Inhibiting Creativity: iPad and iPhone DRM
The Apple App store is recieving alot of flak over it's restrictive measures.
Like every other person in the planet, you are probably just as curious about the latest features that the iPad would bring. Although like most consumers, I could not help feeling disappointed that iPad and iPhone shares the same applications.
If you buy an iPad which is significantly more expensive than the iPhone only to view iPhone applications on a bigger screen, then it seems like they are just pulling your leg right? The only advantage that we have is being able to read ebooks in an easier and fancier way by flipping through the pages in a high tech kind of way.
I guess more and more developers are seeing the problem with sharing the same application for the iPhone and iPad, and so they are starting to develop software that are specifically built for iPad applications.
However, not to burst your bubble or anything, but iPad also shares another thing with the iPhone that most software developers wish they would not: the iPhone DRM. It stands for Digital Rights Management which prohibit applications or programs from being used without the approval of Apple.
What’s wrong with DRM if they are only meant to protect Apple’s copyrights over their devices? However, they are already inhibiting actions that are not under the copyright infringement law. Buying an iPad is like buying a calculator, you use it for what it is made for, which is to compute numbers, but you cannot do anything with it other than that. It is like an old-fashioned person telling you that creating softwares are just for smart people.
Technology simply is not the same as before. People should be given the right to do whatever they like for something that they paid for already. If you buy a new laptop, you probably installed different softwares, customized your background, desktop image and everything and all those crazy things only you could ever come up with. However, with the iPad, you have to buy everything from the Apple App store. What if they do not have what you are looking for? Or what if that particular software is available from a third-party applications that would offer it for a cheaper price or even for free? There is not even a trial-version for Apple apps, it’s either you buy them or not.
Is apple inhibiting competition and creativity that any ideal market should have? Although they say that they would do things fairly, a number of developers have already complained about their applications being rejected by the Apple App store. So where is the justice in that? It simply is like another television, you just buy it to watch, but you cannot reopen and customize it, like you would in a car. But this is a technological gadget being used to hamper one’s growth and creativity. With all the research and technological advancements that we have right now, and now someone would simply tell us to just go back to the basics and stop striving for more because the DRM technologies just would not allow it.
