For all the elegance of Apple's popular iPod, there has always been one significant flaw in its setup: if you wanted to purchase music online to play on it (as opposed to just, um, appropriating songs from various file-sharing programs), you had to do so through the company's iTunes music store.
That changed in late July when RealNetworks released a beta version of a technology called Harmony that mimics iPod's copy-protection software. That means the songs sold on its Real Music Store can now also run on Apple's player.
Apple said it was "stunned" at Real's move and has threatened...