When I bought my mp3 player last year, I considered an iPod. A couple of things kept me from it. First, I naturally stear away from trendy items. I guess it is my mistrust of the great unwashed masses. My attitude is ’since I hold most people in contempt and just about everyone wants it, it must not be very good’. It may not make sense, but hey, I’m a complex guy. Besides, I hold up the continued popularity of Clinton and last week’s election results as a kind of ‘proof of concept’.
Second, I don’t like being locked into systems. The iPod can only buy iTunes music. This being the case, I thought the iPod should be given away a loss-leader for iTunes. That, of course, is another topic for another day.
It turns out that I was kinda right on the first topic. There have been a growing number of complaints about how short-lived iPods can be. Sure, if you sell 7.5 trillion units, there are bound to be a few bad eggs. I’m just saying I was not totally wrong about my first assertion.
I was an article today from Reuters that got me thinking about item #2. It turns out that there may soon be available an iPod hack that will open it up to any music download system. That would be sweat. You can read a bit of the article below.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Not even the lure of one million songs could separate Stanford University student Rolf Steier from his iPod.
When Stanford partnered with Yahoo to offer students a free subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited, Steier — like most other people he knew — didn’t bother to check it out because his iPod won’t let him play songs bought from other online music stores.
“I don’t know anybody who used it,” Steier said. “I don’t even remember anyone who considered using it.”
The issue is the same for many music fans because Apple makes content bought from its iTunes online music store available only for its own products, while songs purchased from other online stores typically do not work on the market-dominating iPods.
But this could soon change — because of a 22-year-old hacker who as a teen cracked the encryption on DVDs and now has developed a system compatible with Apple’s “FairPlay” copyright technology that allows iTunes music to play on other devices and gives iPod users access to other music stores.
“He imitated Apple’s system; he didn’t remove any copyright protections,” said Monique Farantzos, whose DoubleTwist Ventures plans to license the code to businesses. “He made a system that behaves in a similar way.” [More…]
I don’t know if we are going to see lawsuits from or threats of lawsuits, but it really is a boon for every iPod owner. Of course, the vast majority of the great unwashed mass of iPod users will never hack their beloved iPod. I just figure this is another support of assertion #1.
So, what did I buy instead of the iPod? I bought the iRiver H10. It was more expensive and more difficult to use, but it was just one more way of not bowing to ‘the man’.
Wow, am I feeling petulant or what!
Tags: iTunes, Apple, Hacks, iPod | 2 Comments »
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Apple unveiled an iPod with a touch screen that can browse the Internet wirelessly, as the company fights to maintain the digital media lead at a time when it faces renewed attacks from rivals. In addition, Apple’s iTunes music store will begin selling songs over wireless connections. [More…]
