Aaron Adams’s Blowhard Blog

Software pariah Real announced today that songs purchased through its online store are now compatible with Apple’s iPod. Real is able to do this through its own reverse enginnered DRM named Harmony that is somehow FairPlay compatible and was created without Apple’s authorization.

My reaction: Why?

For quite some time, Real has been a boil on Apple’s shiny metal iPod buttocks. Rob Glaser, Real’s CEO, has alternated between bashing Apple and begging to be included under the iPod’s market-leading umbrella, much like a whiny child stopming his feet until he gets what he wants. Daddy Steve said no, so now Real has come up with a way to attach itself to the iPod as a parasite, consequences be damned.

Several questions come to my mind. Has there been a demand for Real’s spyware-ridden, pushy, buggy software to interoperate with the iPod on any platform? Have users cried out, asking Apple to please open its device to Real’s annoying clutches? I, for one, haven’t seen a single user request for Real’s entry into the world of the iPod. In fact, I’ve seen much the opposite - users, both Mac and Windows, who prefer that Real keep its distance from Apple’s superior product and not bring all of Real’s hideous code and behavior to what is currently a clean system.

Why would users give up inexpensive, reliable, familiar iTunes for a Real hack? iTunes is guaranteed to be compatible with the iPods users have purchased, Real is not. Any change to the iPod firmware or iTunes on Apple’s part that breaks Real, whether intended or incidental, will send Real back to the reverse engineering drawing board while users wait for an unknown amount of time for service to be restored.

Does Real expect to make money off its music store? Apple has been very open about the fact that iTunes is a loss leader, even though the service sold 100 million songs in 15 months. Apple makes its music money via hardware sales, and as of this time Real has no hardware to sell. Why is Real so desperate to get into such a money losing area, and what plan do they have, if any, to make it profitable? Whatever Real’s ideas, they’re not obvious.

Apple is a company that has proven it is willing to share the goodness that is the iPod / iTunes combination with other companies, its deal with HP being the prime example. Real, however, was rejected for a reason. Their public attitude towards Apple is insulting, their business practices are reprehensible, and their software, frankly, is crap. Apple has every right to choose who it would perfer to do business with, and Real didn’t make the cut. Now Real has decided it will bore its way into Apple’s music initiative like a tapeworm no matter what it takes.

And my reaction, after all of this, is, why? Users don’t want Real, Apple doesn’t want Real, and there’s no money to be made by this latest move. By the end of the year, it’ll be obvious that Real has made yet another mistake although nobody expects them to learn anything from it. When will the sad sideshow that is Real finally die and quit distracting the computing world from more important things?