I've refrained from posting about this until now, not just because I couldn't contain my simultaneous laughter and annoyance but also because I wanted to wait to see what the AtAT crew had to say about the whole mess. And boy, did they come up with a winner.
Hooooo, mama-- we'd have broadcast this a lot earlier if we'd had half a chance in Hades of being able to stop laughing for more than three seconds straight.
You know this whole thing with RealNetworks whining incessantly for months that Apple "won't let us sell music that plays on the iPod, boo hoo hoo"? Well, did you think it had all come to a dramatic climax with the company's recent revelation that it had essentially hacked its way onto the iPod all by its lonesome? Yeah, so did we-- and boy howdy, were we ever wrong, because Real just unleashed a true sinkhole of hypocrisy and greedy cynicism upon the world and actually believed people would see it as a selfless endeavor to protect consumer choice.
Ladies and gentlemen, may we introduce Real's latest contribution to our plot line: FreedomOfMusicChoice.org. Like we said, it's only the laughter than keeps us from retching.
What's so funny, you ask?
Also well worth checking out on any topic, but especially this one, is John Gruber's opinion over at
daringfireball, on the brouhaha
as things stood before RealNetworks launched their propoganda web site, and more importantly on how it relates to Macintosh history.
amused