iTunes 9 Breaks Palm Pre Syncing Once Again

[Vulkan]

As far as I know Palm has not signed a licensing agreement with Apple, to use iTunes for their Palm-Pre.

What most people need to understand is, that it is NOT Apple's responsebility if their software breaks unsupported hardware. The Palm Pre is unsupported hardware.

What Palm has to do is create an app for the Palm Pre, that allows the Pre to connect to iTunes, and sell it. That way when iTunes 200 comes around, Palm can put the resources to make it work.

This is IMHO what should be done. Instead Palm is trying to leech out from iTunes because they *want* to be like the iPhone, and without it, they can't compete.

 

[Michael73]

Apple could always take some of that pile of cash they're sitting on and buy Palm and then shut 'em down. Case closed

 

[GQB]

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.

???
They could (and should) have done this by now if they wanted. Not rocket science... its just parsing an XML file.
They don't because they want to piggy-back on the seamless integration Apple has worked very hard to establish between the iPod family and ITS UTILITY PROGRAM... ITUNES.
Distributing their own app only highlights the fact that their product is only half a solution.

 

[nite41]

I bet 1 week max and Palm will fix this. And then the cycle will go on and on..
Boring..

By the way, remove the 'r' and Palm Pre becomes Palm Pee ! hahaha

 

[irun5k]

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?

No, not if it is LGPL, Apache, BSD, etc. All of the licensees are non-viral and commercial friendly. GPL is the puddle they wouldn't want to step in.

 

[ChrisA]

... However, Palm has certainly taken the illegal steps in order to provide this functionality

"illegal"? Really? Are you sure about this. I did not think there were any laws passed about what data can be sent over a USB cable.

It is in violation of the recommendation of a standards committee. Not the same as a "illegal"

 

[aristotle]

Best advice yet!

Better advice:
Get an iPhone 3GS instead of a Pre.

 

[*LTD*]

Apple breaks iTunes syncing with Pre.

So? Who really gives a sweet f about any third party wanting to use iTunes? They can either license rights from Apple, create their own iTunes knockoff, or just shut up.

I don't understand how someone can get upset over this. I for one don't care if Pre users are locked out, nor will I care if Palm and all of its products go up in smoke tomorrow.

Apple locking out the Pre has absolutely no impact on the iTunes user base. It's insignificant. Palm is simply a moocher that will continue to frustrate its customer base with this on-again/off-again "feature."

 

[John.B]

No, not if it is LGPL, Apache, BSD, etc. All of the licensees are non-viral and commercial friendly. GPL is the puddle they wouldn't want to step in.

Thx.

 

[whooleytoo]

Apple breaks iTunes syncing with Pre.

So? Who really gives a sweet f about any third party wanting to use iTunes? They can either license rights from Apple, create their own iTunes knockoff, or just shut up.

I don't understand how someone can get upset over this. I for one don't care if Pre users are locked out, nor will I care if Palm and all of its products go up in smoke tomorrow.

Apple locking out the Pre has absolutely no impact on the iTunes user base. It's insignificant. Palm is simply a moocher that will continue to frustrate its customer base with this on-again/off-again "feature."

Evidently, a lot of people care about this, that's why this thread exists. If you don't care about it, perhaps you should try another thread, it'll save you a lot of angst.

 

[casik]

I agree with the user experience thing. Palm has done something stupid here. They have left part of their phones user experience in the hands of a competing company. Apple is probably thinking that they have no obligation to support the Pre and could care less about making iTunes work with it. In turn the average Pre owner has a worse user experience with their device if they are trying to sync it with iTunes and it doesn't work.

+1 Apple.

 

[ktappe]

Legality vs. Morality

Its Apple's proprietary system. They can and will decide who can and cannot use it. There are alternatives for media syncing.

Yes, they can decide Palm can't use it. The question is whether they should. Apple is not hurting Palm very much--nobody buys a Palm with the #1 priority being iTunes synching. But Apple is annoying users. Companies rarely excel by annoying users. It's a dumb, petty move that Apple should be above.

 

[pmjoe]

How sad for Apple that this was the only memorable part of their announcements from yesterday ... unless you were already in the market for an iPod nano.

 

[gnasher729]

As far as I know Palm has not signed a licensing agreement with Apple, to use iTunes for their Palm-Pre.

What most people need to understand is, that it is NOT Apple's responsebility if their software breaks unsupported hardware. The Palm Pre is unsupported hardware.

It's not just unsupported hardware, it is unsupported hardware that pretends to be an iPod. It is only logical that if a device _pretends_ to be an iPod, then Apple's software would check very, very carefully if it really is an iPod to avoid compatibility problems, and stop it from working.

 

[whooleytoo]

Better advice:
Get an iPhone 3GS instead of a Pre.

I still wouldn't recommend upgrading to iTunes 9!

 

[dacreativeguy]

Actually that is not correct. I used to sync iTunes with my Rio 500 back in the day. I did a quick google to confirm that my memory isn't trashed:

Itunes 4.2 or later has built-in support for Rio One, 500, 600, 800, 900, Nike PSA, S Series players, Fuse, and non-Mass Storage (MSC) Cali and Chiba.

Don't forget that the iPod was in its infancy at this time, so Apple wanted to cater to everyone. Now that iPod/iphone is THE platform, they don't need (or apparently want) anyone else syncing.

 

[FIJIGabe]

Apple may want to keep their system closed, in order to "keep it from falling prey to the pitfalls of supporting 3rd party devices in conjunction with their software."

do you really believe THAT is the reason Apple doesn't want the Pre syncing with their software? I tend to think it's Apple trying to get people to use their products, and keeping everyone else from using it.

 

[Unspoken Demise]

Yes, they can decide Palm can't use it. The question is whether they should. Apple is not hurting Palm very much--nobody buys a Palm with the #1 priority being iTunes synching. But Apple is annoying users. Companies rarely excel by annoying users. It's a dumb, petty move that Apple should be above.

True. They can. But they wont. They dont like that Palm poached their employees for a process that bypasses their system, ie emulating an iPod. They would do this to any company that tries this, and I believe they are making an example of them.

 

[twoodcc]

good. glad to see apple not just letting get away with it

 

[Plutonius]

I'm on 3.1 and tethering still works.

If you are on AT+T, tethering (which was not official anyways) is broken under 3.1

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Lets face it. Apple is becoming the new Microsoft. Hell Microsoft is becoming more open to 3rd parties and Apple is becoming more closed.

At some point I expect the courts to come down hard on apple and the locking people out of iTunes. This is just the beginning of the cat and mouse game. I bet the real reason Apple removed DRM from the iTMS was because they knew the courts were starting to brew and chances of a law suit going through and succeeding were increasing. So they removed DRM to hold it off.

It is only a matter of time before it happens.

 

[ktappe]

Palm is simply a moocher that will continue to frustrate its customer base with this on-again/off-again "feature."

I believe you'll find it's Apple that is frustrating the Palm user base with their thwarting of this feature. Apple has gone out of its way to be a pain in the butt instead of living and let live. I don't see Palm owners seeing it any differently, which means Apple is diminishing their public image with Mac owning Palm users...who may become ex-Mac users if Apple continues to torque them off. That will lead to reduced Apple sales which is dumb in anyone's book.

 

[zaphon]

"illegal"? Really? Are you sure about this. I did not think there were any laws passed about what data can be sent over a USB cable.

It is in violation of the recommendation of a standards committee. Not the same as a "illegal"

I'm actually surprised that it's "legal" to steal someone's USB ID's and put them in your own device. As that's what Palm is doing. Plus I'm amazed at the outrage against Apple regarding this, and on top of it Palm reporting Apple when clearly their breaking rules as well.

 

[seedster2]

Like the jailbreak community, users just sit and wait until the coast is clear to update now. I'm pretty sure Palm Pre users aren't auto updating to iTunes 9. These stories are tired and really benefit Palm (probably the plan).

I and many others dont see the urgency to update to the latest offerings from apple when they just got the outgoing OS/software working the way they like it. Obviously many others dont either as evidenced by their need to encourage the user base to update their iphones with texts and emails

Much ado about nothing...

 

[pdjudd]

Lets face it. Apple is becoming the new Microsoft. Hell Microsoft is becoming more open to 3rd parties and Apple is becoming more closed.

I would argue that has more to do with Microsoft having been legally declared a Monopoly having to do with that. That and Microsoft's business model and arkets are very different than Apple's

I believe you'll find it's Apple that is frustrating the Palm user base with their thwarting of this feature.

Palm never should have marketed anything that they don't have an agreement with and can guarantee. They had no right nor any assumption that iTunes was an open platform or had any such licensing. None. They simply should not have advertised it at all. Users are going to find this out - Apple has already warned people that Palms hanky panky is not appreciated nor recommended by them. This thing is going to hurt Palm if they cannot provide something that they marketed and it is their fault.

Apple's biggest defense is the fact that there are already existing products that sync the pre with iTunes that they have no problem with and have made no efforts to block - The Missing Sync was even recommended by Apple's own website back with they touted iSync.