April 25, 2006
iPods and iTunes - The Downside
Digital Rights Management is something we don’t talk a lot about on Marco Gizmo - we tend to stick with the gadgets cos it’s what we like.
But DRM is something that does have an effect on we travelling technology lovers, perhaps most strikinigly with our love of the iPod and iTunes.
Let’s face it, the iPod has been a great little piece of light kit for us that has allowed us to have a decent storage device for our music, photos and video of our travels.
But there is a sinister side to it from the point of view of consumers.
Now, while the iPod is a great thing if you keep it in good condition, you still need to have decent covers and protectors to keep it that way. iPods are made to be replaced fairly regularly. You can scratch the things by looking at them sideways.
And that’s where it gets tricky if you are a lover of iTunes.
Did you know that you cannot play your iTunes collection on anything other than Quicktime or your iPod as part of Apple’s own DRM policies?
You cannot play iTunes on a normal MP3 player.
That means that if you have been busy downloading songs from iTunes and then your iPod breaks, you will have to buy another iPod and forget about transferring your iTunes to a different type of player.
That is certainly uncool from our point of view.
It’s also a reason not to use iTunes.
If you are really into mobile technology, then there is no doubt that you have already heard of the Microsoft Origami project which has developed a piece of kit know as the Ultra Mobile PC. 
