Palm Pre backs away from Apple iTunes The long-running feud over the Palm Pre's ability to sync with Apple's iTunes may have come to an end. Or not. On Monday, Palm announced its latest update to the Pre's webOS operating system. Conspicuously absent from the announcement was any mention of what the company calls "media sync" - the ability for Palm's smartphone to …
Palm can get off their asses & produce a sync solution on their own. If Nokia can do it and make it work fine, so can Palm. Stop the damn whining. But what do I expect from YET ANOTHER company who would rather rake in the dough from exclusive deals than simply SELL ME THEIR FREAKIN' PRODUCT.
If their point was "They are using the identifier to restrict other companies in a mean-spirited and anticompetitive way", then they had an argument.
If they just ran up and said "no fair!" then they got what they deserved. I can't see them having been so childish.
I am all for a gamegenie, featuring an ipod nano dock, which will make your phone sync.
Why people continue to support such an overpriced, OCD, anal retentive, closed, customer belittling, incompatible company I will never know. I've never seen any benefit from Apple. Ever. I've seen their malware, their flashy, overpriced hardware, and their "I shit on your face peasant" customer service though.
Apple. Fuck you.
All licensed USB manufacturers are allocated a VID and a VID/PID pair forms a unique identifier of a particular USB-based product. That VID is paid for and licensed solely to the owner of that VID. VID = Vendor ID, PID = Product ID.
Palm breached the USB license they had agreed to and used Apple's VID/PID to fake it so iTunes thought their product was an iSomething, akin to cloning a key and opening their front door.
Apple used other techniques to detect Palm's key was cloned, not a legitimate one, and rejected access using their cloned key. Hence Palm were locked out. They went crying to the USB IF, but, as using someone else's VID is not allowed, the USB IF ruled against Palm. Quite rightly so.
Whether Apple, or anyone else, should be allowed to lock their software to certain products is a matter for debate, but not something the USB IF could ever rule on. Palm applied to 'the wrong court' in the hope of getting a judgement in their favour. That was never going to be and pretty stupid as it seemed clear to everyone but Palm they would lose.
My my. Your world must be really depressing.
I mean, no Apple = no innovation = klutzy, slow, unintuitive catch-up me too interfaces on no-App Store devices.
Feck it, you'd rather carry a brick, a real housebrick, in your pocket because if there /was/ an App for smashing windows, you'd prefer your brick and all the mono-functionality it brings, rather than stoop to a class leading device (and other devices are available) that was made by a company you despise with a passion.
Bill, it's because Palm are acting like kids. Apple have done nothing wrong. iTunes isn't a syncing conduit. It is a media management app that has evolved into a store front that offers syncing (and here is the important bit) to Apples products. I take it you are for identity theft then? I mean it's not fair that some chav's don't work, so they should obviously be allowed to pretend to be you and benefit from your work and achievement by using your credit and debit cards...
Am I the only one who immediately thought: you don't need no stinkin' app, just throw the iXXX hard enough!
This whole childish affair is a real "the enemy of my enemy" moment for me. In this case apple was right and palm may be the only company on earth who are bigger wankers.
But apple still sucks.
Not allowing other devices to connect to the iTues store is like a retailer saying you can only buy our clothes if you are wearing our shoes. Apple wants to lock you into their ecosystem rather giving you the option of using somebody else’s devices.
There is no technical reason why other devices shouldn't be allowed to sync with iTunes and so work directly with the store it is purely that Apple have locked them out.
I think the time is coming when Apple's business practices need to be questioned.
Locking competitors out of the iTunes store when it is the dominant music download store in the market is anti-competitive.
Just to be clear I’m not talking about iTunes the app, just the store. If the store was opened then alternative apps for buying and managing your downloads would be developed and could compete in a fair way
How hard is it to read a little bit of XML and then copy the appropriate files to the phone? Palm wrote the firmware for the phone so the "writing the files" part should be easy for them. If Palm need help writing an XML parser then they're in more trouble then they're letting on!
"Locking competitors out of the iTunes store when it is the dominant music download store in the market is anti-competitive."
No it isn't. There are many other sources for purchasing music. Check your dictionary for "anti-competitive" before posting.
Also check the dictionary for "fool" - you'll find a picture of Bill Gould.
Rhapsody would probably help Palm or produce the code for Palm that would let the Pre sync with Rhapsody software. Why bother with Apple at all? Hell, my Sansa Fuse will work with Windows Media Player or Rhapsody. Who needs Apple and their crappy, resource intensive Windows version of iTunes?
"There is no technical reason why other devices shouldn't be allowed to sync with iTunes"
- It is not Apple's job to make a synching application for all 3rd party hardware. Palm can suck it up and write their own and Apple will not have an issue with that. You know how I know that for a fact? RIM wrote their own synching software and it synchs with iTunes media and Apple does nothing to prohibit this.
"I think the time is coming when Apple's business practices need to be questioned."
- Apple has done NOTHING unethical here. Again, Palm violated the USB Implementers rules, not Apple. And, again, Apple is not required to write the synch software for 3rd party hardware.
"Locking competitors out of the iTunes store. . . is anti-competitive."
- Are you kidding me? Did you read this before you submitted? We are talking iTunes application vs. iTunes store. Please understand what you are discussing before posting.
How much kool-aid do you have to drink to make those arguments without choking?
Apple didn't have to do ANYTHING to allow iTunes to synch to the Pre - it worked just fine. Apple had to go out of their way to BREAK this functionality.
Why did Apple waste time and money to make it more difficult for ordinary, non-technical users to use a Pre with their iTunes media? Because the Pre represents competition, plain and simple. They don't give a fiddlers about the poor user, they simple want to make a competitors product less attractive to users. That's fundamentally uncompetitive.
The issue isn't whether Palm can or should write their own software, the issue is whether the actual user should be able to use the software that they are familiar with to manage their media and devices.
And by the way, these users are Apples customers too. Apple screwing Apple customers - who'd a thunk it?
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