However, Apple doesn't stand alone in the digital music world. Today, dozens of competitors are foisting an ever-impressive array of portable audio players and online music services at consumers, hoping to wrest control away from the Cupertino-based company. Thus far, none has been successful, but two trends are emerging. First, many of the competitors are Windows-based, meaning they don't run on Macs and they use Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) technology instead of the Protected AAC format, which Apple alone uses and which limits playback to the iPod. Second, because of the confusing array of choices, consumers are rarely clear whether the portable device they want will work with the online music service they've chosen. This confusion has led, inevitably, to a stratification of the market, with Apple sitting pretty on the top and a slew of imitators clamoring to catch up.

Apple's strategy, then, has been successful: By offering a great experience with both its iPod device and iTunes service, on both Windows and the Mac, the company offers a one-stop shop for digital music fans. So what's the problem? Well, if you're into digital music, there's actually a big problem. It's a problem Apple didn't want its fans to admit even existed. And it goes right to the heart of one of the longest-running debates of this digital age.

It's All About Choice

Most people would agree that Apple's products are excellent, but the truth is that most people aren't buying Apple's products. The reason is simple, and it's the same reason that most people don't buy Mercedes Benz automobiles or Rolex watches. As good as Apple's products are, they're prohibitively expensive for a large portion of the population. In the case of the iPod, you can buy a comparable Dell DJ for a hundred dollars less, and that Dell device offers much better battery life and compatibility with a host of WMA-oriented music stores. Plus, hundreds of lower-price alternatives are on the market, all with a variety of capabilities. The problem is that none of these devices work with Apple's online music store. It's a classic case of lock-in. If you want an iPod, you're stuck with Apple's online music store. If you want to buy music from Apple's online music store, you have to buy an iPod.

This lock-in is a key part of Apple's strategy. It's also decidedly antichoice, which is what rankles me. Looking at Apple's financials, you can see pretty clearly that the company makes little or no money on its online music store, but the company is raking it in with the iPod. Why not open up the iPod so that users can purchase songs from other stores? That would benefit consumers, and it would arguably rejuvenate the music industry, since various online stores would be able to attract iPod owners. And it certainly wouldn't hurt Apple.

Apple, so far, has said that it wants no part of that plan, and it's a curious decision for a company that has touted its pro-consumer roots. Fortunately for consumers, however, another company has called Apple's bluff.

RealNetworks Fires the Shot Heard 'Round the Internet

Last week, streaming media giant RealNetworks announced that it's tired of waiting on Apple to open up its iPod. So the company released a beta version of its upcoming RealPlayer 10.5 media player for Windows, which includes something called Harmony Technology. This technology lets consumers use RealPlayer to interact with virtually any portable audio player on the market, including Apple's iPod and the WMA-based Dell DJ. That's interesting enough, but Real has taken another dramatic step: Like its predecessor, RealPlayer 10.5 can connect customers to the RealPlayer Music Store, which offers songs in an Advanced Audio Codec (AAC)-based format that's protected by Real's proprietary digital rights management (DRM) scheme. However, using Harmony Technology, RealPlayer 10.5 can also convert these purchased songs into Apple's Protected AAC format, for use on an iPod, and into DRM-encoded WMA songs, for use on the slew of available WMA-compatible devices, including the Dell DJ.

Suddenly, consumers have a new choice, and this is very good news, particularly because Real's online music store offers music in a much higher quality format that what Apple offers (192Kbps AAC vs. 128Kbps Protected AAC). For audiophiles, Real's store is now a much more compelling option, and it will arguably drive iPod sales as well. But Apple responded to the Real announcement with a petulant little statement in which it accused Real of "hacking" the iPod and potentially violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which has provisions against circumventing protection schemes. Also, Apple icily suggested that a future iPod software update would break Real's work. Real pragmatically issued a statement of its own, effectively staring down Apple: The DMCA, Real said, doesn't apply because Real isn't breaking Apple's DRM format—it's supporting it. And Real pledged to keep updating its software to fix any problems Apple caused. Open up the iPod, Real said, and support your customers.

The reaction online was immediate and loud, and is persisting to this day. Apple fanatics, naturally, backed Apple and decried Real's tactics. But a quieter group of people, including myself, sees things a bit differently. And not only do I support Real's actions, I'm calling on Apple to do what Real asks: Open up the iPod for the good of all music lovers. Lock-in, ultimately, benefits only companies, not consumers.

What Can You Do

Religious fervor aside, the Real/Apple tussle opens up interesting new possibilities. To see how Real's service works, I downloaded a copy of the RealPlayer 10.5 beta and began purchasing songs. Then, I transported them to both a new 20GB fourth-generation iPod (the new Scroll Wheel model) and a 20GB Dell DJ. My goal was to see whether the technology worked as promised, and whether the sound quality was any good.

First, the technology works. It works well. When you transfer purchased music from RealPlayer 10.5 to the iPod, it basically strips the 192Kbps AAC file of Real's DRM and applies Apple's Fairplay-based DRM to the song, effectively giving you a 192Kbps Protected AAC file that, to the iPod, works identically to an Apple-supplied song. On the Dell DJ, Real transcodes the song to WMA format and applies Microsoft's DRM protection to the file. In both cases, the songs remain protected, in the sense that you can't just copy them off a device and hand them to a friend, because they won't play on other people's PCs or devices. Therefore, Real is respecting the rights of both the consumer who purchased the music and the artist who originally made the music. Excellent.

Best of all, sound quality is fantastic. As expected, Real's 192Kbps songs sound much better than the 128Kbps songs that Apple offers. As for the Dell DJ, on which the music is essentially converted from one compressed format to another, the sound quality is still excellent, thanks to the high quality of the source material. I've had problems transcoding lower-quality songs, but all the music I've purchased from the RealPlayer Music Store has translated wonderfully.

But what if Apple somehow manages to prevent Real's purchased songs from working on your iPod? Well, you can consider a couple of solutions. First, you can also burn your purchased music to CD, then rip it back to the computer in an unprotected format—a task I frankly recommend anyway, if only for backup purposes. Again, Real's higher-quality encoding will pay off for you with higher-quality unprotected recordings. My advice, here, however, is to experiment. If you burn an audio CD from AAC songs, then rip that CD in a different format, say WMA, you're going to lose information, and the resulting songs won't sound as good. I haven't extensively tested this yet, but you'll have better results ripping those CDs to AAC, and not to WMA or MP3.

Second, you can look for an application that will let you convert a Protected AAC song to unprotected AAC, bypassing the time-consuming burn/rip steps outlined above. Here, you enter a bit of a gray area. Although I've always felt that consumers are legally protected by fair-use laws and are entitled to make personal backups of content they've purchased, there are few legitimate ways to do this right now with Harmony-created Protected AAC songs. (However, some tools, such as Hymn, let you strip DRM from songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store.) That might change if Real's technology becomes more popular.