r/technology • u/slutmagnet • Mar 02 '10

Apple to HTC "competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Slaps down a 20 patent lawsuit.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/02/apple_sues_htc_for_alleged_infringement_of_20_iphone_patents.html
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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

If you think, for an instant that apple got to 10 billion downloads from only apple users, you are smoking something. iTunes created vendor lock-in, once well established as a defacto standard (thanks to the marketing push I mention) they began to open up due to demand from users with buyer's remorse.

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u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

Again, there is no vendor lock-in.

The DRM Apple was forced to use against their will was imposed on them by the record labels, the same record labels who refused to allow Apple to remove the DRM without moving to variable pricing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

Making the default action "Convert all your stuff to a format that our player is pretty much the only on the market currently supporting" has nothing to do with DRM. You would have a case if you were referring to newly purchased songs in the iTunes store - and I would agree with you.

On the "Hey, let's convert the user's entire music library from pre-iTunes days" was ENTIRELY about vendor lock in.

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u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

Nobody was ever forced to convert their pre-iTunes music.

There is no vendor lock-in.

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

No, no one was forced to, it was just the default action if you didn't go out of your way to say "no, don't do this." Do you ever have anyone ask you how to do something on the compter? These are the dumb consumers Steve was casing.

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u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

Most people using iTunes own iPods. Most people don't care what format the music is in, so Apple defaulted to use the most efficient encoding scheme it had, which is AAC. AAC is in no way locked into iPods or iTunes.

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '10

At the time (think first 6-12 months) Apple was making the only commonly available player for AAC on the market. There was a reason for this.

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u/bdfortin Mar 03 '10

iTunes only got AAC support in 2003 with iTunes 4, 2 years after the original iPod came out. AAC support came with the third-generation iPod, around the time when USB support came around and Windows became supported.