Update, later that evening…

One of the problems of going off half-cocked with an early morning breakfast rant is that you could be wrong.  And it seems I am with this one.

The folks at Boing, Boing actually talked to someone at Apple who told them the report that triggered this messy post was incorrect. There is no circuitry in the new Shuffle blocking the use of third-party headphone controllers.

The final line about DRM, however, stands as written.

With multiple Mac, iPods, and others of their products around house, I admit to being a big Apple fan.

But not when they do crap like this.

Even as it attacks DRM on music, Apple is continuing to add more DRM to its own hardware (we recently documented all of Apple’s various hardware DRM restrictions). The latest example is the new iPod Shuffle. According to the careful reviewers at iLounge, third-party headphone makers will have to use yet-another Apple “authentication chip” if they want to interoperate with the new Shuffle.

I wasn’t planning on getting a new Shuffle anyway, but this stupidity would certainly kill the deal if I was.

DRM is ugly no matter how much classy design you wrap around it.