Consumers have a choice - buy some player other than an iPod if you want to buy music online. Or burn CDs and load them that way (a good idea anyway to have those downloaded songs backed-up). But no one is *forced* to buy an iPod!

Jack

Apple idolators wake up, music from Real is 192 Kpbs AAC, iTunes music is only 128 Kbps AAC. Greedy Apple doesn't want you to have access to a high quality music store, very sad.

I would not use REAL and High Quality in the same sentence, but oh well.


Actually, I think this is absolutely retarded. Next will Apple not let you rip MP3's of CD's you've bought and use them on your iPod??? It's the same freaking thing. You buy the music, as long as it's a compatible format, who cares. If it's MP3 or AAC, let it go. Stupid!!

Reality Check, you should do some research first. This is about a lot more than just bit rates.

For example, I just read that the Real beta software puts up a dialog box that tells you that you need to make Real's software the only app that manages the music on your iPod. It also forces you to quit iTunes if it is running at the same time.

So choosing to use Real's music on your iPod is also choosing not to use iTunes. That sounds pretty dumb to me.

I agree that Real present a weak argument that consumers deserve choice. There are multiple non-Apple music stores and music players, so there's plenty of choice.

The plain and simple fact is that Real is trying to benefit from the time, money and effort that Apple put into creating the market leading iPod.

As for Real's software, I decided to install their player on my Dell, and my firewall is now giving me constant alerts that the Real software is trying to access the Internet. Plus, it also made a sneaky attempt during setup to remap playing of AAC files to their software. Fortunately, I noticed this and deselected the checkbox.

Just how good is Harmony? Elegant, well designed just like iTunes? Only RC will be thinking that right off the bat.

Steve J has made comments in the past about the high cost of developing iTunes and The Music Store. Now Real has knocked out something in a very few months and are sucking all the PR they can out of it.

The proof will be in using it. From the comments above it appears that Real didn't spend much time or money in developing Harmony. maybe RC should be our official tester and tell us how wonderful it is. Just ensure you have a lot of backups before you do. And also can you tell us when you make your report about how easy it is to get Harmony off your computer and return to iTunes.

We'll all hold our breath . . .

Everyone is missing the point! Apple makes the hardware. They get to decide what file formats to support. On the box it says your iPod will play MP3, WAV, Audible, and AAC. It doesn't say it will play Real/.rm/whatever. Now if Real starts advertising that their format is 100% iPod compatible, then Apple can then claim that Real is hurting iPod customers with misinformation and sue since they'll be the onces dealing with their customers, not Real.

So there you go. If Apple doesn't support it, it's not supported. End of discussion.

iPod users should have choice? They already have choice! They can rip their own CDs to any number of formats and put them on the iPod. The iPod can play AAC, Apple's Fairplay AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, and a couple others. If Real was so keen on getting its music on the iPods, it could just release the music on one of these formats, but it isn't about that... This is about selling yet another proprietary DRM with still more confusing license rights. How many DRMs are going to be out there in the world before people get fed up trying to manage it all? And how many are going to be more restrictive than Apple's? (Answer: all of them so far.)

If Real had offered a real option to Apple, Apple likely would have jumped on it. Apple has already worked withj BMW, Alpine and licensed to HP, after all. The truth is Real came begging and pleading, and Jobs saw what they had hidden behind their backs. Tough noogies, Real.

Could you imagine working at that place? What would you do if the CEO of your company were smoking crack? Wouldn't you have your resume out?

Just sell unprotected MP3s.

Two thumbs up! Let the FUD fly. How amusing. These battles are untimately won by introducing the best technogy Rather than control and domination. We will see how far Apple can get the "Old controlling the Whole Widget" approach!

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RealityCheck wrote:
Apple idolators wake up, music from Real is 192 Kpbs AAC, iTunes music is only 128 Kbps AAC. Greedy Apple doesn't want you to have access to a high quality music store, very sad.

Has anybody else noticed...RealNetworks stock is trading at about $5 per share. Apple's is at $32.

Wall Street gets it.

Hopefully, everybody does.

RealNetworks is a dead horse. Somebody shoot it and put it out of our misery.

Real's market cap (the value of the company) has fallen below $1 billion. After hitting an all-time high of about $100 per share in early 2000(split-adjusting price), the stock is now trading at about 1/20th of that level.

Real Player's popularity has been eclipsed by QuickTime and the music store is not viable without iPod support.

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Guest wrote:
Two thumbs up! Let the FUD fly. How amusing. These battles are untimately won by introducing the best technogy Rather than control and domination. We will see how far Apple can get the "Old controlling the Whole Widget" approach!

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Guest wrote:
Two thumbs up! Let the FUD fly. How amusing. These battles are untimately won by introducing the best technogy Rather than control and domination. We will see how far Apple can get the "Old controlling the Whole Widget" approach!

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Tiger wrote:
Has anybody else noticed...RealNetworks stock is trading at about $5 per share. Apple's is at $32.

Choice? How about the choice to use Real's codec in quicktime! That's the choice I want. For years Real has kept this locked up, to the inconvenience of all. (They give the encoder away free, but once you use it, it's impossible to convert your video to anything else.

"Uh-huh. Like the Gameboy, for example?"

Gameboy has always had a real technological advantage. - It was dirt cheep compared to anything else. No one wants to buy their 8 year old a $299 gadget and watch him forget it on the school bus after three days and never see it again.

I wonder if you take a file purchased on REAL's music store and "optimized" to work on an iPod, will the DRM still keep the file from being transfered to other computers and iPods using iTunes on another computer.

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Biff wrote:

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Guest wrote:
Two thumbs up! Let the FUD fly. How amusing. These battles are untimately won by introducing the best technogy Rather than control and domination. We will see how far Apple can get the "Old controlling the Whole Widget" approach!

Uh-huh. Like the Gameboy, for example? I think history would show that the best technology often does NOT win. But you're certainly right about Apple! I mean look at how poorly their "approach" is doing! How amusing indeed!

I hope Real isn’t getting as much attention in the real world as it is in this forum …
My only experience with that company is that when I downloaded the “free” RealPlayer X app. I apparently signed up unwittingly for the “trial” pro version, and started getting billed for it on a monthly basis, even though I never even used the app. once … after I called them (Long distance, as I live in the Caribbean), I was told by the support rep that I would be reimbursed for the last 2 payments (I hadn’t scrutinized my AMEX statements for several months, but had actually been billed 7 times, including two billings in one month) It took a lot of screaming and kicking (and threatening legal action) before I was finally refunded.
A very ethical company, and one I would sure be glad to see do business with Apple …

I love my Macs and my iPod, but I'm really confused that people would be so blindly loyal to Apple that they think it's just great when Apple sez you can't buy music from any other music web site. And people complain about the imaginary and untested lower quality of Real music files, but I'm certain that 98% of iPod users have downloaded illegal files from file-sharing networks. So top quality encoding (which itunes doesn't offer btw) isn't the main issue anyway.

I respect Apple's desire to make more money, and that's what this is all about. This isn't an issue of principal or quality or technical innovation. Apple is protecting its online store by keeping us from buying elsewhere. And as a loyal iPod consumer (working on my 2nd iPod), I'm not real crazy about Apple's tactic. Competition is a great thing for consumers, and I'd like to see more of it, not less. Competition is what leads to innovation.

And the petty gloating over Real's faultering is, of course, exactly what one hears from Windows users about Apple. It's pathetic to hear it from Mac loyalists. RN has been a major competitor to Windows, and it may be dead soon. MS has shown that it can use its profits from its near monopolies in OS & office sofware to move into any market, undercut and kill its competition. Competition becomes a thing of the past and the consumers are screwed.

I'm sure Apple's move somehow makes business sense. It looks to me like a short-term tactic at the expense of long term strategy--reminiscent of earlier Apple mistakes--but I'm probably wrong, since those guys aren't stupid. What I can't understand is a bunch of iPod users cheering being abused.

http://www.petitiononline.com/Apple_G5/petition.html

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DavidPhila wrote:
And the petty gloating over Real's faultering is, of course, exactly what one hears from Windows users about Apple. It's pathetic to hear it from Mac loyalists.

I agree with you about REAL. When I ran into video that required REAL Player, I used to download and install it. But it always turns out to be this monstrosity of ads and gizmos, and once you install it, it wants to take over most media files on your computer. And good luck trying to uninstall it; I've re-imaged hard drives just to get rid of it completely.

One of the things people like so much about QuickTime is its player. It's just a simple, straightforward video player, and a really good, clean one at that. Step through your video one frame at time with the arrow keys. Easily scroll through the video to find the spot you want. And the only time I ever see an unwanted ad in QT Player is when I launch the player all by itself (by double-clicking it) for no particularly good reason.

To Apple, being able to buy a song from another store is not choice. Apple's concept of choice is that it provides a desired customer experience on an alternative platform (player, jukebox, and store, and on the computer front: computer, OS, software, and even Apple retail store!). All pieces of Apple's platform are well-integrated and work together to create the desired customer experience. If you choose the platform (or the experience), you are choosing the base hardware and all the software-critical pieces. (Then, Apple uses open interfaces for interaction with other non-critical peripherals - although the user-interface software to these peripherals is guided by Apple's software and user-interface guidelines.) Study Apple carefully and you will see this is the guiding principle.

When you choose the platform, you should consider content flexibility, Apple's ability to keep providing/improving this experience long-term, etc. And if you think content flexibility is more important, or the company's long-term prospects are poor, and it outweighs the proffered experience, then go elsewhere. I'm sure many chose the iPod and are truly happy with how the whole system just works. When they want more choices, they write to Apple but they are so happy, it's okay when Apple says no can do right now. In any case, Apple has already offered flexibility - MP3s, ripping CDs at multiple bit rates, easy-to-use unprotected-WMA conversion.

Real created its own platform around Rhapsody, Helix, and the Samsung player, and it sucked so now they are trying to move in on other platforms. MS and its partners created its own platform around several stores, WMA, and hundreds of players, and it sucked. Sony is trying to create its own platform around Connect, ATRAC, and its Walkman/other players, and its sucky so far.

In this world, you can choose a la carte (maximum flexibility, mix-and-match) or you can choose to have someone put together the pieces based on their expertise and experience (set menus, packaged travel deals, music platform, etc). Apple provides the latter in both the music player and computer spheres. Microsoft mixes the two ideas and well, it speaks for itself.

Apple to its competitors: If you can create a platform (it can be a mix-and-match platform, if you want) and experience that people want more, all the power and congrats to you. May the best platform win. Just don't come messing around with the Apple iPod or Mac experience.

Harmony will just create disharmony for iPod users because Apple cannot guarantee nor will it work to ensure that Real songs always works on an iPod because Apple sees no reason to put its resources testing Helix-Fairplay songs for compatibility. Apple and its true customers would rather Apple put its resources in innovation and provide things like Airport Express, iPod car kits (BMW and Alpine), iTunes mobile music - things that truly expand and enhance the customer experience. Letting you pick a song from another store does little to enhance/expand your experience, especially when prices are set by labels, the other store's catalog is not much different, and 128k encoded songs sound good enough (and if you want better, you can buy CDs).

It may prove true that the market for this type of experience is small, and that people prefer more flexibility. Those people can choose WMA or Helix/Harmony/WMA. But don't force Apple to mess up the only choice for those who want this end-to-end experience.

This is blatant petty jealousy at its rawest.

Apple found a way to make oodles of money and have the coolest thing on the market. Real hasn't had a hit with anything. Woo hoo. 550,000 Harmony subscribers.

Pit that against 100 MILLION songs sold legally on iTMS.

They want in before they're put out of business. As for Apple's requirement us use their store for their device, big deal. They have over 700,000 songs. Can you listen to them all? I can't. It is their way of quality control for the listener. You're not forced to buy an iPod. I wish I could afford one! RealNetworks needs to pack up its toys and go home. You lost this game. You were never really in it to start with.

Am I the only one who gets the point that an iPod is a piece of hardware?

Or that what Real has done is create a format converter from RA to AAC format?

While A) I don't like Real *AT ALL* and B) I understand why Apple is in a snit that their holy cash cow has a new hitchhiker, I have to say that Apple's up a creek here, without a paddle (or boat).

Once you buy the hardware you can do with it whatever you like, Apple has no say in the matter. Always assuming Real followed strict reverse-engineering guidelines to create their format converter, Apple also has no say in the matter.

When all's said and done AAC (or Fair Play or whatever) is just a data format. No different in principle from Word's DOC format, or XML or Jpeg.

Or, closer to home, PDF. Do you hear Adobe or Microsoft creebing that someone has dared to (gasp) convert their third party format into DOC or PDF? Didn't think so...

From what I understand Harmony converts the file on the fly as it loads it to the iPod. Surely that's innocuous enough?

I also don't understand why having access to EVERY music format (including WMA and Vogg Orbis) would be a bad thing for Apple's bottom line vis-a-vis the iPod.

Imagine this scene at an Apple store:

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, I have a question about the iPod. I'm a big music fan and I've got tons of downloaded stuff already. Will the iPod play it?"

"Well, where did you download it from?"

"Oh, some of it is MP3's but I got a lot of it from Rhapsody."

<pause>

Currently:

"Um, well, the iPod will play your MP3's no problem!"

"What about the stuff from Rhapsody?"

"Well, no. But the iTunes music store has lots of stuff you can get too. You know they've sold over 100 MILLION songs?"

"But what about the stuff I've already paid for?"

"You could convert it to MP3..."

"How do I do that? Will it take long?"

"Uh, well that depends..."

OR (ALTERNATE UNIVERSE)

"Sure, no problem! In fact the iPod can play any music format ever created. Just plug it in, fire up either iTunes or Harmony or Windows Media Player and pick what you want to load to the iPod."

"Great! I'll take it."

Now if you're Apple which conversation would you rather have with a prospective iPod buyer?

More formats = more iPods sold.

Surely this is not a difficult equation? But, as always, Apple is determined to shoot themselves in the foot with a Gatling gun. <shaking head>

I just do not understand what Apple is *thinking*...

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Guest wrote:
http://www.petitiononline.com/Apple_G5/petition.html

I think one should think twice before using a meaningless phrase like "desired customer experience." Desired by whom?

And then you should get off your high horse. I don't think I'm likely to hurt myself or others by buying music from a competing website, downloading such music to my desktop and dragging it into iTunes. Maybe I'd like to do that. Maybe another music site will be cheaper or better designed than Apple's music store. ITMS is not perfect, and it's perfectly conceivable that an alternative store would be better.

Apple's restricting my ability to shop somewhere other than ITMS means I can't go out to seek the highest quality or best music on my own. For Apple or for Apple zealots to defend Apple's actions in the name of "desired customer experience" or platform integration is just self-serving crap. iPod owners who actually welcome Apple's telling they can buy online music only from Apple have bought a religion, not a music player.

And for those of you cheering Real's demise, I suppose you'll be happy when most of the news/video sites on the web offer streaming video only for Windows Media Player.

My biggest peeve is that iTMS doesn't have everything. If they don't have what I want, they are severely limiting my options, and that's not fair. As I said above, if it's in a format that works on the iPod, who cares where I bought it. Seriously. It's just stupid. To not let this work is ABSOLUTELY no different then if Apple made it so you bought a physical CD and ripped MP3's from it, that if that would not work. Same thing. It's just where you bought it, and that's lame.

It would be so easy for Apple to alter Quicktime so that it would stream Real code, or just offer QuickTime free to any website using Real streaming. Real's surprised innocence is just dishonest. If they really thought Apple would not be upset they could have just asked for the code, but they knew they had to write it themselves.

Ultimately the online music experience should feel the same as going in to any record store of choice, buying a cd and it plays on your stereo - regardless of brand. It has a long way to go being in its infancy and we may well just have to watch companies we admire as well as those we despise succeed and falter until the story plays out.

Bottom line - Real made a move to become a interoperability bridge between online stores and devices. Apple seeks to protect their turf. Makes sense for both in this early stage.

I love my original 5 GB iPod (battery continues to work!) and buy from iTMS. If other stores became available with songs I cannot buy on iTMS - you bet I would look into accounts on those as well if I can play the music on the iPod. In fact - I just might invest in a new 4G iPod if more options opened up for more song purchases digitally instead of ripping my cd's onto iTunes and to the iPod.

Whatever Apple's, MS's, Sony's and Real's strategies are, they can't do everything right for everybody. That's impossible.

However you look at it, the iPod is a piece of hardware. It is also a piece in a chain of masterly honed consumerism that's actually nice to use, but first and for all it's a piece of hardware.

Now, if an iPod owner wants to convert Ogg files or use Harmony, that's their business. Not everybody has to shout "woopie" and spend spend spend in Apple's holy grail of online Music. If someone really really wants to shop at Real's store, or any other store for that matter, let them. And take into account, it's MUSIC they're buying, not stock-options, karma points or superior formats. Music. Mu-sic.

Apple may publicly state they WON'T take Harmony into account when they keep finetuning their great iTMS to iPod experience, but what the f*ck else will they do about it?

Real hasn't done anything wrong, and might even - although I'm sceptical beyond words - they might even have made a good product for once.

Oh yeah, they "hacked" their way into iPod, and they will have to have one hell of a warranty statement attached to the product, and they won't be able to guarantee compatibility. But it's an interesting move, and maybe a useful one.

One last thought: I understand a lot of what's happening here, but this format warring has got to stop sooner or later. It's slowly getting to the point where technologically challenged people are going to be bigger iPod users than us wizz kids. And them "stupid" people are not very impressed with the finer points of format struggling. They want transparancy and simple stupid stuff that works. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that why 99% of mac users use a mac instead of a peecee??????

I'm with them.
Praise be Jobs, but make the music scene a bit hipper and more fucking rock and roll instead of members only!

Not that any of this is very important....

I totally agree. I have two macs and two ipods. I do not share the opinion of the apple fanboys on this site at all.

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DavidPhila wrote:
I love my Macs and my iPod, but I'm really confused that people would be so blindly loyal to Apple that they think it's just great when Apple sez you can't buy music from any other music web site. And people complain about the imaginary and untested lower quality of Real music files, but I'm certain that 98% of iPod users have downloaded illegal files from file-sharing networks. So top quality encoding (which itunes doesn't offer btw) isn't the main issue anyway.

I respect Apple's desire to make more money, and that's what this is all about. This isn't an issue of principal or quality or technical innovation. Apple is protecting its online store by keeping us from buying elsewhere. And as a loyal iPod consumer (working on my 2nd iPod), I'm not real crazy about Apple's tactic. Competition is a great thing for consumers, and I'd like to see more of it, not less. Competition is what leads to innovation.

And the petty gloating over Real's faultering is, of course, exactly what one hears from Windows users about Apple. It's pathetic to hear it from Mac loyalists. RN has been a major competitor to Windows, and it may be dead soon. MS has shown that it can use its profits from its near monopolies in OS &amp; office sofware to move into any market, undercut and kill its competition. Competition becomes a thing of the past and the consumers are screwed.

I'm sure Apple's move somehow makes business sense. It looks to me like a short-term tactic at the expense of long term strategy--reminiscent of earlier Apple mistakes--but I'm probably wrong, since those guys aren't stupid. What I can't understand is a bunch of iPod users cheering being abused.

I don't see anyone being "abused". Quite the contrary. Apple has mulit-year distribution deals with the majors which will allow the company to hold the line on prices. Further, and although iTMS has turned a slight profit, Apple's primary goal is to make margin on iPod sales.

The other music services are struggling due to a business model that seeks the sale of music as a primary profit center. Most likely that model will fail.

The iPod story isn't over. Quite the contrary. It's a story that has just begun. I expect Apple to eventually open the iPod to support WMA and eventually license FairPlay to a select group of vendors.

I spent several years as the CFO of one of the nation's fastest growing independent music labels. Most people don't comprehend the complexity of contracts nor the various interests that have a say in product availability and pricing.

Steve Jobs & Co. are revolutionizing music distribution in a way that hasn't happened in over 40 years. It's easy to be an armchair CEO and second-guess Apple's decisions. But at this time in the development of a new music distribution model I can understand Apple's hesitance to let other players into the iPod mix.

iTMS took significant time and resources to develop and great deal of persuasion to get the labels to open their libraries. One bad move on Apple's part can set back the industry.

Within a year to eighteen months I suspect Apple will add industry partners and open the iPod to other vendors. But IMHO now is not the time to make changes.