Apple fires iTunes shot across Palm’s Media Sync bow 28
As our friends over at our Apple-obsessed sister-site The iPhone Blog have noted, Apple has updated their support documents to address non-Apple synchronization with their pervasive iTunes media player:
Apple designs the hardware and software to provide seamless integration of the iPhone and iPod with iTunes, the iTunes Store, and tens of thousands of apps on the App Store. Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.
So what’s the deal here? Is Apple actively preparing to break iTunes synchronization, is this just sabre rattling, or is this the Apple legal team’s effort to cover their butts in the event that a change to iTunes does break non-Apple synchronization? We’re betting it’s just legal maneuvering, but we also wouldn’t put it past Apple to crack down on people breaking into their proprietary system. It all seems mighty silly, given that all of the music in the iTunes Store is now DRM-free and Apple has no reason to be kicking people out of their happy little ecosystem. Except to keep that happy little ecosystem all to themselves, which would seem to be a mighty petty move (if they were to do so).
Of course, with the Pre’s easy over-the-air software updates, Palm could push out a quick update to circumvent whatever “software changes over time” might block Media Sync. We’re just going to cross our fingers and hope it doesn’t come to that.
28 Comments
1st
You are truly my hero. I bow down to your internet speed. Can I have your autograph?
Indeed, always nice to see people with low-self esteem and too much free time win at something.
(Disclaimer: not an apple fan boy here... just pointing out and playing the devil's advocate role for the sake of making a point).
While PRE users have every right to get upset should apple decide to stop the PRE from syncing with iTunes, let's not lose perspective here: Apple has every entitlement to do what they see fit to their own software,(is theirs, they own it) specially when dealing with a tricky competitor that has designed a device to be an iPod impostor (a move by Palm I have to applaud for ballsy and daring).
Not necessarily. If Apple has a monopoly (which they arguably do) with iTunes, they cannot change their APIs for the purpose of making other devices no longer sync.
It's the same thing with Microsoft and Samba. Samba allows Linux/Unix to interact with a Windows server or client as if it was Windows itself for file or print services. Microsoft cannot legally change their APIs to make Samba no longer work.
Spot on actually.
Simple message block has capitalized on this greatly, and this could, in a way...be a Palm defense against the inevitable Apple lawsuit for multitouch.
"But Judge, Apple is being anti-competitive, as you can see in our counter suit claim."
I am believe it is not just Palm they are worried about. RIM has already put it out that the Tour will also sync with iTunes. I am not sure about other phones having this ability but it seems to me the flood gates are about to open.
I believe that Apple is doing legal posturing here, with such a non-threatening statement. I mean, why would they want to turn anyone away from iTunes? The more subscribers the better, Apple device or not! If this was not the case, why would they create PC compatible iTunes software, if they wanted to force users to use Apple computers?! Matter of fact, I never used iTunes once before getting my Pre! Now I do. I am sure Palm and Apple have some sort of agreement here.
I totally agree josev2009. Although, if someone else besides the great Apple demi-gods were taking away functionality that was once was there, people would be crying fair use.
Solution: Assuming something does happen, just don't update iTunes past 8.2 and instead wait for everything to hash out.
There's really no imperative to update if:
1) You have multiple machines with iTunes. Simply leave one at v8.2 and sync your iPod(s)/iPhone(s) with the machine running the latest version.
2) You don't have an iPhone/iPod Touch. It's highly doubtful Apple will be adding features pertinent to Pre owners.
If you do have an iPhone/iPod Touch, either see #1 above or weigh whether the new features are worth upgrading for. My wife and I have an iPod 120GB, an iPod Touch, and a Pre and sync them off from different machines.
I'm also going to agree with rdelfin in terms of Apple's right to restrict access. I think many of us who purchased the Pre knew going in that iTunes sync had its own caveats going forward.
Will it suck if Apple pulls the 'Pre' plug on upcoming versions of iTunes? Sure, temporarily, for those that can't avoid updating past v8.2. Otherwise, I think Palm's engineers are smart enough to get the cat-and-mouse race going.
Hey, Apple can do what they want with their software...well, at least until someone in a court says otherwise...which they probably should since Apple is selling 25% of the music in the world through iTunes. That said, it's that exact closed-minded, closed-architecture, proprietary arrogant attitude that drove me away from being a zealous Apple supporter and MacOS professional developer and move on to the much richer array of non-Apple technologies. For me, the iPhone was never an option. I had a Treo and always decided that Android was where I wanted to be...and then the Pre. Hell, I have root on the Pre now...and a copy of Ethereal...and if Apple breaks the iTunes synch with the Pre, *I'll* fix it. ;)
Pfft, go ahead, pull the plug.
Kick people out of your store.
Encourage them to remove your bloated software from their computers.
Entice Apple fanboys to become exposed to the simplicity of WinMedia and the pleasure of drag a drop and cheaper downloads.
Develop an adversarial relationship with high tech users that might prank Apple/users back for percieved belligerence.
Get on with it.
Here I am. I am an apple fanboy. Got my macbook pro, I got my 80gb ipod. I also got my palm pre. And I agree with everything you said.
Except windows has been lame sense win2K
Hey hey, nobody said anything about sharing PC O/S's. Keep your hands off my Vista and I'll not make an booty calls on OS/X after tossing it out of my office for refusing to link network and local printers at the same time. You keep your fruity goodness, I'll keep my git'er done hot rod.
"However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple "
They could very well say that they don't provide support for ANYTHING that is non-Apple. It's basically a useless platform if you want to interact with the rest of the electronic world. Including GPS / Symbian / Firmware updaters the list is endless.
I should know we have 4 apple computers in our house and ended up buying an old dell running XP just to do the essential stuff.
Whatever happened to the Pre? No one seems to care anymore. I wonder why that is?
Dbmgreen: Let me get this straight. You bought 4 "apple computers", even though they won't "do the essential stuff"? Wow, that kind of atrocious, square-peg-in-round-hole thinking I'd never admit in public. But that's me.
You can use doubleTwist to sync media to your Palm Pre. doubleTwist automatically converts videos to the correct format for your Pre.
http://www.doubletwist.com
Disclaimer: I'm the co-founder of doubleTwist.
I don't get this whole "Apple monopoly with iTunes" thing.
You are free to buy music thru Amazon, Rhapsody, or whatever. You are free to use Windoze Media Player or whatever software you want to use. You can even use iTunes to buy and store music, then burn to CDs in the standard CD format. There's no monopoly. No one is forcing you to use iTunes.
If Palm is so gosh darn wonderful, where is their version of iTunes? They only have to create the phone, and expect Apple to help support their phone by syncing to it?
With the gazillion PeeCees out there with 95% market share, and the huge number of Windoze Mobile phones, people are calling big, bad Apple a monopoly? Give me a break - you expect them to do the R&D to support iTunes, which is free, provide updates with great new features, close music deals with the labels, and support a huge, complex online store just so you can plug any old device into it and sync?
Give me a break. You all hate Apple, so why do you care a toss about iTunes? Go buy your music on Rhapsody. If Palm has no sync mechanism for music, blame them.
What do you mean you don't agree with the "Apple monopoly with iTunes"... that's ludicrous... I just went to buy the entire Beatles anthology in iTunes and... oh wait, none of it was there, I guess there was no such thing as the Beatles since it isn't in Apple's monopolistic music distribution software.
I really don't see Apple doing anything specific to remove the Pre's ability to sync. Apple has pretty much laid the groundwork for it with moving to DRM-free music. (Many people quickly forget that it was Steve Jobs who pissed in the music studio's faces when he wrote a letter indicating the DRM free music was the future).
Either way, there is NOTHING that would keep the Media Sync application from bypassing iTunes all together to sync up your music. Your iTunes library information is stored in an XML. Media Sync can just use that.
Apple Fan Boy... Out
Wow, all of your points really are worthless. Did you even think before you commented?
Apple is hands down the leader in the MP3 Player market, and in turn, has made iTunes the biggest music store. They most definitely have a monopoly. When you basically control the distribution of digital music like Apple does, you can dictate how you want to run your business to music industry executives, like Apple does.
If Palm is so gosh darn wonderful, where is their version of iTunes? They only have to create the phone, and expect Apple to help support their phone by syncing to it?
Who said anything about expecting Apple to support the Pre? They don't have to support it, but they also can't change their software with the sole intent of breaking compatibility for third parties.
With the gazillion PeeCees out there with 95% market share, and the huge number of Windoze Mobile phones, people are calling big, bad Apple a monopoly? Give me a break - you expect them to do the R&D to support iTunes, which is free, provide updates with great new features, close music deals with the labels, and support a huge, complex online store just so you can plug any old device into it and sync?
iTunes is the most popular music store on Macs or PCs, so I don't see why it's important that PCs have a bigger market share. Plus, the iPhone is more popular than WinMo devices. iPhones are outsold only by Blackberries. And once again, nobody is expecting Apple to do R&D to support the Pre. I don't know where you're getting these ideas, but they just make you sound even more ill-informed. It's really only to Apple's benefit to not break compatibility, because Pre owners can buy music from iTunes and get money from music sales that otherwise would be lost to another company.
See, this is where I can't 100% agree with you>
...but they also can't change their software with the sole intent of breaking compatibility for third parties.
Oh sure they can change their software. Specially when dealing with a situation when one of your direct competitors (arguably your main one) is using your own platform to leverage off from your own resources. That's not being monopolistic, that's protecting your own business.
Non-apple fan boy out.
That's anti-competitive, and when you have a monopoly, you have to allow interoperability.
By your logic, Windows is Microsoft's software. They can then say "No FireFox, No Opera, No Chrome, No Safari. You can only use Internet Explorer" and they could make the changes to Windows to make that happen. These other browsers are direct competitors of Microsoft's and they'd simply be protecting their business.
Your logic is flawed.
It is OK to disagree and that won't make you less of a person, so 'chill dude' and take some fresh air!
No need to judge as flawed the view of anyone, but if you insist on playing that game> Learn, think and then talk.
With iTunes, the PRE is an impostor (pretending to be an iPod to fool the system).. With windows, they can do whatever they want with their internet explorer as long as they don't stop opera and firefox from being installed or force IE as your default browser... so as you can see, it seems you have a long way to go when it comes to presenting your arguments and YOUR logic is the one flawed by comparing the two scenarios as if they were comparable.
Gotta go as I have better things to do, than discussing nonsense.
Please read what I said before you comment. I was implying by your logic of "it's their software, they can do whatever they want" that Windows is Microsoft's software and they can do whatever they want. Then gave the example of a browser running within Windows. Yes, Internet Explorer is also Microsoft's software, but so is Windows. So... with your logic Microsoft can say that anything which competes with a Microsoft product within Windows, they have every right to make it not work.
The fact that the Pre pretends to be an iPod makes no difference. If you'd prefer a closer example, look at Samba. Samba is software for Linux/Unix which emulates Microsoft's SMB for the purpose of file and print sharing. In essence, it pretends to be another Windows client so it can do file sharing with Windows. Microsoft cannot change the way they do Windows file sharing to make Samba no longer work. They've tried in the past, and gotten in big trouble for it.
It's Apple's software, they can do whatever they want with their software.
Because they have a monopoly in terms of iTunes, they cannot do whatever they want with it in the same way Microsoft cannot do whatever they want. There is no difference other than Apple's position hasn't yet been tested in a court (to my knowledge).
How will they block Pre compatibility? If the Pre is made to look like an iPod, how does Apple block the Pre without bricking the iPod it's pretending to be?
Maybe using AAC w/DRM they can make up some sort of test (say, xfer crypto file and see if device can play it back) but that seems like a bit of work to non-apple people the use of their crazy popular software.
It's much more likely, Apple wants to avoid taking support calls from Pre owners who can't figure out which end of the usb cable goes in their Pre and which goes into their butt. It's entirely reasonable for Apple to be up front and tell the world that they make no guarantees about rogue posers and varied miscreants pretending to be an iPod. Otherwise people will complain that iTunes doesn't work because their DRM songs won't play on the Pre.
I think it's great that Palm hacks this workaround but it would be nicer if they made some desktop app of their own. Use or modify Amarok, it's free and works great for me . . . with my iPod anyway.
It's nice to ditch the iPod. Now if I can only get it to sync with Amarok . . .
This iTunes syncing is one of thoes features I couldn't care less of. I whish palm would not have wasted time on that, though I see why they did it. But that is alredy telling you much about how and why people buy a product, and how little they are informed sometimes. And, yes, the good thing is: you don't have to! And pre showes up as a mass storage device in the explorer. THE ultimate and universal syncing solution. And for iTunes, I installed it once. Good luck it was not on one of my machines. I now know it will never be on one of mines.
i want a pre because i hate itunes tho... if you like itunes, get an iphone
> hey most definitely have a monopoly. When you basically control the distribution of digital music like Apple does, you can dictate how you want to run your business to music industry executives, like Apple does.
As was said before - you can buy your music thru iTunes and burn CDs all you want. Now you have completely unencumbered music.
Also, as was said before - you can buy music over Amazon, Rhapsody, or any other vendor. Apple does not have sole rights over any music, as far as I know.
The point is this - why do people think that Apple should continue supporting the syncing of devices that are in direct competition with their products?