I guess I should say something about the iPod, Apple's new portable MP3 player. It certainly represents no "breakthrough" as the pre-release hype had everyone wound up to expect. But it is an incremental improvement. Sure, you can get a nomad with 20 gigs of storage, but the nomad is big and heavy. And ugly. The iPod, with 5 gigs of storage (enough for roughly 1,000 songs) is truly portable. Its firewire connection (instead of the USB connection most "portable" devices have) transfers music fast. Downloading 20 gigs into a nomad over USB would take forever. And O.K., at $399 the iPod is expensive, but this is an Apple product so that should come as no surprise.
The real question is about digital rights management. Computing devices that attempt to secure intellectual property are going to be more complex while having less utility than devices which do not. The ethical questions can be debated endlessly, but I think this much is clear: the market will reward general purpose computing devices that don't police their own users over devices that foil simple, legal and fundamental uses of the device merely in an effort to stop the possibility of misuse. Consider the market potential of an automobile equipped with a cut off so that it couldn't go faster than 65. This would assure that drivers do not break the law, but who would buy such a car? Yet the computer industry seems intent on offering us just such crippled products. It's certainly not your "rights" which "digital rights management" schemes are trying to protect.
Steve Jobs was quoted in one New York Times article as mentioning that there was some unspecified technology in place that would prevent users from uploading songs from the iPod to a different computer than the one from which the song was downloaded. But the quote was vague, and nothing in the iPod specs seems to back this up. This HTP thread discusses the issue in some detail. My best guess at this point (no one has an iPod yet) is that there is some tiny bit of friction built into the device to curtail trading of music files, but not much. And maybe none. This is the direction Apple needs to be heading, and perhaps that is what Jobs' means when he says Apple makes devices that "just work." I think most people are under estimating how vulnerable Microsoft is on this point. Of course, I'm not sure Apple won't blow it.
Do I want one? Sure. But I won't be buying one. I don't really listen to music when I'm moving around. I'd rather put the $400 towards an iBook or TiBook which would then give me all the capabilities of the iPod (minus the extreme front pocket portability) plus being a computer in it's own right. I think the iPod is only attractive to people who work out at a gym, or to people who like cool gadgets and to whom $400 is no big deal (I miss on both counts.) But if you're looking to buy me a present I'd sure be happy to get one for free.
Mixed signals coming out of Apple on this one. Seems like the software is not completely finalized yet (the iPod won't ship for a week or so.) Yesterday it was looking like it might actually be difficult to move mp3s from the iPod to a different computer (different from the one they were loaded from.) It's never been in question that you can use the iPod like an external firewire hard disk (even booting a firewire Mac with it, I believe) and load mp3s or whatever kind of file onto it, and then onto any other machine. But the iPod keeps music files which are to be played, portably, by the iPod in a seperate part of the 5 gig disk (well, as hidden files.) So if you want to be able to listen to an mp3 on the go, it seems (or seemed yesterday) like maybe you couldn't then transfer this mp3 to a different machine.
But this Macobserver article shows that it's not hard to get around this problem. At least as the software stands now. And this brings me to another annoying development in the computer industry: upgradeable software and firmware. When I buy an electronic device it seems fair that I should know its capabilities and that these capabilities shouldn't change (especially in the direction of becoming less capabile) because of some update to software or firmware. Especially from an update that comes remotely over the net without my permission. Again I'll point the finger at Microsoft who is building just this sort of auto-update into Windows XP. But apple has been guilty in the past (the "trojan" firmware updates for rev. 1 B&W g3s) as well as the famous Tivo case.
It would be helpful if apple would make a clear statement about the units capabilities so that if they change them in the future (like after I had bought one) I could at least complain. Probably the situation will remain vague and less knowledgable users will be negatively impacted, while those in the know can get access to software that will let the unit operate to the full of it's abilities.
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The real question is about digital rights management. Computing devices that attempt to secure intellectual property are going to be more complex while having less utility than devices which do not. The ethical questions can be debated endlessly, but I think this much is clear: the market will reward general purpose computing devices that don't police their own users over devices that foil simple, legal and fundamental uses of the device merely in an effort to stop the possibility of misuse. Consider the market potential of an automobile equipped with a cut off so that it couldn't go faster than 65. This would assure that drivers do not break the law, but who would buy such a car? Yet the computer industry seems intent on offering us just such crippled products. It's certainly not your "rights" which "digital rights management" schemes are trying to protect.
Steve Jobs was quoted in one New York Times article as mentioning that there was some unspecified technology in place that would prevent users from uploading songs from the iPod to a different computer than the one from which the song was downloaded. But the quote was vague, and nothing in the iPod specs seems to back this up. This HTP thread discusses the issue in some detail. My best guess at this point (no one has an iPod yet) is that there is some tiny bit of friction built into the device to curtail trading of music files, but not much. And maybe none. This is the direction Apple needs to be heading, and perhaps that is what Jobs' means when he says Apple makes devices that "just work." I think most people are under estimating how vulnerable Microsoft is on this point. Of course, I'm not sure Apple won't blow it.
Do I want one? Sure. But I won't be buying one. I don't really listen to music when I'm moving around. I'd rather put the $400 towards an iBook or TiBook which would then give me all the capabilities of the iPod (minus the extreme front pocket portability) plus being a computer in it's own right. I think the iPod is only attractive to people who work out at a gym, or to people who like cool gadgets and to whom $400 is no big deal (I miss on both counts.) But if you're looking to buy me a present I'd sure be happy to get one for free.
- jim 10-27-2001 5:02 pm
Mixed signals coming out of Apple on this one. Seems like the software is not completely finalized yet (the iPod won't ship for a week or so.) Yesterday it was looking like it might actually be difficult to move mp3s from the iPod to a different computer (different from the one they were loaded from.) It's never been in question that you can use the iPod like an external firewire hard disk (even booting a firewire Mac with it, I believe) and load mp3s or whatever kind of file onto it, and then onto any other machine. But the iPod keeps music files which are to be played, portably, by the iPod in a seperate part of the 5 gig disk (well, as hidden files.) So if you want to be able to listen to an mp3 on the go, it seems (or seemed yesterday) like maybe you couldn't then transfer this mp3 to a different machine.
But this Macobserver article shows that it's not hard to get around this problem. At least as the software stands now. And this brings me to another annoying development in the computer industry: upgradeable software and firmware. When I buy an electronic device it seems fair that I should know its capabilities and that these capabilities shouldn't change (especially in the direction of becoming less capabile) because of some update to software or firmware. Especially from an update that comes remotely over the net without my permission. Again I'll point the finger at Microsoft who is building just this sort of auto-update into Windows XP. But apple has been guilty in the past (the "trojan" firmware updates for rev. 1 B&W g3s) as well as the famous Tivo case.
It would be helpful if apple would make a clear statement about the units capabilities so that if they change them in the future (like after I had bought one) I could at least complain. Probably the situation will remain vague and less knowledgable users will be negatively impacted, while those in the know can get access to software that will let the unit operate to the full of it's abilities.
- jim 10-30-2001 1:59 pm