real reason

More likely, rather than shutting down pirated copys Jobs probably wants to shut down people that have paid for their OS but have hacked it to run on their cheap dell/HP rather than paying over the odds for the same PC in a pretty box

If Apple does this, I'll sell my iMac

I just bought an iMac in November. I love it, even though the hardware is pricey. One of the main reasons I'm getting off Windows is due to all the Phone-Home-Ware.

If Apple invokes some stealth security patch that I can't "opt-out"... I will put my iMac up on Ebay, and never look back.

It looks like my Linux boxes are going to be the only machines that aren't going to be burdened by obtrusive company spy-ware / mal-ware / marketing-data-mining-ware.

prior art?

Prometheus had his liver eaten and regenerated every day thousands of years before Microsoft began with the WGA, so there's your prior art...

Differences

I said it before and I will say it again, in case any McFanboys did not hear me.

There is no difference between a company named after fruit and a company named after a miniscule software.

Apple was thought to be "the good guys" and all sorts of over simplistic notions of right or wrong. This was actually just due to a court ruiling that basically allowed the vole to "borrow" their design back in the day. So this caused people to have sympathy and pitty the Apple.

But give the dog a bone and look how his bollocks grow.

Soon you will have the "Safari Genuine Advantage Check" which is genuinely disadvantageous. And guess what? it will proceed with that check without sending any information to apple!
Sounds great right?!?


P.S.

Isn't it ironic that microsoft is the source of most bloatware?

Any clap apple fans?

i wonder if the apple fanz will still give him a big clap when Job announce it on the stage? just like whatever good or non-sense thing he ever said on the stage?

WGA confusion

I must admit I'm really confused about what the big fuss is over WGA. I upgraded a desktop to Vista over 10 months ago and bought a new laptop with Vista installed on it about 5 months ago, and in neither case have I had trouble with authenticity checks or whatever it is that WGA does which ruins people's computer experience.

The only time I've even remotely thought about Microsoft checking to see if my copy of Vista is valid is in the rare event that I need an obscure hotfix or want some other Microsoft software which wants you to take 15 seconds to download and run a verification tool. If people aren't willing to spend a minute every few months to get the occasional WGA-secured download, I don't see how they can bring themselves to spend an hour buying Vista.

TOYMAKER Apple

TOYMAKER Apple, roflol

Good point. Honestly, they should be working on improving iTunes' functionality. Just because it's relatively good doesn't mean that its good. It's got some of that goo'ol Microsoft 'user friendly' style tardness. Not as much as WMP, still, not impressive at all.

osx86

sounds like they want to try stopping osx86

didn't they already attempt that with TPM?

Copy Windows DRM?

If the mother ship can kill an OS installation or "tilt bits" can cut services, then so can a virus or a bug. The original Vista was reported to call its mother daily. That also takes an immense server system in Redmond to handle such bursty high volume Web traffic.

At the same time, the vendors should be paid for their wares. The vendors assume that every installation is a home entertainment kiosk they operate, their vision of the Web's future.

So what to do for those of us who just want to get work done like running IDE's? How about a higher cost version that lacks entertainment features and can't run them? Even a Web seminar would require a separate entertainment-version machine. If it costs too much to maintain XP indefinitely why not an XP that is a stripped Vista or its successor?

For some user populations the fact that Microsoft has made some governments source sites to be allowed business should worry places like Taiwan who are made that much more vulnerable to attack. This is not a frivolous remark, actually.

Would Apple be trying to eliminate running OS-X on non-Apple hardware also?

Running Vista on a laptop won't cause most users problems except for the operating overhead. But what about motherboards with PCIe slots and upgradeable memory? At what point will the OS go oops and die?

Hmm.

Seems to me like Apple is trying to thwart the OSX86 hackers, not their own paying customers. Nothing about activation or a licensing key (which is used on some, but not all of Apple's software) is present.

An OS-level hardware check would probably be to ensure that OSX is running on a Mac, which is completely within their legal bounds to enforce. When they start requiring product activation, registration, or heavy DRM is when they will alienate a lot of their customer base.

You're talking about a company that responds to backlash from their customers, i.e. the iPhone price drop and subsequent rebate, or the Aperture rebate about a year before that.

But, hey, it wouldn't be very sensationalist to take an objective approach.

YES!

I can't wait!

IDG invented the idea

RoughlyDrafted.com explained why Apple's patent has nothing to do with Microsoft's WGA spyware. Windows Enthusiasts can only see the world through Microsoft-tinted glasses though, so they interpret everything Apple does as a way to be like Microsoft.

OH Jobs

Oh Jobs,

Go ahead with your DRM. But... be advised you won't be able to continue overcharging for your products, as you have been doing. UBUNTU is free. [just wish they had an easy GUI] Anyone want to buy a one button mouse?

The day Apple goes down the DRM road

is the day I and many others will trade our Macs for bricks running Linux.

There is large group of us Mac users whose main attraction to the mac is far from fanboyism (is that a word?), or susceptibility to Job's RDF. It's because we have found a platform that works well for us, a platform that we don't have to massage to keep running, and nor have we to read tons of man pages to make them run to our liking, and don't have to deal with Microsoft's draconian activation and anti piracy practices.

But, I mark my words. If Apple introduces anything resembling DRM into OSX that threatens to make my life the slightest more difficult, is the day OS X goes out and Ubuntu comes in

WGA? Are you kidding me?

WGA isn't the reason people have been "staying away" from Vista. If WGA was an issue, how has XP done so well? That was a WGA nightmare. The Windows Genuine Advantage is one of the things that actually works fairly well on Vista. No, the reason people are staying away from Vista is because the so-called "experts" spread crap, and the sheeple believe you. Happily using Vista64 here... working smooth.

Get your facts right.

In repsonse to ...
" After all WGA is one of the main reasons that people have stayed away from Vista"

errr, sorry, i think you are a bit confused here, there are plenty other reasons why people and businesses have avoided vista so far. WGA may be a pain in the ass at times, especially if it kick backs your genuine code, but it hardly has the average joe in the street quaking in their boots.
Whilst i accept that the 'features' such as WGA are of zero benefit to the user, and hope that Apple re-thinks their plans, for L'inq to continually bash vista at every possibe opportunity is just poor and cheap journalism. XP has had WGA for even longer than vista.

muah ha haaaa

And I thought I read about how "anti-drm" they were. HAAAAAA

or should I say "Baaaaaa"

SANTA left AI Present Gift.... 42Enjoy IT

"If the software is pirated then Jobs Mob shall deem the software unworthy in its sight and make it unusable."

Why not build upon it? XXXXPand IT ..... QuITe XXXXPonentially in many Tiered Dimensions/Virtual Pathways carrying Streams of Binary MetaData. Plug into those XXXXStreams and you are Cruisin and On Station for the RockIT Nation.

cc Rolling Stone.

Another Proprietary Vendor Lock-In Schema

Apple Inc.'s products are monopolised far more than that of MIcrosoft Corp.'s, infact the latter vendor seems relatively lenient in comparison, however the introduction of DRM once again to Mac OS X may cause irritation for many people.

Of course it's very much dependant on the method used to implement anti-piracy mechanisms into the Operating System and as to whether or not certain features will be restricted if the Operating System is found to be illegal, but as Apple Inc. control the Operating System and hardware components as it is, the only people who will be affected are those who purchase an Apple Macintosh in the first instance.

Mac OS X Leopard in my opinion has been a great disappointment and the fact that it is being criticised is good; a product should be criticised, it is the only form of consumer feedback which will enable Apple Inc. to make a better product.

Apple Inc.'s DRM proposition is something that will only deter me from purchase their monopolised Operating System platform even more-so than it does already.

I don't own an Apple iPod, and I don't own an Apple iPhone either; infact I'm glad I'm not one of the majority of people who do. I like being myself; after all, I'm a Linux User.

Not Successful

Not likely it has been that successful in the US as the majority of windows OS installs are done at the factory by Royal OEMs.

Microsoft putting WGA on Windows is akin to having Walmart come knock on your door every Sunday morning asking to search your home in order to prove you have stolen something.

If your neighbor says that you have stolen something from him he cannot enter your home to search it. Nor would you be likely to allow him to do so. We just don't give up our rights to our privacy because some mega corp feels that they potentially may have been the victim of a thief.

We don't let the police enter our homes and search them even if our neighbors contacted them. The police won't even contact you when the complaint is lodged unless there's some evidence. They won't be allowed into your home unless they have a warrant because there's cause to show.

Why would anyone allow Microsoft to put WGA on their computers and why would anyone buy the Mac OS if they attempt to perform the same search and seizure in violation of our privacy as Microsoft has. Why would anyone even consider an Apple Macintosh?

Do you guys really feel your morality is better than mine and that your acceptance of their warrantless search is appropriate to me? Just because you would allow it doesn't mean that I should or would.

In fact, you are doing yourselves an injustice as well as your children because you allow these mega corporations the opportunity (which in a few years will become a right to them) to set a precedence that other large companies in other industries will attempt.

Laws need to be put in place that limit this behavior and demand that all attempts to search the hard drive or read any area of memory in the computer requires court orders to access.

It should matter not at all whether the big corporation is loosing money to the thieves. They are no more entitled than we are as individuals. In the US a corporation is considered an individual. So, we have rights that protect us from the individual.

So, get real. Continuing this behavior by large corporations puts the focus on OSes that are designed to treat our privacy with respect. Open source is that ideology that ensures the safety of our privacy from large corporations.

Some industry and news pundits have stated that there is no longer any such thing as privacy and that we need to get used to it. They are paid schills. Saying so doesn't make it true.

Uhoh

"that annoys even the most loyal Microsoft user."

Full ACK

But know, we are not the "only" ones which are treatend as "illegal" users, when the Apple/Windows "Genuine Advantage" Server is down.

Shared distress is half distress^^

test

only test

WGA

Heh! I just had to deal with a family laptop with the nasty WGA thing on it. Obviously the original CDs were lost to restore the system and to remove the 'infection' I would have had to do some short term tricks. The solution? Ubuntu.

Let Apple do their thing, there will always be some suck^D^D^D^D *customers* willing to spend their money on them. The rest of us can move to something better.