NY Times says beware the iPhone handcuffs

Excellent article by Randall Stross describes a few of the ways Apple is locking down the iPhone much the same way they have done with the iPod. I’m not all that interested in the phone since it only works on Cingular’s network, although I do own an iPod. I don’t purchase music from iTunes because of DRM and the music just sounds terrible in AAC format. I’d much rather buy the CD and rip it using a higher quality bit rate.

One of my friends purchases his music from iTunes and then copies it to CD where he can rip it into the format of his choice. That seems like an awful convoluted way to get my music in the format I desire. I like the idea of having a backup CD in case my drive were to crash. I assume I can backup my iTunes folders but the manner and strange folder structure they use is far from being user friendly.

The iPod is a great device. Although I have yet to purchase any iTunes music I have purchased several audiobooks from the iTunes store. My rationale is that, unlike music, I listen to the books once rather than time after time. I don’t need to move the audio books around to my other devices nor do I care if they’re backed up. There doesn’t seem to be a “one size fits all” solution to this DRM mess. For now I’ll continue to purchase CDs and do the ripping myself.