I thought even Jobs would know that the cake is a lie.

gilt1234

Honestly, would anyone really care if Itunes shut down? Oh wait.. thats right all you suckers who locked yourself to an Ipod would. The rest of the world would be like; Meh.

KLanD

@KLanD: How so? While a pain in the ass, there are many ways to go around the DRM protection scheme for iTunes songs. Many suspect Apple legitimately left it open enough like that because of the very reason of Jobs doesnt really like the DRM. The DRM doesnt really lock you down in iTunes as it does other sites, you can easily burn and re-rip a CD if your THAT lazy or find the few back door ways to circumvent it without bit-loss if you actually care.

And last I looked, the iPod plays a hell of a lot more formats than protected ACC.

OletheaEurystheus

@KLanD: there's ore then one way to skin a cat.

wizardofpants

@OletheaEurystheus: And the average Ipod user knows how to do this stuff? I undestand your points and they are very valid, but I'd have to estimate tha at least 75% of Ipod owners don't even know you can DO stuff like that. All they know is I buy a song, it goes to my Ipod, end of knowledge.

On another note, if Apple really wanted an "Open" system why didn't they just let the Ipod play mp3 instead of using some backwater format?

My point is, geeks and nerds who are in the know, know this stuff can be done, but we're, what 10-20% of the market? The rest have no clue about ripping, format changes and such. Which is exactly what Apple likes and preys on.

KLanD

@OletheaEurystheus: So does the Zune. And it plays AAC (.m4a) just fine. I'll take $15 per month subscription for all the music I want over $10 per album.

OMG! Ponies!

BS

It's all fine and good right now, but you know next year they'll only come out with ANOTHER media crisis in a different shape and with all new accessories.

It's science.

strider_mt2k

This is around the time in the movie when Frank Pentangeli (a.k.a. "Frankie Five-Angels") stuns Congress by stating that he loves Apple's current strategy of focusing so much of its business on the iPod division and claims that MobileMe has been a resounding success.

OMG! Ponies!

Apple just proved our greatest weapon against the RIAA. Thank you.

jwardell

@OMG! Ponies!: and why would you want that? coming to show me the Zune?

imTheKing

@imTheKing: What's your phone number?

OMG! Ponies!

@KLanD: so making money on a business is a bad thing? Should all of the companies shut down because of their morals?

imTheKing

@KLanD: Nice troll post. Now go back to sleep.

@OMG! Ponies!: oh please. Zune shmoon. I still have yet to see 1 single Zune in public. I live in NYC where you can't walk 10 feet without bumping into someone and not 1 single person I have ever seen has a Zune. Call me up when the Zune matters.

imTheKing

@imTheKing:

I have an 80GB Zune, a 4GB Zune, and a 16GB iPhone 3G. I know about as many people with Zune players as iPod's. It may not be as popular, but it is relevant, and people that try to make it less so are just hurting themselves because it brings some cool stuff to the table that Apple should adopt. But that's way too much to ask of the more rabid fan base of any company, which is sad.

VulnoX

"not be able to continue business if they were "no longer able to do so profitably"

Sorry to bring it up but maybe if Ford, GM, Chrysler thought about this we wouldnt be buying billions of dollars of their debt (and their unions debt).

venomous_duck41

@KLanD: Perhaps you do not, but others put a great deal of value on the service it provides. Having the ability to play rentals on the newer devices is something I for one see a lot of benefit. Having a quick and easy music distribution service also comes in very handy if I suddenly decide that I want something new to listen to on the subway but am just about to run out the door on the way to work. In something like Amazon.com's mp3 store, that is just not possible. People who download the television shows would also care. A lot. As one who does this myself, I would as well. Not everyone wants to spend money on TV series box sets, and not everyone particularly likes torrenting this stuff, as it's spotty quality, inconsistent with downloading speed, and must often be converted to work on many portable players. It's true, many an iPod user may not know how to convert this stuff, but that doesn't detract from the value of having the service integrated with the device.

Also, backwater format? AAC? That's just wrong man. AAC is not Apple's proprietary format, though .m4p is, per DRM goodness, but iTunes Plus content works on any AAC-compatible player, namely Zune, and also Sony Walkmans (at least a few models I know).

@imTheKing: Actually, I've seen my fair share of Zunes on the way to work, and my route is not very long at all ( G to the A train). I've seen only one Zune 80 in the wild, but have seen plenty of the 30GB models and the flash models. I haven't seen the 120 yet.

Kaiser-Machead's LEGO WALL-E

@Kaiser-Machead's LEGO WALL-E: I'm sure there are Zunes out there, but I'm traveling from Chelsea to Soho every day and not one person has one and my previous job was up on 48th street and thats an area where your bound to see just about anything. Either way, the thing thats really just completely irritating is how KLanD just trolls anything having to do with Apple.

imTheKing

@VulnoX: I'm not saying that its not a good device. In fact, it's interface is 100 times better pertaining to the design aspect. The marketplace is also better in terms of how its viewed. Unfortunately, they won't get the view they need until they push the product further.

imTheKing

MobileMe doesn't need Steve to help it stop working, it does that fine enough on it's own.

SgtToastie

@Kaiser-Machead's LEGO WALL-E: FYI .m4p is a type of AAC .m4a is the other kind. Apple does not like people circumventing their DRM they send repeated cease and desists letters to projects promoting DRM stripping so many do not work with updated versions of itunes. The only reason people think that they don't care is because there is the rule if you can hear it you can record it so it is virtually impossible for them to stop DRM circumvention. As for the other DRM free music almost all of them are superior price wise to itunes. Its just that since itunes comes with every ipod they haven't caught on. there is nothing wrong with a company trying to make money by destroying compatibility, but there is also nothing wrong with hating them for it.

Zomb

Too bad no one who commented on this bothered to read the Copyright Act. If they had, they would have seen, in Section 115, that sales on iTunes are Digital Phono Record deliveries and are not paid by iTunes to music publishers but come out of the royalties paid by iTunes to record companies. Thus even if rates had been raised, Apple wouldn't have had to pay more. Rather, the record companies would have had to pay our more to composers. So yesterday's decision to keep rates the same made no difference to the tech community or users of the iTunes store, but did mean that record companies got to keep more money that could go to songwriters. Are you all happy now?

A Lawyer

People (the media) start to get a little antsy when the economy is in trouble.

Chewbenator

@imTheKing: One of my best friends has a Zune...not really sure why other than he's a non-conformist and didn't want to buy something that everyone else has. He also mentioned liking the bigger screen. I think he's just a fan of the underdog.

GTgeek

@OMG! Ponies! Dude, where have you been? EVERY service that has offered unlimited music for a subscription fee has failed. Why? Because they don't attract enough revenue to sustain the business and they don't work on iPods. These services have WAY MORE DRM then iTunes. And they lock you to one device and one computer, unlike the iPod. Lastly, when the business has to shut down, they also SHUT DOWN THE SERVERS!! All that music you purchased stops working. It gets stuck on one machine and if your machine fails, you cannot transfer your music to another computer or re-install the OS because it wipes out the authentication on your machine and there's no server available to re-authenticate your music. Come on, man. Subscriptions suck...

LeviGwar

Uh... Maybe I misunderstood your comment, but the iPod does play mp3's. Also, one is better off owning an iPod because an iPod can play non-drm music plus tracks purchased from iTunes. I can buy from Amazon and easily import those songs via drag and drop into iTunes to play them on my iPod. The DRM in iTunes is only there because the record companies don't like Apple. "Which is exactly what Apple likes and preys on"? Really? Dude, a conspiracy theory? Really? Remember Steve Jobs' open letter about DRM and his request to get rid of it? Apple doesn't want DRM. If they could get rid of it, they would. They would allow for iTunes sales to increase even more. Lastly, "backwater format"? Come on; iTunes supports standard formats. Dude, come on.

LeviGwar

@Kaiser-Machead's LEGO WALL-E: Thanks for proving my point.

How much does 1 episode of a tv series cost you? cause I'm sure buying the whole thing on DVD is much cheaper and besides, it's yours after that. If I want to put it on 50 pmps, I can.

I also Wasn't talking about AAC, I meant .m4a.

KLanD

@imTheKing: Dude, are you trying to imply Apple has morals?

KLanD