No doubt Apple has taken a huge bite out of music piracy. The selling of their 3 billionth song isn’t absolute proof of that, but still pretty damn impressive considering it took them 2 years and 6 months for their 1st billion, 10 months for their second and a quick 6 months for yet another billion. It’s pretty obvious that more and more people are turning to the convenience of iTunes, especially when combined with the 110 million iPods they claim to have sold. (Yes that includes the replacements for those who know who my little friend to the left is) Most people who still refuse to get their music from the iTunes Music Store do so because of the limits imposed by the DRM-ridden songs. Digital Rights Management won’t allow you to play your purchased song on any portable music player other than your iPod that’s registered to YOUR account of iTunes. So say your brother bought a song under his account, on your computer, and you like it. Wanna put it on your iPod…tough. DRM sometimes pushes would-be honest consumers to attain their digital entertainment by other “questionable” means.
However, the restless Google will soon offer an alternative. Google will soon bring you gBox, while working with Universal Records, to bring DRM free music at up to 256 kbps. iTunes recently launched iTunes+ which allows you to purchase 
SOME DRM free music (meaning you can play it on anything, not just your iPod or a burned CD.) Though the audio quality is stunted at an adequate 196 kbps on iTunes+, audiophiles swear that the AAC format is superior to MP3. They offer this at $1.30 per song. I personally like FLAC but that’s neither here nor there. gBox will offer DRM MP3s encoded at 256kbps for only $.99, $.31 cents cheaper than its main competition. Will it take?
I was interested to know how Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) was taking the news of the partnership between Google and Universal especially since Apple and Google have been coming together on many things. For example: the integration of some Google Apps on iWork and iLife, Google CEO Dr. Eric Shmidt being on the Apple Board of Directors, YouTube on the iPhone and Apple TV (Google owns YouTube.) I was also surprised because of Universal’s on and off fueding with Apple. Is Google risking becoming another entry on Fake Steve Job’s “frigtard” list. Not so much, no. I came to find that Google’s relationship with Universal is one of strictly advertising. When users search for their song or artist, Google will simply facilitate the process of using gBox. They get no cut of the music sales from Universal. (Not that they’d need it, what with AdSense and all.) gBox will be released as beta soon. Good news to come. When? 21 Aug 07 – 31 Jan 08.
On another Apple related story, Leopard, which is scheduled to released in October, now runs on non-Mac hardware. Not officially anyway. This is of course, illegal, since it violates their End-User License Agreement BUT, you know those cooky developers and/or hackers. I wouldn’t recommend it though. I mean yes because it’s illegal but also because it’s a 46 step process in which you will need extensive console/command prompt knowledge, scripting and patience (aka finger-crossing). For those with more that 10 fingers to cross, here’s something to get you started. (Sorry, no IE users)
L8z,
AleX
