IT TRENDS
`i-Pod, therefore I am'
|
Apple sells the 100 millionth unit of its iconic music player this week
|
`COGITO, ERGO sum,' `I think, therefore, I am,' concluded French mathematician and thinker Rene Descartes. Four centuries later, a new proof of one's existence, is on offer. "i-Pod, therefore I am."
This catch phrase is also the title of a bestselling book by Dylan Jones, that chronicles the astonishing saga of the gadget from Apple, the computer company, that radically transformed the way people approached music, listened to it and possessed it.
Fastest selling
On Monday, Apple announced that it had sold the 100 millionth unit of the i-Pod, a little over five years after launching the first of 10 models of what it claims is "the fastest selling music player in history."
It achieved this by putting an unprecedented 5 gigabytes of storage in a device that was hardly larger than a pack of cards.
And it cannily tied down customers to its mould-breaking platform, by creating iTunes, its own music store of down loadable tracks at 99 US cents a go.
There have been many clones and imitators: Microsoft's Zune, Toshiba's Gigabeat, Creative's Zen Vision — and only a week ago, Flash memory maker SanDisk's Sansa, which enables users to wirelessly tap music services from Yahoo, as well as surfing Internet Radio, accessing Yahoo Messenger and browsing the Flickr picture-sharing site.
Many of these challengers are better deals — money wise — but i-Pod owners are members of an exponentially growing cult which is less about `paisa vasool' and more about making a statement.
They flaunt their multicoloured iPods, they `Podcast': upload or download audio files to and from websites or from each other... an activity that has inspired many college lecturers to share their course material instantaneously at end of a session, with the entire class.
Aggressively priced
The creative combination of India-based embedded software developers and device manufacturers on the Pacific Rim has seen MP3 players morph into aggressively priced, MP4 players as music give way to music videos... and miniature movies.
The same form factor, more often than not, includes an FM radio, a voice recorder and a USB-type Flash storage.
The ubiquity of the portable (and often connected) music or video player, is increasingly bringing out into the open, the vexing question of Digital Rights Management (DRM) — the omnibus term that the industry uses to describe a slew of technologies that restrict or hamper the ways in which customers can enjoy the music or videos they pay for.
Music CDs can often not be played on the CD drives of PCs; favourite tracks cannot be `ripped' apart and copied as MP3 files for more compact storage on a portable device for enjoying while `on the go'.
MP4-format movies cannot be transferred to DiVX format for easier storage on a computer... the creative genius of the DRM lobby has created dozens of ways with which to hamstring the legal owner of a piece of music or video... all in the name of anti-piracy measures.
iTunes downloads
But the worm has turned. A major music label, EMI, has announced that it is offering much of its repertoire DRM-free, as iTunes downloads.
Almost all independent music publishers other than major labels, Warner, Universal and Sony, have pitched for a non-DRM world. And last month in what looked like a case of `Sleeping With The Enemy', Apple CEO Steve Jobs said "Abolish DRM completely — and Apple will embrace it in a heartbeat!" It was ironic coming from a company whose iTunes service is one of the exemplars of DRM — the tracks won't play on non-iPod players, effectively locking in customers to it own platform and its DRM standard, which it calls Fair Play.
Microsoft, which would obviously like to see its Zune player excel in the market place, has also been making conciliatory noises about being open to ditching DRM if that is what most customers want. Market watchers, are predicting that it will follow Apple in sourcing the DRM-less part of the EMI catalogue for Zune users.
If and when that happens, might well be thebeginning of the end for the brief, sad, saga of technologies that sought to tell customers what they could do or not do with legally purchased intellectual properties.
DRM always looked like the last stand of an Old Guard, uncomfortable with a New World of customer-driven devices and platforms.
The time may not be too far away to say its obsequies, bury it and move on to new, innovative and customer-friendly ways of making money from music and movies.
ANAND PARTHASARATHY
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Sci Tech
