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Sorry, you are wrong. The entire apple business model is about vendor lock-in. Only recently did iTunes remove DRM from their songs. The reason is because iTune

Sorry, you are wrong. The entire apple business model is about vendor lock-in. Only recently did iTunes remove DRM from their songs. The reason is because iTunes won. Apple used iTunes to lock people in by forcing them to use an iPod if they wanted their music which they "own" or rather "lease". Sure you were free to get ANY other mp3 player in the world, as long as you were ok with losing all your music. The same here. Vendor lock in. You got ebooks from the cheapest store (iBook?) cool, iOS only, oh and a non-jailbroken one too. Apple's history with the i... product line is content lock-in onto a device. They lure you in with pretty interfaces, then they hold your stuff hostage. Apple wants a piece of the pie, and they want to be able to undercut all competition. They know they can't ban kindle or face antitrust so they will do other things. This is monopolizing pure and simple. It has nothing to do with apple making "enough" they want to make sure that they sell the cheapest stuff on the iOS, and they control where you can see the content - on the iOS - and if you leave you are fucked.

jonbro 16y ago
I think that the antitrust suits are just around the corner. Which is good, because there are a ton of corner cases beyond the obvious ones that just got damaged. I think the books / movies / tv are just the ones that we heard about first. Pretty sure this is going to effect flickr, vimeo, and more.
- dantheman 16y ago
  Yeah because when you can't compete in the market, it doesn't hurt try and get the government to smack down your competitors...
- cletus 16y ago
  People love to throw around the antritrust word without--and this isn't necessarily directed at you personally--knowing what it actually means. Does Apple have a monopoly on phones? Hardly. Look at HTC, Motorola, Samsung, RIM, Nokia, etc. Does Apple have a monopoly on music? No. You can buy it from Amazon and elsewhere. Likewise you can use Grooveshark, Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc for different services depending on what country you're in. iTunes sure is dominant though. Does Apple have a monopoly on ebooks? Hardly. Amazon is a far bigger player here. Amazon is not dependent on Apple as a means of distribution, although Apple devices are obviously important. Does Apple have a monopoly on TV shows or movies? Hardly. You can buy DVDs from any number of places and downloads from the likes of Amazon. Content producers like Comedy Central, CBS, Fox and others also stream directly from their Websites (and they could do this in HTML5 if they wanted to, allowing them to be viewed on iDevices, but alas they still choose Flash almost exclusively). So where exactly is the monopoly (virtual or actual) here? You can say that Apple is the only one who can sell apps on iDevices and you'd be right. So what? NBC is the only one who can broadcast shows on their stations. That doesn't make them a monopoly. So unless someone can produce a cogent argument of how antitrust applies--and I've yet to see one--can we please stop bandying the word around like it has any relevance here? This isn't to say that some Congressman or Senator won't speak out or possibly there might be a House or Senate hearing but that's really about creating the appearance of doing something rather than their being any justifiable basis for investigation.
  - halo 16y ago
    Did Microsoft ever have a monopoly on OSes? Hardly. Look at Mac OS, OS/2, BeOS, AIX, Solaris, Debian, Slackware, SUSE, Red Hat, RISC OS, BeOS, QNX, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, IRIX, VMS, Palm OS, EPOC OS (nee Symbian) etc.
    - podperson 16y ago
      I'm replying to the reply to your post, and not your post because for some reason I can't reply directly to it. Microsoft has >90% market share in OSes. The existence of a rival product doesn't negate a monopoly. The existence of a true alternative negates a monopoly. Apple doesn't even have a dominant share of ANYTHING except portable music players (which, incidentally, play content from other vendors just fine -- oh and you can _legally_ rip your Apple DRMed music to CD and play it anywhere so where's the lock-in?).
      - Stormbringer 16y ago
        If the reply gets beyond a certain depth there is a built in delay (that gets longer the deeper you get). It's there because Hacker news has decided that there is no value in deep conversations, they prefer the more shallow ones and feel that they get a better result that way. Presumably it also serves as a brake on certain kinds of anti-social behaviour such as flamewars and trolling. It's in the terms of service or rules for newbies or something like that. (edit: went looking for the text in the guidelines so I could link it, but couldn't find it. Sorry. It might be one of PGs articles that I was thinking of)
        calloc 16y ago
        From what I've gathered from other hn'ers was that the reply was gone so that it couldn't turn into a quick back and forth between two authors. If you ever need to reply, click the link button for that comment, the reply box is now available.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      MS had over 90% of the market. Apple is selling 90% of phones?
Stormbringer 16y ago
Sorry, but you're wrong. The iTunes DRM was ridiculously easy to circumvent even in iTunes itself. No mad leet hackzor skillz required. Since you could trivially turn aac files into mp3 files in iTunes your quote: "Sure you were free to get ANY other mp3 player in the world, as long as you were ok with losing all your music" Is completely wrong. I can only assume you are one of the vast throngs of Apple haters who hate Apple and their products because it is trendy to hate trendy things. I know the iPad supports pdf format, and I think also the epub format(?), which I believe is the big open standard that everyone 'should' be supporting? How is that bad evil and wrong? Apple has great adoption of standards for its web browsers (please don't complain about Flash, for starters it isn't a standard, for seconds its horrible, for thirds it is used mainly for adds which are also horrible, for fourths it violates usability and accessibility for fifths its one good use is dinky little free games, of which let me assure you I have it on good authority there are quite a few of those on the iOS). Apple is by no means perfect nor lily white, but to attack them on standards when they do so well in that area compared to most other companies is ... bizarre. The only 'entertainment' companies that I can think of that do better at supporting a wide range of open formats are the small indie music and movie makers. Why doesn't Apple work with the indies to help them bring their content to a wider audience? That would be awesome. That you could legitimately complain about. But no, you pick something that Apple are actually good at to complain about. Why is it that when someone rants about Apple it is always opposites day??? The hilarious thing about your complaint is that all of the examples you give are obviously wrong, but there is a much better example: apps. Apps for iOS don't run on any other device. ... The problem is, if you complained about that, you'd look silly, because as a general rule apps for one platform don't run on other platforms. So anyway, to sum up the actual state of Apple 'lock-in': (a) Open formats are supported on Apple products. (b) Some (e.g. music) closed formats are trivially easy to convert to open formats. (Turns out there are many converters for books that are cheap but not free, go figure) (c) iOS specific stuff is iOS specific (spot the tautology) Would I prefer to be able to write apps for iOS in any language I wanted to? As a developer yes yes, OMG yes. As a consumer I would ask whether that means giving up the protections I currently enjoy. What protections? Surely Apple's only purpose in life is to sell me sufficient numbers of these devices is to enslave my will to that of Skynet? Not so! On my desktop I hardly download anything unless from a very highly trusted source. I especially distrust the free stuff. On the iOS devices I go wild and crazy, knowing that my private information is private, my data is safe. So are you complaining about the walled garden? Why? There are a great many alternatives, none with gardens so nice. Leave the Apple lovers alone, the chains that bind them are so nice and shiny and make such pretty bracelets. Maybe if you're nice to them, one of them will bring you a drink of ice-water in your 'warm cosy place'.
fabjan 16y ago
> Only recently did iTunes remove DRM from their songs. The reason is because iTunes won. The reason is because iTunes won over the record companies, yes.
allertonm 16y ago
"Only recently did iTunes remove DRM from their songs" A timeline: iTunes store opens: April 26 2003 Steve Jobs DRM letter: Feb 6 2007 (4 years ago) EMI content available DRM free: May 29 2007 80% of iTunes music DRM free: Jan 6th 2009 All US iTunes music DRM free: April 7th 2009 So I think you are stretching the meaning of "only recently", especially when considered in terms of the pace of technology development (as opposed to, say, geological time.) You couldn't even buy an iPhone when they started removing it. The period over which they were exclusively selling DRM content is actually shorter than the period since they stopped. (Update: that last part is not quite right - I was counting from the DRM letter date, not the EMI date. But it's close.)
- jongraehl 16y ago
  1.8 years ago is not "recently". Got it.
  - glhaynes 16y ago
    When they publicly announced their intention to move to DRM-free approximately half the lifetime of the service ago, and have since succeeded in driving that plan to fruition, it's hard for me to find much to fault. They couldn't have gotten the service off the ground without DRM and the decision to push for non-DRM was a surprise to most. How could they have done "better"?
- mvalle 16y ago
  I'd like to emphasize that this is music only. Not video content or non-music audio content etc.
chc 16y ago
Steve Jobs was always vocally opposed to DRM. He said the main competitors for the Music Store were CDs and piracy, and neither hassled you with DRM, so he saw it as a competitive disadvantage. The labels required DRM because Napster had left them gunshy, but Apple always seemed to be giving in grudgingly. (This is different for movies, of course, where the main alternative is DRM-encumbered.) The lock-in was iTunes, not the DRM.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  I think you need to clarify your point. When you say "The lock-in was iTunes, not the DRM." do you mean iTunes the application? iTunes the online store? Or iTunes the ecosystem? The app wasn't a lock in, as far as I know there were no rules requiring exclusivity on the online store... and if the ecosystem was a 'lock-in' there are alternatives. Not to pick on you specifically, I see plenty of people saying one or more of those is a lock-in, but I haven't seen a good reason why yet. It just seems to be an article of faith. Why is iTunes a lock-in? It just is, that's why. --- But then there is all this heated debate. Why even argue about it? If someone wants to own a Zune and feel all special and unique and pay $15/month for music subscription, hey, they can just do it. I think the debate is 'interesting', because at HN, surely we would all recognise that building an ecosystem (or community) around your product and giving the users a seamless end to end experience would actually be a good thing. Something to be emulated. No? If not, why not? What is it about Apple that singles it out from the herd for such uniquely irrational treatment?

jonbro 16y ago

I think that the antitrust suits are just around the corner. Which is good, because there are a ton of corner cases beyond the obvious ones that just got damaged. I think the books / movies / tv are just the ones that we heard about first. Pretty sure this is going to effect flickr, vimeo, and more.

dantheman 16y ago
Yeah because when you can't compete in the market, it doesn't hurt try and get the government to smack down your competitors...
cletus 16y ago
People love to throw around the antritrust word without--and this isn't necessarily directed at you personally--knowing what it actually means. Does Apple have a monopoly on phones? Hardly. Look at HTC, Motorola, Samsung, RIM, Nokia, etc. Does Apple have a monopoly on music? No. You can buy it from Amazon and elsewhere. Likewise you can use Grooveshark, Spotify, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc for different services depending on what country you're in. iTunes sure is dominant though. Does Apple have a monopoly on ebooks? Hardly. Amazon is a far bigger player here. Amazon is not dependent on Apple as a means of distribution, although Apple devices are obviously important. Does Apple have a monopoly on TV shows or movies? Hardly. You can buy DVDs from any number of places and downloads from the likes of Amazon. Content producers like Comedy Central, CBS, Fox and others also stream directly from their Websites (and they could do this in HTML5 if they wanted to, allowing them to be viewed on iDevices, but alas they still choose Flash almost exclusively). So where exactly is the monopoly (virtual or actual) here? You can say that Apple is the only one who can sell apps on iDevices and you'd be right. So what? NBC is the only one who can broadcast shows on their stations. That doesn't make them a monopoly. So unless someone can produce a cogent argument of how antitrust applies--and I've yet to see one--can we please stop bandying the word around like it has any relevance here? This isn't to say that some Congressman or Senator won't speak out or possibly there might be a House or Senate hearing but that's really about creating the appearance of doing something rather than their being any justifiable basis for investigation.
- halo 16y ago
  Did Microsoft ever have a monopoly on OSes? Hardly. Look at Mac OS, OS/2, BeOS, AIX, Solaris, Debian, Slackware, SUSE, Red Hat, RISC OS, BeOS, QNX, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, IRIX, VMS, Palm OS, EPOC OS (nee Symbian) etc.
  - podperson 16y ago
    I'm replying to the reply to your post, and not your post because for some reason I can't reply directly to it. Microsoft has >90% market share in OSes. The existence of a rival product doesn't negate a monopoly. The existence of a true alternative negates a monopoly. Apple doesn't even have a dominant share of ANYTHING except portable music players (which, incidentally, play content from other vendors just fine -- oh and you can _legally_ rip your Apple DRMed music to CD and play it anywhere so where's the lock-in?).
    - Stormbringer 16y ago
      If the reply gets beyond a certain depth there is a built in delay (that gets longer the deeper you get). It's there because Hacker news has decided that there is no value in deep conversations, they prefer the more shallow ones and feel that they get a better result that way. Presumably it also serves as a brake on certain kinds of anti-social behaviour such as flamewars and trolling. It's in the terms of service or rules for newbies or something like that. (edit: went looking for the text in the guidelines so I could link it, but couldn't find it. Sorry. It might be one of PGs articles that I was thinking of)
      - calloc 16y ago
        From what I've gathered from other hn'ers was that the reply was gone so that it couldn't turn into a quick back and forth between two authors. If you ever need to reply, click the link button for that comment, the reply box is now available.
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    MS had over 90% of the market. Apple is selling 90% of phones?

Stormbringer 16y ago

Sorry, but you're wrong. The iTunes DRM was ridiculously easy to circumvent even in iTunes itself. No mad leet hackzor skillz required. Since you could trivially turn aac files into mp3 files in iTunes your quote: "Sure you were free to get ANY other mp3 player in the world, as long as you were ok with losing all your music" Is completely wrong. I can only assume you are one of the vast throngs of Apple haters who hate Apple and their products because it is trendy to hate trendy things. I know the iPad supports pdf format, and I think also the epub format(?), which I believe is the big open standard that everyone 'should' be supporting? How is that bad evil and wrong? Apple has great adoption of standards for its web browsers (please don't complain about Flash, for starters it isn't a standard, for seconds its horrible, for thirds it is used mainly for adds which are also horrible, for fourths it violates usability and accessibility for fifths its one good use is dinky little free games, of which let me assure you I have it on good authority there are quite a few of those on the iOS). Apple is by no means perfect nor lily white, but to attack them on standards when they do so well in that area compared to most other companies is ... bizarre. The only 'entertainment' companies that I can think of that do better at supporting a wide range of open formats are the small indie music and movie makers. Why doesn't Apple work with the indies to help them bring their content to a wider audience? That would be awesome. That you could legitimately complain about. But no, you pick something that Apple are actually good at to complain about. Why is it that when someone rants about Apple it is always opposites day??? The hilarious thing about your complaint is that all of the examples you give are obviously wrong, but there is a much better example: apps. Apps for iOS don't run on any other device. ... The problem is, if you complained about that, you'd look silly, because as a general rule apps for one platform don't run on other platforms. So anyway, to sum up the actual state of Apple 'lock-in': (a) Open formats are supported on Apple products. (b) Some (e.g. music) closed formats are trivially easy to convert to open formats. (Turns out there are many converters for books that are cheap but not free, go figure) (c) iOS specific stuff is iOS specific (spot the tautology) Would I prefer to be able to write apps for iOS in any language I wanted to? As a developer yes yes, OMG yes. As a consumer I would ask whether that means giving up the protections I currently enjoy. What protections? Surely Apple's only purpose in life is to sell me sufficient numbers of these devices is to enslave my will to that of Skynet? Not so! On my desktop I hardly download anything unless from a very highly trusted source. I especially distrust the free stuff. On the iOS devices I go wild and crazy, knowing that my private information is private, my data is safe. So are you complaining about the walled garden? Why? There are a great many alternatives, none with gardens so nice. Leave the Apple lovers alone, the chains that bind them are so nice and shiny and make such pretty bracelets. Maybe if you're nice to them, one of them will bring you a drink of ice-water in your 'warm cosy place'.

fabjan 16y ago

> Only recently did iTunes remove DRM from their songs. The reason is because iTunes won. The reason is because iTunes won over the record companies, yes.

allertonm 16y ago

"Only recently did iTunes remove DRM from their songs" A timeline: iTunes store opens: April 26 2003 Steve Jobs DRM letter: Feb 6 2007 (4 years ago) EMI content available DRM free: May 29 2007 80% of iTunes music DRM free: Jan 6th 2009 All US iTunes music DRM free: April 7th 2009 So I think you are stretching the meaning of "only recently", especially when considered in terms of the pace of technology development (as opposed to, say, geological time.) You couldn't even buy an iPhone when they started removing it. The period over which they were exclusively selling DRM content is actually shorter than the period since they stopped. (Update: that last part is not quite right - I was counting from the DRM letter date, not the EMI date. But it's close.)

jongraehl 16y ago
1.8 years ago is not "recently". Got it.
- glhaynes 16y ago
  When they publicly announced their intention to move to DRM-free approximately half the lifetime of the service ago, and have since succeeded in driving that plan to fruition, it's hard for me to find much to fault. They couldn't have gotten the service off the ground without DRM and the decision to push for non-DRM was a surprise to most. How could they have done "better"?
mvalle 16y ago
I'd like to emphasize that this is music only. Not video content or non-music audio content etc.

chc 16y ago

Steve Jobs was always vocally opposed to DRM. He said the main competitors for the Music Store were CDs and piracy, and neither hassled you with DRM, so he saw it as a competitive disadvantage. The labels required DRM because Napster had left them gunshy, but Apple always seemed to be giving in grudgingly. (This is different for movies, of course, where the main alternative is DRM-encumbered.) The lock-in was iTunes, not the DRM.

Stormbringer 16y ago
I think you need to clarify your point. When you say "The lock-in was iTunes, not the DRM." do you mean iTunes the application? iTunes the online store? Or iTunes the ecosystem? The app wasn't a lock in, as far as I know there were no rules requiring exclusivity on the online store... and if the ecosystem was a 'lock-in' there are alternatives. Not to pick on you specifically, I see plenty of people saying one or more of those is a lock-in, but I haven't seen a good reason why yet. It just seems to be an article of faith. Why is iTunes a lock-in? It just is, that's why. --- But then there is all this heated debate. Why even argue about it? If someone wants to own a Zune and feel all special and unique and pay $15/month for music subscription, hey, they can just do it. I think the debate is 'interesting', because at HN, surely we would all recognise that building an ecosystem (or community) around your product and giving the users a seamless end to end experience would actually be a good thing. Something to be emulated. No? If not, why not? What is it about Apple that singles it out from the herd for such uniquely irrational treatment?