This is a pretty rosy view of the iTunes history. Apple did not plan to remove the DRM chains, and never would have except that they faced competition from Amazon (who, not coincidentally, restrict my eBook purchases to DRM-laden selections from their own slightly less-walled garden, but that is a rant for another day and I love my Kindle still) for DRM-less MP3's. They would have kept DRM going forever, and any tune I bought from iTunes before they dropped DRM still has DRM on it. This was not part of some long-term Apple plan to provide a more free marketplace. This was Apple grudgingly giving up an area in which they restrict and milk their consumers.

And the loss of DRM is only a fraction of the wall around the iPod, iPad, iTunes garden. You can't load music on your i-object without using iTunes (though you can get your mp3's from anywhere) and you can only use the software they let you use to play your music.

When my old clickwheel ipod's battery went bad (apparently, submersing the thing is not healthy for it) I was screwed. Any other device I would have bought a new battery and been on my way. This device was too expensive to change the battery on. I looked at the iPod touch longingly (it is pretty cool) and at the nano, but I could not justify spending about $200 to listen to music at the gym, and I ended up buying a $40 sansa player which did everything I wanted and let me do it the way I wanted. (Now I use my N900 at the gym--though I am annoyed with myself that I check my email when it beeps while I exercise.)

The idea that there is an incubation period and that it is beneficial to everyone in the long run is just wishful thinking and deification of this corporation. They (like all good capitalists) are looking for every way that they can grab their consumers by the short hairs and extract as much money as possible from them. I give them props for successfully sucking so many people into such a system, but I will not pretend that it is part of some benevolent plan for the future of the world. And I have very little desire to lock myself and my information into such a system.

Here's a little thought experiment for you: pretend that tomorrow you decide to switch to a different platform (perhaps you are required by your employer, or perhaps something so freaking cool comes out from the Acme corporation that you want to switch). What will it cost you (both time and money) to get your data out and move it to the new device? All your contacts, all your calendar items, all your emails, all your to-do lists and yellow sticky note program contents and playlists and music and must-have apps. With all due respect to Kris Kristofferson, freedom is not just another word for nothin' left to lose.

I have access to EVERYTHING on my N900, and all of the programs I use have open formats. And I can move it directly to my laptop (or any other computer) in about 17 different ways. That is more important to me (both as a principal and as a business decision) than having access to more than a dozen Hello Kitty apps.

I wish there was a thanks button for your post. I used to think M$ was evil but these days Apple has them beat - though I see with WinMo 7 M$ is trying their best to emulate Apple's iPhone model.

It's just ugly...

Thread belongs under Competitors, which allows Thanks. I have submitted a request to move it there.

My last phone was Winmo, and it was fairly open. The WinMo 7 Zune design is somewhat pleasing, but I can't see how other apps will fit into the look/feel easily. Every app on Winmo has pretty much its own look and feel already, so how much worse can it be?

When will the EU decide that the iPhone is as anti-competetive as the windows browser situation? When a European developer gets his app pulled because it duplicates functionality of an Apple app, will Apple get hit like Microsoft did?

@rmerren: just to put things in the correct chronology, Jobs' letter on erasing DRM was early 2007 (Feb 6th) and Amazon's MP3 shop opened beta in late September of 2007.

I don't care if Apple is the corp who takes this role; but I do believe the transition from old media business model to the web-friendly business model has to go through such transition; where a restrictive system is put in place to appease the content creator while it builds up momentum and for all the necessary components to fall in place (payment processing, distributors, etc) and to get the mass comfortable with the idea... before it can transition fully to take advantage of open market.

There is alot of good MBA-speak in there on business models and paradigm shifts and what "role" that Apple is playing in some grand scheme. There is no grand scheme. If the period from the early 1990's to 2009 taught us anything, it is that there is no great economic movement that we are all a part of and that there is no benevolent corporation guiding the way. The only business truism that survived both the dot-com bubble and the real estate bubble was "caveat emptor."

What it comes down to is that you have a choice of buying into the it's-shiny-and-they-tell-me-what-to-do system or not. Aside from the double-the-cost-for-the-same-functionality premium that you generally pay Apple, buying into the walled garden is a very poor economic decision.

Would you buy a car from Volkswagen if they had a special shaped gas tank nozzle so you could only buy gas from their stations and get the oil changed with them, the hood was welded shut, and they restricted the radio stations to the ones they made a deal with? No! You choose your own mechanic, he buys parts from wherever you or he want, you listen to the stations you want and you might even spring for a new Blaupunkt to replace the stock radio. That's the difference between living in the walled garden and not.

I am perfectly happy to see you spend your money on this stuff, but I think it is not just more expensive up front but more expensive in the long run to buy into such a system, and I think it is a bad economic choice for a consumer to make. But that's all we are talking about. Apple does not have a grand plan to light the way, and is setting us back by limiting the choices of technologies, suppliers, operating systems, and software that are available to consumers. Far from opening things up and making things cheaper, they are pushing for anti-competitive pricing (both books and music).

And to claim they are making things web friendly is a joke. Apple has done more to push us away from the "web applications on any platform" concept than any other single company. Before their app store, we were seeing web-based applications where the phone was just a front-end (which was the original iPhone concept). There was also somewhat of a convergence on easily ported Java-based apps (at least with Symbian and windows mobile, where you could choose to run Java apps even if they were not the OS company's preference). The Apple app model gives the developer no other choices for app development (or distribution).

And don't even get me started on the fact that you are not allowed to run an app in the background if you choose (shouldn't it be my decision whether I want to have a long battery life today, or whether I want to transmit my location in the background for the next few hours and recharge in the car?).

Enjoy your apple products--they are very cool. I am not going to tell you otherwise. But I have to take issue with the idea that they are somehow a benevolent corporate overlord bringing about positive change in the marketplace through selective anti-competetive practices which they clearly abhor. That is a load of bunk.

Well, that's over. WinMo 7 is a far more closed system. Like I said, Monkey Boy Ballmer is trying to emulate His Highness Job's Total Control doctorate as much as possible.

Since none of the old WinMo apps work with WinMo 7 it really doesn't matter. I really hate that ugly Playskool WinMo 7 UI anyway.

Well, it'll be better (as in more consistent) since M$ and WinMo 7 will dictate these things much more than before. Or you could think of it as stifling innovation and progress. I do.

We can hope, but I don't see that happening.

I can see ysss' point though I don't think Jobs did it willingly. Either he knew DRM free competition was coming, or Apple was starting to get increased attention for being the largest and main source of DRM music that may not work on non-Apple devices. Hence the letter to steer flak away from iTunes.

It isn't like Jobs to willingly help make new competition.

@rmerren: you've got a lot of angst against Apple that you're misdirecting at me, buddy.

I've never advocated DRM for DRM's sake and never claimed that it's better than open formats. What I've been saying all along is that this isn't a one-sided market. Media distributing companies (like Apple) are playing the middlemen that has to find the middle ground to create an ecosystem with enough buy-ins from both the consumer side and also the content creators side. Look no further than MeeGo's dual DRM\open implementation to have a dose of this reality.

I choose not to respond to the rest of your post that you've thoughtfully written with such condescending tones because I'd rather not to be involved in mindless trolling.

ps: It is in Apple's interest to maintain the content prices as low as the content producers are willing to sell them at, because Apple makes more in hardware sales than from the commission they get of media sales. They also have long term interest to make their platform appealing to the customers by not (overly) overpricing them. Just look at how much Angry Birds is selling on the AppStore ($0.99 with 3 level packs) vs other platforms where it's being sold.

I couldn't disagree more. But Rupert Murdoch would agree with you.