Have your say about Apple issues
The section of the mag where you get the chance to speak your mind on everything Apple-related
Wi-Fi storage woes
In your February 2015 issue the article Improve Your Mac had some great advice. But sometimes all the pieces do not mesh together perfectly, especially when Apple throws a late-cycle spanner in the works.
Under Wish You Had Bought Bigger? you mention the use of external storage devices, and especially wireless ones via Wi-Fi. And under Upgrade Your iOS Device you say “you can also stream movies and TV shows bought from the iTunes Store”.
It is important that people know that late in the iOS 7 period, and continuing in iOS 8, Apple has modified the DRM decode routines in iOS such that movies and TV shows purchased from the iTunes store will no longer play if they are stored on wireless storage devices. In my case, since I primarily enjoy those purchased items when I am travelling on aeroplanes (which I do a lot of) my use of everything I paid for has been taken from me. I have lost over $3,000 paid to Apple!
Apple’s service people tell me that the DRM is now working as designed. I never should have been able to use movies and TV shows in this way. Your readers should be alerted to this issue before buying any external wireless storage device. Christian Brynes
Christian Hall says: Thanks for the tip-off Christian. This fixing of a ‘bug’ in Apple’s DRM will potentially affect many purchasers of wireless storage, and we’re not aware of an official announcement on Apple’s part. Still, Wi-Fi drives are great things to own if DRM allows. Not many folk can afford to splash out on the highest capacity iPhones and iPads, so the ability to offload your media collection is something we should all consider.