Wired: Have iPod, Will Secretly Bootleg

A idéia é simples: entre numa loja com seu iPod no bolso (o MP3-player da Apple, que tem um disco interno de 5Gb), plugue o bichinho em um Mac com OS X e copie qualquer programa para o seu bolso. Saia da loja feliz da vida.

Kevin Webb, a computer consultant from Dallas, was browsing his local CompUSA when he saw a young man walk toward him listening to an iPod. Webb recognized the iPod’s distinctive ear buds.

The teenager stopped at a nearby display Macintosh, pulled the iPod from his pocket and plugged it into the machine with a FireWire cable. Intrigued, Webb peeped over the kid’s shoulder to see him copying Microsoft’s new Office for OS X suite, which retails for $500.

When the iPod is plugged into a Macintosh, its icon automatically pops up on the desktop. To copy software, all the kid had to do was drag and drop files onto the iPod’s icon. Office for MacOS X is about 200 MB; it copies to the iPod’s hard drive in less than a minute.

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“I thought there’s no point in getting any more involved in this imbroglio,” Webb said. “Besides, this is Texas. You never know what he might have been carrying.”

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When installing Office, users simply drag and drop the Office folder to their hard drive. Everything is included, including a self-repair mechanism that replaces critical files in the system folder.

By contrast, a lot of software on the Windows platform relies on a bunch of system files that are only installed during an installation process. Simply copying an application from one machine to another will not work.