CNN has posted a follow-up to the previous news that Jon Lech Johansen ("DVD Jon") had reverse engineered Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM) format.
Johansen has formed a company called DoubleTwist to license the format to other companies interested in providing DRM protected files that are playable on Apple's iPod. Apple has not allowed other companies to license FairPlay, effectively blocking most companies from selling DRM protected songs that can play on the iPod.
The article states that "an unnamed client will soon use the technology so its copy-protected content will be playable on iPods". Details are not available yet.
DVD Jon had previously circumvented FairPlay's DRM in 2003, and since then multiple other tools have appeared to provide similar functionality for updated versions of Quicktime/iTunes. Jon is also credited for developing an algorithm named deCSS to strip a DVD of its encryption (called Content Scramble System, or CSS), hence his nickname.
Thursday October 22, 2026 11:01 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple has temporarily removed Keynote, Pages, and Numbers from the App Store, just after releasing an update that added iPhone Duo support and a new Intelligent Assistant.
It is not clear if the apps were removed intentionally, or if it is a bug. Apple has not said when the apps will be reinstated, but if it was in error, they should return soon.
Update: The Mac versions are back without...
Friday October 23, 2026 7:11 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple Music has a 404 page easter egg on the web: a functional iPod that appears when you load a page that does not exist, such as music.apple.com/macrumors.
"Page Not Found," says Apple. "Give this a spin instead."
Apple is clever with this. If you navigate to music.apple.com/ipod instead, the page says "Looking for something?" instead of "Page Not Found."
The easter egg is only...
Friday October 23, 2026 11:05 am PDT by Juli Clover
Some iPhone Duos are already experiencing hinge issues that cause display cracks, based on photos shared on Reddit and the MacRumors forums. Almost all of the display faults are right along the hinge, and most result in a line of bright pixels across one side of the screen.
An iPhone Duo owner in Australia said his device cracked after being opened fewer than 20 times, and there was no...