iTunes 9 Breaks Palm Pre Syncing Once Again

[jdechko]

I think a good analogy is this.

Imagine iTunes is a house. It belongs to Apple. Only Apple can go through the front door (iPod, & iPhone). Other people (RIM, Palm, MS/HTC) are allowed inside the house, but they have to use a side door. This side door is clearly marked and most people have no problem using it. Except Palm. They want to go in through the window. Apple doesn't want this, so they board up the window, hoping Palm goes through the side door. Palm tries going through another window, which Apple boards up.

Apple has every right to defend their house and secure it as they deem necessary. Hopefully Palm wises up and uses the side door like everyone else.

 

[Unspoken Demise]

I think a good analogy is this.

Imagine iTunes is a house. It belongs to Apple. Only Apple can go through the front door (iPod, & iPhone). Other people (RIM, Palm, MS/HTC) are allowed inside the house, but they have to use a side door. This side door is clearly marked and most people have no problem using it. Except Palm. They want to go in through the window. Apple doesn't want this, so they board up the window, hoping Palm goes through the side door. Palm tries going through another window, which Apple boards up.

Apple has every right to defend their house and secure it as they deem necessary. Hopefully Palm wises up and uses the side door like everyone else.

Very good example.

 

[whooleytoo]

If it's unofficial, it's not a feature.

For 'feature', read 'functionality', if that helps.

 

[nkawtg72]

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

yeah, that would go over real well with all the monopoly accusers on this forum

 

[ktappe]

P.r.

Palm never should have marketed anything that they don't have an agreement with and can guarantee.

Again, technically and legally correct, but how is the public going to see it? They're going to say "This worked great until Apple went out of their way to break it" and Apple will take the P.R. hit. And Apple should have been savvy enough to realize that's what would happen and not do it. Therefore, fair or not, this is an Apple fail not a Palm fail.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Very good example.

Actually, I would think it would be more accurate if Palm was dressing up like Apple and trying to use the front door. Apple just added better security and screening measures so that Palm can't come through. Then Palm upgrades their costume and again Apple figures out a way to detect it...

Obviously, for one reason or another, Palm just doesn't want to use the side door.... everyone else is, so why can't / shouldn't they?

 

[whooleytoo]

I think a good analogy is this.

Imagine iTunes is a house. It belongs to Apple. Only Apple can go through the front door (iPod, & iPhone). Other people (RIM, Palm, MS/HTC) are allowed inside the house, but they have to use a side door. This side door is clearly marked and most people have no problem using it. Except Palm. They want to go in through the window. Apple doesn't want this, so they board up the window, hoping Palm goes through the side door. Palm tries going through another window, which Apple boards up.

Apple has every right to defend their house and secure it as they deem necessary. Hopefully Palm wises up and uses the side door like everyone else.

Apple don't own the house. Apple built the house, then sold it to me. If I want Palm to come through the window, the keyhole, or sliding down my chimney one day in December, then that should be my choice, not Apple's.

 

[Unspoken Demise]

Actually, I would think it would be more accurate if Palm was dressing up like Apple and trying to use the front door. Apple just added better security and screening measures so that Palm can't come through. Then Palm upgrades their costume and again Apple figures out a way to detect it...

Obviously, for one reason or another, Palm just doesn't want to use the side door.... everyone else is, so why can't / shouldn't they?

Because they need some way to stay in the spotlight. Before this article, I had forget about that POS Pre.

Apple don't own the house. Apple built the house, then sold it to me. If I want Palm to come through the window, the keyhole, or sliding down my chimney one day in December, then that should be my choice, not Apple's.

iTunes is free. They can manage it however the hell they want. Dont like it? Dont use it. There are alternatives.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Because they need some way to stay in the spotlight. Before this article, I had forget about that POS Pre.

True, very true... sorta like a terrorist. No one cares one bit about them until they go and blow something up, now they get some media coverage and attention.

Palm, terrorist of the Cell Phones.... lol

 

[madog]

Some have stated Palm should spend more time creating their own sync solution, but why do that when iTunes is perfectly "capable" of that and users are already familiar with it as opposed to some other method which could never accomplish the same thing (for good and bad).

Apple does allow interaction with iTunes. iTunes writes out a XML file with all the information contained in your library and where to look for the actual files. As a 3rd party software developer, all you need to do is read in that file into your syncing application and then sync the files and data accordingly to your device.

It's very understandable that Apple doesn't want to have to deal with devices presenting themselves as iPods when they aren't, and then running the risk of briking the device because its sync protocol isn't exactly like the iPod's.

I think users of Palm Pres would be pretty pissed at Apple if that happened, instead of being pissed at Palm for using subterfuges to get their device to sync up to iTunes instead of using the proper, documented way.

The problem for Apple is that the Pre is presenting itself as an iPod for the syncing. The problem for Palm is that Apple designed a method in the first place that is possibly against USB policy. Since the 30-pin dock connecter is some proprietary or round about way to utilize what is essentially normal USB, then I sure hope Palm is correct in this one (though what would they do, take away Apple's USB rights or something? I doubt that).

While I hate the 30-pin connector I don't think it would be good to change it at this point (in fact it would probably be horrible). However, that shouldn't stop them from making it act as a "normal" USB cable that doesn't utilize whatever special code they have.

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.

Because then they are drifting towards actual legal issues that could screw them over if anyone cared that much. It could also drift more towards monopolistic practices. Even though they are already in that realm, no one that matters seem to care because of the size of their competition in the computer market. However, doing the same with the iPod/iPhone and thus iTunes, as those particular devices are dominating their particular markets, could be a potential nightmare for them. It would behoove them to play nicely with other companies in that case.

Apple can't play the poor underdog in everything they do, and I think these things will ultimately change whether Apple does it themselves or is forced to. However, it may happen later rather than sooner.

 

[CylonGlitch]

Apple don't own the house. Apple built the house, then sold it to me. If I want Palm to come through the window, the keyhole, or sliding down my chimney one day in December, then that should be my choice, not Apple's.

Read the licensing, you don't own the house, Apple does, you're just being allowed to stay there. But you still have to follow their rules.

 

[pdjudd]

Again, technically and legally correct, but how is the public going to see it?

Unless you can read the public's mind, nobody can answer that. I am of course speaking on a moral basis for Palm - its deceptive and morally wrong for you to advertise something that you cannot back. I hope that this is what the public sees. However the public will see different things based on their mentality regardless of Apple's actions.

You can assume what the public thinks, but there are alot of people that I have heard that Palm is in the wrong and are seeing through this AstroTurf method.

 

[ktappe]

Clearly marked <> Right

Imagine iTunes is a house. It belongs to Apple. Only Apple can go through the front door (iPod, & iPhone). Other people (RIM, Palm, MS/HTC) are allowed inside the house, but they have to use a side door. This side door is clearly marked and most people have no problem using it. Except Palm.

True this an apt example....but one where Apple still takes the P.R. hit. Why? Because it's shades of pre-Civil Rights Movement blacks being allowed into buildings but having to use clearly marked separate water fountains. Or being allowed onto buses but having to sit in separate sections.
If one person (Rosa Parks/Palm) has a problem following the plan, and they have lots of sympathizers, how do you suppose that turns out for the status quo (Apple)?
If the public thinks you're on the morally-wrong end of an argument, having the law on your side doesn't help a whole lot in the quarterly sales figures.

(No, before you chastise me, I'm not saying this is as important as Civil Rights. I'm demonstrating that clearly marked does not always sway the public to your position.)

 

[nkawtg72]

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.

have you really thought that out clearly?! if what you are saying is true, that apple is simply becoming less open to 3rd party whatevers, then explain to me why they would waste time doing it at the level of iTunes? why not at the hardware level?

they could just as easily go back to a proprietary connector that they can control the licensing on, and forever be able to prevent someone from connecting non apple hardware to an apple computer or apple software.

it's not complicated, apple spends untold millions on itunes app development. and as it has already been pointed out, provides an open source way for 3rd parties to tap into it through XML. if they were hateful to 3rd parties, they would get rid of the XML too.

for good reasons, apple just isnt taking too kindly to Palm hacking their intellectual property in an attempt to avoid having to write their own software to either tap into the XML or a stand alone piece of software that would have to compete head to head with iTunes.

palm is being pretty stupid here about the whole thing. apple as all but said that the pre is a nock off of the iphone, and they dont like that. so how does palm react? by making the pre call itself an iphone/ipod!!!! great idea guys, genius. thatll really work wonders for your argument that the pre isnt a nock off.

 

[weezer160]

Kinda makes me dislike Apple policy. Why not let other media players use iTunes? What is the harm in getting more people exposed to the Apple way of doing things? \
" hey this iTunes is great,!, think I'll get a MAC !! "
more like ........"hey this sucks ...screw Apple"

I don't have a PRE but I do belive in fair play

Apple wants to maintain consistent quality when you use iTunes with a media player and vice versa.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I will be blunt. A lot of the apple fan boys here do not get it and either struggle or can not see it from a customer point of view.

I the customer do not care what Apple reason are it annoys me that I have to install a 2nd piece of software to sync up my music. Or even run another piece of software to sync up with my library. I would rather plug in my phone (BB, Palm what ever) and have me be able to control what playlist/ songs go into the phone threw iTunes. I do not want to have to use some other software to do all those controls and it feels inconvenient to have to do so. I want a single piece of software than handles everything.

iTunes already links into Outlook to copy calendar events. Apple should not do that I mean they want everything in house BUILD YOUR OWN FOR THE PC. But no they link into the largest calendar program out there for PC users. Palm does it as well.

Either way as a consumer I rather have to use a few piece of software to manage my daily stuff as possible. iTunes handles music and I can do all the setting from in there.

I feel Apple does not need to support them but they should not be going out of there way to block them. But no Apple goes out of there way to block them.

 

[Xian Zhu Xuande]

iTunes 9 breaking Pre syncing.. iPhone 3.1 breaking unofficial tethering.

Apple seems to spend as much time these days breaking/disabling features as it does adding them..

That's a pretty silly statement. It probably requires only a minimal effort to break something like the Palm tethering, and patching an exploit is on the to-do list anyway. It isn't like they canceled important features to make it happen...

 

[spritelyjim]

This is important to me because I want a serious alternative to the iPhone. The iPhone is the only product of it's caliber (whether real or perceived) and because of that, Apple can get away with its iron grip business practices. I want a serious alternative so that when I am ready to jump ship, I have a product to jump to.

But Palm, your not offering that solution until you get it together!!! You can't be taken seriously until you stop doing shady crap like this. I see a lot of potential in the Pre. I hope you have enough money to build some better looking hardware, because I am interested. But I'm not interested in buying a product with hack features.

 

[rxse7en]

Apple needed to block the Pre and will need to continue doing so. Aside from the fact that iTunes drives Apple hardware sales, by allowing the Pre to piggyback on iTunes what's to stop every other vendor from doing the same? Would iTunes generate enough income from additional hardware vendors to compensate for the loss of Apple hardware sales?

 

[jellomizer]

I am up for competition... However...

Palm is leaving a nasty taste in my mouth.

Lets hire Apple Employees to make a competing that looks and works almost exactly like apples product and use this inside information to make it compatible with Apples products.

It is very shady business practices bordering on bad business ethics. I would call Apples lock down of iTunes and their iPhone apps just bad business but Palm is bad ethics. If they are going legal they are pressing the line as close it can get.

 

[CylonGlitch]

The problem for Apple is that the Pre is presenting itself as an iPod for the syncing. The problem for Palm is that Apple designed a method in the first place that is possibly against USB policy. Since the 30-pin dock connecter is some proprietary or round about way to utilize what is essentially normal USB, then I sure hope Palm is legally correct in this one.

While I hate the 30-pin connector, but I don't think it would be good to change it at this point (in fact it would probably be horrible). However, that shouldn't stop them from making it act as a "normal" USB cable that doesn't utilize whatever special code they have.

It has nothing to do with the connector, it has to do with the ID values stored within the device. Every USB device has two things, a Vendor ID (VID) and a Product ID (PID). The Vendor ID indicates who created the device, and the product ID indicates what product this is. These ID's are licensed from the USB Consortium for a fee -- well, the VID is. The VID is unique for every company; the company is then free to create PID's as they see fit.

What Palm is doing is, instead of using their own VID, they are using Apple's VID and the PID for the iPhone to get their device to sync to iTunes. This is a clear violation of the USB Specification and the licensing agreement with the USB association. It CAN cause other issues because when you plug a device into the USB, the operating system reads the VID and PID values and then tries to load the device driver associated with those VID or PIDs. This *could* cause some confusion in the system and prevent valid Apple products from getting the correct driver loaded. I don't see that as too much of the problem, but the real fact is that for the average consumer, it could cause some issues that would eventually cause problems for Apple or make them look bad.

I do not agree with Palm doing this, and I do think that they should follow the rules.

Legality wise, I think there isn't much there. Sure they are using Apple's VID, and Apple legally licensed that ID. But are they breaking any laws? I don't think so. Maybe if Apple could prove loss of reputation in court, but I think it would be a long shot.

Think of the VID as the brand name when it comes to USB. If Palm decided to take the Palm Pre and sell it as "Apple iPhone" people would be all over them about it. But from the "USB" view that is exactly what they are doing. Imagine if you purchased a new BMW 325i, only to find out that it is really a Saturn with the BMW logo glued over the name. Then when you took it to the BMW dealer and they refused to work on it, do you blame BMW? No, it's not their car.

Am I making sense or just babbling?

 

[whooleytoo]

iTunes is free. They can manage it however the hell they want. Dont like it? Dont use it. There are alternatives.

I'm not disputing Apple have the right to change iTunes as they choose (at least, until such time as they have a monopoly in the industry, and seek to abuse it).

I'm just disappointed they choose to break Pre compatibility. I'm just tired of vendors trying to tie you into their other products at the expense of interoperability and ease of use. It seems to me this parochial mindset is holding back what's technically possible.

It's not just Pre users who are affected, they're also iTunes/Mac users.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

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.

I'm like 99.9% sure Apple doesn't care about Palm customers. And if it wasn't a top #1 feature, why is palm fighting to the death to savor this small little feature?

Apple's message : Want itunes sync? GET AN IPHONE. Easy. I understand that if you ran a business you would have no problems pimping your IP all over the community and not getting paid for it, but you wouldn't be in business very long.

Again, technically and legally correct, but how is the public going to see it? They're going to say "This worked great until Apple went out of their way to break it" and Apple will take the P.R. hit. And Apple should have been savvy enough to realize that's what would happen and not do it. Therefore, fair or not, this is an Apple fail not a Palm fail.

LoL Apple is going to take a P.R. hit? Anyone with half a brain knows that Palm is the one in the wrong. All of these changes are transparent to the 30+ million iphone users out there. Same thing with video consoles. Those who run legitimate operations will NEVER be affected by anti piracy efforts that game makers use to thwart known chips. Even all the tech blogs are wondering why the hell Palm is doing this.

We know nothing of how Apple implemented their syncing mechanisms this time around, just like last time, they changed to looking towards the vendor ID to authenticate a legitimate ipod. This time? Probably serial number hash checks or file system checks, who knows. But how much does palm have to fake before you realize their pettiness. Its damn near identity theft, plain and simple.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

It's not just Pre users who are affected, they're also iTunes/Mac users.

How is my Mac and iPhone affected? Apple hasn't yet released any versions specifically to break a new hack, atleast its always been rolled up in bug fixes or a major version with new features (itunes 9). Anyone who is using itunes legitimately will not be affected be it thorugh apple hardware or XML sync. Palm users should have no reason to believe that their experience should be a pleasant one

 

[ktappe]

Hardware sales

iTunes drives Apple hardware sales

Remember, Apple sells computers too, not just iPods/iPhones. So when Apple alienates Mac-owning Pre users who want to synch their Pre with their Mac, do you think it's more or less likely those users are going to buy another Mac when it's time to upgrade their desktop hardware?