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That's a rather tall claim-- what evidence has he omitted here, or more to the point, what data did he make up?

jws 17y ago
For an omission: in his section on Apple's DRM policies he omits that after getting the music labels on board Apple then drove them to drop DRM. How would this change the paragraph containing: For a company whose CEO professes a hatred of DRM, Apple sure has made DRM its alpha and omega. Having gotten into business with the two industries that most believe that you shouldn't be able to modify your hardware, load your own software on it, write software for it, override instructions given to it by the mothership (the entertainment industry and the phone companies), Apple has defined its business around these principles. Then for a fabrication: The iPad you buy today will be e-waste in a year or two (less, if you decide not to pay to have the battery changed for you). Read that closely. He wants you to believe iPad batteries last less than 12 months, degraded to the point that you will throw away the device if you don't buy a new battery (with installation). Look at the verbs. He isn't saying he fears this might happen. He definitively states it as fact.
- tvon 17y ago
  This kind of crap drives me nuts. There are completely legitimate reasons to be opposed to the concept of the iPad, or to suggest that people should not buy one. When you construct an argument with stretched truths and hyperbole, you just weaken the entire position and make people who agree with you look like fanatics. In other words, if you have such a good argument, why are you employing Rovian tactics?
  - stanleydrew 17y ago
    I think I agree with you, but as frustrating as they are, weren't Rovian tactics shown to work pretty well?
    - tvon 17y ago
      I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm saying it's dishonest.
    - jsz0 17y ago
      They work great in the short term. Over the long term though you create fear fatigue in people and undermine credibility. It also tends to alienate people who are undecided or sympathetic to your argument but informed enough to see the tactics.
- ugh 17y ago
  He doesn’t omit Apple’s DRM past, he merely accuses Jobs of hypocrisy with respect to DRM. Jobs seems to hate it if music labels use it (“… whose CEO professes a hatred of DRM …”) – all the while he has no problem with much of the Video content and all the Apps keeping their DRM.
  - Maktab 17y ago
    I'm not sure that Steve Jobs has ever indicated that he's against DRM as a concept, only that he thought it was pointless and self-defeating to continue selling <em>music<em> with bundled DRM. Especially with BitTorrent and p2p networks being so prevalent. His opposition to DRM on music was expressed in practical, not moral, terms. But DRM on movies still appears to be relatively effective, even though that might soon reach the same point music did and I don't think there's much doubt that DRM on apps has prevented a fair bit of piracy. If I think back to how easy it was to get pirated apps for an S60 phone a few years ago and how not one of the people I know who have jailbroken their iPhones has paid for any of the apps they own I can definitely understand why Apple would prefer a closed system with DRM.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - ugh 17y ago
      I would agree with you that this seems to be Job’s view of the whole DRM thing, but it’s certainly possible and plausible to parse Job’s actions differently. If you squint your eyes a bit it can really seem as though Jobs wanted to look like the larger than life crusader against DRM. That’s clearly not what he is. If you think Jobs wanted people to have that impression (which is what Cory Doctorow seems to think) his actions begin to look hypocritical.
    - bigiain 17y ago
      It'll be interesting to see if Steve's pragmatism regarding the pointlessness of music DRM extends to potentially sacrificing Pixar profits when the next order-of-magnitude increase in home broadband puts video DRM in exactly the same position as music DRM is today...
- tannerburson 17y ago
  I'll agree with your latter point, he does seem a bit sensational in his claim that the device will be physically useless in less than 24 months. But I disagree with your first argument. You're correct that he omits that they have removed DRM from their music, but not their videos. And I think you can safely argue the point that if Apple had started out with iTunes without DRM that they never would have made it off the launchpad. He also specifically used the term "entertainment industry", which is still true. Apple still uses restrictive DRM on it's videos, as well as it's i(Phone|Pad|Pod Touch) products. The latter are definitely marketed as "entertainment devices".
- cgranade 17y ago
  As for the fabrication charge, that's at best an unfortunate choice of phrasing. His point is that when an iPad battery fails (it will-- all batteries do fail), you have no choice but to throw away the device or to send it back to Apple for them to perform the battery replacement. What happens when Apple decides that the current model of iPad is too old to bother replacing batteries on? You can no longer maintain your own device. This is quite different from not being able to repair your own device, as it has long been the expectation that users are responsible for changing out batteries. By locking down the device, Apple is promoting the production of more e-waste. Regardless of any unfortunate phrasing, the point remains valid.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    Or you could open it up, replace the battery yourself, and void the (undoubtedly expired) warranty. There's nothing actually preventing that, legally or physically.
    - cgranade 17y ago
      I've tried replacing parts inside Apple devices before, and they're not built for that generally. Does Apple go so far as to embed "booby traps" like those seen in the PlayStation 2 which attempt to punish people who self-repair by breaking their devices? I honestly don't know how easy it is to replace the battery without permanently damaging the device, so I'd say it's not a settled matter that there's nothing physically preventing one from doing it.
      - protomyth 17y ago
        Well, if it is anything like the iPod or iPhone, it is pretty easy to replace the parts. There are multiple vendors selling parts for them (some parts better than the original). The "closed" battery should be the least of people's issues. The replacement is the same price as another laptop battery and you get a whole new iPad. For example, at some point, I am going to replace my iPod's (5th gen) HD with an SSD and there are multiple vendors and video showing how.
    - 17y ago

jws 17y ago

For an omission: in his section on Apple's DRM policies he omits that after getting the music labels on board Apple then drove them to drop DRM. How would this change the paragraph containing: For a company whose CEO professes a hatred of DRM, Apple sure has made DRM its alpha and omega. Having gotten into business with the two industries that most believe that you shouldn't be able to modify your hardware, load your own software on it, write software for it, override instructions given to it by the mothership (the entertainment industry and the phone companies), Apple has defined its business around these principles. Then for a fabrication: The iPad you buy today will be e-waste in a year or two (less, if you decide not to pay to have the battery changed for you). Read that closely. He wants you to believe iPad batteries last less than 12 months, degraded to the point that you will throw away the device if you don't buy a new battery (with installation). Look at the verbs. He isn't saying he fears this might happen. He definitively states it as fact.

tvon 17y ago
This kind of crap drives me nuts. There are completely legitimate reasons to be opposed to the concept of the iPad, or to suggest that people should not buy one. When you construct an argument with stretched truths and hyperbole, you just weaken the entire position and make people who agree with you look like fanatics. In other words, if you have such a good argument, why are you employing Rovian tactics?
- stanleydrew 17y ago
  I think I agree with you, but as frustrating as they are, weren't Rovian tactics shown to work pretty well?
  - tvon 17y ago
    I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm saying it's dishonest.
  - jsz0 17y ago
    They work great in the short term. Over the long term though you create fear fatigue in people and undermine credibility. It also tends to alienate people who are undecided or sympathetic to your argument but informed enough to see the tactics.
ugh 17y ago
He doesn’t omit Apple’s DRM past, he merely accuses Jobs of hypocrisy with respect to DRM. Jobs seems to hate it if music labels use it (“… whose CEO professes a hatred of DRM …”) – all the while he has no problem with much of the Video content and all the Apps keeping their DRM.
- Maktab 17y ago
  I'm not sure that Steve Jobs has ever indicated that he's against DRM as a concept, only that he thought it was pointless and self-defeating to continue selling <em>music<em> with bundled DRM. Especially with BitTorrent and p2p networks being so prevalent. His opposition to DRM on music was expressed in practical, not moral, terms. But DRM on movies still appears to be relatively effective, even though that might soon reach the same point music did and I don't think there's much doubt that DRM on apps has prevented a fair bit of piracy. If I think back to how easy it was to get pirated apps for an S60 phone a few years ago and how not one of the people I know who have jailbroken their iPhones has paid for any of the apps they own I can definitely understand why Apple would prefer a closed system with DRM.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - ugh 17y ago
    I would agree with you that this seems to be Job’s view of the whole DRM thing, but it’s certainly possible and plausible to parse Job’s actions differently. If you squint your eyes a bit it can really seem as though Jobs wanted to look like the larger than life crusader against DRM. That’s clearly not what he is. If you think Jobs wanted people to have that impression (which is what Cory Doctorow seems to think) his actions begin to look hypocritical.
  - bigiain 17y ago
    It'll be interesting to see if Steve's pragmatism regarding the pointlessness of music DRM extends to potentially sacrificing Pixar profits when the next order-of-magnitude increase in home broadband puts video DRM in exactly the same position as music DRM is today...
tannerburson 17y ago
I'll agree with your latter point, he does seem a bit sensational in his claim that the device will be physically useless in less than 24 months. But I disagree with your first argument. You're correct that he omits that they have removed DRM from their music, but not their videos. And I think you can safely argue the point that if Apple had started out with iTunes without DRM that they never would have made it off the launchpad. He also specifically used the term "entertainment industry", which is still true. Apple still uses restrictive DRM on it's videos, as well as it's i(Phone|Pad|Pod Touch) products. The latter are definitely marketed as "entertainment devices".
cgranade 17y ago
As for the fabrication charge, that's at best an unfortunate choice of phrasing. His point is that when an iPad battery fails (it will-- all batteries do fail), you have no choice but to throw away the device or to send it back to Apple for them to perform the battery replacement. What happens when Apple decides that the current model of iPad is too old to bother replacing batteries on? You can no longer maintain your own device. This is quite different from not being able to repair your own device, as it has long been the expectation that users are responsible for changing out batteries. By locking down the device, Apple is promoting the production of more e-waste. Regardless of any unfortunate phrasing, the point remains valid.
- philwelch 17y ago
  Or you could open it up, replace the battery yourself, and void the (undoubtedly expired) warranty. There's nothing actually preventing that, legally or physically.
  - cgranade 17y ago
    I've tried replacing parts inside Apple devices before, and they're not built for that generally. Does Apple go so far as to embed "booby traps" like those seen in the PlayStation 2 which attempt to punish people who self-repair by breaking their devices? I honestly don't know how easy it is to replace the battery without permanently damaging the device, so I'd say it's not a settled matter that there's nothing physically preventing one from doing it.
    - protomyth 17y ago
      Well, if it is anything like the iPod or iPhone, it is pretty easy to replace the parts. There are multiple vendors selling parts for them (some parts better than the original). The "closed" battery should be the least of people's issues. The replacement is the same price as another laptop battery and you get a whole new iPad. For example, at some point, I am going to replace my iPod's (5th gen) HD with an SSD and there are multiple vendors and video showing how.
  - 17y ago