And they stopped doing this years ago. (To be precise, they did not disable it for existing models, but they did not add new models.)
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iTunes 9 Breaks Palm Pre Syncing Once Again
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Well, I remember back in the early days of iTunes before the iPod, the Apple Store had a section of supported third-party MP3 players and on the website they listed what was supported. I used a Creative Labs Rio player and it worked fine. Just drag the songs you want from your library over to the player. The syncing is much better when the original iPod came out. Never went back to another player to test it since I got my 2nd generation iPod.
What an awesome idea.
Seriously, if Palm can't do it themselves, they should license one of these products and give it to all of their customers.
Oh, and I agree with Inkswamp: If it's a hack job, then it can and probably will break in a future revision. Even though some things should be easier (like Safari plug-ins) you have to decide if it's worth it, knowing that a future update could break compatibility. That's the price you pay for using unsupported, undocumented methods (see also APE and Input Managers).
Nice...
You see, to prevent Palm from syncing is not the goal. The goal is to disrupt the harmony of Pre owners and spoil the ownership experience. Apple wants Pre owners to regret buying it and regret not going with the iPhone....which just works.
You see, to prevent Palm from syncing is not the goal. The goal is to disrupt the harmony of Pre owners and spoil the ownership experience. Apple wants Pre owners to regret buying it and regret not going with the iPhone....which just works.
I agree with this. Palm is not only piggybacking off apple in that they're using itunes, they're piggybacking off tech journalists' fascination with apple to get themselves in the news by perpetuating this ridiculous game. Of course the right solution is for Palm to create their own software - I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard. But that wouldn't get any press.
Right, I think the support might still be in there for old players.
Honestly, the trend has probably always been that iTunes has supported the most popular digital music players. Used to be, this was stuff like the Rio line. Now, it is some variety of iPod. Since it is their player and they control 75% of the player market, they really don't need to worry about anything else. There have to be tons of other media jukeboxes out there, even today. Why pick iTunes? If you're Palm, why not find something open source, LGPL, that you can add your own distinctive capabilities and branding to?
Nobody would care about this story if iTunes were some crap shareware I wrote myself. Nobody would complain about CrapTunes not supporting other players out of the box, or denying other players who try to hack themselves in, etc.
Everyone always wants to cut down the tall poppies.
I agree - you can say all you want about Apple's designs here, but it's really pathetic that Palm is actually asking people to pay for a product that relies on strictly unofficial compatibility with a rival company's software.
Palm - make your own!
Umm, what? Palm is the one who is "disrupting the harmony of Pre owners" by pitching a hack as a legitimate feature. It sure ain't Apple's fault that they disable the ability to pretend you're an iPod.
As previously stated by others, there are legitimate ways to make hardware sync with iTunes, but the way Palm is trying to do it is not one of them.
Give it a week and Pre will be syncing again.
Personally I think it is pretty lame of apple to just keep wasting time on breaking it. Apple can say all the crap they want that they made changes for *blank* and it cause it not to work. No they are just adding a line of code do it.
Personally I do not see the problem with the Pre. Like others have pointed out Palm is a little short on money so the cheaper solution was to use something already out there that works really well.
Personally I think it is pretty lame of apple to just keep wasting time on breaking it. Apple can say all the crap they want that they made changes for *blank* and it cause it not to work. No they are just adding a line of code do it.
Personally I do not see the problem with the Pre. Like others have pointed out Palm is a little short on money so the cheaper solution was to use something already out there that works really well.
RIM has had this for years. in BB Desktop Manager they have an option to sync your mucis from itunes. and even after all the drama with Palm, i've never heard anything about problems for blackberries
And why should Apple give a rat's *ss about the user functionality of a competing company's products?
The Pre is a rip-off from square one, and Palm gets exactly what they deserve.
No it isn't. They are doing it because Palm are making the Pre masquerade as an iPod by using Apple Vendor IDs. Palm should not be doing this. It is against USB licensing guides. If they want to use iTunes media they should do the correct and documented way like Blackberry and others do; by making an app that uses the iTunes XML database.
I honestly don't know why Palm are doing this - Surely they can't be starting on a pointless war with Apple just to take a stab at them and get a bit of free publicity, all at the expense of the Pre users product experience.
I think Palm are in serious trouble. John Dvorak was right, the Pre is short for Pre-bankruptcy.
true. even if it takes 3 days or a week to sync again, those Palm users who upgraded will have to revert back to a previous version that is very bad for the user experience.
<scarcasm>I should totally be able to use Nokia PC Suite with my Motorola phone!</sarcasm>
<note>I do not actually own a Motorola and never would after my last experience. Ugh</note>
Apple has stated that they make next to zero profit on iTunes, and that their motivation is purely to drive hardware sales. While I'm generally for open-ness, in this case it's pretty ridiculous. Apple doesn't lock up your library, so there's no reason why Palm can't make their own solution to access the same data without pretending to be an Apple product.
As previously stated, Apple will get the blame if something goes wrong. It's like when people download browser plugins and then bitch about how unstable Safari is. I used to think it was true until I realised how ridiculously terrible Inquisitor and Flash Player are. So glad they're now external processes.
<note>I do not actually own a Motorola and never would after my last experience. Ugh</note>
Apple has stated that they make next to zero profit on iTunes, and that their motivation is purely to drive hardware sales. While I'm generally for open-ness, in this case it's pretty ridiculous. Apple doesn't lock up your library, so there's no reason why Palm can't make their own solution to access the same data without pretending to be an Apple product.
As previously stated, Apple will get the blame if something goes wrong. It's like when people download browser plugins and then bitch about how unstable Safari is. I used to think it was true until I realised how ridiculously terrible Inquisitor and Flash Player are. So glad they're now external processes.
Blackberries and Winmo devices have apps to sync them to iTunes via the XML files, and it's blessed by Apple. It's not difficult. What Palm is doing is just attempts to get in the news and needle Apple in a desperate attempt at staying alive. Nothing to see here, move along...
Well, Palm is going to lose this one. Good try though. I really wanted the Pre to be a lot better than it is. Now Apple has no real reason to change up the iPhone. No competition for miles.
I think Apple has already won this one.
This 'whaaa... you have to let me use your football!!!' routine from Palm has painted them as a 2nd rate player. I'll buy PALM at 12 to prepare for its acquisition by Nokia or MS.
Decent technology... just a day late and a dollar short.
Wouldn't Palm have to give that code back to the open source community, assuming they'd be willing to write their own code extensions in the first place?
What's really out of bounds IMO is that Pre owners are being forced to wait for a software update to WebOS 1.2 while Palm figures out a way around the latest in this cat-and-mouse game with Apple.
Is that really the "right" solution? If I had an iPod, and a Pre, I wouldn't want to have two entirely separate syncing solutions. The whole point of syncing is to simplify things for the user, not complicate them.
If Apple were just a Mac & OS provider, they'd have an easy to use, open, centralised app for syncing with all 3rd party devices. Since they're more interested in selling their iPods & iPhones, they exclude 3rd party devices; thus compromising the OS experience of those who don't buy other Apple products.
Apple's not alone here, I have a living room full of devices all of which kind-of, but not quite, talk to each other. Small indy companies providing 3rd party solutions are the only ones offering enabling, rather than disabling technology these days.