Should You Worry About iPhone's "Handcuffs"?

The New York Times ran a story this weekend, the kind that is trotted out with regularity by the mainstream and technical press, arguing that the much-ballyhooed iPhone came with what it dubbed "iHandcuffs," the idea being that once you invested in the technology you would never be able to break free from Apple's death grip.

True or false? Well, it's a bit of both. Consider first the truth of that statement. The biggest "lock-in" revolves around Apple's iTunes Music Store, which saddles every track it sells with onerous DRM, preventing you not only from copying the music freely, but forcing you to play it only on your computer or an Apple iPod. The lock-in ensures that, once you purchase tracks from iTunes, you will never be able to play them on non-Apple hardware.

Is this so bad? Apple has a roughly 75 percent market share in portable music players and about 67 percent share in online music sales. Chances are if you're buying a music player, you'll get it from Apple, and you'll get the music to play on it from Apple, too.

That, of course, is a bit of a spurious argument. It's the same one made by Windows apologists, who have little problem with Microsoft's own music DRM (though its protected tracks can be played on a wide variety of music players, so long as Apple does not make them), Microsoft's often-incompatible file formats for documents, and its notoriously shady dealings in requiring PC vendors to sell computers with Windows preloaded. Microsoft's lock-in? It's just about as bad as Apple's.

So why the uproar? People didn't mind so much about Apple's musical aspirations, but now that it's intent on getting in your cell phone, folks are starting to worry. Will having iTunes music on your phone lock you in to Apple hardware and Cingular (err, AT&T) forever? Well, for Apple, that's precisely the idea. But that's not entirely the case. Anyone with a few blank CDs can burn his iTunes music to disc, completely DRM-free, then copy them back to his computer. Of course, iPods and the iPhone happily play DRM-free music. All you need to do is strip it out. (From time to time, DRM-removal software crops up on the internet, but Apple quickly alters its software shut it down.)

And that's the key: I'm both a Windows PC user and an iPod user, and I'm keen to avoid getting trapped by either camp. My solution is simple: I buy a minimal amount of music from the iTunes Music Store, and that which I do buy I strip the DRM from immediately. It's a bit of a pain, but I'm sure it's worth it in the end: Should a better music player than the iPod eventually crop up, I'll be ready to load it up with unprotected MP3s to my heart's content.

There are also signs on the horizon (little signs), that DRM may someday go away completely. Not only has DRM already been broken on the so-called unbreakable high-definition HD-DVD format, actual stores are rumored to be considering selling unprotected tracks directly to consumers. Will Hollywood and its ilk finally give up on misguided content protection schemes? You can vote with your wallet and refuse to buy this merchandise (and good for you if you do), or you can simply subvert the process every chance you get.