Not15CharsLong

This is not quite the outcome I foresaw. I genuinely expected Trump to entirely ghost Rodriguez, because she had the gall to accept the Peace Prize, whereas she should, of course, have refused it outright and demanded it to be awarded to Trump instead.

Absent that scenario, I fully expected a tearful ceremony in the Rose Garden, where she would hand the medal to him, as the only True Recipient. That didn't happen either, and what we got right now seems a bit... forced? Like: Trump's advisors got through to him (no simple feat!) and positioned her as the only slightly viable path toward success in Latin America, and got him to take the L?

Anyway, total insanity...

"People stopping stealing iPhones" is not going to happen. And the current Apple policy of "well, enter your AppleID credentials to unlock this phone" deals with that pretty effectively.

What we're talking about here, is disabling that possibility once the fingerprint sensor (OK), screen (huh) or battery (double huh) has been replaced.

In other words: after which "repairs" exactly does Apple get to disable a device? Some of these would enable fencing, others definitely not... TL;DR: yeah, difficult!

Commercial karaoke establishments are, outside Japan and Korea, not very relevant.

The at-home market in the UK, on the other hand, is pretty significant. None of these households know how to operate Adobe Audition or something similar: they just want to sing along with whatever is on the telly*.

There are lots of companies catering to that market. In fact: in the past, Apple was more than happy to allow them on their platform, to fill in the gaps left by Apple's inability to negotiate certain agreements.

In the past year or so, Apple has gotten more and more restrictive with regards to "soundalike" content. And we now know why... Is this inevitable? Possibly. Is it fair? Maybe. Is it yet another cottage industry that Apple strangulates? Definitely.

*And yes, this is a very simplistic caricature by choice. Of course UK consumers are more sophisticated, but...

Interesting yet very anti-competitive move by Apple.

There are lots and lots of existing providers of karaoke tracks: these invest (depending on quality) between several dollars and several hundreds of dollars to record "soundalike" tracks

Sales of such tracks do not generate royalties for the original performer, but do pay out to the composer (per track sale and for things like public performance).

Apple is now garroting these middlemen using technology, and most likely using this capability as leverage in negotiating with recording artists ("hey, give us a 14-day exclusive on iMusicOrWhateverWeCallItThisWeek, and we'll kick back an additional point on residuals").

This is bad news for the existing providers, and barely good news for anyone else.

I would really like to believe this is not some sort of cynical attempt to circumvent current-and-future "right to repair" laws.

On the one hand: yes, this does allow third parties to carry out repairs on Apple equipment. On the other hand: no, this is so costly and inconvenient that it effectively locks out everyone but Apple anyway.

So, what would it take to enable cost-effective repair of Apple equipment? A relaxation of "parts DRM", even if it weakens overall ecosystem security? A mandate to enable side-loaded OSes to extend hardware lifetime and perhaps enable certain kinds of (security-sensitive) repairs?

I truly don't know...