Remember the French the next time you think of Apple.

And I'm all for it.

Apple is waaay too restrictive with their formats.

I mean, when you have 80% of the market, why in the hell do you need to bother making your product so that it can't work with anybody else's?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by DSan

To maintain that 80% market. It's about the money. If I was in their position, I would do the same.

And that's the difference between you and me. I am an honest man.

Quote:

What do you guys think this will mean for Apple in the future?

It won't mean much. Even if they pull out of France (which I'm not sure that they will), French customers will just turn to iTunes stores elsewhere in the EU.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by RABicle

Of course the fact that the iPod came along before the music store and iPods drive the adoption of iTunes eludes the French but ohwell.

Irrelevant. DRM-WMA is the standard for online music stores. Apple is going against the standard and they could care less about all the newbie customers that are getting burned - stuck either with a DRM-WMA music collection and an iPod that won't play them, or a DRM-AAC collection and an MP3 player that won't play them.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by RABicle

News: Apple dominate both markets. They ARE the standard. That's like saying that Mac OS X is the standard OS and Windows is against the grain.

My spelling is correct. And if you're going to correct somebody's spelling, then damned well correct it - don't just point it out!

As to the rest of your post, don't make me laugh.

Dozens of stores use DRM-WMA. Hundreds of players support it.

Meanwhile, only iTunes uses DRM-AAC, and only the iPod can play it.

This is not like Windows vs MacOS. Why not? Because Microsoft does not make those other players and it does not own those other stores. They license WMA for a reasonable price and are reasonably content with their licensing fees; otherwise they'd be working on their own alternative to the iPod much more quickly than they are now.
Meanwhile, Apple is keeping FairPlay closed so that you must use iTunes/iPod together - with an iPod, the only online store you can use is iTunes; and conversely, if you shop at iTunes, the only MP3 player that will play your purchases is iPod.

Now go play in traffic.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Matt

Why can't Apple just get a hold of the proper MP3 player companies, give them the neccesary code to implement AAC support on their hardware and call it a day?
That's what I don't understand.

AAC doesn't belong to Apple. FairPlay does. And they want to keep FairPlay iPod-exclusive as long as possible, because they'd prefer to make $200 profit per iPod than only make about $5 on licensing for other companies' players.

Double Post:

Originally Posted by Merv Burger

As to Apple giving the Fairplay DRM to other companies? You're talking about a company here. By doing that, they'd mind as well just start giving iPods away, because if any other DAP can play their files, that means no need to sell iPods. This isn't a hard concept.

Agreed.

What people seem to have trouble understanding, though, is that just because stealing is easier than working for a living doesn't make it right.

Double Post:

Originally Posted by Merv Burger

Well, yeah, but from a business standpoint, it's not the best thing to just get rid of the one technical reason people should use your product.

It is when the consequence for fleecing them is years and years of mistrust and poor sales. But I guess nobody in Apple has any foresight.

Double Post:

Originally Posted by Relic

You're missing one big detail of Apple's business model.

Apple doesn't actually make much money off of the iTunes Music Store. Most of the money goes to the nasty record labels, and a lot of the money that's left over for Apple is eaten up by bandwidth and fixed costs. The idea behind the music store is that it will lead people to buy iPods, which are quite profitable for Apple. If any MP3 player could play music from the iTunes Music Store, then there wouldn't be enough incentive for Apple to run it.

Apple should concentrate on making a good MP3 player. 12 hour battery life? 2 hours for video? No mic? No radio? No WMA support? (Come on!)

I was speaking idiomatically.