We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.

Since iTunes for Windows uses non-native APIs such as CoreFoundation and CoreGraphics, Steve Jobs is effectively calling iTunes for Windows a sub-standard app.

Is iTunes hindering the progress of the Windows platform by not taking advantage of the latest native Windows APIs? By Steve’s logic, Microsoft should start banning apps such as iTunes from Windows.

Has Nokia or Sony Ericsson ever bricked or refused service on an unlocked phone? Not that I’ve heard of, and if they did, they would have been quickly sued in several countries where consumer rights are more strongly protected.

Did Sony ever brick PSPs over homebrew software? Did Microsoft ever overwrite someone’s BIOS with garbage because they detected an illegitimate Windows installation?

In light of other things Apple has done lately, such as adding an encrypted hash to the iPod database to lock out non-Apple software and disabling TV-out on the iPod unless the 3rd party accessory you’re using has an Apple authentication chip, it’s evident that Apple is well on its way to become one of the most consumer hostile tech companies.

When Steve Jobs claimed the iPhone was 5 years ahead of every other phone, was he talking about the iPhone’s revolutionary handcuffs?

In a world where open technologies are increasingly becoming the norm, Apple’s way of Thinking Different means marching in the opposite direction.

Update: According to the iPhone Dev Wiki, there is now a method for downgrading from 1.1.1 to 1.0.2 to revive your iPhone. There’s even a tutorial on YouTube.

Update:

Magic iTunes 7.3.0.54 numbers:

Offset 2048912: 33C0C3

Offset 257074: 28

Offset 257013: 33C9B1

Add “127.0.0.1 albert.apple.com” to c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Download Phone Activation Server v1.0 to activate your iPhone for iPod+WiFi use. Note that this application will not do anything unless you understand the magic numbers as well as add the hosts entry. Phone Activation Server (PAS) requires that you have the MS .NET Framework 2.0 installed.

Download PAS v1.0 Source Code.

Copyright © 2005 Jon Lech Johansen

Dependencies:

.NET runtime (Mono 1.1.8 or Microsoft .NET)

Latest Release:

Binary: JustePort.exe (MD5: 9e323d74801bd7b9a08667535948c5d4)

Source Code: JustePort-0.2.tar.gz (MD5: a2afb9543905d0bfc4f29b156201551b)

Syntax:

JustePort.exe input ipaddress [volume]
(volume range is -144 to 0, default: -30.00)

Example 1 – streaming a MPEG4 Apple Lossless file:
JustePort.exe ~/Music/song1.m4a 10.0.1.1

Example 2 – streaming a MPEG4 AAC file:
faad -q -w -f 2 ~/Music/song2.m4a | JustePort.exe – 10.0.1.1

Example 3 – streaming an Ogg Vorbis file:
oggdec -Q -R -o – ~/Music/song3.ogg | JustePort.exe – 10.0.1.1

Click here for press picture.

History

• November 1983: Born in Harstad, Norway to a Polish mother and Norwegian father
• December 1983: First encounter with a home computer: father’s Sinclair ZX Spectrum (picture above is from 1986)
• 1998: Installed GNU/Linux for the first time: RedHat 5.0 (still have the CD)
• September – October 1999: Co-authored DeCSS with two European programmers
• January 2000: Received the Karoline award, which is awarded to high school students who have excellent grades and who have achieved something noteworthy in the arena of sports, art or culture
• June 2000: Quit high school after completing the first year with an average grade of 5.75 (best achievable grade being 6)
• January 2001: Reverse engineered the jazPiper Win2000 device driver and authored a jazPiper Linux driver
• April 2002: Accepted an EFF Pioneer Award which was awarded to the entire DeCSS team
• November 2003: Authored QTFairUse, an AAC memory dumper patch for Apple QuickTime
• December 2003 – January 2004: Reverse engineered Apple FairPlay v1 and authored an open source C implementation of FairPlay. The implementation found its way into several tools (m4p2mp4, playfair and hymn) and was most likely studied by RealNetworks to add FairPlay support to Harmony.
• May 2004: Reverse engineered FairPlay v2 and updated the open source C implementation
• April 2004: Authored DeDRMS, an open source C# implementation of FairPlay
• July 2004: Reverse engineered the iTunes Music Store protocol for downloading FairPlay user keys and authored FairKeys
• August 2004: Reverse engineered the Apple AirTunes protocol and authored JustePort
• March 2005: Co-authored PyMusique (an open source iTMS shopping client) with two American programmers
• March 2005: Reverse engineered the iTMS 4.7 protocol and updated PyMusique after Apple disabled support for older versions of the protocol in an attempt to shut out PyMusique
• March 2005: Authored SharpMusique (a C# port of PyMusique) at the request of Miguel de Icaza
• April 2005: Combined DeDRMS and FairKeys into JusteTune
• August 2005: Reverse engineered the encoding used in Microsoft’s NSC format and authored a decoder
• October 2005: Moved to San Diego, USA
• June 2006: Moved to San Francisco and joined DoubleTwist Ventures LLC.
• November 2006: Moved to Norway.
• June 2007: Moved back to San Francisco and co-founded doubleTwist Corporation (not related to DoubleTwist Ventures LLC).

Favourite

• Movies
  • Léon (1994)
  • The Fifth Element (1997)
  • Le Pacte des loups (2001)
  • The Mission (1986)
  • The Party (1968)
• Music
  • Vivaldi – The Four Seasons
  • Jean Michel Jarre
  • The Crystal Method
  • Blackeyed Peas
  • Basement Jaxx
  • The Prodigy
• Gadgets
  • MacBook Pro 13″
  • ThinkPad T42p
• Operating Systems
  • Mac OS X 10.6
  • Windows 7

It weighed 10 kgs (they weigh all carry-ons at Stansted) and I mostly used the wheels.

I had heard good things about Tumi and their reputation for quality. I was hoping that this carry-on would be robust enough to last me a while, but I guess I have to start looking again. What would you recommend?

Anyway, I should have known better than to buy a product called Vista

Update: A Tumi representative got in touch and will be sending me a new carry-on. It’s a different model, so I’ll be posting a review soon Thanks Tumi!

However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

…

The most serious problem is that licensing a DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak.

…

Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies. Perhaps this same conclusion contributed to Microsoft’s recent decision to switch their emphasis from an “open” model of licensing their DRM to others to a “closed” model of offering a proprietary music store, proprietary jukebox software and proprietary players.

Let’s look at the real world outside the Reality Distortion Field:

These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it. So it’s time to get paid for it.

If you don’t like being accused of being a thief, you should obviously buy an iPod instead of a Zune.

This sticker is present on every iPod sold:

For comparison, the Zune sticker:

Hey, wait a minute… Let’s get started doing WHAT?

C.W. Nevius has a blog post over at the S.F. Chronicle titled “Zune Reinforces Microsoft’s Dorky Image“. Nevius links to TechTree that claims:

For starters, in order to download the Zune software, a user’s system has to meet certain requirements; namely, Win XP SP2, processor running at minimum 1.5GHz, and so on. By comparison, Apple Computer’s iTunes 7 software does not have any such hardware requirements.

Actually, the CPU requirement for the Zune software is 500 MHz, just like for the iTunes software. The 1.5 GHz Zune requirement is only for video playback.

TechTree also claims:

Also, to download the Zune software, users’ need to use only Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7). The software cannot be downloaded by using Mozilla’s Firefox for instance.

Actually, the software downloads just fine with Firefox.

The Mac zealots will have you believe that the Zune is no threat to Apple. If they really believe that, why do they resort to FUD?

Another example is Andy Ihnatko in an article titled “Avoid the loony Zune” for the Chicago Sun-Times:

You’ll find that the Zune Planet orbits the music industry’s Bizarro World, where users aren’t allowed to do anything that isn’t in the industry’s direct interests.

…

The iPod owns 85 percent of the market because it deserves to. Apple consistently makes decisions that benefit the company, the users and the media publishers — and they continue to innovatively expand the device’s capabilities without sacrificing its simplicity.

Companies such as Toshiba and Sandisk (with its wonderful Nano-like Sansa e200 series) compete effectively with the iPod by asking themselves, “What are the things that users want and Apple refuses to provide?”

Microsoft’s colossal blunder was to knock the user out of that question and put the music industry in its place.

Mr. Ihnatko would have you believe that Apple listens to the user’s needs, while Microsoft listens to the music industry’s needs. Yet the Zune lets you sync non-DRM’ed music back to your computer and the iPod doesn’t (the iPod only allows you to sync DRM’ed music back). From ExtremeTech’s Zune review:

Reverse Sync: Just as it is with Media Player 11, getting songs off your Zune is a snap. When you select your Zune on the left side of the player, you can browse the content that’s on it by artist, genre, etc. Not many people notice this, but the right-hand sync pane will now say “drag items here to create a list to sync from [Zune Name] to your computer.” Just drag whatever tracks, albums, or artists you want to dump from your Zune to your PC media library, hit Sync, and you’re golden. Simple. The hoops you have to jump through to get music off your iPod look silly by comparison.

Imagine that! Microsoft providing users with a feature that Apple refuses to provide. Not that a Mac zealot will ever admit to any such thing.

The Zune definitely has its drawbacks: software installation takes way too long (hopefully fixed in the next version, there’s no reason why it should take so long), hard drive access not enabled by default, misleading points system for purchasing songs, lack of MacOS X and Linux support, etc. However, when a reviewer fails to say anything good about the Zune, such as noting the sync files back to computer feature, it’s obvious that the reviewer has been exposed to the Reality Distortion Field for way too long. From Wikipedia:

RDF is the idea that Steve Jobs is able to convince people to believe almost anything with a skillful mix of charm, charisma, slight exaggeration, and clever marketing.