick up a 120 gig firewire drive,

If it is only a music player (which after all is 99% of its used) then it is way to high of a price for carrying music around. If you NEED to haev all 1000+ with you at all times, then by all means the only thing out there. If youare "normal" person, then the new upcoming MOTOROLA PHONES, will be a better choice.

When I pdos are under $100, post a link, then maybe I'll visit.

Just in case you didn't read my post, I am 100% Mac user and I support Apple %100. I like Itunes, still think Ipod is an overkill and a marketing gag.

So you can find me a 120GB, firewire, battery operated, less than 6oz hard drive? If so, please post the link.

Sounds like you are confused on what the iPod is... it's MORE than just a generic hard drive with some music ability. It's a battery operated, portable data device... it's super small and durable, none of which a normal hard drive is. Sure if you are looking for mass storage the iPod isn't for you. But you are clearly missing the point here.

Lot's of people use it for more than MP3 player, but most that don't own one, don't understand. Which it seems you fall into this category. Get a used one eBay if you only have $150 to spend, then you would see the light/what i'm talking about.

Some posters here sure are smoking some shag carpet.

The jack*** who keeps saying Mac OSX is based on Linux, he's been drinking rubbing alcohol too!

It is based on Berkeley Unix!

The iPod is not part of a closed technology, one can store all kinds of data on it.

iTunes and iTunes Music Store can be considered closed, one doesn't need an iPod to run iTunes or shop at iTMS, just a computer, Mac or PC.

Apple found an elegant business model that is beneficial to itself, the record labels and the consumer and thus deserves to benefit mainly by selling iPods, which were selling pretty well before iTMS was launched. It is a good product and sales keep going up.

Build it and they will come.

Real, on the other hand, have nothing comparable to offer so instead of innovating they stand on the street outside the iTMS in a trench coat lined with tunes flashing folks and whispering "Cheap tunes, step right up!"

Let us take this one step further.......

If Real get off unchallenged and is allowed to go ahead what stops me from applying the same reverse engineering technology and then distributing content for free over P2P?

IMHO. Real are undermining the progress in online marketing of music for everyone.

Man, whatever.. Call it a "Rosy Zmatchtoguinator" for all I care. Geekazoid, it is STILL A HARD DRIVE. IN SOAIN WE HAVE AN OLD say: "You can dress an monkey in silk clothes, it is still a moneky"

A) EXTRENAL firewire hard drives DO NOT USE BATTERIES. They are powered by firewire itself. And why would anyone want a battery-powered hard drive??? O wait. MAYBE THAT'S WHY THEY DO NOT EXIST.

B) Second, you can not only buy 120 gig hard drives for LESS than and Ipod, you actually have moeny LEFT to use in Itunes

C) My son has an Ipod. So does my girlfriend. I bought the one form my son even thougt I try talking him out of it. No luck. See, it is not about how REALLY practical something is, it is the PRECEPTION that is truly neccesary what makes the sale. Ask any marketing person. they will tell you.

As much as I love Apple, I still think and Ipod is a marketing GAG. Itunes, however, it is awesome.

What time do they turn off the lights at the dorm dude?

Man, whatever.. Call it a "Rosy Zmatchtoguinator" for all I care. Geekazoid, it is STILL A HARD DRIVE. IN SOAIN WE HAVE AN OLD say: "You can dress an monkey in silk clothes, it is still a moneky"

A) EXTRENAL firewire hard drives DO NOT USE BATTERIES. They are powered by firewire itself. And why would anyone want a battery-powered hard drive??? O wait. MAYBE THAT'S WHY THEY DO NOT EXIST.

B) Second, you can not only buy 120 gig hard drives for LESS than and Ipod, you actually have moeny LEFT to use in Itunes

C) My son has an Ipod. So does my girlfriend. I bought the one form my son even thougt I try talking him out of it. No luck. See, it is not about how REALLY practical something is, it is the PRECEPTION that is truly neccesary what makes the sale. Ask any marketing person. they will tell you.

As much as I love Apple, I still think and Ipod is a marketing GAG. Itunes, however, it is awesome.

What time do they turn off the lights at the dorm dude?

Man, whatever.. Call it a "Rosy Zmatchtoguinator" for all I care. Geekazoid, it is STILL A HARD DRIVE. IN SOAIN WE HAVE AN OLD say: "You can dress an monkey in silk clothes, it is still a moneky"

A) EXTRENAL firewire hard drives DO NOT USE BATTERIES. They are powered by firewire itself. And why would anyone want a battery-powered hard drive??? O wait. MAYBE THAT'S WHY THEY DO NOT EXIST.

B) Second, you can not only buy 120 gig hard drives for LESS than and Ipod, you actually have moeny LEFT to use in Itunes

C) My son has an Ipod. So does my girlfriend. I bought the one form my son even thougt I try talking him out of it. No luck. See, it is not about how REALLY practical something is, it is the PRECEPTION that is truly neccesary what makes the sale. Ask any marketing person. they will tell you.

As much as I love Apple, I still think and Ipod is a marketing GAG. Itunes, however, it is awesome.

What time do they turn off the lights at the dorm dude?

thou shalt not diss Ford Escorts

thou shalt not diss Ford Escorts

HEY EVERYONE!! IM A HAXOR!! I CAN POST MESAGES ON HERE USING ANYONES NAME!! HAHAHA NOW BOW TO MY POWER YOU LUSERS YOU HAVE BEEN HAXD!!!!

"A) EXTRENAL firewire hard drives DO NOT USE BATTERIES. They are powered by firewire itself. And why would anyone want a battery-powered hard drive??? O wait. MAYBE THAT'S WHY THEY DO NOT EXIST."

That's funny, I could swear my iPod is a firewire hard drive that uses batteries. Sure firewire can power the device, but it can ALSO CHARGE the device. Sweet! Maybe you don't own an iBook or Powerbook so this level of feature is out of your grasp?

Someday you'll see the light of the ipod outside the general use of music... until then, ipod users are way ahead of you...

Ok, you win there enlighten one. Actually I have an Ibook, so does my son. But, whatever man. I guess I am a power user who needs more than just a dinky 40 gig whatever-you-wanna-call-it hard drive for over $200 bucks. None of my extrenal drives are less than 120 GIGs, so I guess that's all. To me, and Ipod is useless as a hard rive. Let it rest. Alright already.

Moving on to something with a bit more substance. Anyone else has any thoughs on the Motorola deal and Itunes' Independent Labels License?

Turning into amateur hour over here.

Well stupido, I got a bunch of 120G hard drives.

None of them will fit in my shirt pocket or run on battery power. Nor do they have an elementary user interface. Yassa, they are all Firewire.

So, Laloopie, how many gigs are internal to your iBooks?

To you the iPod maybe useless so what the **** is your point posting down here?

OHHHHH. To introduce an off topic topic about Motorola and iTunes Independent LL.

F***wit

Anyone cares to read way up, above 11 posts ago you will se I INTRODUCED THE MOTOROLA SUBJECT AND INDEPENDENT RECORD LABEL ISSUES BEFORE this whole flame thing with the stupid Ipod begun.

Second, this article is about the legal/ethical issues between Real Netwoeks new Harmony system and iPOd. Following the original article, I READ other posts where people where questioning Apple's ethical posturing. Then I follow that argument with FIRST post, a LONG reply asking the readers felt about the new Motorola Deal and the Independent labels as far as Apple's cosnumer strategy.

So far all I got is a college kid pick a fight with me because, even though I love Mac and Apple, I am not buying into the Ipod gag. My fault for not identiying a TROLL on time.

Now, once again, for those who may have something USEFUL to say, I wonder if anyone could expand their thoughts on that.

I have an Ipod, but I never use it as a hard drive. I assume you (lalopez) must be an editor or motion graphics person who probably needs lots of space and fast drives, in which case I can see why you don't see any use for it. If in top of that, you don't want to carry around all those songs, then I guess for someone like use is not really of much use. It is not really such a sin not wanting to buy something just because everyone else does. I did, LALopez chose not to and told us why.

The other kid is probably in college or younger, and for him it is great. They can carry around their documents, school work & music all in one small compact portable drive. So I guess for him it works. I think some Ivy league school just gave away a bunch of them? I say he/she is young because you can feel the passion in the wording. But it is just a music player. Nothing to get so angry about. This is a board for opinions.

So much to do about nothing. However, the racial innuendos were a bit out of place. (stupido is spelled with an "e" I believe)

As far as the Itunes independet label, as a struggling musician I can tell you I am praying to God that it goes through because it will mean folks like me can actually sell our music and send the record labels packing. Let's not forget that the digital music universe affects both ends of the stick; We musicians need to make money, and this license has the potential to give us more freedom.

Real Networks, on the other hand, can truly burn in hell for all I care. Bad karma all the way.

It amazes me, that for all the "enlightened and expert views" reported here, there are more than enough misspellings, grammatical errors, and examples of "just plain bad writing" to fill a 5th grade English textbook.

That being said...

Real sucks!
Apple rules!!

BTW, It's a "there, their, they're."

It amazes me, that for all the "enlightened and expert views" reported here, there are more than enough misspellings, grammatical errors, and examples of "just plain bad writing" to fill a 5th grade English textbook.

That being said...

Real sucks!
Apple rules!!

BTW, It's a "there, their, they're."

Whoever said the music industry was evil probably is a washed has-been who didn't hire a good lawyer to read the contract he signed. Of course, there are NEVER any success stories in the music biz, everyone in it is evil and no one makes any money except for the labels right? Sad sad person. And I laugh all the way to the bank, both me AND my acts who signed with major labels and are quite wealthy because of it. Now you'll accuse us of being sellouts.

With all the doodoo about iPods, what about Sony's color screen, more battery life, and smaller size............................Wait it might even be cheaper than 299 price tag for iPod. When it comes to electronics, its Sony that rules.

With all the doodoo about iPods, what about Sony's color screen, more battery life, and smaller size............................Wait it might even be cheaper than 299 price tag for iPod. When it comes to electronics, its Sony that rules.

O K , Here is my story.
For my end of year bonus last year, my boss gave me a 20 gig iPod. He is a big mac user and is a strong advocate for the company. I had no problem dumping my music library into the device however, I needed some new music and went to the Apple music store and descovered that the library is not what it is made out to be. For "the Lonesome river band" for example, there is only one album! I was jaded. So I went to Musicmatch Jukebox which actually does have a great selection of music and found every album that TLB has ever made. I downloaded several songs only to find that they won't play on my iPod!! This sucks!!
If someone will please build a device that will play MP3s, and that has 20 or 30 gig, I will throw my iPod right in the trash!

Mac is acting like a monopoly. Only mac stuff works with macs and you have to buy all your stuff for macs through mac. This is wrong. There is no competition. I use Real and I love it. I find it easy to use and if ipods worked with it I would consider buying an ipod. I hate Mac.

Big deal..it's called the real world. You would expect McDonald's to sell Burger King toys aand vice versa just because you liked the food but not the toy. So my final thought is that all you people need to chill out, Real isn't the only place to get songs! :)

Big deal..it's called the real world. You wouldn'texpect McDonald's to sell Burger King toys aand vice versa just because you liked the food but not the toy. So my final thought is that all you people need to chill out, Real isn't the only place to get songs! :)

Big deal..it's called the real world. You wouldn't expect McDonald's to sell Burger King toys aand vice versa just because you liked the food but not the toy. So my final thought is that all you people need to chill out, Real isn't the only place to get songs! :)

Big deal..it's called the real world. You wouldn'texpect McDonald's to sell Burger King toys aand vice versa just because you liked the food but not the toy. So my final thought is that all you people need to chill out, Real isn't the only place to get songs! :)

Big deal..it's called the real world. You wouldn't expect McDonald's to sell Burger King toys aand vice versa just because you liked the food but not the toy. So my final thought is that all you people need to chill out, Real isn't the only place to get songs! :)

Big deal..it's called the real world. You wouldn't expect McDonald's to sell Burger King toys aand vice versa just because you liked the food but not the toy. So my final thought is that all you people need to chill out, Real isn't the only place to get songs! :)

OOPS I AM SO SORRY FOR POSTING SO MANY!!! SORRYS SORRY SORRY my computer is messed up i ma REALLY SORRY

the ipod can carry 10,000 songs or whatevre, in 10 years you will have a ton of songs and still more room left to get more. so you can look back in your ipod and say i remember when that was a hit, you can have all the good songs or songs you like for a long time.

the ipod can carry 10,000 songs or whatevre, in 10 years you will have a ton of songs and still more room left to get more. so you can look back in your ipod and say i remember when that was a hit, you can have all the good songs or songs you like for a long time.