Open or Closed?

It seems that the Apple music store is now encrypt­ing their XML files. I’ve con­firmed that it is indeed doing so and won­der what this means in terms of changes to the XML files (more info on the con­tent of those XMLs up until yes­ter­day can be found in a pre­vi­ous entry. If any­one out there knows why Apple is now encrypt­ing what looked like an open stan­dard, please drop me a note (I’ve noticed that a few read­ers are com­ing in from Apple.com and would be inter­ested in know­ing what the “party line” is on this).

This is a bit wor­ri­some as it seems to close up more infor­ma­tion on the Apple store. Does that mean that Apple is see­ing its see­ing as a closed one? If that’s the case, it’s a real shame.