Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.
I'd assume that the majority of the code in iTunes and iPods is to control the rights management of files. I'd also bet that most of the calls to Apple customer service regarding iPods is to do with rights management. Doing away with it would save Apple millions.
You could also assume that, at least in the short term, removing DRM from the music sold on iTunes would increase sales.
My experience in online music shops is that the company providing the selling technology never wants to implement DRM, they'd always prefer to sell MP3. It's what their customers want and it's much easier and cheaper to implement. It's always the record company demanding DRM.
So it's no surprise at all that Steve Jobs wants to do away with it. The fact he's come out and said it now (and I'm not convinced he hasn't said it before) is most likely a commercial reading of the current DRM climate, a reading of the many recent articles suggesting record companies are beginning to admit they should think about dropping DRM.
Unlike Australian Tic Tacs, American Tic Tacs are coloured, although not right though. Bite an American Tic Tac in half and you'll see it is white in the middle. I've always suspected this has something to so with more forgiving food colouring laws in the US but I can't find any proof.
Citrus Twist contains half yellow and half light-green Tic Tacs. The yellow are lemon and the light-green are lime.
I tried a lemon one first, and to my horror they taste quite similar to the horrific new Lemon Mint Tic Tacs just introduced here, although not as obnoxious. Perhaps it's the lack of "mint".
The light-green Tic Tacs don't taste like lime. At least not I would expect from lime. I cannot describe the flavour beyond "citrus". I was reminded of Orange Tic Tacs, as I was when I tried the non-mint Passionfruit Tic Tacs. Perhaps they use a similar base that presents itself when the flavour it almost gone.
When eaten together as a pair, as I can't help but think is the point, the "lime" combats the harshness of the lemon, combining to a flavour best described, seriously, as citrus with a twist.
Disturbingly after eating a few lime, I found I could eat the Australian lemon-mint Tic Tacs without gagging. In fact they taste quite nice.
I find though that the mint flavour of lemon-mint builds up after a few to leave a nasty aftertaste, while the lemon in citrus twist doesn't build up to such a degree, and the lime acts as an excellent antidote.
I read on the Tic Tac website that in the 70's, paired flavours were introduced, separated in a similar way as Nerds are. Flavours included tangerine & lime and berry & cherry. Tangerine was so popular it was released in it's own box and renamed, Orange.
Update: After working my way through the packet at the same time as a pack of Lemon-Mint I can add that the lemon Tic Tacs of the citrus twist pack has a stronger lemon flavour than the lemon-mint and that the mint of the lemon-mint is in fact the root of all it's evil.
It also appears that there are more lemon than lime Tic Tacs in the citrus twist pack although that may be completely random.