Real Begs Apple for Alliance 387
hype7 writes "In a an extremely forward move, CEO of Real Networks Rob Glaser has emailed Steve Jobs, imploring him to open up Apple's AAC Digital Rights Management System - FairPlay - to Real. The upside for Real - all music sold by them would be compatible with the iPod. The upside for Apple - Real would make the iPod its primary device for the RealNetworks store and for the RealPlayer software. However, Mr. Glaser wasn't just dangling carrots - he implied that should Apple not be a receptive partner for an alliance, he would be forced to look towards Microsoft. There was a similar post made not too long ago, with BusinessWeek's take on the whole thing." There's a Reuters story as well.
High Level of Fear? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, Apple is hedging its bets in a few places. You can easily play OGG formats in iTunes (a tutorial in this month's MacAddict tells how to use the codec), and Apple even includes an OGG icon to use in OS X, though you have to do one or two (easy) things to make it work seamlessly. I don't think Apple is afraid of opening things up except that, for instance, supporting WMA or Real playback on iPods would endanger the iTunes Music Store sales, which provide zero or very little profit to Apple, IIRC, but which sure improve the sales of iPods. Where Real fits into the risk/reward equation is unclear, but why let Real just have a piece of the action? Doesn't look like the profit to Apple is that great.
Maybe it's just me... (Score:1, Interesting)
Closed standards. (Score:2, Interesting)
Very good thing for Apple to do (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good! (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
"BUT BITCH, I SAID BIIIITCH, I AIN'T GONNA GO FOR IT, NOT NOW, NOT EVEAH!" - SD
Re:High Level of Fear? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually quite a common myth, they actually make about 30 cents a song, the comment about them breaking even was about(at that point) the fact that the amount of songs they have sold have basically covered development, server, and ad costs. Almost all of that is fixed costs, so they will have economy of scale. The store can become very profitable if it is able to sell a lot of songs.
Re:Maybe it's just me... (Score:1, Interesting)
Ahh. I see we have an Apple user who's never used Apple products on Windows. I'd take Real any day over Apple, and that says a lot.
I don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Does he think that he will "win" either way?
Apple and REAL apparently tried some sort of an agreement a couple of years ago, but it fell through because REAL wanted access to all Apple's QT code, but would not give up any of the REALplayer code to Apple.
It appears he is just looking for ANY publicity at all for REAL.
But of course, there is no such thing as "bad" publicity!
Re:The ol' Hardware Monopoly (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, anyone is free to add any internal or external hardware device they wish, including DVD+/-R/RW drives. However, if you wanted to use *specific* software, like iDVD, with your drive, then you needed to mirror one of Apple's OEM offerings with your purchase. The reason Apple tried to tie iDVD to their "SuperDrive" systems was more one of ensuring a very cohesive user experience, as opposed to the nightmare of support issues and bad reputation for iDVD as people with 400 MHz G4s tried to use iDVD with any old random DVD recorder.
2. Apple keeps its iSync API locked up. There are millions of really cool things I could do to make Apple able to synchronize with things like LDAP servers, competing browsers, PC's, etc. But then Apple could use it as a leverage-point to keep people subscribing to the overpriced
It's only a matter of time before there's an iSync SDK. And the second statement is kind of unrelated; if you think
3. USB video cameras, like the ubiquitous Logitech QuickCam, just don't work (well) and Apple seems to have put blocks into place to refuse iChat AV from working with anything but their iSight hardware product. (I exaggerate a little bit here, but not much.)
ANY FireWire video source will work with iChat AV. Any video source at all will work with iChatUSBCam [ecamm.com]. Again, this decision was made to ensure a good user experience across the board with iChat AV, rather than letting people use any old crappy USB camera, which, right or wrong, reflects poorly on iChat AV.
There is a reason why Apple products work and look great: because Apple tries hard to keep it that way.
The iPod Quicktime-AAC is just another example. Where Microsoft fights to protect it's OS dominence, Apple refuses to make its customers' lives better if it suggests that they might loose the odd dollar in missed hardware sales opportunities.
Well, first, you have to have a monopoly to start talking about monopolistic practices. Even with iPod, Apple doesn't have nearly a "monopoly". And QuickTime, while proprietary, is one of the best media architectures out there, with free live encoding, free streaming servers for multiple platforms, ability to use open standards for playback anywhere, etc. Not to mention that it was primarily Apple and Apple alone that made MPEG-4's licensing - one of the only hopes against Microsoft's VC9 - licensing leaps and bounds more palatable [com.com] than it originally was [com.com]. And Apple has to keep its hardware sales up, lest the analysts start a death knell [google.com] for the 1000th time.
I WAS thinking this was a good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I started to think about the competing stores. It doesn't really do either of them any good to be selling the same songs, usually at the same price. I suppose it DOES give incentive to each of them to differentiate from the other store, but that's on TOP of the work that they have to do to offer more than the stores that use WMA.
I think Real's best proposition would be to somehow license the iTunes music store. Rather than set up a whole store on their own which is a huge waste of money - and arguably unsustanable - they could make it so it's possible to buy from the iTMS through their player. Steve would have to hand down some strict interface guidelines, but suddenly the Real player would have a lot of ACTUAL value added. Starting up their own store kind of looks like value added, but it's really just a gimmick when it's so hard to make money, do it properly, sell good music, etc.
Re:High Level of Fear? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not about codec technology anymore... (Score:4, Interesting)
So they want Fairplay? Apple should ask Real to provide that broadband content. No specifics, but I'll bet that people that own Apples tend to have broadband easily accessible. Apple can choose to pass on the content in their Quicktime channels for free, or bundle some with their .Mac service (hey, maybe I'd even consider getting it if I did that.)
It would definitely make for an interesting combination.
The desperate actions of a desperate company (Score:5, Interesting)
QuickTime is far superior. Hell, even WindowsMedia is superior. Real knows their only real hope (pun intended!) is to hitch their wagon to a winning team and ride those coattails until the cows come home.
I personally hope Apple bitch-slaps them back to their hole in the wall, and I hope Microsoft just outright buys them to shut them up (in this singular case I'd be all for that tactic from MS!).
Real just annoys me to no end, and their demise, bu whatever means, can't come soon enough for me.
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Real needs to die. (Score:4, Interesting)
Darwin/Quicktime Streaming Server is a better streaming server solution, and it's free.
Apple partnering with Real? Why? Apple should only partner with Real if they drop Real and go with Quicktime. And at that point, why should Real even exist?
Frankly, WMP is better supported on my platform (Linux KDE/KMplayer/Konq) than Real (the KMplayer kpart bones javascript tests for rm plugins), so what's the point of Real?
Add in the asinine hiding of the free player, and the verdict is:
Death by irrelevance.
Re:High Level of Fear? (Score:1, Interesting)
Not Invented Here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Steve does need to get a grip sometimes, and become more open. I'm not sure Real is that special company upon which to bet however. But Real aside, the concerns are the same.
Re:The ol' Hardware Monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
You can buy DVD recorders and DVD recording software for you Mac. Apple isn't stopping you.
I agree with you on the iSync part. Hopefully it will eventually be a published API.
Re:Realplayer in linux (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had good luck with it. It plays real video and audio streams quite well. And like the latest Real Player software there is no annoying spyware or ads.
I agree with you about the Linux Real Player 8 - it really sucked. But fortunately there's a good upgrade path.
Re:High Level of Fear? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I actually think this could be good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:High Level of Fear? (Score:3, Interesting)
If by easily, you mean downloading a third-party plugin, then sure. But give credit where credit is due. The guy who wrote the plugin deserves the praise. iTunes Ogg Vorbis support is certainly no thanks to Apple, and there are numerous problems with it as it stands, that *are* in fact their fault. Of all the OSes, all the MP3 players, all the music players I've ever used, Apple is by far the most anti-vorbis, and it really is the only thing that continues to bother me about them.
I really don't understand how anyone could say that Apple is hedging their bets towards Vorbis. They seem to be furiously struggling against it, continuing to push forward with their AAC format against all odds, despite the fact that other manufacturers are increasingly giving in, or at least saying that plan to maybe do so. Apple, on the other hand, consistently refuses to have anything to do with it.
I love OS X. I love the iPod. But Apple: I also love Vorbis.
why FairPlay is closed... (Score:3, Interesting)