Palm Releases webOS 1.3.1, iTunes Media Sync Missing

[mytdave]

No, it isn't. iTunes is for music management. The iTunes Store is for purchasing media, as well as applications for Apple products. The built-in sync functionality is exclusively for Apple products, because those are the only ones they're required to support.

Any other manufacturer can create a plugin or a sync utility for iTunes, using documented APIs made available by Apple. They just have to assume responsibility for developing, updating, and supporting that utility themselves instead of trying to pass the buck to another company. iTunes will work just fine with Blackberries, Windows Mobile devices, and dozens of other third-party devices if you go about writing a sync utility in an official, legitimate way.

I'm glad you pointed this out. Sometimes in brevity when posting, we tend to gloss over some details and simply use the generic 'iTunes' (or other product under discussion) term to refer to everything we're talking about. Of course it's never quite that simple.

Palm could have made their own sync app, and their customers could have still used iTunes to manage their music...

Another poster commented, essentially, that Apple would look like the 'good guy' if they let other products work with iTunes. In reality, they kind of do, at least with music since Apple convinced the labels to go DRM free. Other products will work fine with the music you buy in iTunes - it's just up to the 3rd party company to write their own sync app - if not, you could always manually import you music files into the other product. What Palm tried to do was hitch a free ride... and as an impostor.

I like the fly swatter picture post... that sums it up perfectly.

Now here's to hoping the MPAA will get a clue and drop DRM for movies, etc. You'd think they'd know by now that every film has already been (or will be) pirated, and any of us could get a free copy if we wanted to... Most of us however, just want to buy a legit copy and use it on any of our devices without hassle. DRM free video would further open up iTunes to 3rd party devices, but again, it would and should be up to the 3rd party to write their own sync.

The app store (subset of iTunes) is a different animal. That is, and was specifically created to service the iPhone/Touch. I don't see that ever changing or "opening up" so to speak, if for no other reason than the apps will only run on Apple products anyway...

Don't get me going - I could write a novel on each and every little intricate detail, and I don't have time for that... maybe one of the reasons I, and most folks I would say, tend to keep it 'generic' when posting on forums.

 

[CFreymarc]

More of a PR loss than anything else

Frankly, this cat and mouse game faking out iTunes is a sign of the executive leaderships character at Palm.

If I was running the show and found out that one of my engineers snuck in a fake device ID to fake out iTunes, I'd probably have a back room meeting giving him two options. One, resign and I'll make a stink of it so he can get cred in the hacker scene to pick up sweet consulting contracts or two, shift him to testing and QA for a few months to know they screwed up.

For Palm execs to condone this shows a serious lack of scruples IMO. Technical ignorance in their position is not an excuse to just blame it on the engineers.

 

[kallisti]

See, corporations can be childish too. Heaven forbid someone makes a device that can sync music on another program. Is it really that big of a deal Apple?

Hopefully there is a persistent coding nut out there who will make an open-source program that makes any device connected to a computer appear like an Apple device. Then all the resources spent on this will be a waste for Apple. This seriously is something I'd expect from a bitter ex-wife, not the holiest of corporations.

I like Apple's hardware, but their business practices are starting to stink. Petty stuff like this is just lame. And for those who come to Apple's aid here, all we are talking about is syncing things you purchased FROM Apple to your portable device.

I'm not sure you are thinking of this from a business perspective. Apple is trying to sell hardware. One major selling point is that because it's a closed system, everything just "works." It's painless to get media from your computer to your phone. If every phone out there worked as seamlessly with iTunes as an iPhone, then people might actually buy other phones. That is most certainly not in Apple's best interests.

Apple has provided relatively painless ways for 3rd party vendors to allow customers to transfer their iTunes media onto other devices. It just isn't as nice as "real" iTunes syncing. Not to mention there are 3rd party syncing solutions out there as well.

 

[kallisti]

Well I never said it was out of spite or pettiness. I said it was dumb. Apple has to realize that they have customers of their iTunes product but not their iPhone/iPod products. If they don't then they are dropping the bomb on their customer's experience with purchasing and syncing music through iTunes.

Apple has built a product in iTunes that its competitors shouldn't be viewed as non Apple hardware products but OTHER music stores. To do that sometimes you just need to play nice with your competitors of other divisions of your companies.

I'm not saying they should be forced to do it one way or the other however you can draw parallels to Microsoft Operating system and Microsoft Web Browser. Why should Microsoft Operating system have to play nice with non Microsoft web browsers? It shouldn't. However they are doing their customers of their OS a disservice if they don't play nice with these 3rd party web browsers like when they did a long time ago.

Now Apple just needs to realize that it is impossible to get a 100% market share in any one market, ie cell phone market. It's just not going to happen with the way the market is setup and the competition out there. Once they realize that they can start understanding that instead of fighting for customers they can't get they could grow their iTunes Music Store business through users that otherwise might not of used iTunes if they didn't have a device compatible with it.

I never bought a single song off of iTunes before getting the iPhone. The reason I used iTunes for the first time was because my phone synced up directly to iTunes. Had I not got pissed at Sprint and finally left I probably would of got a Palm Pre. And you know what? I would of been buying my first songs from iTunes with a Palm Pre if that device works with it well.

I don't think you understand Apple's business model. They aren't making money off of the iTunes store (at least not most of their money), they make money off of selling hardware. The iTunes store exists to help them sell more hardware. It adds value to their hardware. It isn't a major source of revenue.

If the iTunes store was their big cash cow, then you can bet they would open it up to every device on earth. It isn't.

 

[heisetax]

iPod not so great!!

why don't you make your own iTunes... or yet, just buy an iPod or iPhone.

I'm looking for an iTunes replacement. I've had to replace the contents of my 160 GB iPod too many times to keep using iTunes. I couldn't wait for my new iPod Touch. Now I can't get it to connect wirelessly. So far I'm not impressed. If I had Sprint then maybe the Palm Pre is the way to go. Since I have Verizon it looks like the Motorola Droid is the way to go. It has to work as well as the iPod Touch works.

 

[DMann]

Ah, you mean the phone that only gives you 256 MB for storing actual applications?

Great selling point, BTW.

With both the Droid (256 MB) and Pre (512 MB) being anemic for apps, one might ask, "What the hell were they thinking?"

As Nokia makes a play for Palm this week, (to try to get back into the game) things will actually become more interesting,

 

[hiimamac]

When your entire business is based upon the integrated hardware/software model, then yes, it really is a big deal.

I just hope someone can make something that makes apple sweat. I mean years later, still no dvr on apple tv and still no flash on the iPhone hmmmm. Let's see. Gi to ABC and watch seasons 1-4 for FREE or go to iTunes and pay $1.99-$2.99 per episode and you can't share it. Is it any wonder we have no DVR on Apple TV.

Then of course.

After waiting seven years for Apple to get games on OS X I finally switched back to Windows since I love PC gaming. *It would be nice if Apple took computer gaming as seriously as iPhone/iPod gaming. *If they ever decide to encourage games developers to release games the same day as Windows releases I'd move back to using OS X as my primary OS.

They can. Very easy to do but the problem is and will always be, if you have a good, great gaming machine by Apple, you also have a device that will run their Pro Apps and oddly, Apple assumes they will lose money as the Pros, 2~3%, would buy the cheaper alternative, and their right, we would but so woudnt the gamers (who make up more sales then video sales and music sales combined), as well as the millions of ProSumers who don't really have the cash for a server made desktop but do have the talent, not to mention all the studios that had mac pros would also buy these non existent devices for their smaller rooms. In a nutshell, Apple would MAKE money not lose money due to lack of sales but they can't seem to figure that out yet.*

Avid/Digidesing did!!!! They saw people were no longer buying their $$10,000 TDM (processing chips in a card, thus reducing CPU latency which you cannot have in music), and saw computers were getting faster and faster and more core on a single dye were happening, so they purchased M-Audio which relies on the cpu only. In music it's caled native recording vs TDM. In fact, for the mac pro, for those left with the express slot, now only the 17" has it forces yet higher prices on the pro, with an express card, you can purchase something similar that puts all the processing on the card that goes into the express slot. Google. "UAD laptop express" card and you'll see what I mean. Apple could make more money simply by adding an express slot on the iMac. Add in esata and the sales go even higher. *

Anyway, Apple can do it but won't as I said earlier great grahics normally mean it can run pro apps and they don't really want that and rather have you buy the mac pro when in fact they would make so much more anyway.*

Check it out. Let's pretend apple released a $1000 i7 core with a great graphics card, 1000 FSB, normal memory, headless and in the future you could swap the CPU out. *
You would have thousands of gamers buy them.*
You would have millions of musicians buy them and buy their own ram after market, similar to gamers.*
You would have everyone that is tired of windows but has nice HDMI DVI diplays buy them.*
You would have the more semi pro photographer buy them. *
You would have most all semi pro video users buy these.*
And ironically, all the pros apple were afraid they would lose sale to, would buy these instead of the pc rendering farms as well as place them in their smaller studios, so it not a matter of how come, it more like their are misguided somehow. I mean they really only care about the iPhone now, example, One to One and Pro C are used to be one program. Now it's seperated and most of the training used to be pro apps, and is now iLife and $99 each. So why not go ahead and build them. *There is a huge market out there. The only problem I would see is people would want their own video card at new egg or Frys pricing and apple would have to start supporting numerous cards but all the companies are gone and there's only nvidia and ati, so that wouldn't be that big of a deal and it would for sure, put a dent in the hacntosh.

There are millions of users waiting. Just take a page from what digidesign did.*
They would have 20% of the marketshare within a year and to top it off, it would increase the sales of iMacs as business and enterprise started off with these mid range machines. 30% in less than 5 years. Is it really so hard to understand Apple?


Peace all.*

 

[MorphingDragon]

I just hope someone can make something that makes apple sweat. I mean years later, still no dvr on apple tv and still no flash on the iPhone hmmmm. Let's see. Gi to ABC and watch seasons 1-4 for FREE or go to iTunes and pay $1.99-$2.99 per episode and you can't share it. Is it any wonder we have no DVR on Apple TV.

Then of course.


They can. Very easy to do but the problem is and will always be, if you have a good, great gaming machine by Apple, you also have a device that will run their Pro Apps and oddly, Apple assumes they will lose money as the Pros, 2~3%, would buy the cheaper alternative, and their right, we would but so woudnt the gamers (who make up more sales then video sales and music sales combined), as well as the millions of ProSumers who don't really have the cash for a server made desktop but do have the talent, not to mention all the studios that had mac pros would also buy these non existent devices for their smaller rooms. In a nutshell, Apple would MAKE money not lose money due to lack of sales but they can't seem to figure that out yet.*

Avid/Digidesing did!!!! They saw people were no longer buying their $$10,000 TDM (processing chips in a card, thus reducing CPU latency which you cannot have in music), and saw computers were getting faster and faster and more core on a single dye were happening, so they purchased M-Audio which relies on the cpu only. In music it's caled native recording vs TDM. In fact, for the mac pro, for those left with the express slot, now only the 17" has it forces yet higher prices on the pro, with an express card, you can purchase something similar that puts all the processing on the card that goes into the express slot. Google. "UAD laptop express" card and you'll see what I mean. Apple could make more money simply by adding an express slot on the iMac. Add in esata and the sales go even higher. *

Anyway, Apple can do it but won't as I said earlier great grahics normally mean it can run pro apps and they don't really want that and rather have you buy the mac pro when in fact they would make so much more anyway.*

Check it out. Let's pretend apple released a $1000 i7 core with a great graphics card, 1000 FSB, normal memory, headless and in the future you could swap the CPU out. *
You would have thousands of gamers buy them.*
You would have millions of musicians buy them and buy their own ram after market, similar to gamers.*
You would have everyone that is tired of windows but has nice HDMI DVI diplays buy them.*
You would have the more semi pro photographer buy them. *
You would have most all semi pro video users buy these.*
And ironically, all the pros apple were afraid they would lose sale to, would buy these instead of the pc rendering farms as well as place them in their smaller studios, so it not a matter of how come, it more like their are misguided somehow. I mean they really only care about the iPhone now, example, One to One and Pro C are used to be one program. Now it's seperated and most of the training used to be pro apps, and is now iLife and $99 each. So why not go ahead and build them. *There is a huge market out there. The only problem I would see is people would want their own video card at new egg or Frys pricing and apple would have to start supporting numerous cards but all the companies are gone and there's only nvidia and ati, so that wouldn't be that big of a deal and it would for sure, put a dent in the hacntosh.

There are millions of users waiting. Just take a page from what digidesign did.*
They would have 20% of the marketshare within a year and to top it off, it would increase the sales of iMacs as business and enterprise started off with these mid range machines. 30% in less than 5 years. Is it really so hard to understand Apple?


Peace all.*

People will buy macs just for Final Cut or Logic Studio. Final Cut is just about industry standard and amateur musicians seem to think that logic will make them sound better.

 

[ss957916]

Horribly written article

Don't know who Marianne Schultz is, but that article doesn't read well at all. Really, really wordy - it's like a child wrote it.

I hope she doesn't start writing for MR regularly.

 

[locust76]

I hate smoochers. I feel the success of iPhone and iTunes is a two fronted battle. Whenever someone thinks they've created an iPhone killer, they don't realize how important the software is. Even this situation with Palm and Apple is a point in case: it was only able to gain some momentum because of the success of iTunes; it smooched of Apple.

"Smooch" means to kiss.

"Mooch" is the word you're looking for.

 

[greygray]

That's good. This back-and-forth game has to end with Palm being the loser which leeches off others.

 

[cloudblood84]

wow, how many months later and people are still ARGUING over this? *yawn*

 

[vampyren]

Palm is really disappointing me right now.

First they want a free ride on iTunes, next they complain about not being able to use someone else Software.

Palm should make its own sync application like everyone else or just nicely ask Apple if they can license it.

Again, i'm very disappointed with Palm, i was expecting a nice sync app from them really.

 

[Sabenth]

i realise this may seem a daft question but can you not just simply drag and drop audio files from itunes into other devices. My nokia n95 works fine just like this only takes a refresh of the music library on the nokia

 

[Goona]

LOL who said Palm gives Apple free advertising, don't make me laugh. The only reason Palm gets any advertising these days is hanging their name onto Apple.

 

[apull]

i'm not sure why apple wants palm NOT syncing. doesn't this open up a larger market for their music sales? it's not like itunes is going to make or break a palm sale, so why not take advantage a mooch some revenue back off of the pre sales?

but, there you go again. apple's going to play in their own sandbox, and if you want to come play, the response is always the same:

screw off!

 

[Eddyisgreat]

i'm not sure why apple wants palm NOT syncing. doesn't this open up a larger market for their music sales? it's not like itunes is going to make or break a palm sale, so why not take advantage a mooch some revenue back off of the pre sales?

On the surface...well...no...but consider the facts.
why has:
-Palm fought tooth and nail to keep this going, up to the point where they hold back dot version updates to the dismay of their own users?
-Palm reported AAPL to the USB board?
-Palm's stock price fluctuated every time Jobs sneezes?
-Palm touted iTunes sync as a bonafied legit feature from day one, trying to entice the press machine to let the world know what they did (since they were the first) ?

If iTunes sync wasn't that big a deal to a certian subset of users, Palm would have backed off after the first go around. Clearly to some customers , or maybe just Rubenstien it's a really big deal.

Now Apple just needs to realize that it is impossible to get a 100% market share in any one market, ie cell phone market. It's just not going to happen with the way the market is setup and the competition out there. Once they realize that they can start understanding that instead of fighting for customers they can't get they could grow their iTunes Music Store business through users that otherwise might not of used iTunes if they didn't have a device compatible with it.

Hahahaha. What B-school did you graduate from? Wharton? Kellogg? Sloan? Did you miss the class which talked about not opening up your platform to competitors vying for the same market?

 

[reel2reel]

I'm a Palm user (grew to hate the iPhone when the prissy hipster crowd made it their emblem).

I couldn't care less about iTunes sync. Never even tried it. The Pre Calendar syncs with both iCal and Google Calendars, all my contacts are automatically synced via GMail and if I want music...I manually drag it into the Pre's music figure. Wow, that's hard.

The Pre is awesome. So glad I resisted the beloved iPhone. Plus I could never get used to the feeling of holding an iPod up to my ear.

 

[*LTD*]

i'm not sure why apple wants palm NOT syncing. doesn't this open up a larger market for their music sales? it's not like itunes is going to make or break a palm sale, so why not take advantage a mooch some revenue back off of the pre sales?

but, there you go again. apple's going to play in their own sandbox, and if you want to come play, the response is always the same:

screw off!

Palm is a competitor. The iTunes look and feel, and full experience is exclusive to Apple. Syncing solutions are available, but Palm wanted that extra Apple panache to go with it: full itunes functionality. No dice. The Apple experience is reserved for Apple devices. Why should Apple help Palm? What, Apple gains a bit of music sales from the now barely perceptible segment of Pre users? Not worth it. And now, breaking Palm's iTunes syncing makes the Pre look like a sad, crippled device. Apple is protecting its IP while simulatneously dealing a heavy blow to Palm. Apple wants the Pre to die, and understandably so.

If I had competitors I'd want to run them out of business as soon as possible, too. That's the whole point.

 

[reel2reel]

Final Cut is just about industry standard

That's sarcasm, right? I'm an FCP Online Editor and I've got to assume that you're either sarcastic or just plain have no clue what you're talking about.

 

[LagunaSol]

For Palm execs to condone this shows a serious lack of scruples IMO. Technical ignorance in their position is not an excuse to just blame it on the engineers.

Jon Rubenstein (Palm's CEO and ex-Apple exec) is anything but technically ignorant. He knows exactly what they're doing. And that's what's so pitiful.

 

[*LTD*]

That's sarcasm, right? I'm an FCP Online Editor and I've got to assume that you're either sarcastic or just plain have no clue what you're talking about.

According to a 2007 SCRI study, Final Cut made up 49% of the US professional editing market, with Avid at 22%.

http://tvbeurope.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1269&Itemid=46

http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/final-cut-vs-avid-redux/

Apple claims 1.3 million licensed Final Cut users, however, this figure includes all Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Studio licenses since day one, excluding upgrades. One research study pointed to 47% market share for Apple and 22% for Avid a couple of years ago. Recently Apple execs indicated to me that FCP has now passed the 50% mark for all new NLE sales. If the figure of 1.3M licensed users represents nearly 50% of the total market, then this means that Avid must have between 400,000 and 600,000 systems (all products) out in the field worldwide.


Major films edited with Final Cut Pro

The Rules of Attraction (2002)
Full Frontal (2002)
The Ring (2002)
Cold Mountain (2003) (Academy Award nominee for Best Editing – Walter Murch)
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
Open Water (2003)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
The Ladykillers (2004)
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)
Super Size Me (2004)
Corpse Bride (2005)
Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (2005)
Happy Endings (2005)
Ellie Parker (2005)
Jarhead (2005)
Little Manhattan (2005)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)
The Ring Two (2005)
300 (2007)
Black Snake Moan (2006)
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
Happy Feet (2006)
Zodiac (2007)
The Simpsons Movie (2007)
No Country for Old Men (2007) (Academy Award nominee for Best Editing – Roderick Jaynes)
Reign Over Me (2007)
Youth Without Youth (2007)
Balls of Fury (2007)
The Tracey Fragments (2008)
Traitor (2008)
Burn After Reading (2008)
The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) (Academy Award nominee for Best Editing – Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall)
Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
A Serious Man (2009)
Tetro (2009)

 

[mytdave]

I'm looking for an iTunes replacement. I've had to replace the contents of my 160 GB iPod too many times to keep using iTunes. I couldn't wait for my new iPod Touch. Now I can't get it to connect wirelessly. So far I'm not impressed. If I had Sprint then maybe the Palm Pre is the way to go. Since I have Verizon it looks like the Motorola Droid is the way to go. It has to work as well as the iPod Touch works.

I'm sorry you seem to be having so much trouble. In our household we have 3 iPod shuffles, 1 nano, and 2 iPhones. The only time we've replaced the content on our devices is when we want to. iTunes has worked nearly flawlessly for us for years, and I have never lost a media file (but I still keep backups just in case).

The iPhone/iPod/Touch devices are intentionally designed to sync with a cable, not wirelessly (wireless is still too slow). In case you failed to notice, the iPod Touch is not a phone, so it has nothing to do with ATT or VZ or Sprint.

There are lots of other media managers/players out there besides iTunes. Try one. Good luck finding one that is as simple, smooth, reliable and robust as iTunes though.

 

[ChazUK]

Drag and drop FTW.

This way I get to organise the music on my memory card how I want it organised and (more importantly) I can still copy my content from my phone back on to the multitude of computers/devices (PS3 etc) it works with.

Palm should really give up with iTunes syncing, it isn't worth it IMO and as the pre supports drag and drop that is perfectly acceptable and usable with media management.

The only people that have lost out are those that bought the Pre with the intention of using iTunes to sync their media with it.

 

[jzuena]

So Palm gives Apple free advertising and directs users of their devices to iTunes where Apple stands to make more profits and have a more dominate Music Store and Apple purposely blocks them? This is just dumb and makes me wonder why I bought an iPhone.

So Apple should forgo a several hundred dollar phone sale so that they can make $.99 music sales? How about you give me $500 and I'll give you $.30 (Apple's take from a song sale)... I'll even give you that $.30 50 times. This is the deal you think Apple should be happy to take.

This would be like a city building a sports stadium and then not allowing out of city people to purchase tickets to games because they don't pay taxes in their city, never mind the fact that the person will be spending money on the tickets as well as concessions. To prevent this they check your drivers license at the stadium blocking you from getting in if your from out of town.

The owners of the San Diego Chargers and Chicago Bears have done exactly that, restricting ticket sales for their playoff games to locals only.

Why should Palm have to make a new music store? That isn't their business. I'm glad companies like IBM are out there and actively work with their competitors to make their competitors products compatible with their own because they know in the long run it makes them look good as well as they are still bringing in revenue for whatever IBM product is required by a competitor's product.

Making a music store wasn't Apple's business, either, until they invested millions of dollars into it so that they could have a place that provided the music to their software that syncs with their hardware. Apple isn't even telling Pre users they can't use the music store. They are telling Palm to find a different way to get that music onto the Pre. RIM was able to figure out a different way... DoubleTwist was able to find that same different way. Why can't Palm find that same different way when Apple has published the information on how to do it?