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Snow Leopard Drops Palm OS Sync

Posted by timothy on from the exclusivity-demands-it dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "It's been just a little over a month since Apple blocked iTunes sync with Palm Pre, and now Apple takes that strategy one step further by blocking Snow Leopard sync with Palm-OS powered smartphones. Even though Palm has officially retired Palm OS and is now focusing hard on its next-generation WebOS in the Palm Pre, the company is still selling Palm OS-powered smartphones; two current models are the Treo Pro on Sprint and the Centro."

4 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Missing Sync for Palm, anyone? by donovansmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Palm Desktop stopped functioning years ago, so Apple finally dropping support for it is not a bad thing at all. I'm sure Missing Sync for Palm OS will be continue to function or be updated to function in Snow Leopard. I know I had to use it with my Centro since the decrepit Palm Desktop didn't work for it. Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices also rely on third-party software to sync in Mac OS X. Apple dropping support on their side is a non-issue.

  2. Re:Ugh by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone who had a serious Palm jones already used The Missing Sync anyhow, but this is seriously irresponsible.

    So Apple should keep working on a niche market that is already well served by a third party? Why? Should Apple keep parallel and serial ports alive? Should I be upset that 10.6 doesn't work with my 1998 Winprinter? Where does it stop?

    So, all 2000 users of Palm PDAs / Treos can either 1) stay at 10.5 - which isn't such a bad OS or 2) Go buy Missing Sync (which, I imagine, since Palm synching in OS 10.5 and earlier was pretty rudimentary 1990 of said users probably already have).

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  3. Sensationalist headline by dn15 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing is being blocked. Apple is simply discontinuing their own support for Palm devices. Palm itself stopped officially supporting Macs years ago. There's nothing preventing users from running third-party software to sync.

  4. Re:Palm dropped support by KylePflug · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple didn't "drop" sync support for it through iTunes. Palm tried to sneak support in by spoofing an iPod vendor ID, which Apple undid. Nothing about iTunes gives competitors the right to use it as a selling point for their phones.

    I think it's pretty shitty of Apple to refuse to play nice, but it's not like Palm didn't have it coming when they tried to pass off a pasted-on hack as some kind of official feature.