41 posts tagged “apple”

Apple, Inc.

Lets look at some quotes from both Cory Doctorow's piece on Universal's decision to go DRM-free sans Apple's iTunes Store (alas, only as an experiment till January, so don't expect it to last) and Apple CEO Steve Jobs' essay Thoughts on Music, which outlines Apple's policy towards DRM and the rational for it.

Cory Doctorow:

For record companies, there are only two choices: sell Apple-crippled music and increase Apple's control over the online music business, or sell uncrippled music. Uncrippled music -- MP3s and other open files -- are superior to the crippled versions. You can play them on more devices and do more with them. No customer seeks out music because it's crippled -- DRM doesn't sell music. None of the iTunes customers bought music because they wanted music that was locked to the iPod and wouldn't play on competing devices.

Steve Jobs:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

There is more. Cory Doctorow:

People who don't want to pay for music just download it from P2P, where all the music is already available for free, without DRM. If you want to convince people to buy your music, you can't start by making it worse than the free stuff.

And Steve Jobs:

Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.

I'm not sure what to think about Cory's position on this issue. Apple is clearly not the big bad bully in all of this, yet that is exactly how Apple is portrayed. Don't get me wrong, in other circumstances I have no problem thinking that Apple might back DRM. But this is clearly not the case.

When I called Bullshit on Cory Doctorow before, I got a response from the man himself. He brought up speculation that if Jobs' really was anti-DRM he'd drop DRM from Disney/Pixar movies, and that the only reason he'd drop DRM from iTunes is because of proposed European legislation. Nevermind that we weren't even talking about movies*, which is an entirely separate set of circumstances. Nevermind that Steve Jobs may not have complete control of what Disney decides to do. Nevermind that the sales from the European countries threatening legislation against Apple was so pitifully small (out of the pitifully small profit margins of the iTunes Store) that Jobs could easily have just gave the finger to those countries and walked out.

The Macalope:

Doctorow continues to disregard Steve Jobs' open letter on DRM as entirely disingenuous. But there's ample evidence that Apple would prefer to sell an entire collection of DRM-free music. For the umpteenth time, Apple does not own the market because of DRM. It owns the market because the iPod is simply the best digital music player.

What we have are both words and actions that Jobs' and Apple are willing to go DRM-free with music. So why does Cory Doctorow spout out bullshit about Apple while giving a free pass to Universal? The answer to that question, I'm sorry to say, we'll likely never know.

* It should also be pointed out that DRM has always existed in movies, while music has always been open and free to copying from disc, and still is, a point that shouldn't be ignored. The two industries are completely different besides the fact that they both offer some form of digital entertainment. To expect Apple to have the same policy regarding both is parallel to the level of naivety that others accuse Apple users of thinking (and I have not yet found to be true): the belief that Apple is beyond the forces of Capitalism and is a good guy. They're a business. Luckily for us, they seem to value the user experience.

Note to Helio: It's the interface, stupid.

Nice try, though.

And by the way, it's the Apple iPhone, jackasses.

Universal is playing with fire, challenging Apple and threatening to not renew their contract to sell music through the iTunes store. Let me make this clear: I despise the major recording labels. I especially hate DRM. I don't buy music (generally) that is infected with DRM. However, I really hate to see Apple get the shit storm undeservidly. And that brings me to Cory Doctorow:

Now, I'm the last guy to celebrate the iTunes Store. Though it is easy to use, almost every penny you spend there ends up hurting you in the long term, by locking you into buying Apple products if you want to go on enjoying your music.

Say it with me: what the fuck?! It's as if Cory completely forgot* about Steve Jobs Thoughts on Music and Apple's deal with EMI to sell DRM-free music. The iTunes store is DRM laden because of the music industry wants to control their consumers, not because Apple wants a lock in on their iPod players.

I give 2 to 1 odds that Cory receives another of John Gruber's coveted Jackass of the Week awards sometime this week.

* Although, I don't think Cory has forgotten, as it's mentioned in the linked article. This leads me to believe that Cory is being willfully douchy about the whole thing in order to push his anti-DRM agenda (an agenda I agree with but am not willing to resort to douchiness to advocate). Or maybe he's just sadly misguided. Gee, I hope I don't get Cory Doctorow commenting and complaining that I've sad bad things about him on my blog like the especially douchy Ryan Block.

Apple iPhone

Well, the day has come and gone and I do not have an Apple iPhone. This is a downright tragedy. However, there is hope for me. The Apple Phone Show with Scott Bourne (who is also a regular on MacBreak Weekly) is having a contest. The prize? An iPhone, of course! All you have to do is post a link to The Apple Phone Show on your blog or webpage and send them your contact info and you're all set. Winner is announced August 30th. 

Apple, Inc.

30 years ago today—June 5, 1977—The Apple II computer went on sale for the first time.

It makes me reflect upon my own past with Apple. Only recently have I become the huge Apple cultist that I am, but it's striking to reflect back on how Apple was there in the very beginning of my love affair with computers and technology.

The first computer that I ever used was a Macintosh (what variety I do not recall) in my 3rd or 4th grade class. The computer I learned to type on was an Apple II. The computer that I first experienced the internet on was a Macintosh.

Up until around 1995 and 1996, the only computer I had ever used was the Apple II's and Macintosh's that were at grade school. During my High School years I was a dedicated PC and Windows user—the family computer was a PC—but I hardly had a clue of what using an Apple was really about. It wasn't until my first year of College that I bought a 12 inch PowerBook G4 to satisfy the need to test websites on OS X. Little did I know that I'd fall in love with that little computer and would ultimately shun the PC world and Windows all together.

And now, here I am, typing this out on my beautiful 17 inch MacBook Pro.

Via Daring Fireball: New iPhone ads to begin showing on Television tonight.

The release date is now official: June 29th. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to have the cash to get one right away. Perhaps more in the fall/winter time.

Regarding the ads, I agree with John completely:

These are great ads – music, photos, video, flick-to-scroll, Google Maps integration, and, of course, answering and initiating phone calls. It all looks simple, obvious, and very fun. No other cell phone is advertised by showing off the user interface.

The iPhone certainly looks great, and if it performs half as good as it seems to, then it's pure gold. That being said, the actual quality of the phone is still up in the air (I mean, technically, it's still vaporware). But Apple is going in the right direction: it's all about the software.

Lyrics for "Up For Sale" by The (International) Noise Conspiracy

This tip has been around for awhile, but I just found out about it and I love it. Just a fair warning, this tip is for Mac users only (sorry PC guys).

So, as you may or may not be aware you can copy lyrics into iTunes and view them in iTunes or (more usefully) view them on your iPod. Great! But for those of us with massive music libraries, going in and manually entering lyrics--even with the magic of copy-and-paste--is a tedious and unwelcome task. Thus, the wonderful feature goes unused.

However, if you really want to get lyrics meta data onto your songs there is a way!

First, you'll have to find a copy of pearLyrics roaming the internet. pearLyrics is a dashboard widget that looks at the song your playing and then searches the internet for the lyrics to that song. It then adds the lyrics into your meta data. There is a catch, however. This software is no longer available from the developer due to a cease and desist letter from the recording industry. All of that despite the fact that the widget does nothing more than search publicly available websites for the lyrics. And besides, what harm does adding lyrics to songs do to the music industry. I personally had no moral problem with finding an old copy of pearLyrics and using it. Recording industry be damned. You should be able to find it on various torrent sites if you look.

So that's all very well and good. You can now listen to your music and pearLyrics will automatically start adding lyrics for you. But what if you want to automate the process just a bit more? You can just leave your playlist running and it'll eventually get through all the songs.

But if you're like me that process is going to take you some 90 days (yes, that's about three months) of continuous listening to get through everything. If you're in a similar situation, go download Needle Drop. Needle Drop is a simple AppleScript that plays each song for a specified duration and then continues onto the next song.

I set mine to go 12 seconds and then continue, and it seems to work pretty well. Depending on your internet connection you could go faster or slower. At 12 seconds a song it's still going to take me two and a half days of continuous listening to get through everything (but of course you don't have to actually listen, you can simple mute iTunes and let it run overnight, just make sure if you stop it you note where you left off and continue from there).

So there you are. Enjoy.

UPDATE: PC users might want to check out  LyricSnapper or EvilLyrics (thanks CareaBearaSara), which performs a similar task that pearLyrics does (but, I must say, Windows apps are still fugly). Since AppleScript is Mac only you won't be able to run Needle Drop. If anyone knows of a Windows equivalent for that please let me know!

Apple, Inc.

I recently posted on Engadget's irresponsible "reporting" of the supposed postponed release date of the Apple iPhone and OS X Leopard. My main point was that Engadget, in its zeal to get a big scoop before all the other blogs out there, didn't do enough to confirm the story.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who's analysis of Apple news is always spot on, has a few other points:

1. The email that Engadget sourced their story from refers to a press release. Engadget failed to see if any such press release existed and when they discovered there wasn't one that should have sent up red flags.
   
2. It would've have only been bad form for Apple to do an internal memo like this it would have also been illegal.
3. Engadget's post on the topic was misleading, saying that they had the story "on authority" (implying upper executive information) when really all they had was an internal email.
   

Gruber says,

You can make an argument that Block would have been within his rights to post an article stating exactly what he knew: that this message had been sent via Apple’s internal Bullet News email list. I would disagree, on the grounds that it would be irresponsible, but at least it would have been true, hoax or not. But I don’t see how anyone can argue that what Block did post – which was completely and utterly false – was anything other than sensational jackassery.

Jackassery, indeed.