Google Breaks ChromeCast's Ability To Play Local Content 329
sfcrazy writes "Bad news for all ChromeCast users who were thinking of being able to stream local content to their HD TVs. Google has pushed an update for ChromeCast which has broken support for third-party apps like AirCast (AllCast) which allow users to 'stream' local files from their devices to ChromeCast connected TV sets."
Well that's that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well that's that (Score:5, Insightful)
Why am I not surprised Google?
Because removing features from already purchased hardware seems to OK with manufacturers. If they aren't getting something extra from you using it for your own purposes then they'll take that away from you. Bless their hearts.
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Not only that, but sometimes the government REQUIRES them to do it.
And don't forget removing content too,....
Re:Well that's that (Score:5, Insightful)
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Mod parent up. The headline should be "Google breaks Allcast use of Chromecast in unintended ways." It's much less remarkable when you realize that the ability to play local content was not an intended or advertised feature of the Chromecast(although it should be).
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This really shouldn't have been modded troll. He brought up a good point and should be argued with, not buried.
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That's fine; but if the comparison is going to be made to Roku or Apple TV... this is one additional item they've got checked off and Chromecast doesn't.
Whether or not that matters to a potential buyer is the question - it certainly matters to me.
Re:Well that's that (Score:5, Informative)
In other words there is no evidence they deliberately tried to break it, they just made a change to their private API that happened to interfere with it. The same thing has happened a few times to people using undocumented Google APIs, like the guy from a few years back claiming that Google deliberately broke his tracking-free search mash-up site when in fact they just retired an ancient Palm version of their homepage he was parsing.
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Re:Well that's that (Score:5, Interesting)
no.. it's that there's a chance you won't buy, rent, or subscribe to any media through their store or one operated by one of their partners.. it's all about the money.. google's money, they don't give a shit about piracy, exactly.. they don't want you playing local content at all, legit or not, when there's perfectly good pay-for media available through the device for which google gets their cut.
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"Don't be EVIL..."
Never, NEVER use anything by these crooks.
Google and the NSA: Who's holding the 'shit-bag' now? [cryptome.org]
by Julian Assange
It has been revealed today, thanks to Edward Snowden, that Google and other US tech companies received millions of dollars from the NSA for their compliance with the PRISM mass surveillance system.
So just how close is Google to the US securitocracy? Back in 2011 I had a meeting with Eric Schmidt, the then Chairman of Google, who came out to see me with three other people while
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Bit off topic, but;
Sometimes i've wondered. There's so much espionage around, and so much information that can potentially be gathered, surely these spy agencies have people who are the beneficiaries of industrial espionage? or even information come across by chance. I get the feeling that there just has to be a bit of you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back when corporations, or even individuals get into bed with the spooks.
What does google get in return? If they're prepared to hand over data to the li
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And financial market manipulation. And drug trafficking.
The mind reels.
Good argument, except... (Score:4, Informative)
Frankly I am surprised in this case. Being able to stream content is a selling point with broad appeal, unlike say Other OS on the PS3 which was only used by a tiny fraction of PS3 owners.
Good argument, except it's unlikely they are making money on the hardware, so the goal is not to sell Chromecast devices, the goal is to allow people to buy Chromecast devices at cost in order to be able to sell content, and to sell content in order to sell advertising. For a bare-bones devices, it's unlikely that additional economies of scale are going to increase their profit margin on the hardware any, and it may in fact be a loss-leader, like the PS/2 or original XBox.
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I am much more likely to buy something off Google or one of their partners if I have a Chromecast than if I don't. I won't have one at this rate. Good luck selling me something for something I won't buy.
Lemmings and Sheeple on the other hand ... have fun!
Re:Well that's that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well that's that (Score:4, Interesting)
Android TV sticks seem to be a much better proposal than Chromecasts, anyway, especially at the same price. And some of them run Linux. Which is a godsend, because after this, I'm finally starting to get truly wary about Android.
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Because some apps have a policy whereby they won't work if a second display or HDMI is enabled. And this would get around that.
Such as my comcast app not working if HDMI is plugged in.
While content owners have a right to determine who has access to their content, choosing where in my home is a step too far.
Re:Well that's that (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps its something to do with the fact Google never said you could stream local content.
All they've done is change an undocumented, unsupported API that third parties have been using.
Would have skipped buying it (Score:4, Insightful)
Google never said you could stream local content
Say my brother is in a band. How should I play this band's music? Besides, Google never explicitly said that users of Android phones could do specific things with the phones that apps eventually enabled.
All they've done is change an undocumented, unsupported API
And replaced it with which documented, supported API? If none, then the fact that Google has taken explicit effort to ensure that the answer is none reveals something about Google's plans for this device that would make a lot of people have skipped buying the device.
more like (Score:5, Interesting)
bad news for Google, who was hoping that I would buy such a thing.
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Get a Roku. Cheap and awesome, and it'll go with you if you switch TVs or upgrade.
Re:more like (Score:4, Informative)
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You can with Plex.
Re:more like (Score:4, Informative)
You can with Plex.
...which is a Roku add-on and it requires a PC component to serve the files. The Roku, natively, can't stream directly from a local network source such as a NAS. At best, it's a hack and it while it works, it doesn't work as well as a native solution would.
I'd like to find one single device that can stream from all of my sources natively. Is that really too much to ask?
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Plex can run on several brands of NAS. [plexapp.com]
Either that or use Roxsbox on Roku and serve it from your NAS using http.
My NAS can do both and I stream local content on Roku all the time.
Re:more like (Score:5, Informative)
Again, this just illustrates the hack nature of this process. That the Plex service (or Roxsbox, which is essentially the same thing) can run directly on the NAS is irrelevant. It's still a collection of third-party tools that involve setting up remote agents off of the player unit (the Roku, in this case). I can stream on my Android tablet from a plain SMB NAS with no additional agent software or intermediary. Direct. I should be able to do the same thing with a Roku (or any of the other similar devices on the market).
Each one of them lacks a key feature. Either they can't stream from an SMB NAS, they don't have YouTube, they don't do Netflix, etc. There's always something. That each of these can be streamed from SOME device means that they're being deliberately left out of the ones that "can't".
I'm not asking for transcoding, either. If your device doesn't have enough power to transcode, that's fine. But I can copy a file from my SMB NAS to a thumbdrive and play it directly on my Roku. That is a bush league hack in 2013. It already has network access, there should be no reason to force me to use sneakernet.
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Plex is not Roku-specific. It's a great media management server/client app designed for a 10' interface with support across a wide range of platforms and the ability to stream to tons of different devices (including Roku):
Windows - Server/Client
Mac - Server/Client
Linux - Server
Various NAS boxes - Server
Android - Client
iOS - Client
Various "smart" TVs - Client
I bought a Roku specifically because it could do Plex streaming, not the other way around. If you really want to go straight from your NAS to your TV, t
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I bought one of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/400435109432?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 [ebay.com]
XBMC full HW playback (I use the DroidTV firmware which is a firmware from the Midnight Gx2 or something, supposedly the boxes that aren't midnight brand had an Audio sync issue, i put that firmware on it first minute I received, no issues) based on the PIOS XBMC port. Netflix full HW playback. With XBMC play right from SMB or anything else for that matter.
The only content that it seems to have
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I use a WD-TV. Streams from SMB shares and DLNA servers. Works reasonably well with Serviio
Probably works with other shared drives but I haven't checked.
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Works fine with NFS, FWIW.
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so far the only thing I can't do on roku is youtube.
Plex lets you stream your own movies, and both the IOS and andriod roku apps not only allow you to control the roku box but stream local music and pictures from it.
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Can you still do that? Last time I installed twonky those options seemed to have disappeared. Or were they moved from the free version to the paid app only?
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Your experience isn't standard - I've got three of them, no wifi problems at all. Like everything, they're subject to interference, so you might want to move it around and see if that solves your problem.
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I've got two of them, and both have lousy wifi connections in two different parts of the house where other devices connect fine (including BoxeeBox right next to it).
I ran ethernet cables into both rooms, and now I'm happy with Roku... but I don't recommend it to anyone who can't get a wired connection.
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I suppose we should all return our chromecasts (Score:3, Interesting)
How wretched and nasty of Google to so suddenly turn to the dark side, and render the hardware useless.
Bound to happen. (Score:2)
Re:Bound to happen. (Score:5, Informative)
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At $35, the business model behind this thing is probably similar to a gaming console: sell it at a loss to make customers for your lucrative content. Cutting loose the local content customers is long term a cost savings measure for two reasons: a) as you no longer need to field support calls from customers who don't watch your ads, and b) it's must easier to force software upgrades (ie, less QA needed because you can test builds in the field and force fixes out to the machines that break).
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Oh, wait. Maybe they just did.
I was planning to get one... (Score:5, Interesting)
... and probably still will, as long as it's able to play any arbitrary content from Chrome. My idea was to drop all my media into a web-servable directory on a small server in my house and use Chrome on my laptop or phone to browse to that directory, then click the "send to chromecast" button to send it to my TV. That should still work, right? Is there anyone here who has one and is using it in that way? It's the only reason I'd get one -- I have no use at all for Yet Another Way to play hulu, netflix, youtube, etc.
Does *not* break casting local content from Chrome (Score:5, Funny)
Read Koush's actual post [google.com] - the update breaks his Cast app for Android, which works around the app whitelisting to stream directly. Nothing says anywhere that casting arbitrary content from Chrome tabs is broken.
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In my experience, it works well on my reasonably high end laptop. There is a couple seconds latency, so you won't be able to stream games up to the TV, but it is most definitely able to stream movies. Personally, I wouldn't waste the effort trying to stream something that I really cared about image quality (but I say the same thing about streaming services too) but it is quite watchable.
The same cannot be said for my wife's much lower powered laptop. Streaming from that machine all the negative reviews t
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Left In a Lurch (Score:3)
Don't say "an HTPC" - I don't want to run a space heater to do this. Many Android dongles I've seen are out of date or will soon be out of date, and offer lousy codec support to boot. If you've found an exception to that, be my guest - a great many of us
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I don't want to run a space heater to do this.
Guess it depends on what you consider a space heater. I had an Acer AspireRevo 3610, and currently have a Lenovo q180. Both have Atom processors and run cool enough that they don't need fans. Both could handle any high def resolution thrown at them. The q180 is - due to recently introduced young children - is locked in a cabinet with absolutely no air flow and it isn't over heating itself.
If you think that's still treds into "space heater" category, fine, but I don't. Some actions are obviously a bit slug
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I have a Atom with an Nvidia fanless card that will decode anything I throw at it in hardware. I tried out the Android sticks but they're woefully underpowered.
Re: DLNA ? (Score:2)
I have a few years old Samsung TV and it plays near anything over DLNA (stream over TCP/IP from your PC), though you have to do some searching to find the right DLNA server and setup. Serviio works best for me. Buffering at movie start may be one or two seconds but certainly not more if you're on a wired (!) connection. Over Wi-Fi it's crap, of course.
Last year I connected Samsung Blu-Ray player which supported even more formats and worked even better (faster). Now, DLNA is about as shitty a protocol as pos
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many options (Score:2)
I've heard decent things about the Western Digital TV Live boxes. For people that like to play with their tech, the Pivos Xios DS can be reflashed with a factory supported XBMC load. (Still basically beta, but reasonably stable.) This is a little ARM box that comes stock running Android, that has full sized USB ports, microSD slot, ethernet/WiFi, etc. I have one of these boxes, I use it for playing local media. I also have a Roku that gets used mostly for Netflix.
I played with a Raspberry Pi running XB
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Conversely, the Ouya has a Bluetoot
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Both can mount samba shares and play most formats.
Youtube video can easily take hundreds of megs, and the video app provides no local-savable functionality so it obviously is built to STREAM. So I should be able to stream much audio via SMB, but always wondered why it that can't be shared without downloading permanently into the poor space contraints on the low-end of android phones. This contrast makes it clear what Google was thinking from the onset for Android and user-friendly SMB *streaming*.
What I don't understand is why music apps fail to fill in th
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The Roku's format support and USB playback app is a joke, and I regret picking one over an AppleTV.
This isn't another "H264 or nothing" box, is it?
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The USB port is wasted on stock Roku firmware, and I don't know of anything better to run on it.
Maybe not completely true? (Score:5, Informative)
When I powered cycled my ChromeCast a couple of hours ago, I noticed that it installed a new update.
I then launch my Chrome browser and open several local files of type MP4 (video), PDF, and PPT (powerpoint), and I am still able to successfully cast these to my ChromeCast on my HDTV, with this type of URL:
file://{LOCAL_DIRECTORY}/{LOCAL_FILE}
Even the MP4 video plays nice on my HDTV in FullScreen.
I have not had time to do a packet inspection yet via WireShark, so I cannot speak about the complexity of the protocol used to transmit the content locally.
I am not denying that something with ChromeCast might have changed, since the author is likely telling the truth, and may have been using some "hack" or trick that they used to simplify incorporating their 3rd party support.
But considering that I have my Chrome browser at version 29.0.1547.57 which was not updated in the last 5 days, I would think that any 3rd party app could still be modified to support ChromeCast with the same protocol used by the Chrome browser, NetFlix, YouTube, etc.
Re:Maybe not completely true? (Score:4, Funny)
If you're playing a file locally, there won't be any packets for you to inspect with wireshark. The browser is opening a file handle and reading data from the file handle.
So how is the data getting from his browser to the ChromeCast ? Maybe it's magic pixies, or even the fabled Google wormhole
You forgot to consider telepathy.
the wisdom of youthful folly (Score:2)
Corporations grow up, just like children.
This much-laundered sentiment originated with Francois Guisot (and not as widely believed the sock-prophet Winston Churchill). The genius of Bill Gates was being twenty years ahead of his time. Unfortunately, the life expectancy of a brainy conservative is twenty to thirty years (tops), before the grizzled Ebenezer-in-Chief is forcibly de
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That came off slightly more cynical than I intended. In truth, I have nothing but gratitude for much of what hippie Google chose to do. My point at this juncture, however, is that that was then, this is now.
In much the same way that the terrorists succeeded in reshaping America in their own image (two crushed fingers was all it took), Facebook has succeeded in reinventing Google in their own image. Zuck, like Bill, was way ahead of his time right from the get go.
As far as I'm concerned Google+ is hardly
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That's only one root of the saying. The other is that liberal ideas which are successful become a part of the conservative platform.
(Note that this does NOT refer to neo-cons who are con-men that have usurped the conservative name.)
Try something more open (Score:3, Interesting)
My raspberry pi and Ouya still play any arbitrary content I throw at them. Take that, Google.
My Smart TV and Blu-Ray players still play media (Score:5, Informative)
I still wonder why people go through all the fuss over media players... Samsung, LG and others have TVs and Blu-Ray players that are capable of playing MKV files and such from local drives or streamed from DLNA, and the players can be had for less than $50 when you catch the right sales. As a bonus, you also can play DVDs, BDs and optical discs full of loose media files.
On the negative side, I don't get a lot of fancy presentation, and I don't have emulators and such running on it, but that's fine. I never really understood the excitement over Roku boxes - I also get plenty of online streaming services through my Blu-ray players and TV (I have one "smart" TV, but the rest in the house have the aforementioned Blu-Ray players).
For anything beyond that, I'll build an HTPC so I can also leverage my Steam library (not too excited about the next gen consoles, either).
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Not surprised (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this a surprise to anyone? Did anyone really think that once Google had control of hardware and software they'd eventually get around to limiting you to content purchased through them (or one of their partners)?
Don't buy a Chromecast if you want to view media you own or have made yourself. There are other similar devices that will let you do what you want to do.
The only thing that can keep a corporation from becoming totally evil is the consumers. The boardroom is an incubator for evil. If you want to keep a company from doing bad, you have to be a strategic consumer.
China version (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never had a Chinese product magically lose features after i bought it. Its pretty sad, and ironic, when you have to go to Communist china to get products that support your freedom..
No confirmation (Score:2)
There seems to be a lot of raking Google over the coals ... but the only thing we have here is a single report, approved to the slashdot front page by timothy.
At this point, since not a single person has confirmed it on here, I'm inclined to believe there is no such breakage and this is just another example of timothy approving something stupid that he shouldn't be allowed to even read, let alone approve.
ctrl+o (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:ctrl+o (Score:5, Informative)
It didn't break tab casting from Chrome at all.
If you read the original post, it only breaks Koush's Cast app for Android, which worked around the whitelisting restrictions to cast content directly.
Re:ctrl+o (Score:5, Funny)
You mean he worked around the official unstable API and was surprised when it broke?
Unpossible!
What they really broke: (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why, were you planning to use only Koush's Cast app? There are other ways to stream local content which still work fine, like tab casting from Chrome.
I'll stick to my Roku (Score:3, Informative)
Frothy hysteria is fun (Score:5, Informative)
but instead of the boringly predictable GOOGLE IS EVIL!!!!1eleventy karma-whoring[1], shall we examine why exactly this third-party program broke with the new update?
Were they, perchance, using an undocumented API, or one that was known to be unstable?
This seems to be the public API for Chromecast: https://developers.google.com/cast/devprev [google.com]
but I'm not enough of a programmer to tell if there's explicit support for the kind of thing AirCast does; however, get a load of this:
So it seems my guess was correct and you're all bellyaching about a program taking advantage of an unstable API, with a feature not guaranteed to be there, and when the documentation recommends not distributing production apps yet.
In short, non-story click-whoring. I hope you're proud of yourselves.
[1] I know I'll get modded down for this, but...
Re:Frothy hysteria is fun (Score:4, Informative)
>
So it seems my guess was correct and you're all bellyaching about a program taking advantage of an unstable API, with a feature not guaranteed to be there, and when the documentation recommends not distributing production apps yet.
I checked out the SDK link you provided. The iOS and Android sender examples were last updated July 30th. The breakage occurred post-July 30th, so the documentation should have been updated with working examples, or the references to using the SDK to create 3rd party senders should have been removed.
As I was in the Chrome OS group at Google, and not the Google TV group that is responsible for ChromeCast, I have no idea how frequently that group updates their developer documentation. However, if it's anything like the Chrome OS group, other than design documents, the documentation tends to stay rather out of date for Chrome OS, since there are no technical writers specifically tasked with updating documentation.
So it could be a bug or an intentional API change (for which the documentation is now out of date) that caused the breakage. However, since the breakage has been pretty localized as to where it occurred, it's unlikely to be supported via an alternate API, which implies intentionality, since releases are tested internally before going out to production systems.
And the lesson learned is... (Score:2)
An upgrade is not always an upgrade.
Fling (Score:2)
This [github.com] solution bypasses Google's Chromecast SDK entirely.
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So much for that... This one is broken now too....
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Had this been Microsoft we'd be hearing that this is proof that Ballmer was sacrificing virgin children to Satan.
You guys really like to suck on that Google dick, don't ya?
Between Microsoft and Google, one is
(1) an ad agency that
(2) monetizes your private details and
(3) has a private jumbo jet for executives.
The other sells crappy software.
Re:Too easy... (Score:5, Funny)
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You seem to have misread the tenor of this discussion, which reads to me like an indictment of Google's wholesale violation of their code of ethics with these antics.
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But I've only seen one post saying that they should be sued because the sold a gadget with and advertised feature that they broke after the purchase. So I think that Google is still being let off easy.
That said, perhaps the circumstances were different, and certainly the time-lapse is different. Probably a lot fewer posters bought Goiogle's gadget because of the feature. (And, honestly, to me it's a lot murkier exactly what Google did. Perhaps that will clear up in a couple of days.)
Wasn't an advertised feature (Score:3)
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You don't remember Apple pushing an iPod update which broke Reals music store purchases? Real found a way to make their DRMed stuff work on iPods, and almost immediately Apple pushed an update which did nothing other than disable Reals stuff.
Apple closed (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you not been paying attention to the last 10 years? Apple has repeatedly shown they've tried to beat down this sort of restrictive shit.
Remember who resulted in music losing DRM.
Apple is the rapist of ecosystems using walled prisons; proprietary connectors; proprietary API; proprietary software. They actually got caught for illegal monopolistic practices with Publishers...and have been forced to allow other companies to publish on their not your devices. The MP3 thing was a war attrition, Companies were offering DRM free on other platforms before Apple. Their not your books and movies still are.
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The MP3 thing was a war attrition, Companies were offering DRM free on other platforms before Apple.
Steve Jobs was calling on the record labels about how music should be DRM-free [cnet.com] before those other platforms existed (which presumably is Amazon you are referring to). It only lagged behind some of those other stores because they had legacy contracts, not because they actually wanted DRMed music.
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While in 2006 Amazon wasn't in the picture, every major player was in mp3 players, and there were many (now bankrupted through litigation) services competing.
Also considering Steve Jobs was the single largest stock holder in Disney (7% owner) and on the board of directors (Including Hollywood records, which was closely tied with Universal.) He didn't need to make a public appeal for no DRM on a good chunk of the music for sale, if he was serious, he would have just done it.
Re:Apple closed (Score:5, Insightful)
other companies only went DRM free first because the RIAA let them to break Apple's strangle hold which only partially worked.
The only thing the RIAA and MPAA fear more than pirates, and DRM free music is another company with a stranglehold on their future business relationships with artists. the RIAA and MPAA are the only groups that can threaten to make, break or enslave artists.
I suggest you learn history.
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Hmm, semi-open $35 dongle from Google, vs 100% proprietary $200 box from Microsoft. Is that really a choice?
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Why did you place the order in the first place when this was never an intended feature?
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Why did you place the order in the first place when this was never an intended feature?
Wheelies and bunnyhops were not an intended original feature of BMX bicycles, yet people bought them for that capability.
My washing machine is quite capable of washing my running shoes. That's not an intended feature either.
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yeah but VLC for android is not yet ready for market. the audio is never in sync with the video. practically any other android video player is better than VLC.