This may mean that APPL was not prepared for this. This is the equivalent of the hacking of the IBM BIOS, which eventually commoditized the PC world. Serious stuff, for APPL.
-Zato

AppleWorks and OpenOffice both "hack" into MS Office formats, oh that's just fine, but someone offering iPod users a choice of online music stores must be evil.

Looks like old Steveo's dream of becoming the MS of online music stores may be turning into a pipe dream. Steve's worst nightmare, his iTunes store having to compete.

The press release by Apple and Motorola tonight may well have been part of Mr. Cue's intended keynote tomorrow.

Oh for god's sake. EVERYONE that I know (PC and Mac users) won't touch anything that REAL makes with a 10 foot pole. I'll be really surprised if their store goes anywhere since all my friends hate that company with a passion. They've been burned too many times in the past by their software.

iTunes will eventually have serious competition...but this AIN'T it.

Am I missing something here? What's the beef? I would think that Apple would be happy to let users of RealNetworks use the iPod. Apple is certainly not making money off of the store, which exists to drive iPod sales. Well, for heaven's sake, here is still another store to drive iPod sales. Every song purchased for iPod secures an iPod owner in Apple's roster. It gives increased incentive to buy iPod's because they now have a wider set of options for purchase. Someone help me, please. What's wrong with this?

Yeah, Apple has to "get mad" over this from a PR point of view...but you're probably right that it'll only help them in the long run.

If buying music from real is as smooth a process as watching content on their player, no one will ever be able to download a complete, working song... so really, the point is moot.

Where are these conclusions coming from? How is music downloaded from Real and played on an iPod the equivalent of "hacking of the IBM BIOS"? Does ripping from a CD or playing an AIFF file somehow "hack" Apple's DRM? This is ridiculous.

And so far I haven't seen one thing with respect to Apple getting mad about. I've seen lots of analysts and observers making irrational comments about how Apple must be mad about this, but I sure can't imagine why they would be. There are probably quite a few people who have literally filled up their iPods with music from CDs and none from iTMS. Somebody explain to me why Apple should give a rip about where music that eventually gets put on an iPod actually comes from.

J.

If Real's Harmony violates Apple's copyrights and/or patents the lawyers will make more money off of this than Real. They gotta be happy.

Personally I think it will be as big a hit as Dell's DJ. What is it doing? Can you download a song from Real and have it go seamlessly into iTunes for downloading into the iPod? Will your music flow into iTunes without some Rube Goldberg series of steps? WIll you have to use Harmony for all your music and give up iTunes totally? Will your iPod be able to hold both TMS and Real downloads at the same time? Lots of questions and all we know is that Real has knocked this together in a very short time.

Lots of flash, but probably little cash.

All in all it helps Apple from what I can see. Yet another "competitor" in the market to share the "others" group, as in "The Music Store & Others". Even if Apple's share goes down to, say, 50% of downloads the several dozen competitors will be fighting for the other 50%. Let em spend the money and then Wal-Mart will come out with a rev b stored that will cut them off at the knees.

Harmony? LOL.

Has anyone actually seen this so-called beta software and seen it work? This could very easily be a lot of hooey to see how Apple reacts. This guy Glaser is not to be trusted and is as slippery as a moronic eel. One more thing is that if he gets his way this could also mean iTunes songs being converted to play on other mp3 players - boom, there goes the iPod's advantage to some extent. Apple has to squash this for the illegality of it first (read your iPod and iTunes fine print) and also because this man is a snake. Other than that no one has a player even close to capturing the iPod's effect on the market. No Sony and certainly not Microsoft.

Surely Apple will be delighted. Most if not all of their music revenue is from hardware. They have a near monopoly in teh iTunes store. If they start licencing Fairplay they will almost certainly have to do so on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" tp avoid the sort of lawsuit that Microsoft got embroiled in. If on the other hand other companies reverse engineer a system to work with the iPod it generates sales for Apple. This has to be unqualified good news.

Assuming someone wants to deal with the pain of purchasing from Real, they're suppossedly buying a song in a format that's 100% compatible with the iPod except for the DRM. If Real can get their DRM to be recognized as FairPlay the song will be played on the iPod with whatever sound quality the file had in the first place. OTOH, converting to another lossy audio format (such as Windows Media) will definitely result in a loss of sound quality. Since Apple Computer makes money on selling iPods rather selling songs, I don't see how any of this is a problem for Apple Computer unless there exec is really sick.

(Funny how nobody here is talking about the article's actual focus, Bryan!)

If I called out sick and turned up somewhere else, my boss would be pretty upset! It must be great working for Apple!

-Ken

PS: Okay, I'll chime in: Real does suck, too! I'll never forgive them for completely and uncaringly dropping me and all their other Mac customers from their "Gold" service some years back when they "upgraded" the plan. A few years later they want me back... well, eff ewe, Real. Never again!

Real will most certainly try to blame Apple when their software mungs up the iPods of those who use Harmony. Glaser will start the same old arguments about inoperability and his version of open standards. C'mon, you just know it will happen...

Have you read their license agreement for RealOne? The software automatically updates, even when not active. Disable auto-updates? Sure, as long as you remember: "certain updates to RealOne Player functionality will happen automatically and without advance notification."

That's why Real is a non-starter for me, and so would be Harmony.

How does Real stay in business? They've consistently delivered a sub-par product for their entire existence. OK, OK, actually Real Player 10 (or whatever the newest version is called) is better. Edging toward functional.

I just can't believe that songs downloaded from them will work seamlessly with an iPod. They've got a long, long uphill battle to get to credibility - especially with Mac users.

But anyway, I see this as their last gasp. There won't be a Real in five years. (Real Death Knell Counter anyone?)

n/t

Quote

Guest wrote:
Well, for heaven's sake, here is still another store to drive iPod sales. Every song purchased for iPod secures an iPod owner in Apple's roster. It gives increased incentive to buy iPod's because they now have a wider set of options for purchase.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but how many online stores I can download music from was not even a consideration when I went shopping for a digital music player. IMHO most people will select an online store based on what player they own, not the other way around.