iPhone Work Delays Leopard

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Apple's finding it's not quite as easy to complete a cell phone as they thought. In order to make the June date that previously was announced , Apple's had to pull people off the next release of their OS, code-named Leopard.

"iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard as planned," said Apple in a rather brief statement. Source: InternetNews

We Say: Also known as, "this was a lot harder than we thought" or "we have a lot more bugs than we expected". Of course, it could be that what I just said … applies to Leopard rather than iPhone … and this is just a way to save face at WWDC. Assuming it is really an iPhone issue, BTW, those buyers who bid on iPhones on eBay … as I said then, I don't know what they were thinking. That was 3 weeks ago, which is a long time in cell phone ROM time … there's no way the phone would have worked well even if those bidders had gotten a "real deal".

Microsoft to also offer DRM-free music

By Humphrey Cheung

 

Redmond (WA) - Microsoft is jumping on the DRM-free music bandwagon and will be offering unprotected EMI songs in its Zune Marketplace.  Jason Reindorp, Zune's head of marketing, announced the move, but didn't add any specific pricing or timeline.  He added that Microsoft has been advocating DRM-free music for quite a while.

This is surprising because one of  the main tenets of the Zune MP3 product was the strict adherence to DRM.  Music transferred to the Zune follows the rule of three, that is three plays or three days whatever comes first.

In recent months, Microsoft officials including Bill Gates have been softening their stances on DRM.  Back in December 2006, Gates told bloggers in Redmond, WA that there are "huge problems" with DRM and even advocated just buying CDs and converting the music tracks to MP3s.