iTunes 8.2.1 Reportedly Breaks Palm Pre Syncing

[pdjudd]

Agreed. And before the hypocrisy claims start flowing, I should make it known (I assure you, not to brag, because I am nowhere close to being an expert in any of these fields), but I have taken classes in debate, logic, history, and law. I have not taken an ethics class, because there's no real reason as I was raised with an ethical mindset. Truth is a lost cause around here, since as you mentioned, facts are opinions. Reminds me of a song I know: "Opinions are immunity to being told you're wrong."

jW

I feel the same way. I have actually done a lot of research in to the areas in which I respond to. I never claim perfection unless I have the cajones to back it up. If I am wrong, I will admit it. And, like you, I have a strong sense of morality. I may not be an expert, but I am not a dummy and I know a lot of other things (having experts tends to do wonders I find 😀). I am appalled by the shocking ammounts of ignorace that gets trounced on this forum and the, when all is said and done - we get denounced as 'fanbois' (ironic since the only Apple products that I own are an iPhone, one broken iPod from 4 years ago, and my aging macbook) - way less than most people here and the fact that many of us have been critical of apple in some way shape or form and have publicly aired our grievances on these very forums.

Lets hope that the fact that we know what we are talking about actually means something to someone. Thats what I hope.

 

[pdjudd]

I can pretty much guarantee most published development guides you're reading don't include a licensing agreement either. So, your invalid point is invalid.

What are you talking about???? If the programming books I read were not authorized by their owners, the publishers would have been sued! But the books that I own were published by Microsoft (they are Windows books). Books are copwyritten. They may not have a physical license, but their are still limits to what I can do with them. You aren't making a lick of sense here.

For that matter, such licensing agreements rarely forbid developers from accessing undocumented APIs. More often than not, they just recommend against such things for compatibility reasons (and not in an agreement). In the case of the iPhone, Apple would most likely block you from distributing an app in the App Store that uses undocumented APIs, but there isn't some "law" preventing one from accessing them.

That's why Apple isn't suing palm and also why I am not claiming that Palm broke the law - they didn't They made a major programming faux paux by spoofing a copy-written product. That's something you don't do. They are saying "stay outta our undocumented API's. Its their right - they own them regardless of weather or not they are published or not.

That's your opinion on how the law works.

Lets see. Intellectual property involves the ability to exclusively control your creative works.

Ye[p, that seems pretty consistent with what I was saying. Looks like the law applies. I just checked the copyright on iTunes. It's copywrite is by Apple Inc. That means that Apple Inc. gets to decide how it works and is developed. Try again. This time, show cites when you make a big claim.

 

[Kaibelf]

First off, syncing your media that you paid for and own to a device that you paid for and own isn't stealing... it's syncing. Stop with the senseless comments that Palm was stealing.

Nonsense. They can buy the music from any number of sources, and Palm can develop their own applications. If they want to use Apple's music programs and try to fake their way in by falsely pretending to be an iPod, they are committing fraud. They could easily license or pay for access, or cut a deal with someone else, but instead they tried to find a cheap back door. While some may say they are being innovative in their approach, one could easily counter that they are too lazy or incompetent to develop software to support their own device. That's how these things work.

 

[kdarling]

Lets see. Intellectual property involves the ability to exclusively control your creative works.

Just saying something is Intellectual Property, is meaningless unless you have a legal document to back you up (copyright, patent, etc)... or in the case of trade secrets, that you actually keep it secret from everyone.

Yes, Apple can copyright their code so no one can sell it as their own.

But that in no way prevents anyone from spoofing iTunes. For that, they'd have to rely on EULAs, which are not exactly ironclad documents... and it would look bad for Apple to sue every customer who broke their software license. (E.g. jailbroken phones) And that's assuming here that the iTunes EULA prohibits it specifically.

 

[pdjudd]

Just saying something is Intellectual Property, is meaningless unless you have a legal document to back you up (copyright, patent, etc)... or in the case of trade secrets, that you actually keep it secret from everyone.

iTunes is copyright. That implies that it's comprised of intellectual property no? Call up Apple, they will verify that they in fact posses valid copyrights to iTunes. Here is one document on iTunes content.

Yes, Apple can copyright their code so no one can sell it as their own.

Right

But that in no way prevents anyone from spoofing iTunes. For that, they'd have to rely on EULAs, which are not exactly ironclad documents... and it would look bad for Apple to sue every customer who broke their software license. (E.g. jailbroken phones) And that's assuming here that the iTunes EULA prohibits it specifically.

I have never said that what palm did was illegal. In fact I have said that it was legal (outside of their commitments to the USB group). I said that what palm did was wrong and what Apple did was perfectly acceptable since they have the rights as intellectual property owners to determine the legal usage of their software.

By the way, the USB group agreements are not EULA based as far as I can tell. Those are based on contract law, but that involves the USB group and Palm. It's totally irrelevant. Apple hasn't sued anybody. They just did the software equivalent of saying "get off our yard, play in your own". That's it.

I never have commented anything regarding jail breaking either. Look. What Apple did here should come to no surprise to anybody. Industry experts everywhere has said just that. What Apple did here was perfectly allowed under the law. Palm was wrong to spoof iTunes. Its bad form.

 

[gnasher729]

I don't see how this can be good for Apple. Apple sells an operating system that comes pre-installed with iTunes. Last I heard if a company was going to do something like that they needed to ensure its compatibility as to avoid issues with the man.

It's strange how this argument tends to come up again and again when companies successfully compete with Microsoft: Suddenly there are voices on the Internet that shout Monopoly! Anti-Competitive! The government needs to intervene! Happens to Google, happens to Apple. And if you look closer, suddenly it turns out these voices are somehow connected to Microsoft.

It took zero level of effort from Apple to support the Pre, Palm's engineers did the work. And how in any way can you say that the sale of the Palm Pre is based off of iTunes compatibility? Either way you slice it, it comes across petty.

It's called competition. The iPhone and the Palm Pre compete in the same market. Apple invested time and money to make iTunes sync with the iPhone, to give people one more reason to buy an iPhone. Apple doesn't want its competitors to benefit from that investment, so they stop it. Palm is free to write its own syncing software. All the information they need is freely available. Here's the code to read the XML file containing all the information about the songs and playlists:

NSURL* theURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath: [@"~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml" stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];
NSXMLDocument* xmlDocument = [[NSXMLDocument alloc] initWithContentsOfURL: theURL options: 0 error: nil];

That's two lines of Objective C code, and you have direct access to all the information that iTunes has.

 

[kdarling]

I said that what palm did was wrong and what Apple did was perfectly acceptable since they have the rights as intellectual property owners to determine the legal usage of their software.

Ah, okay. It seemed as if you were saying that Apple could stop Palm by reason of a copyright on iTunes. But you were actually commenting that Apple could stop Palm, simply because Apple wrote iTunes and could rewrite it any way they wished.

Thanks for the clarification.

Cheers!

 

[pdjudd]

It seemed as if you were saying that Apple could stop Palm by reason of a copyright on iTunes.

Well they could try. As a non-lawyer I don't think they would and I am pretty sure that all they could zing Palm for would be falsely implying support. They could stop that with a C&D though. If I were Apple Legal, I would keep my eye on Palm to make sure they didn't do anything nasty, but thats about it. There isn't anything more that can really happen if Palm gets smart

But you were actually commenting that Apple could stop Palm, simply because Apple wrote iTunes and could rewrite it any way they wished.

Indeed. If I was not 100% clear of that in any of my posts, I apologize.

Thanks for the clarification.

You're welcome

Cheers!

Can't argue with that. Now I need to get a beer for that!

 

[pdjudd]

It's strange how this argument tends to come up again and again when companies successfully compete with Microsoft: Suddenly there are voices on the Internet that shout Monopoly! Anti-Competitive! The government needs to intervene! Happens to Google, happens to Apple. And if you look closer, suddenly it turns out these voices are somehow connected to Microsoft.

Indeed. It is as if people are either being deliberately obtuse, have an inherent misunderstanding of case law, or both.

It's called competition. The iPhone and the Palm Pre compete in the same market. Apple invested time and money to make iTunes sync with the iPhone, to give people one more reason to buy an iPhone. Apple doesn't want its competitors to benefit from that investment, so they stop it. Palm is free to write its own syncing software. All the information they need is freely available.

Yep. I have argued that point repeatedly and yet people still fail to understand that.

Here's the code to read the XML file containing all the information about the songs and playlists: [redacted]
That's two lines of Objective C code, and you have direct access to all the information that iTunes has.

OK, now thats going above and beyond. Good job!

 

[Denarius]

oh Booooo! If this is true then Apple is going about things all wrong. They should encourage the Pre and any other phone or mp3 player to sync through iTunes. More sales for iTunes songs & movies plus more positive exposure for Apple.

I'm not saying give them full access to everything, but let them sync the basics like songs & podcasts.

Now instead of being looked at in a positive light Apple has alienated the Palm Pre crowd. 😡

Apple have the largest online music store and dominate the portable music market. By actively locking out other manufacturers from iTunes Apple looks like it is using its market dominance to freeze out competition. I think Apple will be in trouble with the regulators, either in Europe or the US, before much longer.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Great, then you've benefitted from the kind of engineering (reverse engineering) that you cry foul about.


That's obvious. Microsoft doesn't implement AFP. Apple DOES implement SMB using code from Samba which is reverse engineered from Windows. That's exactly what Palm did. They reverse engineered the protocol Apple uses to Sync with iPhone.


My point is that almost every single digital camera out there uses FAT32, regardless of whether it sucks. It's Microsoft's filesystem, and Apple is able to read and write it through reverse engineering, just like Palm does with iTunes. Oh yeah, and iPod uses FAT32 also. Apple's benefitting from that.


NO, Apple reverse engineered FAT32. I've never heard anything about them licensing it. What do you mean "pushed it on everyone"? If that's the case, Apple "pushed" HFS on everyone, and HFS/HFS+ isn't that good of a filesystem compared to something like JFS2 or ZFS. (Are they ever going to ship ZFS for OS X? I've been waiting, hoping...)



No one outside of Apple's 8% market share would give a rat's ass. There wouldn't be devastating fallout at all, because 92% of their Office customers use Windows.

I don't often post here and usually there's enough time between posts for me to forget that arguing with an Apple fanboy is pointless because they operate on 2 simple rules:
Rule 1. Anything Apple does is great.
Rule 2. If Apple is doing something that I hate Microsoft for doing, refer back to Rule #1.

Oh and where do you fanboys find the time to make 100 posts on a single thread? Seriously?

Microsoft's hand was forced with Samba. The court made Microsoft share. Only some of the original versions were reverse engineering. Thus the ultimate server was born.

Microsoft freely released Fat access routines (That and its incredibly basic). Nothing has been reverse engineered.

The office argument... who cares... Honestly. 🙄

BTW, I wouldn't have a lot of hope for Sun's old products except for Java. Oracle like to stuff around.

 

[gnasher729]

Apple have the largest online music store and dominate the portable music market. By actively locking out other manufacturers from iTunes Apple looks like it is using its market dominance to freeze out competition. I think Apple will be in trouble with the regulators, either in Europe or the US, before much longer.

See my previous post. Strange how whenever successfully competes with Microsoft people come up with "market dominance", "freeze out competition" and so on.

Fact is: 1. You are confusing the iTunes music player application with the iTunes Music Store. The iTunes Music Store has nothing to do with this discussion. And every Windows computer, that is 90 percent of the market, come with Windows Media Player pre-installed, but Windows users have to actively go and install the iTunes music player on their computer.

2. The iTunes Music Store is nowhere near being a monopoly. "Online music stores" is not a relevant market. The relevant market is all kind of music sales combined, that is brick and mortar stores, online stores selling CDs, and online stores selling downloadable music. iTunes Music Store has around 20 percent market share, nowhere near a monopoly.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

What Palm did is unethical. Plain and simple. To everyone crying about Apple being meanies your WRONG and have no clue how the world of software works.

Apple is supposed to be supporting users with iTunes to encourage people to buy music and movies from their store. By excluding users from that store by purposely disabling hardware, they only harm themselves while proving time and again they are anti-competition. They have no obligation to support 3rd party hardware, but by actively stopping it from simply syncing to music a user legitimately purchased, they are engaging in anti-competition and tying, which is in fact ILLEGAL. Even something as simple as a printer maker trying to FORCE you to buy THEIR paper to use with their printer is 100% ILLEGAL (See http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sherman+Anti-Trust+Act ) and read under "Tying Arrangements" and see why Apple is wrong). Here, we have Apple trying to force you to buy their hardware to use their software (again and again and again, be it the OS or iTunes; it doesn't matter. It's ILLEGAL and no amount of lies from the peanut gallery that clearly doesn't know how to read things like the Sherman Anti-Trust Act will change that).

The SAD thing is that Apple has some good products. It should not have to resort to low-life tactics to get you to buy their hardware. It should compete like everyone else in the Capitalist system. Competition is good for consumers and its why Anti-Trust Laws exist in the first place. Companies should design and market the best possible products they can and compete for a consumer's dollar, not try to circumvent and litigate their way to your wallet. That's just pathetic.

Palm paid NO MONEY for any type of licensing to use their hardware with Apples iTunes service. They hacked into it. (Illegal)

They didn't hack iTunes PERIOD. They spoofed an Apple ID the SAME WAY Mozilla can spoof Internet Explorer in order to use web sites that don't support Mozilla. Sorry, there is nothing illegal about that. Quite the opposite, it is illegal to TIE one product to another product in different markets and purposely exclude the competition (see Microsoft Browser cases). Apple doesn't give any of the money it will make from selling music and movies to Palm, so WTF should Palm pay them a dime? Palm is helping Apple by encouraging even more music and movie sales from the iTunes store. Apple is shooting itself in the foot to protect its leg....

 

[kurosov]

The SAD thing is that Apple has some good products. It should not have to resort to low-life tactics to get you to buy their hardware. It should compete like everyone else in the Capitalist system. Competition is good for consumers and its why Anti-Trust Laws exist in the first place. Companies should design and market the best possible products they can and compete for a consumer's dollar, not try to circumvent and litigate their way to your wallet. That's just pathetic

Go back and read posts properly. The ones using 'low-life tactics' where palm in their implementation of this syncing feature. If they had followed standard procedure like all the other device makers who have itunes library syncing then there would be no problem.

it is illegal to TIE one product to another product in different markets and purposely exclude the competition (see Microsoft Browser cases). Apple doesn't give any of the money it will make from selling music and movies to Palm, so WTF should Palm pay them a dime? Palm is helping Apple by encouraging even more music and movie sales from the iTunes store. Apple is shooting itself in the foot to protect its leg....

Apple are not tying products here as itunes is a free piece of software designed specifically to be used with their hardware. This is nothing like your paper example where you have to buy both the printer, ink and paper.

In the case of macs and os x they are classed as a single product and the os x disks you buy in stores are like upgrades to your product. What will you complain about next? apple not allowing other phone manufacturers to use iphone os on their devices?

 

[BaldiMac]

Apple is supposed to be supporting users with iTunes to encourage people to buy music and movies from their store. By excluding users from that store by purposely disabling hardware, they only harm themselves while proving time and again they are anti-competition.

If they only harm themselves, isn't that the opposite of anti-competition?

They have no obligation to support 3rd party hardware, but by actively stopping it from simply syncing to music a user legitimately purchased, they are engaging in anti-competition and tying, which is in fact ILLEGAL.

Tying products is not illegal, except in certain circumstances.

http://www.ftc.gov/bc/antitrust/tying_sale.shtm

Note that one of the requirements is monopoly or sufficient market power.

http://www.ftc.gov/bc/antitrust/monopolization_defined.shtm

"Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area. Some courts have required much higher percentages."

What market are they a monopoly in?

The SAD thing is that Apple has some good products. It should not have to resort to low-life tactics to get you to buy their hardware. It should compete like everyone else in the Capitalist system. Competition is good for consumers and its why Anti-Trust Laws exist in the first place. Companies should design and market the best possible products they can and compete for a consumer's dollar, not try to circumvent and litigate their way to your wallet. That's just pathetic.

Writing better software than your competitors is not "low-life tactics." It is competition. Apple does not prevent their competition from accessing the purchased good (music). It even provides sync services for access by third parties.

How is Apple preventing any company from writing a better music manager than iTunes?

They didn't hack iTunes PERIOD. They spoofed an Apple ID the SAME WAY Mozilla can spoof Internet Explorer in order to use web sites that don't support Mozilla. Sorry, there is nothing illegal about that.

That is completely true.

Quite the opposite, it is illegal to TIE one product to another product in different markets and purposely exclude the competition (see Microsoft Browser cases).

Microsoft is a convicted, abusive monopolist. Apple is not. Tying was not what got them in to trouble. Actively hindering the ability of the competition from creating and marketing a competitive product was the problem. Prohibiting tying by the EU is part of the punishment.

Apple doesn't give any of the money it will make from selling music and movies to Palm, so WTF should Palm pay them a dime?

Apple isn't asking for Palm to pay them anything.

Palm is helping Apple by encouraging even more music and movie sales from the iTunes store. Apple is shooting itself in the foot to protect its leg....

No, Apple is protecting its most profitable market at the expense of one of its least profitable markets.

 

[pdjudd]

Writing better software than your competitors is not "low-life tactics." It is competition. Apple does not prevent their competition from accessing the purchased good (music). It even provides sync services for access by third parties.

First I want to thinak you for taking on Magnus. His ranting though will still continue. I am very sure that he has been told exactly what anti-trust is and will continue to mis-represent it.

Second, I want to supplement your post - Apple even in some cases provides capabilities for other phones (like the MissingSnc) that iTunes can't even offer - like document sync. If that isn;t competeiton, I don't know what would.

 

[jotto4]

8.2.1 also breaks Remote Speakers

not only does 8.2.1 break pre syncing (which is fine with me because Palm cheated to make it work) but it apparently disables it's own function...REMOTE SPEAKERS. I have 2 airport expresses, each hooked up to speakers in the house (main internet controlled by time capsule)

installed 8.2.1 today, the ONLY change to my entire mac-centric house today, and i no longer have access to play music on remote speakers. my apple remote app on my iPhone 3Gs will not allow control to change speakers either.

um, hello, this is pretty huge. WTF Apple? I love ya, but WTF?

hope 8.2.2 is out in like 3 minutes...have people over right now and I can't play music from my computer to my stereo system.

i may have to use...:gasp:...the radio.

 

[MrSEC]

Apple is getting just like Microsoft. I thought the left wanted to share wealth,and knowledge.....😛

 

[Goona]

Apple is getting just like Microsoft. I thought the left wanted to share wealth,and knowledge.....😛

Yeah they are a business out to take your money, everything else is is conjecture.

 

[marksman]

It is redonkulous that people think Apple should just give up something that is an advantage and benefit of the users of their hardware to any competitor who cares to try and take it for free.

It makes absolute sense why Apple would protect their environment and allow this to remain something that is a benefit of owning an iPhone, for example.

Why doesn't RIM let my iPhone use their network and send blackberry messages?

 

[marksman]

Apple is supposed to be supporting users with iTunes to encourage people to buy music and movies from their store. By excluding users from that store by purposely disabling hardware, they only harm themselves while proving time and again they are anti-competition. They have no obligation to support 3rd party hardware, but by actively stopping it from simply syncing to music a user legitimately purchased, they are engaging in anti-competition and tying, which is in fact ILLEGAL. Even something as simple as a printer maker trying to FORCE you to buy THEIR paper to use with their printer is 100% ILLEGAL (See http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sherman+Anti-Trust+Act ) and read under "Tying Arrangements" and see why Apple is wrong). Here, we have Apple trying to force you to buy their hardware to use their software (again and again and again, be it the OS or iTunes; it doesn't matter. It's ILLEGAL and no amount of lies from the peanut gallery that clearly doesn't know how to read things like the Sherman Anti-Trust Act will change that).

The SAD thing is that Apple has some good products. It should not have to resort to low-life tactics to get you to buy their hardware. It should compete like everyone else in the Capitalist system. Competition is good for consumers and its why Anti-Trust Laws exist in the first place. Companies should design and market the best possible products they can and compete for a consumer's dollar, not try to circumvent and litigate their way to your wallet. That's just pathetic.



They didn't hack iTunes PERIOD. They spoofed an Apple ID the SAME WAY Mozilla can spoof Internet Explorer in order to use web sites that don't support Mozilla. Sorry, there is nothing illegal about that. Quite the opposite, it is illegal to TIE one product to another product in different markets and purposely exclude the competition (see Microsoft Browser cases). Apple doesn't give any of the money it will make from selling music and movies to Palm, so WTF should Palm pay them a dime? Palm is helping Apple by encouraging even more music and movie sales from the iTunes store. Apple is shooting itself in the foot to protect its leg....

I have you currently do not nor have any future plans to be involved in running a business in any way shape or form except as a most nominal employee.

Your fundamental lack of understanding on some of these issues would be cripping to having any chance of success.

 

[Lanbrown]

Palm Pre adopters:

Oops! Should have waited 2 days for the announcement of the 3G S if you wanted iTunes compatibility! 🙂

There are ways around it. Other companies use the settings in iTunes but sync to the device outside of iTunes. You really don't have to do anything; just use iTunes like you do normally.

 

[zey]

When Apple locks out competitors you hail them... [...]

Crazy, isn't it. I'm actually surprised the music industry has been so quiet on the subject. They might like to, I dunno, maybe sell music through iTunes rather than use it as a vendor and platform lock-in mechanism. When Apple kicks Palm hard in the balls, they're kicking the music industry's customers in the balls.

No company has EVER been as anticompetitive as Apple.
I TRULY regret buying my iMac as you guys make me look like you zealots.

A lesson to learn for next time: more research before purchasing. They've always been this loony.

 

[pika2000]

not only does 8.2.1 break pre syncing (which is fine with me because Palm cheated to make it work) but it apparently disables it's own function...REMOTE SPEAKERS. I have 2 airport expresses, each hooked up to speakers in the house (main internet controlled by time capsule)

installed 8.2.1 today, the ONLY change to my entire mac-centric house today, and i no longer have access to play music on remote speakers. my apple remote app on my iPhone 3Gs will not allow control to change speakers either.

I have 8.2.1, 2 Airport Expresses, and they all still work fine as remote speakers. Nothing changes.

 

[kdarling]

It is redonkulous that people think Apple should just give up something that is an advantage and benefit of the users of their hardware to any competitor who cares to try and take it for free.

Sure, but the speed in which they did it, tells us something important:

The fact that they so quickly and deliberately blocked access, demonstrates that Apple themselves see the Pre as a meaningful and immediate threat. Otherwise they would've ignored it or taken their time.

I remember back when Apple, at first, winked at jailbreaking and even unlocking. They weren't threatened by it at first. Then a few months later, they realized that something like 20% of iPhones were being unlocked. Suddenly it wasn't cute any more, and they released a baseband update to try to prevent it.