The most important and least known feature of the upcoming Apple iTablet

Here is the latest iTablet rumor regarding Apple. I have said many times before [although now that it is close, I'm sure half of the population is claiming such precognition] that this product is a no-brainer for Apple. Simply take an iPod Touch, increase the screen size to 10 inches, add some more memory and perhaps some graphics acceleration, a larger battery, and you have a watershed new product.

This product would be great all by itself, but what really will make it sing has not yet been touched upon by any writer yet. Since it will most likely NOT have a cell-phone embedded in it, the iTablet must, must, MUST allow functioning as a secondary screen for your iPhone [not your Macbook, like the above article proposes], preferably over WiFi. There is no technical reason why this cannot be done today. This way all the iphone users out there instantly get a beautiful, large screen to surf at Starbucks with. Also, Apple ensures that the new product will give them exactly what they need...exposure! Imagine, every new owner of one of these bad boys will be able to trot it out publicly, and not simply for narcissistic purposes [which is usually enough for Apple fanboys], but for a functional, practical use that NOBODY can top. Fantastic confluence of engineering and marketing...pure APPLE.

There...you heard it here first.

You lost the war - get over it.

Hard to believe, I know, but companies will not willingly admit when their business models simply will no longer work. Such is the case with ANY type of Digital Rights Management [DRM]. It has been tried over and over again, from Apple's AAC version for audio, to DIVX for video. The problem is very simple. There are existing formats in WIDE adoption that people find perfectly acceptable that are... wait for it...DRM FREE!. Unfortunately for these companies [and fortunately for the rest of us], this means folks get what they want and don't have to contend with invasive, limiting, and cumbersome Orwellian rights management engines that lock you into using the content they way the company wants you to, instead of the way you want to.

And, you guess it, they are at it again. Check out the latest episode in this inane comedy. It talks about how all the major record labels have banded together [yet again] to create a new music format, in order to "enhance" your music listening experience. It is called "CMX" - I think it stands for Charge Me eXtreme amounts of money. The real reason anybody comes up with a new media format anymore is they want to embed DRM into it so that they can control how, when, and where you enjoy the media and ostensibly to control piracy. Remember "Super Audio CD"?. It was NOT about audio quality, it was about DRM! It appears that no one over at the major record labels has figured out [or, more likely, will admit] that people don't like DRM protected music, and will not use it no matter how much lipstick is put on that pig. You can gussy it all up with enticements like album art, special notes, images, features....blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is that folks buy music to listen to it, period. Anything else simply gets in the way and really adds little value.

As amazingly dumb as this appears, there is more. I expect this type of denial to come from the record companies. After all, what else can they do? They are all clinging to DRM like frightened monkeys to a broken limb. They have nothing else left to keep their phoney-baloney jobs, and nobody willingly puts a gun to their own head.

But what is even more astounding is that APPLE is also trying this maneuver. Yep, venerable old Apple, guardian of the weak, defender of the small, is rumored to be prepping a new music format, code-named Cocktail, for the same reason. I am speechless. I am without speech.

Don't believe the advertising. Resist the hype. You should always INSIST that your media come in the following formats [DRM-free of course]:

Music - MP3 [preferably 160-192Kbps]

Photos - JPG [no more than 12x compression, quality level 80% if possible]

Video - This one is tougher; subject of another post. In general, go with H.264 w/PCM audio in a Quicktime or WMA wrapper.

The war is over. Get over it.