Mark Derricutt's Disturbing Thoughts
Apple iTorrent
posted Monday, 5 December 2005
Note: The following is pure wild speculation and guess...
Earlier in the year Apple launched iTunes 4.9 with support for podcasting, the support was somewhat flawed and reminiscient of an early beta product, but it worked. It worked enough that people, both new listeners and old flocked to it in droves. They flocked to it so much that podcasters everywhere dropped off the 'net under the sudden increase in load.
Podcasters and podcatchers alike rose to the challenge, and the use/support of bittorrent emerged, but iTunes stalled, new versions were slow to arrive, and when they did they showed a consistent lack of new functionality. No torrent, no resume, the all to common "wipe out the library" problems, but still it prevailed.
We roll our story forward to the iPod Video and the iPod Video Store, the sales are there, the people are there, and the downloads (for those without super-high-broadband) slow.
"Give us the torrent!" the people cry, but no - all we get is silence, and why is that? P2P is bad, its illegal, but wait - a few months ago BitTorrent and MPAA team up for a truce, Apple starts selling TV shows and rumours of a new distribution nework for more TV shows show up around the place.
Now that BitTorrent (the company, not those running illegal trackers) has made friends, it's now possible for Apple to "make friends" as well and integrate a DRM laden BitTorrent client into iTunes for shared delivery of restricted content.
Pure fantasy? Quite possible, but if Apple wants to distribute all those tv shows, what better way is there?
Earlier in the year Apple launched iTunes 4.9 with support for podcasting, the support was somewhat flawed and reminiscient of an early beta product, but it worked. It worked enough that people, both new listeners and old flocked to it in droves. They flocked to it so much that podcasters everywhere dropped off the 'net under the sudden increase in load.
Podcasters and podcatchers alike rose to the challenge, and the use/support of bittorrent emerged, but iTunes stalled, new versions were slow to arrive, and when they did they showed a consistent lack of new functionality. No torrent, no resume, the all to common "wipe out the library" problems, but still it prevailed.
We roll our story forward to the iPod Video and the iPod Video Store, the sales are there, the people are there, and the downloads (for those without super-high-broadband) slow.
"Give us the torrent!" the people cry, but no - all we get is silence, and why is that? P2P is bad, its illegal, but wait - a few months ago BitTorrent and MPAA team up for a truce, Apple starts selling TV shows and rumours of a new distribution nework for more TV shows show up around the place.
Now that BitTorrent (the company, not those running illegal trackers) has made friends, it's now possible for Apple to "make friends" as well and integrate a DRM laden BitTorrent client into iTunes for shared delivery of restricted content.
Pure fantasy? Quite possible, but if Apple wants to distribute all those tv shows, what better way is there?
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