[ReknapS @ Jul 28th 2007 7:07PM]

Hmmm... How can we at Apple make more money??
I know!!! Lets eliminate a large part of the 3rd party market that helps make our product so popular!!!

This is a nifty idea but its one of those - works in theory, but not in practice - ideas. I'd hate to have to go to the always over priced Apple for accessories and replacements parts that I've lost.

[paragraph @ Jul 28th 2007 8:27PM]

Yes, but there is another issue here, apple will (if they have brains) sell chargers for the new iPods, meaning that an thief could just simply buy one of these (probably obscenely priced) chargers from an apple store or the internet and BAM this 'invention' in now rendered moot.

But then again, apple could refuse to sell the charger to anyone but the registered owner to the registered address... but no-one ever fills out registration cards. Or they could just not sell replacement chargers, meaning that if you lost the ability to charge, then now you need a new iPod.

anyways, this will hopefully never come into practice because it make absolutly no sense, to require a password, PIN, or other means of encryption just to CHARGE an Mp3 Player is the definition of pointless/useless.

oh and what about this: instead of charging the iPod, why not steal all of the music, sell it, and buy an iPod?

you can see where this is going, this makes as much sense as having a copy of your operating system verified to make sure it's real just to download direct X . . . yeah

[nih @ Jul 29th 2007 1:01AM]

Read the article buddy: the charger is generic but the iPod refuses to charge unless the same DRM used with songs is present and passes the ownership challenge. It sounds like you'll only be able to charge from your PC in the future, or you'll be required to re-auth by connecting to your PC every few days.

What I want to know is: how will they handle the inevitable iPod reset issue? I don't know an iPod owner yet who hasn't had to look up how to hard reset their player due to memory corruption issues.

How will you repair and blank your bricked iPod when that option is removed to support the anti-theft charging? A completely separate, survivable flash component? Who knows. They'll probably work something out, and we'll be happier for it. I wish cellphones had this feature already.

[bobartig @ Jul 29th 2007 11:38PM]

@paragraph: You are assuming that Apple is full of a bunch of idiots, and would implement such a critical security feature in a terrible fashion. Just because you are too dim to see a good solution to this problem doesn't mean we are all plagued by the same stupidity.