Palm Reports Apple to USB Compliance Organization Over iTunes Syncing Issues

[derekjd]

The only argument the Palm supporters know to make.

May want to look at my post up the page a little. BTW fanboys swearing at Palm, that's a real good argument right?

I think it's going to be funny when the people who uphold the BSD regulations and the GPL licenses slap both Apple and Palm in the head. If you think about it, both of them are riding the coat tails of open software developers and complaining that they should exclusivity.

 

[toadsprocket]

Almost beer thirty all!
Now essentially what Apple is telling users like me is that even though you are a loyal customer you need to go buy our phone with our terrible business partner or you are out of luck, well if that's the case I will help Palm or any other developers I can to hack/spoof/what ever it take to use iTunes or any other programs I want to use on my hardware.

Feeling a slight sense of entitlement I see.

I think this dumb on Apple's behalf due to the sole fact that why would you want cut off another revenue stream. Think about selling to devices outside of your products, you still make a buck.
Derek

What exactly is the revenue stream they are cutting off? Is Palm paying them some royalties that we don't know about? I don't think Apple makes a ton of money from the music they sell as others have stated. iTunes is a means to sell other Apple products, granting Palm access doesn't do much for Apple. I highly doubt Apple would want to partner with a company who is too lazy to write a sync utility for iTunes anyway, even if there were something in it for them.

 

[pdjudd]

Why must Apple make iTunes ONLY specific to Apple hardware. I know were this is going.. but ... come on.. monopoly.....

Well Apple wants to distribute their player in that fashion. Integrated systems, even vertically integrated ones, are very legal. Do not throw around words like monopoly without knowing what they really mean in relevant circumstances. Oh and Monopolies are not in of themselves illegal.

 

[BaldiMac]

My guess is Palm is trying to bait Apple into this debate/battle since it can easily lead into anti-trust/monopoly law suits against Apple for not allowing 3rd party devices to sync with iTunes and the content that YOU OWN as a user.

Apple does not prevent third party devices from syncing with iTunes. It provides Sync Services for use by any device.

I do hope there's some kind of resolution that lets the Pre, and other devices, sync with iTunes. Today, I like iTunes and I have an iPhone. But I don't like being locked in. At some point I'll probably want to use a different brand of phone with iTunes.

There is no lock in except through DRM. Any device can sync with iTunes. If you want to switch from iTunes, a new music manager could easily import music, data, and playlists from the iTunes library. It's all there. Unencrypted.

Good for Palm. At some point in the future there will be an inquiry into antitrust issues here.

Why?

 

[Goona]

Im pro Apple here.. I own 3 iPhones and a MBP .. but look at what Microsoft does with its Media Player. It detects media devices, whether it be a phone or other MP3 player and allows syncing...

Why must Apple make iTunes ONLY specific to Apple hardware. I know were this is going.. but ... come on.. monopoly.....

Does Microsoft allow my iphone to sync with their Zune Desktop or the Pre?

 

[khannemann]

Sure, it's different

My guess is Palm is trying to bait Apple into this debate/battle since it can easily lead into anti-trust/monopoly law suits against Apple for not allowing 3rd party devices to sync with iTunes and the content that YOU OWN as a user.

It's no different than if Apple would only allow Apple branded USB Hard drives to work with Mac and you couldn't use Seagate or Western Digital, etc. Then people would be bitching, I don't see this being any different.

because iTunes DOES allow third party devices to sync. If you want to use iTunes Store output on 3rd party player, you have to do a little jig and create an MP3 out of it, which iTunes assists you to do.

If Apple only allowed Apple-branded equipment to work with Apple computers that would be perfectly OK with the DOJ and FTC.

 

[miiles]

I've always been a fan of hypocrisy.

 

[viperguy]

I've lost all respect for Palm.

Me too.
If a company is releasing it's own hardware, it better be aware that a good software should be released too.
Let's see what Apple has to say on this one

 

[Bregalad]

This is a bad move by Palm. They really should do the right thing and write their own music software.

Personally I use iPods, but would like to scrap iTunes. I moved my music folder to an external hard drive so other computers in the house can access it and iTunes got so confused I had to start from scratch and make a new library. Then my G5 died and I replaced it with a mini. Once again iTunes got confused and couldn't find the songs even though they were on the same external hard drive they'd been on before. I used to have album artwork for most of the music and almost all of it has been blown away.

The iTunes store only provides art for a small fraction of my albums so I have to locate or scan it and paste by hand. This time I'm making sure the art is embedded into the music files so I'll never have to do it again and so the rest of my family can enjoy the album art. iTunes method of storing art on a per user basis, separately from both the library and actual music is fscked up. Whoever made that design decision should be forced to come to my house and scan all my CD inserts.

 

[BaldiMac]

I think it's going to be funny when the people who uphold the BSD regulations and the GPL licenses slap both Apple and Palm in the head. If you think about it, both of them are riding the coat tails of open software developers and complaining that they should exclusivity.

How is Apple violating BSD or GPL licenses?

 

[Blue Fox]

Im pro Apple here.. I own 3 iPhones and a MBP .. but look at what Microsoft does with its Media Player. It detects media devices, whether it be a phone or other MP3 player and allows syncing...

Why must Apple make iTunes ONLY specific to Apple hardware. I know were this is going.. but ... come on.. monopoly.....

Apple has always been very protective over what they've built. I would be too. Apple has to pay for the servers, research and development, music label royalties, etc. etc. Apple BUILT iTunes....it is THEIRS and THEIRS alone. How dare Palm or any other company to demand Apple to allow their COMPETING devices to allow access to APPLE'S software.

This is why I don't get people thinking that all companies should allow eachother access to their equipment. IT'S A BUSINESS! That's like saying that GM should provide warranty work for Ford! It's rediculous!

 

[HBOC]

Good for Palm. At some point in the future there will be an inquiry into antitrust issues here.

what? how is this anti-trust? seriously? Why should iTunes work with every phone? There are other means of buying digital music, incase you didn't know. Why would Apple spend money, time, etc developing iTunes, just to make it freely available to OTHER companies? It is a licensing deal here. I don't know what happens behind closed doors in Cupertino, (whether licensing is even being extended to Palm, Google, MS, Sony, etc from Apple...even if it isn't, THAT IS Apples' prerogative).

It is the same as the zune marketplace not directly downloading music to an ipod/iphone. You CAN convert it, but still. Let's sue MS now, ok.?

This is the same thing with Pystar, as others have pointed out. OS X only works with Mac hardware (legally and dependably). Why should it run on anything else?

And the sad thing is that the only way for this to get settled is in court or otherwise. Just releasing new iTunes isn't going to be a sure fix, as the CEO of Palm knows that program inside and out.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Does Microsoft allow my iphone to sync with their Zune Desktop or the Pre?

WMP is the equivalent of iTunes, Zune Desktop is not. When iTunes's main purpose is to sync ipods then you can compare it with Zune Desktop.

 

[HBOC]

Apple has always been very protective over what they've built. I would be too. Apple has to pay for the servers, research and development, music label royalties, etc. etc. Apple BUILT iTunes....it is THEIRS and THEIRS alone. How dare Palm or any other company to demand Apple to allow their COMPETING devices to allow access to APPLE'S software.

This is why I don't get people thinking that all companies should allow eachother access to their equipment. IT'S A BUSINESS! That's like saying that GM should provide warranty work for Ford! It's rediculous!

And the royalties. I forgot about that. That is kind of an overlooked detail, lol. I can see it benefiting Apple to open up the interface to all music players and phones, as it is just profit, but up to this point A; companies are unwilling to pay for licensing, or B; it has not been extended from Apple.

 

[derekjd]

Feeling a slight sense of entitlement I see.



What exactly is the revenue stream they are cutting off? Is Palm paying them some royalties that we don't know about? I don't think Apple makes a ton of money from the music they sell as others have stated. iTunes is a means to sell other Apple products, granting Palm access doesn't do much for Apple. I highly doubt Apple would want to partner with a company who is too lazy to write a sync utility for iTunes anyway, even if there were something in it for them.

Revenue by selling products from the iTunes store to Pre users. Pre and iPhone can play the same video and audio so why not sell to both. So if they don't make a ton, would you still make more if you sold more? Sell more more more is how MS got so profitable and hundreds of other companies.

As for entitlement yes, if I buy something I want to use it on all of my devices (iPod, phone, Macs, AppleTV). If someone said you could buy from me but I'm going to make it more difficult to transfer to other devices even though we'll be more then happy to take your money, wouldn't you get aggravated?

 

[ZacUSNYR]

I keep trying to sync my iphone to palmdesktop but it's not working?

I'm going to email Palm for support and see what they say.

 

[Tardyon]

Dude are you serious, "hack", "legit". What difference does it make? I guess Apple is the manufacturer of the Pre. Enough with this semantics crap.

It is not really semantics, since the distinction the poster is making shows his lack of knowledge of what a hack is. The guy is a moron, and it serves everyone best if we all simply smirk at him.

 

[spillproof]

This is getting old. I'm not going to keep updating iTunes just because of Palm. I'll stick with 8.2.0 until Apple bring something new to the table.

I keep trying to sync my iphone to palmdesktop but it's not working?

I'm going to email Palm for support and see what they say.

HAHA awesome!

 

[lazyrighteye]

Breaking the law to show a different broken law seems a weird way to go about things.

 

[techfreak85]

World War 3!

nope
World War Pre!

 

[Goona]

Apple has always been very protective over what they've built. I would be too. Apple has to pay for the servers, research and development, music label royalties, etc. etc. Apple BUILT iTunes....it is THEIRS and THEIRS alone. How dare Palm or any other company to demand Apple to allow their COMPETING devices to allow access to APPLE'S software.

This is why I don't get people thinking that all companies should allow eachother access to their equipment. IT'S A BUSINESS! That's like saying that GM should provide warranty work for Ford! It's rediculous!

Palm is essentially saying it's alright if you don't write your own software because you can just go and hack a popular piece of software for free. The only reasont they picked itunes is because its the most popular choice out there. If Palm was so much about consumers, they would also provide syncing solutions for other software likes Zune Desktop.

 

[techfreak85]

Breaking the law to show a different broken law seems a weird way to go about things.

but is sometimes necessary to have attn called to a subject.

 

[anjinha]

As for entitlement yes, if I buy something I want to use it on all of my devices (iPod, phone, Macs, AppleTV)

iTunes is free...

 

[macrumors12345]

ridiculous

Palm thinks it's improper for iTunes to only allow connectivity with certain Vendor IDs.

This doesn't even make sense. If a company cannot use the USB IDs to discriminate between products, what can it use?

If Palm really believes this, then they are saying that every time I plug in, say, a digital camera, or a keyboard, or a mouse, or a hard drive, or whatever, to my Mac, then iTunes should launch and attempt to sync my music to that device (and of course fail), because using the USB ID to discriminate against that device would be unfair.

Gee, that sounds like a fantastic user experience...way to go Palm.

 

[MizzouCowboy]

Why does everyone here seem to have a problem with other devices being able to sync with iTunes to move content that WE the CONSUMER have purchased from Apple? I don't really consider what Palm has done here to be hacking. iTunes was created by Apple to be a content manager/sales portal of digital content. Maybe I'm missing something here but I would think Apple would greatly benefit from selling content for use on other devices. It's unreasonable to expect everyone in the world to use an Apple device so they might as well make money off them with content.

Truth be told, I doubt Apple has an issue with it as well, I think the underlying issue is that the Palm Pre has been developed by former Apple people. So this is probably just a case of grown-ups acting like children with the consumers getting screwed while they feud. For the record, I'm not a Palm user, I own the iPhone 3G plus 3 iPods and many Mac machines.

It's not so much, in my opinion, that Apple won't let it happen, as, I think, they let other devices sync through third party apps. It's the WAY Palm has done it. Instead of going to Apple the way other companies have done, Palm spoofs iTunes into believing that the Pre is an iPod using Apple's ID.

Sorry but I have no respect for Palm in this matter. They explicitly violated their agreement with the USB Compliance Organization over this one. Someone else mentioned a few posts above about it's irrelevant what Apple SHOULD do and I agree. Palm went about this all wrong which leads me to believe that their business model is a sad one and that is the main reason why they haven't been a good company for a long time.