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Palm Pre to Sync with iTunes on Macs?
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Why would they disable it?
Why would they turn down revenue from Pre owners?
Can't the BlackBerry Bold sync with iTunes?
I don't see them disabling it at all.
If Apple was smart, they would quit worrying about who is syncing with iTunes and focus on making the iPhone better than Pre.
I still think the new iPhone coming in a month or three will be better overall than the Pre, but the Pre will have some things it can do that still might make it more desirable. (Leaving apps running in the background for one.)
This thread amuses me. The same people who think apple should break iTunes syncing with the Pre also appear to believe the iPhone is the holy grail and that no device could ever possibly touch it or threaten it. If the iPhone is sooooo superior, Apple would have no need to break syncing. Truthfully, the iPhone does have a great deal of momentum— what’s the worry?
Seriously. That’s narrow minded if I’ve ever seen it. It is actually a great thing that not everyone values the exact same things / has the same wants. No, the iPhone does NOT meet everyones needs / wants or do everything perfectly, even if it is for many reasons more desirable than other products.
As another poster just said, Apple is not the end-all, neither is the iPhone. It IS a great device which does REALLY well with entertainment value— games, apps, etc. I have an iPod Touch, and well... I use it to listen to music 99% of the time. It’s not a gaming device for me, and not even a video device most of the time (like I thought it would be).
What I’m truly interested in is how it works as a communication device (for the purpose I’d buy it for)— phone, internet, text, etc. I’ve no need for simultaneous voice and internet in scenarios where I’d be solely dependent on 3G wireless (nothing stopping me from using wifi while on the phone), and so I cannot see how the iPhone is so much better as a PHONE. (No, visual voicemail is not a deal breaker nor is there any way to know that that couldn’t be easily added to the Pre with an update). The iPhone IS obviously much better positioned as an entertainment device, and I’m not sure Palm is trying to take on the iPhone in that arena right now.
(And I think many people are underestimating how sweet multitasking will be, especially when it comes to productivity— not having to exit out of one app to check something in another, but being able to go back and forth seamlessly.)
There’s plenty of room for multiple wireless devices out there— we should all want those devices to be the best they can. It really makes no sense to want Palm to fail let alone cheer for their demise.
Wow. Yeah why in the world would ANYONE buy ANY PHONE that’s not an iPhone?!!!! What is wrong with people?! The iPhone is the only phone worth owning, don’t you know? I mean you can play all these awesome 3d games on it and DRM’d iTunes movies and videos!!! [/sarcasm]
Seriously. That’s narrow minded if I’ve ever seen it. It is actually a great thing that not everyone values the exact same things / has the same wants. No, the iPhone does NOT meet everyones needs / wants or do everything perfectly, even if it is for many reasons more desirable than other products.
As another poster just said, Apple is not the end-all, neither is the iPhone. It IS a great device which does REALLY well with entertainment value— games, apps, etc. I have an iPod Touch, and well... I use it to listen to music 99% of the time. It’s not a gaming device for me, and not even a video device most of the time (like I thought it would be).
What I’m truly interested in is how it works as a communication device (for the purpose I’d buy it for)— phone, internet, text, etc. I’ve no need for simultaneous voice and internet in scenarios where I’d be solely dependent on 3G wireless (nothing stopping me from using wifi while on the phone), and so I cannot see how the iPhone is so much better as a PHONE. (No, visual voicemail is not a deal breaker nor is there any way to know that that couldn’t be easily added to the Pre with an update). The iPhone IS obviously much better positioned as an entertainment device, and I’m not sure Palm is trying to take on the iPhone in that arena right now.
(And I think many people are underestimating how sweet multitasking will be, especially when it comes to productivity— not having to exit out of one app to check something in another, but being able to go back and forth seamlessly.)
THANK YOU. I’ve become a big fan of Apple over the last couple years. But a lot of the posters in this thread are downright embarrassing.
There’s plenty of room for multiple wireless devices out there— we should all want those devices to be the best they can. It really makes no sense to want Palm to fail let alone cheer for their demise.
100% agree with this post. Very well said.
That being said, anytime you see extreme Apple fanboys getting their "panties in a bunch," it's usually a good sign that it's a compelling product/software/whatever. If it wasn't, they wouldn't be "getting their panties in a bunch."
Time to grow up folks. Seriously.
w00master
On the flip side the iphone developers might be saying look a whole new market to sell my apps in.
Not everyone runs to apple for their solutions
People keep trying to argue that Apple would want the increased iTunes Store revenue from the Palm Pre syncing with iTunes. However, something I haven't seen mentioned yet (might have missed it somewhere) is that the Pre uses Amazon for wireless music downloads (even if over wi-fi only). So, Pre users probably won't be managing two accounts for music purchases; they're going to pick one. Even if you get a 50-50 split (which would be highly unlikely), you're not going to see that much increased revenue.
As others have mentioned, iTunes is there to help the iPod...Apple is a hardware company. Palm is clearly tricking iTunes into thinking it's an iPod, which means Steve has probably personally ordered the dogs already (he's supposedly back on campus today).
Palm doing this isn't the gutsy move. Palm announcing it as a fully supported feature is. That means that Rubenstein is confident that there is nothing Apple can do software-wise to stop them. If Apple disables it, the Pre has lost an advertised feature. And even if Palm were to win in court after Apple disabled it (which I'd doubt), for that litigation time, the Pre wouldn't have iTunes syncing. I don't think Palm is this gutsy; there's something we don't know. Perhaps they "hacked" in (again I know they didn't hack anything) in just the right way that a quick little "bug" update from Apple won't stop it...
For me, the App Store is Apple's new "DRM" keeping people on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. A billion apps have been downloaded; that's a lot of Apps to go unused if people abandon their iPhones (or iPod touches).
As others have mentioned, iTunes is there to help the iPod...Apple is a hardware company. Palm is clearly tricking iTunes into thinking it's an iPod, which means Steve has probably personally ordered the dogs already (he's supposedly back on campus today).
Palm doing this isn't the gutsy move. Palm announcing it as a fully supported feature is. That means that Rubenstein is confident that there is nothing Apple can do software-wise to stop them. If Apple disables it, the Pre has lost an advertised feature. And even if Palm were to win in court after Apple disabled it (which I'd doubt), for that litigation time, the Pre wouldn't have iTunes syncing. I don't think Palm is this gutsy; there's something we don't know. Perhaps they "hacked" in (again I know they didn't hack anything) in just the right way that a quick little "bug" update from Apple won't stop it...
For me, the App Store is Apple's new "DRM" keeping people on the iPhone/iPod touch platform. A billion apps have been downloaded; that's a lot of Apps to go unused if people abandon their iPhones (or iPod touches).
There is no market until you have sellers and buyers. And right now, we don't have anything showing that you will have buyers.
One aspect of Apple's App Store genius is that you can pay with your iTunes account, account info that is synced over from your iTunes Store account info after your first sync. It's a lot easier to buy that first app with your account info already entered automatically by iTunes. Will the Pre have this luxury? Maybe not...
If I need to give that Pre my gmail info, my facebook info, my work exchange info, my amazon account info, etc...sheesh! that's a lot of "work." Maybe we can set up that App Store account another day. We shall see.
Certainly one doesn't even need any mobile media player to use iTunes and buy things from the store. People here also seem to vouch that various players can at least dock and download via iTunes - so I'll take that at face value.I was just thinking about this last week; this was one of the number one reasons why I feel locked into using an iPod/iPhone, because I need it to manage my playlists and music.
Having the Pre actually able to do that, with other favorable reviews of course, would definitely shift the scale greatly away from Apple in my book.
But yes, of course I agree with everyone else - Apple will whine and complain about this, and I can't blame them: their software, their hardware, their monopoly. All in the name of "smooth user experience" though, of course.
Being able to fully download playlists and other features (art work, e.g.) seems a bit dicier, and if the thread documents that another phone can work with iTunes either via Wi-Fi or on a cell net, I haven't seen it.
So maybe it's the degree of reverse engineering compatibility the Pre team (with its ex-iPhone team members) that's the issue.
Apple has to look at this rationally - this isn't Psystar (or the "Era of Mac Clones" of the '90's). People are going to buy Pre's (however many). Some may buy it 'cos it's not AT&T bound, others 'cos it has a keyboard, others 'cos it's the hot new buzzy thang, and many of these would be pleased to work in the well-developed iTunes ecology once they have their phones.
But very few would buy the Pre INSTEAD of an iPhone BECAUSE it worked with iTunes natively. And Pre buyers ARE media buyers. So they can get media from Amazon if they're locked out of iTunes, or if they have any computer savvy, from any vendor or cd-ripping program and find it with their phone's own related program.
Has Pre shown its whole ecology for syncing with PC's, online stores etc.? I think they have an announced app store, no?
Will Amazon host Pre's the way iTunes hosts iPhones? If not, Apple loses no (or very, very few) iPhone sales by "generously allowing" Pre owners to send Apple "mo' money." And while doing so, keeping Pre customers interacting with Apple when it brings out new devices and maybe lure them back from Pre-dom, etc. - and avoid bad press or possible regulatory or court action.
If Apple's confident of its own direction and momentum, that might be the way to play it, and maybe pick up a few mill in licensing fees from Palm for API access on the side.
Or maybe there are other balls in motion here. Too early to say.....
Maybe I'm naive but I don't think Palm would announce this unless they were certain that they could do it.
As many people have mentioned Apple licenses other devices, just as MS offers licenses to exchange on other devices, this could be just another example.
As many people have mentioned Apple licenses other devices, just as MS offers licenses to exchange on other devices, this could be just another example.
Oops, not Jon Rubinstein, you're right. But IIRC some Palm employees worked on the iPhone, so it's no wonder why the two products are so similar. Also, Jon has brought to Palm some Apple culture.
HTML/JS apps are native to the Pre. It's like saying Delphi apps are not native to Windows just because they're not written in plain old MFC.
I actually heard he had some insight and ideas for the iPhone (remember it started being developed in like 2002) ...for instance, one of his ideas was he wanted a keyboard, but steve jobs did not.
I see he got his outlet out somewhere else haha.
Since no one's come up with more than a small handful of actual iPhone patents...
I get the feeling that about 190 of those were for the raw parts that were used, and had nothing to do with Apple itself. It's the kind of misdirection that Jobs loves to use.
A little surprised that no one's pointed out that you can sync many phones or other devices with iTunes, as long as you run a little intermediate program on your PC or Mac:
iTunes Agent for PCs
I Tune My Walkman for Mac
iTunes Agent for PCs
I Tune My Walkman for Mac