The Invunche wrote:Ted Todorov wrote:I fully understand your cynicism, but lets stick to facts -- a few months after Jobs' letter EMI announced they were offering their entire catalog for DRM free sales. Universal just announced a major no DRM trial. All the indies already sell without DRM. Many observers believe, that the writing is on the wall, and music DRM is going bye-bye within 12 months. My bet is that the last holdout will be Sony.
Yes, let's stick to facts. There's no proof Jobs did anything but jump on the bandwagon. Universal's no-DRM trial is done outside iTunes. EMI's catalogue is to be available at the Zune store a well.
If you read Stephen Levy's
The Perfect Thing (on the history of iTunes/iPod) Jobs was telling the record labels that DRM was a bad idea from the word go. He had to fight long and hard to get them to agree to DRM as non-draconian as the one that came with the iTunes store, as opposed to the record label sponsored stores that preceded iTunes, which had awful consumer hating DRM and naturally went nowhere.
Jobs letter to the labels was month before EMI finally agreed to do it. If that is climbing on the bandwagon please explain where that bandwagon was. Yes, activist consumers have been demanding DRM free music for a long time, but certainly no one in the industry. Apple would LOVE to have Universal's DRM free tracks on iTunes -- Universal isn't offering them because that are desperate to screw Apple. The record labels never got over the fact that their own stores went down the drain, and to this day they can't seem to figure out why consumers prefer iTunes (well the geniuses at Universal, anyway). They despise that someone other than them has power and control.
So far as your arguments that MacMini somehow is less user friendly than Windows Media Center -- please. You obviously haven't tried it, the fact is it IS cheaper, it is smaller, quieter, more elegant, better and is WAY friendlier. In any event the average person is NOT going to be using a computer for DVR functionality -- the cable company gives them one -- which is why Tivo with its GREAT products is not a financially successful company. I am not at all arguing that Minis will somehow take over the world -- they won't. I was just addressing your insinuations that the Minis don't do this or that. (Amongst other things they WILL run Windows Media Center just fine, and to this day remain the best (quality/price) hardware you can run WMC (XP or Vista) on).
What I am arguing is that HD downloads will end up doing better than HD media, and that Apple is the company in the best position to take advantage of that. Arguing this further is perhaps fun but not useful -- the future will tell. Five years from now, maybe Blu-ray rules the world, maybe Microsoft downloads rule, maybe Netflix or Google or someone we've never heard of does, or maybe Apple. One or both of us will be wrong. We can revisit it then.
