tThe mp3 device is slowly moving from a stand alone to the cell phone. You can see this in the iPhone, several Samsung phones, Motorola, etc etc.
And what's going to happen when a full migration from mp3 player to mp3 enabled cell phone occurs?
Apple is going to go from having an 80%+ hold on the mp3 device (iPod) to less than 10% hold (iPhone vs. every other cell phone company) and suddenly, iTunes DRM won't work on the vast majority of devices out there.
So when Jobs says he doesn't want DRM, he's really saying that he wants people to be able to stick with iTunes no matter what device they have, even if the future device of choice isn't Apple branded.
Go with Rhapsody only if you want huge blocks of service outages. Do a search on this site and you'll see all kinds of Rhapsody complaints about 3 weeks ago - it's a
Napster is the way to go - I could either spend $13 for all the music (encoded and labeled properly) I can handle at Napster or 1 album at iTunes.
Or I could use Limewire, download some grainy mp3 that Leroy Jenkins encoded in his trailer out in the woods then labeled as Kate Nash when it's really some whack Japanische Kampfhorspiele. NO THANK YOU.
I want my music when I want it and would rather be spending my time listening to something new INSTEAD of hunting down the correct mp3 with some spyware loaded program.
Apple doesn't care about selling music, they only care about selling devices. The last thing Jobs wants to get involved with is the legal end of music licensing within a subscription model - aka - it's very messy and a pain in the rear. Selling songs/albums a la carte is simple, painless, and a one time purchase - a drop in the financial bucket when you're selling a new iPod model every 6 months to the same customer.
Just wait 1-2 years when cell phone storage and MP3 playback catches up to the market and you're going to see Windows based phones overtake the iPod and squash it in price, availability, and multi-function usefulness - at which point iTunes will pack it's bags and hightail it out of town.
I'm in the music biz and currently subscribe to a few music services (Zune, Rhapsody, Napster), and the most recent 'upgrade' to Rhapsody a few days ago locked me out as well. In the mean time, head over to the Napster's ad-sponsored site http://www.free.napster.com - and when you're ready to upgrade the audio quality subscribe. It finally works on a Mac (PC as well) via Firefox and is hands down the best bang for your buck. It is by far the best subscription service out there out of the 3.
I cannot stress this enough - check out the free site and go from there.
Let the hive mind of Engadget get that for you.
"I love my little computing companion but I often find myself missing a full sized keyboard. I have been looking at several of these portable and flexible keyboards, but I can't seem to make up my mind about which I should buy. I don't want the keyboard to be overly expensive, but I want it to be good quality. Also, how difficult is it to type on these keyboards? Thanks!"
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