Slashdot Mirror
Palm Pre "iTunes Hack" Detailed By DVD Jon
CNETNate writes "As the reviews of the Palm Pre start to roll in, DVD Jon expands on previous coverage of the Pre showing up in iTunes as some sort of an iPod, by publishing the offending code Palm has used to enabled the feature. As suspected, in regular USB mode, the phone addresses itself as a standard peripheral. But in 'Media Sync' mode, it claims to be an iPod ... from a vendor known as Apple."
Inevitably Apple will move to block this, making the next model of iPods that much harder to use with open source software.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I can't imagine a major competitor to the Apple iPhone will be allowed to do this without a lawsuit smacking them in the face. Then again, perhaps Palm wants a lawsuit to bring additional media attention to their device.
Seems like a risky move by Palm, their entire future most likely rests on this device. Without it succeeding the risk of Palm going under are pretty high. Might as well shoot for the fences I guess.
If I can not smoke in heaven, then I shall not go. -- Mark Twain
Apple could sue, and Palm could counter-sue with antitrust claims. After all, Apple does control most of the music market via iTunes.
I vaguely recall a lawsuit where Apple was sued for limiting the iPod to only iTunes (Apple won), but I don't think anybody has challenged the reverse (using something else with iTunes) in court.
Silly Apple, if it only identifies its devices via a USB identifier, but interacts with them in standard, easily emulated ways, all the while going for the exclusivity angle.
Silly Palm, for thinking Apple will take this lying down. But kudos for the balls to do it anyway.
Two points:
1) This is impossible for Apple to block. If according to USB it's an iPod, how can Apple distinguish? They can try to see if any little details are missing, but in the end any probing they do can easily be met by Palm.
Nor is it even unsafe, because the code to support older iPods is pretty stable and will not change over time - the older iPods will always be supported.
2) I'm pretty sure Apple sill not sue. What legality is there around USB identifiers? Nothing. The only hook there is the Apple string in the ID, but I don't think it's enough to put a case around. Why bother with the expense of a suit.
It's a clever idea from Palm and I applaud them for it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
These types of hacks used to be common. Everybody had their own proprietary protocols and did everything they could to lock customers into their own high-priced peripherals. Companies constantly hacked other companies' protocols and interfaces so they could offer alternatives.
These days this is rare because now the industry knows the value of standards, open when possible. In hindsight I think Palm has the right idea in trying to interface with iTunes for media syncing.
Is it time for an open standard for media syncing?
*If* this is the only way to get data from iTunes, then spoofing the model and vendor should be like the Game Boy requesting an image of the Nintendo logo at bootup. There was a court ruling back in the 90s (Sega vs Galoob, I think) that said the image was treated as a password to go through the BIOS bootup, therefore, anybody could put it in their games. This is probably a completely different ball game, though.
Silly Apple, if it only identifies its devices via a USB identifier, but interacts with them in standard, easily emulated ways, all the while going for the exclusivity angle.
If it's only identifying devices in a standard, easily enumerated way - then they obviously are not going for the exclusivity angle. That part is your assertion but actual technical details seem to prove your assertion wrong.
Silly Palm, for thinking Apple will take this lying down.
I honestly don't think Apple will care much. It leads to more people buying things from iTunes after all and cements the dominance of iTunes for managing media. Perhaps they even did this in conjuction with Palm... if you think about it they would have been smart to do so.
But kudos for the balls to do it anyway.
Can't argue with that. Palm is an amazing company to come back the way they have, makes me think of the Palm of old...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But Palm wont be able to certify their device as USB unless the hack is an aftermarket hack.
Why not? When you hit "Mount as Storage", the device acts as a bog standard USB mass storage device.
When you hit media sync, it acts totally differently. But why should a special mode of using USB stop certification when it does offer a standard mode...
Offering different options when plugging into USB is sheer genius.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Their trick, in other words...
Pre: "Knock knock"
Windows: "Whoâ(TM)s there?"
Pre: "iPod."
Windows: "Cool, come in. Hey iTunes, Iâ(TM)ve got an iPod for you."
iTunes: "You donâ(TM)t look like an iPod but if Windows says you are, thatâ(TM)s good enough for me. Smoke some of this music."
Pre: "Kickass."
They are pretending to be an Apple device. I don't think that's legal.
What's the charge? "Impersonating an Apple Device"? What law is that exactly...
As I noted, the only hook is that the USB id has the word Apple which could be a trademark violation... but all the car adaptors looking for iPods have the word "Apple" embedded in order to look for said iPods. There's a strong case to be made that the string is there for the purpose of interoperability.
I don't even think it's grey enough an area to be worth a lawsuit. Did you hear of a suit filed today? Apple has known exactly how this mimicing would work for a few weeks now, you would have heard something either before or around launch.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why would Apple sue over this? On what grounds? There's no copy protection being circumvented, no cryptography being broken, it's a plaintext response. Also remember when that when Apple suggested legal trouble for Palm, Palm suggested that they wouldn't hesitate to strike back with their own patent portfolio. I can't see either party taking anything to court.
Ugh, the text encoding in Windows is terrible.
Dumping the USB registers: cool.
Commentator confusing USB registers with code: not cool.
Mod DVD Jon +1
Mod Slashdot -1
It's not like the USB certification is required to sell anything. It's just a way to put a logo on a box, a logo Palm does not really need. Everyone knows it connects via USB and the cable is standard...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well,
All Apple has to do is ROT-13 their handshakes. Then, if Palm does the same? It's now a DMCA violation.
On a less frivolous note, perhaps this is the case that will cause the DMCA to crumble, as a possible court battle that pitches anti-competitive practice against technological copyright enforcement.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
Well, there is a standard for media syncing, but it's developed by Microsoft and apparently not followed. Especially by Microsoft with their Zune, as they decided to ignore the standards they had created and sold to third-party developers in favor of something that only works with their software.
Mass storage mode still seems to work better. Again, Microsoft will allow watching a video on the Xbox 360 from a mass storage device but not a MTP device.
You really think that there isn't a SINGLE Apple employee who couldn't get hold of a Pre if they wanted to, or that they don't already have one? Even in their hardware, PR, developer etc. departments? And that "revelation" was basically revealed by plugging the device in and looking at the usbid... lsusb would have done it in a single command and there are even prettier interfaces for Windows for free.
Obscurity is a waste of time when you're hoping the *designers* of a system don't realise how you've worked around it - it's like "telling" the DVD forum about the CSS hack - they already know *how* you circumvent it, but they may not know the exact method by which you discovered it (that's the bit that *doesn't* matter). The designers of any such system already know, or it would take seconds to make 10 guesses at how, and it would take minutes to actually discover how even without basic knowledge - you just run it through a debug version of iTunes and see what happens.
Don't be silly. It's like saying Microsoft don't know how people are installing pirate copies of Windows, or upping the TCP connection limit, or Nintendo not knowing how the Wii hacks work. It takes *seconds* for them to work it out once it's been revealed, even if they would never have thought of it. They DESIGNED the system, after all.
Okay, I have to set something straight. It doesn't look for the string "Apple." It looks for a 2 byte code which MEANS apple.
Thanks, I had not looked up that detail of what form the ID took...
Then it's even more clearly something Apple cannot sue over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How is this any different than Opera/Firefox/whatever changing the User-Agent string?
Neither looks like anything complicated nor like anything illegal.
Think of iTunes as a driving force between iPod sales rather than the iPod as a driving force behind iTunes sales and you'll understand why Apple may be against this.
Yes, I totally agree the intent is for iTunes to sell iPods.
The Pre supporting iTunes does not change this equation. More people using iTunes is more people that might have a reason to get an iPhone, even if at first they get a Pre.
Also, there are a lot of people that have phones but also iPods. Having a smaller iPod for running is common...
Further, iTunes Video still cannot be played so there's still some push to getting an iPod video device of some kind.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In TFA, DVD Jon says this:
Emphasis added by me.
I agree with him: all Apple has to do is add code to check the root USB node, see that the device is a Palm Pre, and refuse to accept the device as an iPod.
P.S. If Palm had just gone to Apple and said "we want to make the Palm Pre sync with iTunes", would Apple have been reasonable about it? I saw a comment on Slashdot mentioning that there are non-Apple devices that sync with iTunes, implying that Apple can be reasonable. But in this case, the Pre is competing with the iPhone! I imagine Apple would do anything they could to sandbag a competitor, including denying iTunes.
Apple won't sue Palm. But I won't be surprised if they do this check and lock the Pre out of iTunes.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Not sure if it did violate the DMCA, they are not breaking encryption but only saying "Yeah, I'm an iPod..."
All Apple has to do is ROT-13 their handshakes.
What, and break all the old iPods' ability to sync? Yeah, that'll go over real well.
Handshaking doesn't exist in hardware, it exists in software.
There isn't an iPod made that Apple could simply release an update for with new handshaking routines (such as ROT-13).
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Reader: Knock, knock
Slashdot: Who's there?
Reader: Unicode.
Slashdot: Fuck off.
Back on topic, John Gruber has covered this pretty well here and here.
"But is it illegal? And would it be illegal for Apple to take countermeasures against it? My guess is "no" to both questions... I don't think WebOS's media sync is a mistake on Palm's part because it is wrong, I think it's a mistake because it is risky and unnecessary."
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
This computer is claiming to be an Apple Computer. Apple sued. Apple won.
Citation needed. This device is claiming to be a Sega Genesis game cartridge (Sega v. Accolade), a Chamberlain LiftMaster garage door opener (Chamberlain v. Skylink), or a Lexmark toner cartridge (Lexmark v. Static Control Components). Sega, Chamberlain, and Lexmark sued. Sega, Chamberlain, and Lexmark lost.
Lexmark tried this with printer cartridges and was told to bugger off.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
How did this get modded insightful?
iPod firmware can be updated by iTunes. The interpretation of handshaking being done in hardware vs. software is very subjective, given that it's either hardcoded in the hardware(see: old modems) or in firmware(see: software modems).
As far as another person mentioning using ROT13 to invoke DMCA, it wouldn't work. Reverse engineering is allowable(for the moment) to allow interoperability. Palm could easily explain that their device does not enable copyright infringement any more than any other mobile media device and the fact that it needs to report itself as an Apple device to connect is just evidence of Apple's reluctance to make iTunes operate with other hardware devices.
In short, the DMCA doesn't necessarily apply.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
This is much the same. Unless the Pre had features built in to make copyright infringement easy, reverse engineering the iTunes-iPod interface for interoperability likely wouldn't be affected by the DMCA.
Given Apple's got a dominant market position in both MP3 players and online media distribution, although I'm hesitant to say a monopoly position, firing back at Palm for this could place them in the antitrust hot seat.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
They are circumventing the (very poorly conceived and implemented) technology that enforces the rule that only iPods can connect to iTunes
Which is not a copyright protection technology.
You can't put DRM'd files on the Palm Pre. the Pre does not crack or remove the iTunes DRM. Everything you can do wtih a Pre and iTunes you can do with an iPhone and iTunes. Ergo, Apple hasn't got a leg to stand on.
Neither will Palm if Apple just switches it -- aside from a possible monopoly claim. Really, though, "a rising tide lifts all boats." The more devices look to iTunes, the more iTunes gets used. The more iTunes gets used, the more direct revenue for Apple. and they'll sell more iPods, too.
>>Apple either responds with a lawsuit or iTunes patch
The thing is, old iPods will always be supported. There is nothing fancy about what Palm is doing here- it's just two bytes that represent "Apple" during the handshake. These are the same two bytes throughout the iPod line, and changing them would mean either: a hack workaround which changed the handshake but that still allowed both new and old, which would allow the Pre to work; or updating iTunes and all the devices to show a new handshake which would take about 10 seconds to patch on the Pre.
The second scenario would entail a lot of negative PR for Apple without really changing the playing field. After the so-called "brick patch' that "broke" Jailbroken iPhones, I don't think Apple would try that tactic again.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.