Fail: Apple's DisplayPort Update
News Commentary. Overnight, Apple stripped away some video rights restrictions from the newest MacBook and MacBook Pro and updated MacBook Air. But Apple failed to do enough for its customers. |
Apple apparently responded to widespread criticism about the notebooks' new DisplayPort, which had only supported output to displays supporting High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). The rights-protection mechanism supposedly prevents copying high-definition content. The update allows standard video output over non-HDCP monitors, but rights restrictions remain for HD content. Apple's update is to QuickTime, not to device firmware, bringing it to Version 7.57.
Apple stepped into a pile of poop, and I was surprised. Microsoft had been there before with Windows Vista, starting in late 2005, or more than a year before the software's release. Blogs and enthusiast sites debated Microsoft's decision to support HDCP in Windows Vista. Many critics faulted Microsoft for enabling HDCP when there were no mass-market computer monitors supporting the standard. Today, Windows digital rights management is the top complaint among Microsoft Watch commenters.
Steve Jobs and Co. should have learned something from Microsoft's HDCP fiasco, and it's not over. Most monitors in use today and a few new ones support HDCP. So most buyers of newer MacBook models are sure to splat against the HDCP brick wall. All they need to do is hook up their laptop to an external display and try to watch content purchased from the iTunes music store. Whoops, the video won't play.
Of course, HDCP was going to lead to a poop storm of controversy, and today's update won't end it. Apple hasn't gone nearly far enough. Reasons why Apple should never have supported HDCP:
- The aforementioned not enough HDCP-supporting devices in use. But they are available. While writing this post, I got an e-mail promotion from TigerDirect advertising an Acer 22-inch wide-screen monitor with 1,600-by-1,050 resolution and HDCP support for $159.99 plus $1.99 shipping.
- Analyst surveys consistently show that consumers loathe DRM, unless it's invisible to them. HDCP is big-time in your face after buying or renting that new movie only to find it won't play on that external monitor or TV. Big anticipation leads to bigger disappointment and anger—not at Hollywood. Apple is immediately blamed.
- Apple's CEO has come out against DRM in music, even though the company is the world's largest distributor of rights-protected content.
But there's more going on here than DRM. Black Friday sales start in about 40 hours. MacBook is Apple's expected hot-seller for the season. Given the notebook's high price in this economy, Apple is looking for consumers either willing to spend more, or simply able to. Presumably, demographically, those same consumers would either be more tech savvy or have more home entertainment gear. You think they want to buy a notebook with onerous and restrictive display output restrictions?
Stand Up for Customers and Against Rights Restrictions
Apple did wrong by customers by including HDCP and wrong again by not removing the DRM feature. High-tech companies like Apple and Microsoft must stand up to Hollywood. There's this mythology about content being king and that you must obey the king's masters, which are the big studios producing TV shows and movies. Computer and software companies want a big piece of the consumer electronics pie, so they give in to onerous rights restrictions. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Demand for HD content isn't as great as content creators and hardware manufacturers expected. For example, Blu-ray bested HD-DVD in the standards war, but to what end? Consumers aren't rushing to Blu-ray content. The rough economy can only slow Blu-ray adoption. Netflix says that Blu-ray accounts for only about 8 percent of DVD rentals. I have a Blu-ray player and Netflix account (since February 1999). I recently switched my default format back to DVD from Blu-ray.
Something else: More people consume content on multiple screens: TV, computer, music player or cell phone. Apple understands this behavior and enables it. Content synced from Apple TV to computer to iPod or iPhone starts where the viewer last stopped watching, regardless of device. This multiple-device viewing is changing what people expect from video content and where they watch it.
My 14 year-old daughter watches "Heroes" on TV and nothing else. Otherwise, she's watching online, usually at YouTube. ComScore's most recent monthly data on U.S. consumer video consumption: 11.4 million online videos watched, or 558 million hours. The average was 80 videos per person, among 142 million U.S. Internet users.
Like it or not, the Internet is democratizing video content, much of it produced by amateurs. Sure, people watch lots of Hollywood content, much of it illegally posted. To its credit, Hollywood has responded to changing viewing habits and online piracy with sites like Hulu, and most networks now provide streaming of TV shows.
Hollywood is wrong to obsess about HD content piracy, and Apple is even wronger to kowtow to the content kings. Apple's priority should be its customers and providing them with the best product user experience possible. Onerous—and in your-face—rights restrictions can only degrade the customer experience and make people angry at Apple.
Apple should instead work with Hollywood to better embrace changing viewing habits. Popular TV shows and movie franchises are brands for which people have strong feelings. Fans want to share their experience with others by posting recorded clips, parodying programs and creating mashups of varying content. Content creators should embrace rather than deface fan enthusiasm.
Apple is in a unique position to take a stand because of the iPhone and iPod. NBC left the iTunes Music Store but came back because it is the place to sell content. Now the TV shows are available in HD, but not for that non-HDCP display. Piracy is inevitable. It's going to happen. So why punish the many paying customers to restrict the few who don't? Besides, people can watch videos so many places, the content just needs to look great there and nowhere else; for many viewers, no HD required. So why restrict HD beyond Apple's Fairplay DRM?
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com].
Comments (6)
I agree with you in principle, but not in fact, you mention "So why punish the many paying customers to restrict the few who don't?" the problem is it is not a few it is a large multitude of people. It is considered the norm to have gigs of illegally downloaded music, software and videos in college i couldn't walk down the hall without hearing illeagaly downloaded coming out of half the rooms. Now to why i agree with you, though I beleive piracy is more prevalent, I also think they are way too smart to be stopped by the methods people are using and those methods are interfering with legitmate users far more than harming the piracy initiative. I hate piracy to the point that I think it should be larger crime than it is, but it's happening and we can't stop it the way we're trying, stop splashing buckets of water on the fire and go get the hose.
Posted by Alex | November 26, 2008 4:36 PM
Do you even know what licenses you need to sign to be able to use the HARDWARE that does video processing these days?
Apple may be in a position where it is legally required to "do its best" to respect the drm capabilities of the hardware that consumers want it to use...
Posted by Jeff | November 26, 2008 5:34 PM
I just don't see this update as a failure.
This is a great step toward the inclusion of Blu-ray drives for movie playback inside an APPLE computer. Blu-ray requires HDCP and I see they changed the way it works by updating Quicktime so Snow Leopard will support Blu-ray finally.
There are always issues when something new comes along with everyone saying how difficult it is or what problems it causes. I say get over it, learn, read and change those old ways or stay back in the past. I am also tired of all the theft of the software and other related digital files. If people paid for most of it Hollywood would never spend a dime on DRM or Copy Protection, have any of you been to China lately? Rampant selling of ripped movies, software etc.
I am working on creating my own material so I believe in getting paid for my work. Who buys HD content without a HD monitor anyway.
Stand up for customers with no brains I don't think so. Rights restrictions allows content that was created by someone to own it. You are not for owning your own creation, controlling how its used and to make a living from it. I just don't understand what you are even thinking about. America is sinking because of this line of thought. America start making stuff and sell it the way you feel like it. Again why does anyone buy HD downloads when they don't have the gear to display it?
So Apple failed, I just don't see it that way. They made your SD content now playable on external monitor using the newer laptops with Mini Displayport you just have to have HDCP monitor (DVI-D, HDMI or Displayport connection) to view HD content. This seems like a success in bringing in the future to me.
Posted by David | November 26, 2008 7:14 PM
This seems to be another case of people blaming Apple for controls imposed by the media-content-owners. My guess is as part of the continuing expansion of iTunes (and HD content), HDCP in their laptops was part of this concession? I doubt Apple just loves DRM and did this just to piss people off. What do they care? They sell media just so people buy their hardware (iPods/iPhones/etc.)
Posted by Marcos | November 27, 2008 12:13 AM
Fair or not...doesn't really matter to me as a consumer. What matters is that I have a $1200 Apple monitor that is less than three years old (not a "sunset" technology by *anybody's* standards) and it will not work 100% with a new Mac laptop.
I live with HDMI/HDCP on an HDTV because the improvement in quality over an analog TV is tremendous. Why do I want to live with restrictions embedded in a new Mac laptop without a corresponding improvement in technology (and I don't just mean the better video cards inside them)?
Time to search for a refurb or used machine to replace my aging G4 Ti-Book. Plus, if I get one of the last of the "old" Macbooks, I get Firewire, too, so that some of my external hard drives and CD/DVD burners aren't paperweights...
Posted by GN | November 27, 2008 8:47 AM
I think Apple did this just sell more of those gorgeous new Apple 24" Cinema LED Displays. We shouldn't be surprised that it works only with the new MacBooks through the new DisplayPort.
Posted by Andre Da Costa | November 27, 2008 10:48 AM