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Palm Pre To Sync Seamlessly With iTunes
Wired is reporting that Palm's new handheld device, the Pre, will be able to sync automagically with Apple's iTunes. Thanks to a team of ex-Apple engineers the Pre will sync everything but iPhone applications and some of the older Fairplay DRM music. "It does it by faking out iTunes, making the jukebox software think that it is connected to a real iPod. Hook it up and you'll be given three options: USB mass storage device, charging only or iTunes sync. This is a ballsy move from Palm, and we totally love it: a big fat middle finger at Apple. Apple will, we are sure, be readying its legal attack dogs as I write, and don't be at all surprised if an iTunes update pops up around June 6th. This fight just got a lot more interesting."
Honestly, who bases a whole product line on a "faking out" feature.
I'm no fan of DRM, and wish iTunes was more open to other devices, but to publish a whole iPhone "killer" on a kludge is just asking for trouble.
WTF are consumers going to do when Apple pushes an update that breaks this (intentionally, or not) and all of a sudden this marvelous sync stops working?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Am I the only person on earth that sees this as a direct affront to a free market system?!
I do not think that term means what you think it means: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
iTunes currently supports about 20 non-iPod devices
The big deal is that it seems as if Apple decides what gets supported and what doesn't. It should be built so that any device maker can choose whether or not to build an adapter so that their hardware can interface with iTunes? Where does this leave iRiver, Archos, Sandisk, Microsoft, Centon, Nextar, etc?
Apple decides who lives and who dies. That's the big deal.
My work here is dung.
I was with you up until the DRM part. The iTunes store is almost entirely DRM-free by now.
If you don't like AAC either, Amazon.com sells MP3 downloads that are cheaper than iTunes downloads, and has about the same selection. iTunes was once a monopoly, although Apple's DRM practices ironically ended that rather quickly.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I guess you're entitled to view them as monopolists, but that doesn't mean that view accords with real world legal definitions. There are other sources for digital content online, and there are other players - Apple has a big chunk of the market, but by no means do they have total control - facts you note at the end of your post. Also, let's not forget that a big chunk of the pricing of content is driven by the deals the content providers are willing to cut with Apple - remember the recent change to a tiered pricing scheme from the $.99 for all music.
How is Apple a monopoly, if we understand the term monopoly to mean something other than "a company you don't like/does things that displease you?"
Meh. Lock-in across product lines is older than dirt. Its practice doesn't make a company "monopolistic" (though its practice by a monopoly can sometimes be illegal, which may be why you associate the two things).
Anyway, you appear to be wishing for legal action based on how much you like each company's actions rather than on any legal facts; which means you're also not looking at an accurate picture of the costs and outcomes if legal action does occur.
I won't speculate on the issues that would matter in a court case (such as whether any trade secrets were utilized by the ex-Apple engineers that allegedly made this work), but I will say that without knowing the details of those issues, I wouldn't be begging anyone to start casting legal stones.
I wish I had mod points because this is a smart response. I hate it when people use the word "monopoly" as a synonym for "I don't like them." If there's a real reason not to like Apple--even a bad one, like, "I always prefer the underdog," is better than none--then use it. Don't just call it a monopoly.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Wasn't that all to do with the music industry refusing to let Apple sell DRM free music? As opposed to "Apple's DRM practices".
Of course it does. Having a monopoly is legal. Abusing a monopoly to create lock-in is the illegal part.