Palm Pre iTunes Syncing Back With WebOS 1.1 Update

suraj.sun points out CNet coverage of Palm's newest OS release, which restores the ability to synch with iTunes that iTunes 8.2.1 had broken. "The news was posted on Palm's blog where it listed the new features and enhancements of the software update and nonchalantly added at the end: 'Oh, and one more thing: Palm WebOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync. That's right — you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).' Bold move, Palm. Bold move. It'll be interesting to see how Apple responds, and do you suppose the use of the phrase 'one more thing,' a phrase that Apple CEO Steve Jobs often uses to introduce a new product at the end of his keynotes, was intentional or am I just reading too much into this?"

Comments

Intentional

[jDeepbeep]

and do you suppose the use of the phrase 'one more thing,' a phrase that Apple CEO Steve Jobs often uses to introduce a new product at the end of his keynotes, was intentional or am I just reading too much into this?"

Intentional.

But... for how long?

[popo]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Re:Lost battle

[Darkness404]

Theres only so much though that Apple can do short of killing compatibility with older iPods. Eventually Apple will just have to give up.

cat and mouse

[goombah99]

Why as a consumer would I be so dumb as to buy a palm if my itunes only worked intermittently or had no assured path forward. Sure one could perhaps use the old version of itunes while I waited for palm to fix it. But really that's not a strategy. I'm in that boat right now with my jailbroken iphone and did I not sort of enjoy the novelty of this cat and mouse game it would be a detraction not an attraction. I can't imagine most people want a phone that might not work some of the time. who needs to waste time like that?

Re:cat and mouse

[Anonymous Coward]

Why as a consumer would I be so dumb as to buy a palm if my itunes only worked intermittently or had no assured path forward. Sure one could perhaps use the old version of itunes while I waited for palm to fix it. But really that's not a strategy. I'm in that boat right now with my jailbroken iphone and did I not sort of enjoy the novelty of this cat and mouse game it would be a detraction not an attraction. I can't imagine most people want a phone that might not work some of the time. who needs to waste time like that?

I know this sounds crazy, but most of the time I use my phone as a communication device.

Re:cat and mouse

[G Money]

Why as a consumer would I be so dumb as to buy anything Apple if they're only goal is to extract as much money from me as possible by forcing me to use only their products? If a company like Apple wants to specifically break compatibility with their products for third parties then I would choose not to use their products. Why is it that people jump on Microsoft when they trap consumers but applaud Apple for the same behavior? I'm not saying Apple doesn't make good products (I think they do), but the price of it is vendor lock-in the likes of which Microsoft can only dream about.

Re:cat and mouse

[DurendalMac]

Um, maybe you already had? And if Palm would grow a few braincells then they would write their own damn software that would read the XML file in the iTunes library and sync data without needing to run iTunes and pretend it's an iPod. Current iTunes tracks are just AAC files that will play on the Pre no matter what you use to sync it.

Re:cat and mouse

[DurendalMac]

1. You can use your iPod with other software.
2. With the exception of older DRM'ed tracks, you can put your music from iTunes on any device with any other software that supports said device and the proper file formats.
3. Palm is taking the lazyass way out and piggybacking on iTunes when anyone with three braincells could see this leapfrog coming a mile away. Yes, Apple is being dickish about this, but Palm damn well knew this would happen and they have a lot more to lose from pissed off customers than Apple does. The iTunes library is just an XML file. It would be trivial for Palm to make an app that reads said file and syncs without the need for iTunes to be running.

Re:cat and mouse

[clf8]

You buy the Apple products because you LIKE the Apple products, and you LIKE the way they work together.

Now PalmPre starts syncing with iTunes, but doesn't sync right. That will look bad on Apple. Let's say the PalmPre somehow effs up your library. That will look bad on Apple. Sure, Apple can say 'we don't support the Pre' but if you're music library is hosed you're going to be mad at Apple.

Look at the Motorola Rokr, they licensed the technology from Apple to allow it to Sync. And Apple guaranteed it would work right and not screw anything up. I'm actually surprised (for better or worse) that Apple hasn't invoked the DCMA.

What Apple does NOT want to do is become Windows and have to support 80 billion solutions under the sun. Their strength is and always has been tight integration. Having to lose focus on that and suddenly deal with problems with every Tom, Dick, and Harry syncing with iTunes will delay new features and products.

Re:cat and mouse

[Homburg]

1. You can use your iPod with other software.

Only because people are continually working on reverse-engineering Apple's attempts to lock-out other software from working with iPods. And you can't use a recent iPod Touch or iPhone with any software other than iTunes, because Apple have explicitly locked out the methods used by third-party clients to sync with earlier versions of the iPhone.

Re:cat and mouse

[encoderer]

Perhaps. But those of us with *FOUR* braincells, and a little experience actually writing software, can knock holes in your argument pretty easily.

The most obvious being, what if I chose to manually manage the music on my device? iTunes has no issue with this, but Palm would have to write their own GUI that would read the iTunes XML and then allow drag-n-drop sync.

Second, as a user, the last thing I need is another iTunes. I like the software. I know the software. It does its job well. If I want to buy a Pre, I as a consumer would just much rather use what I'm currently using.

Third, there are about a trillion edge cases with your suggestion. Like, multiple XML files. How will I know which XML file the user is using? I could have one in my All Users and one in my personal profile. iTunes has a simple option under the File menu to load a library. What would Palm do if they went gui-less and implemented your suggestion.

Finally, Palm isn't complaning that Apple updated their app. They just updated the Pre to match it. Why on Earth does it bother you so much? Apple are treating the iPod is hardly more than a hardware dongle for iTunes. Fine. But no reason to bunch-up your panties just because Palm circumvents their DRM. And don't kid yourself, that's exactly what a dongle is. DRM.

Re:cat and mouse

[node 3]

This is probably more of a press battle than anything else and Palm is playing it pretty smart by staying in the public eye with this. Apple looks bad for deliberately locking them out and Palm looks technically savvy for coming up with another workaround.

Palm is just looking like a bunch of amateurs constantly having to fix their product. They can blame Apple all they want, but as a customer, you're going to come away with "this Palm product is a load of shit, it keeps breaking its connection to iTunes".

Unless Palm can make their product work consistently, it's going to be the loser here. It's just like if your Internet connection keeps going down. Even if it's not your ISP's fault, but the fault of some upstream provider, you're not going to just say, "well, it's not their fault, so I guess it's OK".

And Palm might be able to accomplish just that. Their update now reports itself, in violation of the USB standard, as being an Apple product. Very, very amateur, but sufficiently invisible to the user that, unless Apple is willing to force firmware updates on every iPod/iPhone owner, they may not be able to break Palm syncing without potentially breaking syncing with legitimate iPods.

Which makes me think that if Apple is unsuccessful in getting Palm to stop using it's vender ID, they will do just that, and add some form of encryption between the iPod and iTunes for authentication.

It's sad to see the once mighty Palm fall to being so pathetically amateur.

This is some uber-clever marketing by Palm.

[WelshRarebit]

By forcing Apple to issue updates specifically disable their device, Palm is capitalizing on the media hype maelstrom that is lavished on Apple, keeping the name "Pre" on the lips of people who would normally only ever talk about the iPhone. So when the media covers this "war", they are in effect establishing the idea of comparability between the products that would have been hard to get through had they just gone with traditional advertising and promotions. Between this and the new Microsoft ads, it is interesting to see Apple's competitors finally starting to ratchet up their competition with a brilliant marketing company.

Apple may not have a choice

[goombah99]

When tunes are stored on an ipod they are stored in a way that creates a speedbump to just trasnfering them off. basically the names are munged. Maybe they mess with the id3 tags--don't know. But apple has long been a proponent of speedbump DRM, that is drm that gets in your way enough that most users won't hassle with defeating it.

The real trick that apple accomplished was convincing the music companies that this was sufficient protection.

IN return apple probably has to make a reasonable effort to prevent cases where pod-to-pod transfers all proliferation of music. this would include nominal efforts to never have a legitimate channel for this.

they won't care if it's not perfect. But they probably are obligated to try.

Re:Lost battle

[drinkypoo]

Well, actually, they're telling them that the Pre is a device made by Apple:

http://www.precentral.net/how-palm-re-enabled-itunes-sync

That's a bit shady,

No, it really isn't.

Re:Right idea, wrong mechanism

[ConfusedVorlon]

but why as customer should I have to install that extra stuff when it Palm can offer out-of-the-box interoperability with iTunes?

Palm didn't abuse any vendor id. The were really clear (in round one) that this was a palm device. Thy used the vendor id only where it was a 'magic number' that was required to get interoperability.