I’ve talked a few times about how there’s a kind of “lock-in” between iTunes and the iPod, a lock-in that doesn’t quite exist in players made using Microsoft’s technology. That’s a bit of a misleading description. If you buy an iPod, you’re not really prevented from buying content from other sources. Similarly, if you buy a third-party player, you’re not prevented from buying content from iTunes. But there is a subtle but effective set of barriers in place to keep iPod customers being iTunes customers, and to keep iPod customers from jumping ship to a third party player. This might be a little more clear if I bring out a real-world example to illustrate the point, so let’s try that.
First, let’s look at Creative’s Zen media player, which in terms of its basic functionality is comparable to an iPod Nano (i.e., play music, play video, and display photos). Beyond that, I acknowledge that they’re very different. Here is the list of formats supported by the Zen:
- MP3
- WMA (protected)
- WMA (unprotected)
- AAC (unprotected)
- WAV
- Audible 2, 3, and 4
- JPEG photos (and other formats with transcoding)
- MJPEG video
- WMV9 video (protected)
- WMV9 video (unprotected)
Let’s now compare that with the music and video formats supported by the iPod Nano, which is intended for the same basic function (a flash-based media player):
- AAC (protected)
- AAC (unprotected)
- MP3
- Audible 2, 3, and 4
- Apple Lossless
- AIFF
- WAV
- H.264 video (I think there are protected and unprotected
variants of this)
- MPEG 4 video (.m3v, mp4, and .mov)
- JPEG
- BMP
- GIF
- TIFF
- PSD (Mac only)
- PNG
At first glance, the iPod has a longer, perhaps even superior, list of formats. In fact, depending on the formats your existing digital content takes, the iPod may support many more of your media files than the Zen (or less). I won’t argue that point, and it’s not the gist of what I’m getting at anyway.
If you boil the above lists down to the more-significant differences, what you see are:
Zen:
Supports these formats the iPod Nano does not: WMA and WMV9, along with MJPEG (which I haven’t seen used in ages).
Nano:
Supports these formats the Zen does not: AAC protected format, Apple Lossless, AIFF, H.264 video, MPEG-4 video, BMP, GIF, TIFF, Mac format PSD, and PNG.
WMA (protected and unprotected) and WMV9 (protected and unprotected) are used primarily by Windows PCs and music stores other than iTunes. They’re also used by subscription services like Napster to Go and the Zune Marketplace. The Zen would be compatible with such services, while the iPod Nano would not, because the Nano does not support WMA or WMV (protected or otherwise). That’s a “soft” barrier to keeping iPod users from straying to services other than iTunes. (Rhapsody uses a RealAudio format for at least some of its subscription files, which some players don’t support, including the iPod.)
To be fair, there are tools that allow you to remove the protection from locked-down WMA and WMV files. In some countries, those tools are probably even legal to use. But under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), it’s considered illegal to take steps to remove protection from digital content (in the U.S.A.). There are some similar laws on the books in other countries, but not all. Thus, if an iPod owner wanted to use WMA and WMV content, they could download protected WMA/WMV content, use one of the tools available to lift the protection off it, convert it to a format the iPod supports (like MP3), and load it on their device. But even with some automation, that’s a lot of steps to go through to get something that you could have theoretically bought from the iTunes Store and had it “just work” on the iPod. That’s what I mean when I say it’s a “soft” barrier to keep iPod owners from straying too far away from iTunes. Apple certainly doesn’t stop you outright, but between having users potentially breaking the law, adding a conversion step, and the likely resultant loss of quality (converted media files are rarely the same level of quality as the original), it effectively discourages iPod owners from doing so. If the iPod supported just the unprotected versions of WMA and WMV files, this would be less of a barrier, but it would still be a barrier.
Now, let’s look at the other side of the coin: AAC files. The unprotected AAC format is an international standard, meaning access to the format isn’t limited to Apple’s control. Not coincidentally, the Zen supports unprotected AAC format, which gives Zen owners some degree of access to iTunes content. The “protected” part of the iTunes “protected AAC” format, however, does belong to Apple, and Apple doesn’t license third parties to create players which work with that format. They’ve stated that doing so could violate their existing agreements with content providers. That may be true. They’ve also stated that if they were to license the format, their “trade secrets” could leak out and allow people to find ways to circumvent AAC protection. That may be true as well. However, on the Apple web site, they tell users how to burn protected music files to a normal audio CD for playback on CD players. Files written to CD in this way can be “ripped” from the CDs into another format, like an unprotected MP3, WMA, or AAC file. If users can do that, more or less with Apple’s blessing, exactly how is AAC providing any real content protection other than stopping direct copying of protected AAC files from one device to another? It certainly won’t stop users who have converted AACs to MP3s from sharing those MP3s with the world if they choose, so its protection of providers’ content is limited at best and illusionary at worst. Regardless of its reasons or motives, Apple’s FairPlay DRM technology used for the protected AAC files becomes another “soft” barrier tying iPods to iTunes. How?
Let’s say you have owned iPods for 3-4 years. You’ve probably been getting a lot of your music from iTunes because it’s easier than fiddling around with deprotecting and converting WMA and WMV files from other services, and protects you from any legal liability there might be in your country for doing so. So you’ve amassed a decent-sized library of music and video that you’ve invested in and will likely want to use with any player you have. Let’s say you decide to invest in the Zen we’ve referred to here because it’s cheaper than the iPod Nano and iPod Touch, and has a higher capacity than the Nano currently offers (as of this writing). What happens next?
First, you try to copy over some of your older protected AAC files, only to find that they don’t work with the Zen. Your options are to buy the unprotected AAC files or MP3 files from iTunes, or to deprotect the protected files (in possible violation of the law). Still, all this conversion is going to take you some time, especially if you have lots of files. If you opt to stay legal, it’s probably going to cost you a decent amount of money to buy the unprotected versions of those files (if indeed you can). Suddenly, any price advantage of the Creative player decreases. The “hassle factor” increases. Possibly, the quality of the files themselves even decreases due to conversion. None of this is necessarily going to make you happy or improve your “overall experience” with the Zen compared to the iPod. It doesn’t at all “stop” you from making the move, it just makes the move more of a hassle and perhaps a little bit of a disappointment. You think to yourself, “if I’d bought an Apple player, I wouldn’t be doing all this conversion crap.” Without actually doing anything, Apple has just made you think twice about keeping the Zen, and consider going back to an iPod. It’s a subtle message, to be sure.
Second, if you decide to stick with iTunes as your content provider for the Zen, you’re going to be paying a little more for the unprotected files (if you want to save the conversion time) or converting the content you buy into a format the Zen supports (spending some of your time converting the things you buy into a form you can use). Again, there’s probably a little voice inside you going “if I had bought an iPod I wouldn’t have to do this.” Maybe that’s enough to make you dump iTunes as a source. Maybe not. After all, you’ve probably spent a good bit of time getting all that media organized around iTunes, time that may be wasted if you drop iTunes for some other package. You’re probably more likely to dump the Zen, having more invested in the content than the player.
Thus, Apple’s choice to hold tightly to FairPlay and to charge more for unprotected content does three things. One, it makes the use of iTunes with third party players potentially more of a nuisance, giving iPods a mindshare advantage because they seem “easier” by comparison. Two, it ensures that Apple benefits if you do switch away from the iPod, because it means you’ll be paying a little more (most likely) to get your content on an non-Apple device (thus negating a potential price difference) and possibly paying a fee for some of it to get unprotected versions of the media. Three, it sends a subtle (but largely inaccurate) message that non-Apple players are something of a pain to work with. It may send the potentially misleading message that content is “cheaper” for the iPod (since Apple charges more for unprotected tracks). All of this subliminally encourages a “switcher” to come back to an iPod. It isn’t a lock-in, in the truest sense. It isn’t a brick-wall barrier. It’s more a hidden message that iTunes and the iPod are “better” than the alternatives, or at least “easier” and “more compatible”.
Let’s flip things around now and look at another subtle form of “locking-in”. Let’s say you don’t get rid of your iPod Nano (and buy something else), but that you read about a subscription service like Rhapsody, Napster to Go, or Zune Marketplace. The first thing you’ll find is that the subscription files all use a protected form of WMA, WMV, or Real Audio, none of which is supported by the iPod. Now you have a couple of options. You could ditch the iPod and buy a third-party player the service supports. (Note, per the above, how there’s a hurdle there from your existing content.) You could also opt to instead use some kind of software tool to remove the protection from the WMA, WMV, or Real Audio files. As noted earlier, doing this may very well put you in violation of the law, depending on your country’s rules. Even if it’s legal in your country, what you’ll now have is an unprotected WMA or WMV file in some cases, and/or a potentially time-consuming wait to convert each into an MP3 or other iPod supported format. Over time, you’re probably going to tire of all this conversion. You may lament the likely loss of audio or video quality. As before, Apple hasn’t really “stopped” you from leaving iTunes behind at all, nor has it “forced” you to use only iTunes. You could in theory use a service like Napster to Go with the iPod. It’s just going to be a bit of a nuisance since the iPod doesn’t natively support the format. If you’re an average or novice computer user, it may be a very big nuisance compared to just buying the same content through iTunes. Again, the subliminal messages are that iTunes is “easier”, the content may appear “better” in quality, and it’s possibly “cheaper” compared to the time, effort, and complexity associated with deprotecting and converting WMA and WMV content to something an iPod can work with.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though. From what I understand, the chipsets used in the iPod (at least some older models) actually contain WMA and/or WMV support, but Apple chooses not to use it. I’m pretty confident that if Apple approached Microsoft and appeared interested in licensing their DRM for use in the iPod that Microsoft would jump at the chance. After all, the Zune hasn’t captured that big of a share of the market (at least not yet), and the possibility of making a few cents (or dollars) off each iPod sold would have to be worth looking at. Apple says a subscription model is of no value to it at this time and hasn’t implemented one in iTunes. If that’s true, why not let the third parties sell subscriptions to iPod owners in Microsoft formats? If Apple is right and a subscription model is something customers aren’t interested in, then it shouldn’t in theory lose anything on the deal, and it should be able to give this a positive spin in its advertising as an added feature and a way to help people “switch” from competing players and services. After all, just as people who have used iPods for a long time probably have a decent-sized library of AAC files, people who use non-iPod players may see their WMA/WMV files as a barrier against switching to the iPod.
So, when I say that the iPod locks users into iTunes, I don’t mean that you literally have no choice for content other than iTunes. You can buy and rip CDs to MP3s. You can download WMA and WMV content from alternate services and convert it to something the iPod can use, if you want to invest in the tools and techniques for doing so (and aren’t worried about violating the law). But by not including WMA/WMV support in the iPod, and by not licensing third parties to support FairPlay protected AACs, Apple sets up some hurdles that make the iPod/iTunes combination appear to be your best option (especially if you’ve already owned an iPod). And that’s a subtle, but (judging from market share) effective lock-in strategy. Combine that with the fact that “iPod” has almost become a generic term for “media player” and it’s a powerful bit of marketing.
In case you’re wondering, I didn’t just hand-pick the Creative Zen as an example. The Microsoft Zune supports WMA, MP3, AAC (unprotected), and WMA lossless files, as well as JPEG images. It also supports WMV video, MPEG-4 video, H.264 video, and a format called DVR-MS video. Even though Microsoft is positioning the Zune to compete with the iPod, they haven’t locked it into the Zune Marketplace, at least not as tightly as Apple locks the iPod to iTunes. I haven’t tested the theory, but I suspect that non-Microsoft media players that support WMA and WMV protected formats will work just fine with the Zune Marketplace or any of the other services based on Microsoft’s DRM, and the Zune should work with the other services that offer protected WMA/WMV files. While that’s hardly “wide open” support, since it’s limited to non-DRM and Microsoft-DRM files only, it’s certainly “more open” than the iPod/iTunes combination (because, without conversion, you can also buy unprotected iTunes content for a Zune). If you own a Zune, in theory at least, you should be able to switch to another WMA/WMV capable player and have your protected content work with it. You should also be able to switch services with impunity, or use multiple services. The same with players from Sansa, Sony, iRiver, or any of the other manufacturers. That may not be a completely open system but it’s certainly less “locked in” than the iPod and iTunes combination, which works smoothly together but plays “less well” with other combinations.
Naturally, users of iPods or WMA-based players can use MP3 based services like Amazon’s MP3 service, since there is no DRM involved. If a user bought only content purchased from an MP3-based service (or DRM-free content from any other service), then switching between iPod and non-iPod would be a (relatively) trivial matter since at least the content would work or be legally convertible. That’s a much more open option than either the Zune or the iPod with its “recommended” service.
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