Comments on: mad at apple http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2007/09/mad-at-apple/ Thu, 24 May 2012 20:46:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: david carlton http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2007/09/mad-at-apple/comment-page-1/#comment-62591 david carlton Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:29:03 +0000 http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2007/09/mad-at-apple/#comment-62591 The main thing that's convinced me that it's not an integrity check is that the value depends on a hardware identifier of your specific iPod. I can't think of any reason offhand why that would be useful for integrity checking. (And I agree with your example, and I'm not convinced that Apple is making its decisions in this matter based solely on cold business calculations, but I realize that my tinfoil hat may be causing me to think the latter.) The main thing that’s convinced me that it’s not an integrity check is that the value depends on a hardware identifier of your specific iPod. I can’t think of any reason offhand why that would be useful for integrity checking.

(And I agree with your example, and I’m not convinced that Apple is making its decisions in this matter based solely on cold business calculations, but I realize that my tinfoil hat may be causing me to think the latter.)

]]> By: Joe Pallas http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2007/09/mad-at-apple/comment-page-1/#comment-62586 Joe Pallas Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:41:29 +0000 http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2007/09/mad-at-apple/#comment-62586 I was about to flame you for buying into the "Apple is deliberately trying to screw us" paranoia from the Linux crowd, since it is possible that the checksum is actually for checking the integrity of the database. At first, I couldn't see what business benefit Apple gets from preventing people from using tools other than iTunes to manage their non-DRMed content. Then I thought about Amazon's new MP3 store. iTMS probably would suffer if Amazon was bypassing iTunes and syncing directly to the iPod. So there is a fair case that Apple is trying to use its technical monopoly on iPod-syncing to protect its market monopoly on online music sales. I was about to flame you for buying into the “Apple is deliberately trying to screw us” paranoia from the Linux crowd, since it is possible that the checksum is actually for checking the integrity of the database. At first, I couldn’t see what business benefit Apple gets from preventing people from using tools other than iTunes to manage their non-DRMed content.

Then I thought about Amazon’s new MP3 store. iTMS probably would suffer if Amazon was bypassing iTunes and syncing directly to the iPod. So there is a fair case that Apple is trying to use its technical monopoly on iPod-syncing to protect its market monopoly on online music sales.

]]> By: malvasia bianca » Blog Archive » amazon mp3s http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2007/09/mad-at-apple/comment-page-1/#comment-62539 malvasia bianca » Blog Archive » amazon mp3s Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:10:38 +0000 http://malvasiabianca.org/archives/2007/09/mad-at-apple/#comment-62539 [...] malvasia bianca « mad at apple [...] [...] malvasia bianca « mad at apple [...]

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