I think people are missing the point. Apple is actually moving in the direction of less lock-in as far as the consumer goes. They've basically said that in the latest generation many people won't need to buy any one device to use as a hub or to sync, and no additional device is needed to establish service. They seem to have gone as far as content providers will allow in getting away from DRM, and they support syncing music and pictures across quite a few devices, even PCs. Their being able to negotiate a deal where users can Music-Match (replace their own music rips with 256k DRM-free AAC copies that can sync to many devices) is extraordinary. It's a very smart move. It ensures excellent playback quality, and it likely will get some additional people buying from them as music customer.Being able to view photos taken with an iPhone or iPad streamed through Apple TV is a nice added feature for those not set up to do it through a desktop or laptop.
In an environment designed for easy transmission and sharing of data lock-in just doesn't seem to apply. It's nothing like having data tied up in a proprietary format that only expensive software can read.
The only lock-in I see is things being addictively simple.
num1|14 years ago
Do you expect that any non-Apple device will be able to use iCloud? Vendor Lock-in is what's important here, and it's definitely been made stronger by this move. Once all your data is in the cloud, do you want to go through all the effort of moving it to a different cloud (if you even can!) or do you want to cough up a few extra $100 to buy from Apple and make things easy.
SoftwareMaven|14 years ago
Given that Apple is supporting Windows for Photo Stream and iTunes Match at least, I would say the answer is closer to yes than you are intimating here.