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

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

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).

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.

> 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".

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

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.

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.

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.

Bingo. We already see this with HDMI and HDCP where you can get a diminished experience, or none at all, because the playback device and the TV can't get their ducks in a row.

Amazon will serve me HD video on my smart TV using its Amazon app, but not on my computer using the same TV as a second monitor. And lest you think the problem is the computer, I can get it on my PC just fine using a regular computer monitor...it's a bummer to think about this sort of thing with simple audio as well.

Huh. I often use my non-smart TV as a second monitor, but I'd never tried playing an Amazon video on it. Sure enough, the same video that plays in Firefox on a VGA monitor gives me a "we're experiencing a problem playing this video." message if I move the browser to the TV.

Stop buying crippled content and download your shows without encumberances.

Sure, where can I legally (bonus points for easily) buy and download DRM free movies?

Yeah, I'm imagining some scenario where say Spotify partners with Bose, and if you plug in Bose headphones then you get higher quality audio than you can get elsewhere. Or say tidal (Jay Z's streaming service) says you can only listen to some songs via Kanye's new headphones.

That's actually really interesting. Especially as everything is moving toward personalization. If you have a set of headphones that have a unique ID tied to you, the artist could even intro a song with your name - or in the future procedurally generated music could substitute a reference to your city into a song.

Thats a cool idea! Arcade fire did a really cool music video in a similar vein that was interactive/personalized: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

> Enter the address of the home where you grew up

Well, that was five seconds well spent.

You can enter whatever address you want but it is kind of erie to do it with your home address.

Everything under the sun indeed! Thanks for sharing that.

Yes, seconded.

This is totally off topic, but just checked out your website and damn, you're a hell of a runner. I'm thinking about signing up for my first ultra real soon!

Cool - thank you! Good luck!

Enter piracy.

And the only reason any of that works is because people accept it and pay for the privilege.

Don't like the situation, don't buy the service offering it. It turns out, society doesn't really care about these things.

It's not that society doesn't care, it's that people don't spend time figuring out all the distant-future implications of their choices. While you can't boil a literal live frog by turning up the heat slowly, this principle works extremely well on the free market.

But if a manufacturer wanted to only play audio to their device, they could have already made it a lightning-connected device.

If they do give the ability to distinguish the lightning-to-3.5mm adapter from other lightning headphones, that isn't any greater than the ability to distinguish between the 3.5mm jack and the lightning port is it?

It's all about defaults and out-of-the-box experience.

The issue not likely to arise with hardware manufacturers. However, content license holders have been eager to have powers to restrict playback based on the device that will be playing back, see region encoded disks and HDMI.