jdillaaa

Lovely design. Question, why would we not just use Apple's official site? For example, search for something on https://tools.applemusic.com/en-us, then just click sign in on the top right once you select your music. I believe there is a way to see your current library too.

Great work.

Edit: Changed link.

Interesting. I just use a thumb drive in my car with a ton of MP3s on it (which would achieve what the Zen Stone did), but cars didn't have USB inputs in 2007 so I see how the Stone could be useful.

For standard music listening though, I have not been able to find anything that beats the iPod's touch wheel. Load rockbox onto an iPod classic (swap out the HDD with an SD card), and it is hard to beat IMO. You can store FLAC/Vorbis/MP3/WAV whatever it is you have, and you then have a device that is just for music with none of the distractions that smart phones bring. It has really transformed how I listen to music, because I am connected to a device that is designed for just playing music with no bells or whistles.

The book "The Inner History of Devices" (https://sherryturkle.com/books-research/inner-history-device...) talks about the anthropology of how we connect to our devices, and how this connection is of course associated with everything that we do with our phones. Music blends into web browsing that becomes numbing, which blends into phone calls, which blends into messaging, etc ...

I can now leave my phone at home, and just carry my iPod with me, and the fact that the device I have on me is for music, and nothing else, changes how I experience it. It is super easy to navigate throughout your music collection with the touch wheel, whereas most other MP3 players have a mediocre touch screen that is laggy/unresponsive (https://www.sony.com/electronics/walkman/nw-a30-series/buy/n...) or buttons that are just as cumbersome to use.

Pretty sad that Apple discontinued their iPod line and how most enjoyable music solutions require a device with an IP stack. The "essence" of the devices that play music seem to distance us from the music, because our music falls into the category of all of the other apps, like Netflix, our internet browsers, or social media if you use it ...

Definitely would never happen. iCloud is a huge lock in factor to iOS / macOS. Opening that up would be like opening up iMessage, it would allow way too many people to easily leave the Apple ecosystem. iCloud + iMessage are two of the best features of iOS (and that lovely UI + good security)

I did not know Apple Music was on Android. I wonder if they're using FairPlay (used on iOS and macOS) to do DRM or if they use Widevine?

Apple Music's recently released web portal uses Widevine to do DRM (same as Netflix and Spotify web) https://tools.applemusic.com/en-us

FairPlay on Android surely has some bugs if this is the case ...

This. Jobs and Co. brought iTunes to Windows (reluctantly) because people were not willing to buy a Mac just to use their potentially new iPod. The underlying philosophy was that people who used the iPod would be more likely to buy into Apple's ecosystem in the future (such as buying a Mac). Seemed to work pretty well, but a million other factors can also be attributed to increased Mac sales post iPod. I mean how could you see anything but beauty in that magical little MP3 player :-)

Very interesting, hopefully this will change the _sham_ of user data protection laws that America has in place now.

Senator Wyden is awesome -- the leading voice in Congress about consumer data protection, cybersecurity, and privacy.

It is a tragedy that only a few members of Congress care about this stuff. We are heading into some seriously dark times if we do not start to take data protection significantly more seriously than we do now.

Regulation is the only way to stop this nonsense, we sure as hell know that the companies are not going to do it themselves. The data is just so profitable.