Chinese paper finds iPhone, iPad too legal

When most people complain about the iPhone or iPad being “locked down,” what they mean is that you have to get apps for them through Apple’s walled garden and nowhere else.

But the People’s Daily newspaper—the official paper of China’s ruling Communist party—goes a little farther than that.

“There are many disadvantages” to the gadgets, it wrote. “For example you cannot install pirate software on them, you cannot download [free] music, and you need to pay for movies you watch on them.”

This has to be at least a little embarrassing given that the Chinese government has been trying to shake the perception that China isn’t doing enough to respect others’ intellectual property.

(Though from another perspective, one wonders why the columnist has apparently never heard of jailbreaking. And music synced from a computer will go onto an iPad whether it was downloaded free or not, and movies can be converted with an app such as Handbrake…)

(Found via Techdirt.)