This is a smoking gun... cloak and dagger... a poker game with a bluff that asks Apple to ante up or to buy the pot.

If you look at Real's business strategy as of late -- you would think it has given up on all of it's other content solutions for making them money. They are betting the farm on the iPOD and the iTMS.

Just like the technology that kept DVDs protected - cracked and posted online, everyone is making dups of flicks rented at blockbuster... so comes the hacks for iTMS online with PlayFair. Now real has somehow "reverse-engineered" using something similar to the hack online that breaks FlairPlay's DRM and are going to license to others.

This is a great game of Poker -- do they really have a product called Harmony? is it Real's to license? Does this sound like the compaq story all over again?

Naah-- Real wants out of the market, but doesn't want to concede to Microsoft... Real's CEO is crying out to Apple; "Please buy out our company!"

We hate MS too, and we offer more content solutions that can be gained further with the power of Apple behind it. Yep, this is what Real is saying!

You heard it here first!!!

I've noticed a lot of times when a company starts acting crazy, the first thing people will say is that the company wants to be bought. Sometimes, people, their management really is made up of people that crazy.

I think Real is being very presumptious here. Even before they know if there will be a backlash from Apple (how can you assume there won't be), Real gets ahead of themselves and publicily announce that they are licensing this technology. Apple *may* have let them go before since they were in the odd position of Real both possiblily hurting iTunes while possibily helping sell iPods, but now Real is practically offering to license Apple's technology.

I can't think of any other possible outcome other than Apple going hard after Real.

Why would Apple buy Real? They're REALly terrible. Anyway, Apple could more easily examine Real's technology & close the door. It's their player. The next "software update" could close the door, like it did on using AAC tracks cracked with the playfair technology.

Appleworks reversed engineered MS Word and Excel formats, it's fair play for Real to reverse engineer Apple iTunes format. Steve Jobs dream of gouging iLemmings for years and years with overpriced music may be coming to an end.

"Until now, other companies have been unable to offer people the ability to buy music from their service and play it on the popular iPod, which is the best selling portable music device in the world."

A correction for your article. eMusic claims to sell music in the MP3 format, which can be played on every generation of iPod. You need to say "protected music" for your statement to be true.

Right on, Kircle.

If Real licenses Harmony with the Fairplay portion to other stores, Apple could certainly claim injury since this would interfere with Apple licensing Fairplay. Such licensing would be beyond the scope of "reverse engineering for the purpose of compatibility." It would be reverse engineering for the purpose of selling technology to make a profit.

In any case, Apple should just make a big deal of Real's small and declining market share and its shaky finances, implying but saying that they are close to going under. And a whole lotta good Harmony will do you then when there is no one to upgrade it after Apple breaks it with a change to iTunes and the iPod.

Uh, that should be "implying but without saying"

Quote

Guest wrote:
This is a smoking gun... cloak and dagger... a poker game with a bluff that asks Apple to ante up or to buy the pot.

If you look at Real's business strategy as of late -- you would think it has given up on all of it's other content solutions for making them money. They are betting the farm on the iPOD and the iTMS.

Just like the technology that kept DVDs protected - cracked and posted online, everyone is making dups of flicks rented at blockbuster... so comes the hacks for iTMS online with PlayFair. Now real has somehow "reverse-engineered" using something similar to the hack online that breaks FlairPlay's DRM and are going to license to others.

This is a great game of Poker -- do they really have a product called Harmony? is it Real's to license? Does this sound like the compaq story all over again?

Naah-- Real wants out of the market, but doesn't want to concede to Microsoft... Real's CEO is crying out to Apple; "Please buy out our company!"

We hate MS too, and we offer more content solutions that can be gained further with the power of Apple behind it. Yep, this is what Real is saying!

You heard it here first!!!

Quote

RealityCheck wrote:
Appleworks reversed engineered MS Word and Excel formats, it's fair play for Real to reverse engineer Apple iTunes format.

Quote

RealityCheck wrote:
Appleworks reversed engineered MS Word and Excel formats, it's fair play for Real to reverse engineer Apple iTunes format. Steve Jobs dream of gouging iLemmings for years and years with overpriced music may be coming to an end.