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mxfh

So exclusive releases for specific hardware IDs are feasible.

A not so far fetched Scenario extending on the exclusive iTunes release practice:

Popular new Artist - New Album: Listen before everyone else exclusively on beats

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Hasn't Apple for a decade fought against DRM the music companies insists on?

Apple loves DRM, when it suits them.

Their OS has no DRM. Microsoft's is loaded down with license codes and activation rituals. Watch who you're blaming about loving DRM.

MS is irrelevant to Apple's readiness to use DRM when it suits them. This is a variation of the classic Tu quoque fallacy.

Define "suits them" then. Microsoft locks down everything, even the computer itself with Secure Boot. Apple does no such thing.

If you want to run OS X/macOS on your own hardware it's doable. The only trick is finding drivers, not cracking DRM or license protection.

If you want to run another OS on your Mac you might need to fiddle with the EFI settings and/or update that with an EFI mod tool to make it more compatible, but there's no real impediment to installing anything you want.

That's not true when it comes to iOS though... can't run unsigned OS.

That's a phone, and they've taken a different approach with security for those. The product they're offering is one where you're more restricted in what you can do, but you're given more security as a trade-off.

For their iOS products, more locked down equals more safe. They're treating them more as appliances than as general purpose computers. For consumers this has some appeal: The risk of malware and trojan/virus like applications is effectively zero on iOS.

If there was a way to offer security without locking things down they'd probably do it, but I think that's a logical impossibility.

If you don't like that model you have a ridiculous number of alternatives, more so than in the PC space.

So this is less a case of Apple using DRM when it suits them and more a case of Apple using DRM when it suits the consumer. Running only trusted, signed applications is a limitation, but it's one that is not without benefits.

Yes, the parent post is oddly off topic. Continued invocation of the unrelated windows platform (despite an explicit reminder that this is a Tu quoque fallacy), as well as a strange focus on OS X, as if iOS doesn't even exist.

Obviously apple will gladly lock down, control, restrict, and regulate their users (and even their devs) when it serves their purpose. Just look at iOS. The entire platform is restricted from top to bottom.

> Apple does no such thing.

Apples to oranges. OSX only runs on apple computers - you 'pay' for OSX when you buy the hardware. However, MS has to sell the software itself. You also downplay the magnitude of the problem "finding drivers".

Yes, they published "Thoughts on Music" on apple.com arguing against DRM on music. Then they took the essay down, and now use DRM on streamed music (and they never stopped using DRM on video or ebooks).

It would be so easy to beat this though (if you want the analog hole route), ultimately that gets decoded and sent to the speakers in the headphones, rip the headphones apart.

Unless they start doing serious hardware anti-tamper in headphones I don't think it's a real risk.

Sounds unlikely seeings as they already have Apple music as an exclusive distribution channel to Apple customers.

I wish I could give you an award for prescience. I would bet money this is going to happen.

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