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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Monday, January 15, 2007

Want an iPhone? Beware the iHandcuffs

The six month wait between iPhone announce and iPhone availability could prove problematic for the instant gratification purchases that won't happen now, but Apple faces a bigger and more general problem in that people are finally waking up to the problems of its lock-in strategy:

Apple officially calls its own standard “FairPlay,” but fair it is not.

A class-action lawsuit contends that Apple unfairly restricts consumer choice because it does not load onto the iPod the software needed to play music that uses Microsoft’s copy-protection standard, in addition to Apple’s own.

Ms. Tucker’s core argument is that the absence of another company’s software on the iPod constitutes “crippleware.” I disagree. It is Apple’s own copy-protection software itself that cripples the device.

Unlike Apple, Microsoft has been willing to license its copy-protection software to third-party hardware vendors. But copy protection is copy protection: a headache only for the law-abiding.

[ Posted at 8:31 PM | Permalink ]