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USB-IF Slaps Palm In iTunes Spat
An anonymous reader writes "The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaints that Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement by preventing the Pre from syncing with iTunes. It's found in favor of Apple. Worse, it's accused Palm itself of violating the Membership Agreement by using Apple's Vendor ID number to disguise the Pre as an Apple device."
Seriously can we keep business politics out of this? You may not like Apple but a lot of people from day one called into question Palms legality on their faking out iTunes from this very reason all the way down to the very fact that nothing said Palm even had to use iTunes as they could have used a third party player, a plugin for iTunes like Blackberry and WinMobile users use without any complaints from Apple, or made their own software . Just because you dont like the outcome does it in any way mean that the outcome wasn't the right one.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Since the main selling point of the Pre was unauthorized iTunes sync.
Serves them right.
To all those people who think "What is the big deal about faking yourself as Apple?". The point is that these are reserved identifiers in the same way as barcodes are reserved identifiers.
Would it be right for Palm to use the iPhone barcode for the Pre? Clearly not.
So here is another case where there is a specific rule around reserved identifiers and Palm broke the rules. Their alternative is to opt-out of the USB group and do it themselves without its blessing or just suck it up.
Complaining about the rules of a game after joining the table and playing a few hands is just dumb.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Apple isn't doing anything to extend USB in a proprietary fashion; it's using an existing feature to differentiate between devices. It's blocking some of them deliberately from working with its software, but it's doing so in a USB-compatible way. Even if they were denied this access, wouldn't it be possible for them to create a challenge-response between the software and their authorized devices that didn't involve the USB Vendor ID?
On the other hand, faking a Vendor ID for your USB device is bound to irritate and annoy the standards group responsible for issuing and tracking Vendor IDs -- even if it's done for the noblest of compatibility purposes.
This iTunes lockout is really lame, but the USB-IF shouldn't have to be involved in it. And instead of fighting that battle, couldn't Palm channel its energy into developing an alternative to iTunes and partnering with a decent DRM-free music provider such as Amazon? If their alternative is solid enough, perhaps it could be licensed to other device manufacturers for extra benefit?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Palm claimed Apple was violating the spirit of the agreement by using their vendor ID to lock iTunes to their products.
Palm used this to justify breaking the actual letter of the agreement by using Apple's vendor ID to trick iTunes into thinking Palm devices were iPods.
So, guess who got in trouble? The guy who actually violated the agreement, of course.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
For a sins what Palm did was 7 and what Apple did was a 4.
If you hacked you Palm to do what Palm did then that would be a sin of 1. But the fact that the company created such actions intentionally against Apples will (3) marketed it (4) to the general public.
If you did it with your own Palm then it is only a 1, perhaps a 3 if you made it public. As you have already purchased the product and what you are doing is actually a favor to Apple as you buying their songs and using their product...
However by the corporation doing the same thing, they are hurting apple as they are making a product that is directly competing with their product, and not working with your competitor for compatibility.
Why is it worse for a company to do something then it is for an individual?
Well first it is scale, The individual usually has limited influence as they don't have the resources to make a large influence, at best the hack would give you some geek credits and only the brave geeks who could afford to brick their phone to do it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's completely retarded. DRM is out of the picture on iTunes store and if you insist on purchasing there, nothing keeps you from syncing your music library to whatever device you have.
There was no requirement for Palm to highjack Apple's ID just so that they can benefit from cheap engineering. RIM made the right decision and that is to not rely on software they dont control for their syncing.
What Palm did is sell a device to their customers and provided no guarantee as to the usability of the product, because they hack another company's software solution.
Palm was rather sleazy in trying to hijack Apple's software to do things that Apple doesn't want to support. On the other hand, I more than halfway expect Palm to now file an anti-trust complaint against Apple for abusive vertical integration on the basis that Apple has a practical monopoly in some of the areas here. It would be a somewhat weak claim -- there are other digital music stores, and other ways to synchronize music between devices, but Apple has a pretty commanding share of those markets plus the digital music player market. iTunes's nature as a loss leader seems like it could cut either for or against Apple.
WebKit, Grand Central, Darwin Streaming Server, LaunchD (some Linux please pick this up...), Bonjour (Yes ZeroConf, but I think they're the first to make it popular), Even XQuartz so that OSS stuff that uses X11 can run under OS X looking like OS X. They even have a cute little website with the word 'forge' in it: http://macosforge.org/
Hell they even have Darwin, the base of OS X. Lets see Microsoft release an OSS version of XP minus some GUI bits.
Yes, Apple is protective of quite a bit of stuff. But they're released a ton more OSS that I've found than MS.
Obviously, the USB-IF is going to take a dim view of spoofing vendor IDs. They were considered important enough to have in the spec, for whatever reason, so faking them isn't going to go over well. I don't really know what outcome Palm was expecting.
However, that said, I can't see tying attempts between products(above and beyond the natural tying effects that the complexity of software interaction naturally produces) as being even a remotely good thing for users, competition, or technological development generally.
Imagine if, back in the day, the "Well, they should just write their own iTunes-like application" had been applied to Compaq and the IBM-compatible clone kiddies. "Well, they can just write their own OS and set of applications..." Even back then, with the fairly minimal legacy effects, that would have retarded the development of cheap, standard, supports-the-software-you-want-to-run computers. It is basically demanding that anybody who wants to make anything must have a complete vertically integrated product range, to which they must induce customers to switch.
Very rarely in the history of technology has that ever worked particularly well. Most of the time, development consists of a few standards, formal or de-facto, and the surrounding ecosystems of add-ons, compatible widgets, clones, extensions, and software, authorized and unauthorized. And, frankly, that has worked pretty well. Modern technology is competitive, fast, ubiquitous, and impressively cheap.
If, in the future, we move away from the annoying-but-largely-useless forms of tying involving monkeying with pinouts every generation, and obfuscating stuff, and move to effective forms of tying based on crypto challenge-response, signing, vendor IDs, and the like(along with a fair bit of force of law, thanks to Mr. DMCA) I fear we will see a much less rich period of technological development.
Few companies are large enough, or smart enough, to maintain a fully integrated product line. Fewer customers actually want to use every one of a company's products, and none of their competitor's products. They want things to work together. Obviously, some degree of imperfection in interface is to be expected, interconnection of complex systems is Hard and writing wholly unambiguous specs is Very Hard. Deliberate breakage, though, is insult to injury.
That's completely retarded. DRM is out of the picture on iTunes store and if you insist on purchasing there, nothing keeps you from syncing your music library to whatever device you have.
There was no requirement for Palm to highjack Apple's ID just so that they can benefit from cheap engineering. RIM made the right decision and that is to not rely on software they dont control for their syncing.
What Palm did is sell a device to their customers and provided no guarantee as to the usability of the product, because they hack another company's software solution.
Don't kid yourself, Apples intentions have never been to share anything with anyone. The way it is now is because people objected to the insane enviroment that Apple tried to push. Tell me how the user benefits from being forced to use iTunes with iPod for example? Isn't it merely just another way to screw the consumer over by exposing him to only one store, thus killing competition without providing anything better? I'm speaking from my own experiences, and I used to own an iPod mini, back in the days. There is nothing I regret more to have purchased in my entire life, and after having iTunes "synchronizing" my device (aka wiping it if it's plugged to another PC) numerous times I had enough. Instead I bought a sony player that acts as a removable disc. Sure, it's Apples every right to bundle the players with iTunes and it's my every right to tell people how it causes nothing but trouble. If iTunes was superior I would have chosen it. But yes, Palm was in it for a free ride and they had no right to do so, but that doesn't make Apple less consumer unfriendly.
I am the lawn!
I doubt Palm can do squat on this issue. They violated their USB license by using another vendor ID.
They might actually have to pay a penalty on that.
And because they went beyond their USB manufacturer agreement, they don't have a case in court.
Apple is the Microsoft of MP3 players.
Not even close. You can step entirely outside the Apple ipod/iTunes ecosystem and still get a full range of music. If you step outside the MS ecosystem there are significant programs (games and important business software) you cannot run and significant pieces of hardware you cannot use or cannot use fully.
Or (now the DRM is gone) you even buy any tracks from the iTunes store and import them into another music manager which fully supports your not-Apple AAC music player.
In other words, the consumer makes potential sacrifices to stay away from MS, but suffers no pain staying away from Apple.
But then I expect you know all this being a probable MS shill (I apologize if you are not, in that case you're just an idiot).
Difference number 2: MS was hated by many geeks, and by geek sites such as Slashdot, or at least criticised for these actions. Apple on the other hand are loved, even by geeks, with these actions twisted around to be good things, and with sites given no end of free advertising and hype ("You can read this webpage On Your Iphone" as we once had, or witness yesterday's non-story of "Someone releases a second application for the Iphone"...)
If Apple actually did become big - e.g., the hype around the Iphone becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and in 10 years time, mobile computer is dominated by a monopoly that completely locks down the platform, locks out competitors, and where Apple need to give permission for you to run a 3rd party application on the mobile computer you've bought - will this attitude changed?
Why bring the DMCA into this? Apple hasn't sued Palm, nor have they brought in the law in any way. This is purely a technical fight between the two.
The Pre is lying and Apple is calling Palm on it. I fail to see how Apple is wrong.
And just because someone says MP3 or music and you hear "Apple" doesn't mean that Apple has any kind of (legally defined) monopoly.
In short, you're an idiot.
If you step outside the MS ecosystem there are significant programs (games and important business software) you cannot run
Step outside of Microsoft and lose games? I don't understand. There are plenty of games for PlayStation 2, PLAYSTATION 3, and Wii.
Apple uses lube where MS doesn't.
Emulating another device to provide compatibility is perfectly acceptable
Except when you have signed a contract saying you wouldn't. The problem is that Palm decided to use Apple's USB Vendor-ID to identify the Palm-Pre, which is something Palm promised not to do in their contract with the USB-IF (Who hands out USB Vendor IDs). Palm violated existing contracts while attempting to emulate Apple's devices and Apple called them on it.
I don't think there is any reasonable argument for forcing Apple to let the Palm-Pre use their software.
Morally, it's wrong of Apple to deny other media device manufacturers access to iTunes and ITMS.
Morally? There's nothing immoral about it so far as I can see. With apologies to the authors on wikipedia I just don't see how morality comes into the picture here.
There is no authoritative code of conduct here other than our laws and the bylaws. You personally may feel they are behaving immorally but there are plenty who will disagree with you so your personal morals can't be argued in any sort of universal authoritative sense. You might make an open source style argument but you're on shaky ground there too. Neither ITMS nor iTunes is open source software. You know that up front. You also probably know that there are free (as in speech) and/or legal alternatives to both. If you don't like what Apple offers you don't have to use their software and services. Apple is not under any moral or legal obligation to cater to your every whim.
There also is no ideal code of conduct here that we can all agree on. Apple worked hard to create their combination of products and services. Should they not reap the benefits, especially when it has no detrimental effect on you? You may not like Apple not letting it's competitors be free riders but I see nothing morally wrong with them preventing the competition from capitalizing on their work. ITunes is not some piece of public infrastructure and there is no compelling argument that it represents a market failure. The entire reason we have copyrights and patents is precisely to advance the public interest in the face of the free rider problem. There is no compelling public interest to making iTunes or ITMS the equivalent of a common carrier at this time. Neither the software nor the service is a monopoly - both are merely popular in comparison to the alternatives available.
Legally, it's likely also wrong.
I suspect you are not a lawyer and you have provided no evidence whatsoever to back that assertion. I'm pretty aware of the issues involved and I cannot think of any reasonably legal argument whereby Apple is doing anything against the law. Happy to be proven wrong but I doubt you can prove me wrong.
Why is it so fucking hard for you assholes to understand that Apple is NOT taking a legal stance on this issue?
Apple doesn't want devices to lie. Palm wants to lie. This is fairly simple.
It's so discouraging to see that it's OK to lie as long as your lying to a company that you don't like.
I agree - the usual point is that the rules are different for Microsoft because they're a monopoly, but in the market of portable music players, Apple are a monopoly. And how is Itunes not using their monopoly in one market, to try to influence another?
Difference number 2: MS was hated by many geeks, and by geek sites such as Slashdot, or at least criticised for these actions. Apple on the other hand are loved, even by geeks, with these actions twisted around to be good things, and with sites given no end of free advertising and hype ("You can read this webpage On Your Iphone" as we once had, or witness yesterday's non-story of "Someone releases a second application for the Iphone"...)
I disagree a bit here. Among a good subset of geeks Apple is hated too. I am definately one of them, and wouldn't touch an Apple product to save my life. The difference is, Apple beats MS in user interface design and implementation, which is why it's probably hyped and loved by many. This of course doesn't change their horrible lock-in policies, and extreme secrecy, instead of openness, if they have a chance. So I dislike the company, and won't buy their products, even if the products themselves might be nice
I love how the comments immediately blame Apple for all of this. How is this any of Apple's fault?
PALM complained about APPLE to the USB-IF. Apple re-tweaked iTunes, their own software, to verify the devices claiming to be ipods were really ipods. They didn't claim copyright infringement, they didn't issue DMCA notices, they didn't make patent infringement claims, they just changed their software to make sure devices they support were actually devices they were modifying. Palm makes it's computer connections lie, and it's Apple's fault. Awesome.
Apple is not the most open company around, but if openess is what you want then don't buy Apple, it's not like you're forced to.
I'm not really sure why people whine about the iPod not being open. It doesn't lock you in to the iTunes store, or DRM stuff, even on video. I buy most of my music from EMusic then Amazon MP3 store then finally iTunes. It'll accept music from peer-to-peer networks as well.
90% of my videos are ripped from DVD and have no DRM. Works fine on my iPod and Apple TV.
Apple: you want this shiny little music player? Huh? You want it? Huh? Well then you have to change everything you own to Apples version
Reality check:
All Apple is refusing to do for Palm is let them integrate Pre into the main iTunes application. That would require Apple to publish and maintain a plug-in API for iTunes which would cost Apple money. Why should they?
Well, maybe someday a court will decide that Apple have a dominant position in the media player market, and further deiced that the "openness" described above is not sufficient to satisfy anti-trust laws. Then, and only then, will Apple be obliged to help others compete with their products.
Also bear in mind that what anti-trust regulators are really concerned about is using a dominant position in one market to strong arm your way into another. Apple has built the iPod/iTunes/iTMS tripod up from scratch, popularising the pocket MP3 player and virtually inventing the legal music download market, not by leveraging an existing monopoly. The only aspect that's even worth debating in that context is whether they're using iPod/iTunes/iTMS to strongarm their way in to the Phone market. Looks to me like the main reason for the iPhone's success is that previous smartphones (esp. WM) were pants - and if you think their harming the market ask yourself what the Palm Pre, Android or the various 3rd party WM skins would have looked like - or whether they would exist - without the iPhone shaking things up.
(*I should qualify that: HTC provide a calendar/contacts sync application for windows only - same story with firmware updates. Android is fairly hardware-agnostic, provided you're happy to use Google for calendar/contacts).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
They also own CUPS, which is probably one of the largest contributions next to WebKit.
I don't understand why you attach a moral dimension to this "lie". When designing a device to interoperate with another system, you make the device send and receive whatever signals the other system is expecting, both in physical and logical terms. If you want to interact with a system, you must operate in a manner similar to the device that the system is expecting to interact with.
This has always been the case with interoperable systems. In this particular instance, one of the signals that iTunes expects is a USB vendor ID of 0x05AC. If you want to natively interoperate with iTunes, you have to emit that signal(aside from a few legacy players in the mac iTunes client from its pre Apple days). The fact that, in addition to being an expected signal, "USB vendor ID: 0x05AC" can also mean "Apple device" doesn't seem ethically relevant.
Do you get upset when Opera "lies" about its browser ID in order to induce webservers to send it the same page that they would send IE?
Ok, maybe I've completely missed the boat her but...I still don't understand the whole iTunes hystaria... Why pay for proprietary formats of music that you can only play on certain devices? My Palm Pre plays MP3s, why would I want to go out of my way to make it sync up with something that requires me to pay for music? I had the iPhone for a while, I never used the iTunes thing. I never saw any reason, and I could never figure out how to get it to play MP3s. The Palm Pre you just hook up to the computer and drag your MP3s over to the music folder. Plus you can ssh into your Palm Pre and manipulate the Linux files. The only thing I miss from the iPhone is the ease of use of the voicemail. I also get a buttload of free apps on the Pre.
Darwin is "open source" as long as no one tries to make a competing distro. Just look at the history of projects such as OpenDarwin.
"Grand Central" already had existing OSS alternatives such as Intel Threaded Building Blocks.
XQuartz sounds like something just so they can get more apps. Nice for them and their users.
Two issues:
1. The USB license issue -- Is it okay to use another vendor's ID? No, probably not. Is it okay to use the vendor ID to work with your software to the exclusion of others? That's an interesting question. Is the use of a vendor ID an acceptable means of keeping others out of your marketplace? That is a question worth exploring since Apple is using its music hardware to leverage its position in the sync software arena and the two are also being used to leverage its position in the digital music selling business. There is a legal term for using one market leading position to leverage another... now what was that word? Anti-something? This second question, however is not a matter for the courts at this point. It is a question for the USB people and at the moment, they say "Apple good, Palm bad."
2. Is Apple entitled to lock out other hardware makers from using the software it has published and distributed? Here is where that Anti-word might get raised. The digital music player market and the digital music market are "connected" but they are not the same market. Apple is presently a leader in that market and is blocking access to that market to competing hardware vendors thereby harming the competitor to Apple's own hardware by using its position in another market. Smells of Anti-.... Anti-.... what's that word again?
So tell me.
If you think it is a good thing for Palm to use iTunes, then why the hell didn't Palm use iTunes, you know like all those other 3rd party players that work perfectly well with iTunes using the proper methods, like blackberry and windows mobile?
Apple did not 'lock out' Palm. Palm designed a broken (defined as broken by the USB spec) device, and purposely designed the Pre so it was impossible for their device to identify itself to the computer as a Pre.
Palm purposely made the choice to design a product which is physically impossible to design any software for at all.
This isn't Apples fault any more than it is personally your fault.
Palm's agreements with USB-IF don't have squat to do with whether Apple is abusing monopoly power. One would be a civil case (or, more likely, mandatory arbitration) between Palm and the USB-IF licensing body. The other would be a criminal case -- United States v. Apple.
No, no they're not.
They're not even a monopoly in the cell phone market.
Does Apple have a 95% share of the portable music player market? I don't think so, a quick Google shows it to be between 70 and 80%. That's not a monopoly.
Does Apple have a 95% share in the legal music download market? I doubt it. Again it looks like about 70%.
Apple is not a monopoly, merely the dominant vendor.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
BSD!=GPL. Learn the minor differences, all OSS is not the 'same'.
With the BSD license you can do what ever the hell you want with the code. Including closing it and charging for it.
BSD License
The BSD License allows proprietary use, and for the software released under the license to be incorporated into proprietary products. Works based on the material may be released under a proprietary license or as closed source software. This is the reason for widespread use of the BSD code in proprietary products, ranging from Juniper Networks routers to Mac OS X
All Apple is refusing to do for Palm is let them integrate Pre into the main iTunes application. That would require Apple to publish and maintain a plug-in API for iTunes which would cost Apple money. Why should they?
Um, no it wouldn't. Palm made their device compatible with iTunes. Apple didn't have to do a thing. Instead, they deliberately broke the compatibility.
You want to know what cost Apple money? Paying someone to re-write the iTunes sync so it wouldn't work with other vendors' products. If they'd done nothing, Palm's device would have continued to work fine with no effort from Apple.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
10 Print "Palm spoofed the id's. What's wrong with that"
20 Print "You can't spoof ID's in a standard like that"
30 Print "Apple created a closed system yet claims it's open. Those Bastards"
40 Print "It is open, there are lots of hooks in"
50 Print "Then why won't they let Palm Play ball?"
60 Goto 10
The difference is this: Microsoft was using their monopoly* with Windows (software) to push another piece of software (Internet Explorer). The reason I have to side with Apple on this is because they aren't using their monopoly* on iPods (hardware) to push another piece of hardware. And the Zune software won't sync my iPod... so should I sue Microsoft, for not allowing their software to work with my hardware? Because that's all that Apple is doing. They're not allowing their software to work with the Palm hardware. *Let's not be pedantic about my use of the word "monopoly" -k-?
And the Zune software won't sync my iPod... so should I sue Microsoft, for not allowing their software to work with my hardware?
If you make a "Zune-compatibility" mode for your iPod, where it claims it's a Zune, will you have to spoof Microsoft's vendor ID to get it to sync? Or will the software say "you say you're a Zune made by Apple? okay, as long as you know how to act like a Zune, we can talk".
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
then you forget that there store is so heavily used. Of the top of my head I cant even think of any other music store but itunes. This tells me that the average person is probably in the same place. giving them a virtual market over the music store. They only want people using the ipod with there music store because they need to recoup part the costs of making those loss leader ipods. if they sit on a shelf they make 0% back
Apple can't break compatibility with existing iPods. If the Pre acts just like an iPod, there's no reason for the sync to not work no matter how many times it's updated.
Now, if the Pre isn't emulating an iPod correctly, then yes, compatibility might break on iTunes updates, but that's Palm's problem, and they will fix it.
However, making it impossible to "correctly" emulate an iPod without also reporting an Apple vendor ID was considered a low blow by Palm. There's a device ID and a vendor ID; if the device claims to be an iPod manufactured by Palm, it should act exactly the same as an iPod manufactured by Apple. Not syncing with it just because it's made by Palm only serves to maintain an Apple monopoly. There's no real explanation for it aside from that.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Every step of that journey involved one or more open, freely-available standards-based protocols that have been embraced by hundreds if not thousands of vendors so they could all communicate with each other.
Exactly why the iTunes library stores data in bog standard XML, and the store files (for audio) are pretty much all standard AAC files.
So your complain that Apple does not follow standards, except they do, and third parties can easily make use of them to provide the same abilities iTunes has to peruse the libraries.
It's pretty funny as the other poster pointed out you are so hot to attack Apple when Palm is the one deviating from official low-level standards. Guess it goes to show the lengths some people will go to in order to attack someone they hate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
how about because they purposely locked down itunes so that the only way another device can sync with it now is to pretend to be it. Dont forget apple recently tried to make a deal with palm in regards to the illegal practice of not hiring each others employees.
Palm should not have violated the USB-IF however its anti competitive to alter your program to purposefully lock out your competitor. That is what Palm wold be filing a complaint with the US gov about.
people are obviously turn to Apple for support if iTunes doesn't sync right with their Palm. That will cost Apple money. After all, iTunes is an Apple product. Telling people, "It's the other guy's problem" never goes over well.
If you make round plugs and round holes, and somebody complains that their square plug doesn't quite fit correctly, tell them it's not your problem. If they're not a complete retard, they'll take their problem where it belongs.
If they bought some "round" plugs from someone else that are supposedly compatible with your round holes and it turns out they're slightly flattened so the fit isn't perfect, it's still not your problem.
However, if the other guy's plugs fit perfectly in your round hole, and you install a camera so that theirs wont work anymore (theirs are red and yours are blue, and the hole won't open for blue plugs), claiming "someone else made them, they might not fit" doesn't counter my claim "they did fit just fine, until you modified your round hole to not accept them".
Sorry for the awful analogy, it's the first thing that popped into my mind and I ran with it.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
how about because they purposely locked down itunes so that the only way another device can sync with it now is to pretend to be it.
Microsoft locked down Word so that it only uses Word dictionaries. Firefox only uses Firefox plugins. Palm Desktop only syncs with Palm products. I'm not sure you understand the requirements of the definitions of anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior.
Dont forget apple recently tried to make a deal with palm in regards to the illegal practice of not hiring each others employees.
... so if a company does one thing wrong, everything they do must be wrong? I saw a guy speeding, should we also convict him for murder?
Palm should not have violated the USB-IF however its anti competitive to alter your program to purposefully lock out your competitor.
No, that's not how "anti-competitive" works. See, for example, the fact that Palm Desktop only syncs with Palm devices. It "locks out" iPhones. So?
Furthermore, it's not anti-competitive to make your software follow industry-wide open, free guidelines... locking out those who don't follow the standards. Say someone started making their own HTML tags - <bork> or <glub>... Would it be anti-competitive for Firefox to refuse to render the data between those tags? Not at all.
That is what Palm wold be filing a complaint with the US gov about.
And they would be rightly laughed out of the US Attorney's office.
Apple did not gain their popularity with the iPod by anti-competitive practices and stifling innovation by buying up all the competitors like MS did with their OS'. For me that is the big difference. Apple got the lock down on MP3 players because we like theirs the best.
For members. Can they prevent non-members from doing whatever they want? Not really... there's no legal authority for them to do so.
The problem for Palm is that they were/are a member and now they can't claim any clean-room development. For example, It's likely that Palm used the sample drivers obtained by being a member to write their device drivers for the Palm(and other devices). If severing ties with the USB-IF means starting from scratch on new device drivers, then it could be very painful.
Highest markeshare != monopoly. There are a number of criteria to be met before something can be constituted as a monopoly especially in the legal sense. The first one is the dominant player in a market. Apple with over 70% of the market qualifies to be the dominant player. Another criteria is that there must be significant barriers to entry in that market for competitors. Judging by the dozens of competing players you can find at a local Best Buy alone, that criteria does not seem to be satisfied. Even if Apple has a monopoly, that in itself is not illegal. There exist legal monopolies today. Here is where the comparison with MS doesn't work. MS was found to have a monopoly and used illegal tactics to maintain that monopoly.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It would be rather trivial for Palm to write their own sync app that, through Apple's own published public APIs, could sync with an iTunes library through software. Palm just wants a free ride. Apple are well within their rights to stick it to them.
iTunes SDK for Windows
Apple Script for OS X
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Palm designed a broken (defined as broken by the USB spec) device, and purposely designed the Pre so it was impossible for their device to identify itself to the computer as a Pre.
What the hell? Citation needed. Palm is welcome to use any device ID they want in order to identify their product. The only catch is, if it says "iPod", it damn well better act like one, or it's not going to work right.
The vendor ID, which is totally different, still said "Palm". That is, a Palm device that acts like an iPod. Until iTunes started checking that, and saying "I don't care if you think you can be an iPod, you weren't made by Apple so I'm not speaking to you".
Now it's impossible to tell, but only after Apple tried to stifle competition by making their software not sync with "iPod-compatible" devices unless they actually claimed to be made by Apple.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Apple had already written the support for various iPod models at various firmware releases. The functionality specific to a model and firmware version isn't going to change, because in order to change it Apple would need to change the iPod side of things as well.
If, for some reason, Apple decided to update the communication protocol on whatever older iPod hardware the Pre happened to be emulating, Palm would have to figure out the new protocol and support it eventually. But the old protocol would still be out there.
Apple can't change the protocol on iTunes without also changing it on the iPods. Which means the old protocol has to stay out there during the transition (possibly with an automatic notification that an upgrade is available). So the signature each iPod uses would change from (for example) "iPod Touch Gen 1 Firmware 1.2.5" to "iPod Touch Gen 1 Firmware 1.4.1". If a G1/1.2.5 unit tries to talk to iTunes, iTunes HAS to speak back to it in its native tongue, and anything claiming to be a G1/1.2.5 will be talked to in the same manner.
Otherwise, they'd have to upgrade the entire product line at the exact same time, or they'd be breaking compatibility with their own devices. This has nothing to do with maintaining Pre compatibility, it is all about maintaining genuine iPod compatibility.
So iTunes will talk to the Pre until Apple specifically stops supporting that model and firmware version of the genuine iPod, and at that point both a genuine (but not upgraded) iPod *and* the Pre will both get a "product not supported, firmware upgrade required" error.
The difference, of course, being that the genuine iPod can get a (probably free) firmware update from Apple and still work with iTunes. The Pre would need intervention from Palm, who would have to upgrade their compatibility to a model that iTunes still does support, with all the protocol changes that implies.
I agree that Palm *should* just go their own way and not be dependent upon Apple, but the Pre is zero effort on Apple's part. It's "unsupported" hardware.
Adding the "Vendor ID" to the signature WAS effort on Apple's part. Fortunately for them, it was only on the iTunes side, since the iPods were already sending Vendor ID anyway. And the only reason to do that is to intentionally break compatibility with non-Apple devices, because it didn't add a darned thing to the protocol for any device (or the devices would need an upgrade at the same time to support whatever the new feature is).
Which is within Apple's rights, but is more effort than just allowing Palm to get away it. Not a HUGE effort, true, but an effort.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Okay, so Apple should face restrictions on what it can do because you're ignorant?
I just typed "online music store" into Google. The first entry was Amazon's store. iTunes was near the bottom of the page. There were also entries for Napster and Rhapsody.
Apple's got a large market share, but there is significant competition, and the barriers to entry aren't all that great.
You're wrong on the loss leader aspect also. Apple makes money on iPods, rather than iTunes. For a company that prides itself on its software and interfaces and data supply, it's actually pretty bad at making money at it. Apple makes its money selling physical stuff.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It doesn't even matter if they're a monopoly. Being a monopoly isn't inherently wrong. Abusing the power of being a monopoly is wrong, and I have yet to see convincing arguments that Apple has done that. An example would be when Microsoft punished OEMs with increased license fees if they offered computers without Windows.
Unless you buy DRMed Fairplay, that is not a monopoly. DRMed Fairplay (unfortunately all DRMed music) might be legal monopolies. No case has ever been decided about that per se but the general consensus is that Apple can keep others from using Fairplay. Also Apple's agreement with the music companies might even require it. If you bought nonDRMed AAC from iTunes, you can play that on any player that is capable of playing AAC. That means the Sony PSP, the MS Zune, the Sansa etc.
Also other competitors are free to create their own music stores. In fact other have. Most of them went bankrupt before and after iTunes existed. Amazon today sells MP3s and MS Zune Marketplace sells music online as well. Anyone is free to create a music store (as long as they have agreements with the music creators).
Also you limited the argument to one mode of distribution. You can get music without ever going to an online store from both legal and illegal sources. I have bought some music online but most of my music was ripped from CDs. Some people use P2P to get their music illegally.
My recollection is different than MS simply including a browser in their OS and trying to integrate it. I remember them threatening and strong-arming OEMs not to include Netscape as a browser on installs. They could include Netscape but their OEM prices would be affected. Also MS behavior was not limited to browsers. Intel wanted to develop a compiler for this new language called Java. MS hinted that they might favor AMD in any future Window development for x86 if they did.Sun licensed Java to MS with the written agreement that MS maintained compatibility with Sun standards. MS version of Java had 2 commands that were not in standard Java. Those kind of tactics were being exposed in the trial.
Wasn't the point of contention in your original argument about the music store and not the app store? Palm can't access iTunes software. However Palm could access nonDRMed music as well as iTunes metadata had (1) they written their own app or (2) written their own iTunes plugin (There is a public Apple API for this). Considering the amount of freeware plugins you can get for iTunes, it does not appear that to be a barrier for Palm to do. Some plugins even allow you to sync iTunes to another player.
But about the app store: These application only run in OS X on the iPhone. Apple as no obligation to create an app store for a competitor. Nothing prevents their competitors from creating their own stores. They just can't use Apple's iTunes software to do it as point of integration.
Had Apple acted like MS what they would be doing is threatening Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon, etc. not to do business with Palm. They would also be pressuing MS not to support Palm in Windows, trying to persuade Linux developers not to develop Palm software. That would be more akin to what MS did.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
MS was convicted not because they bundled a browser. They were convicted by trying to strong-arm their OEMs not to deal with Netscape among other tactics. In this context, people are complaining that Apple is preventing Palm Pre users from syncing with iTunes. That's not what Apple is doing. Apple is preventing Palm from using the tactic of spoofing Vendor IDs as a means to sync with Palm Pres. If Palm wants users to sync with iTunes there exists an API to write a plugin. I don't understand why Palm doesn't do this at all. Certainly they can afford programmers to write one.
To my viewpoint Apple has never tried to undermine the Palm Pre deliberately; they are merely enforcing rules on how to interface with iTunes. That's completely different.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You don't understand the arugment[sic]. Does Apple have a monopoly on DRM Fairplay media?
That's not a relevant market with regard to antitrust law, the only aspect of law that makes Apple's actions potentially illegal.
The term is "significant barrier" to entry in the marketplace. The fact that others can and have created other online stores negates your arugment[sic] that Apple has a monopoly.
That's not how monopolies are defined.
Amazon has quite a successful online store.
Amazon and all other competitors combined are half the size of Apple alone. That's not particularly successful in terms of markets. This means Apple has a lot of influence on music buyers. If, for example, they were to blacklist an artist that would be a serious threat to that artist's ability to make money distributing music (not that the RIAA isn't already the same.
You can load nonDRMed AAC onto a Palm Pre.
You can run Windows programs in WINE. That does not negate the possibility that the digital music market is being leveraged. It doesn't have to be impossible to be a breach, it just has to make it harder for people who don't use Apple's product in a separate market.
Other OS's exist for the PC however none of them have been able to gain anything in the marketplace. Some of this was to due to tactics by MS.
This is actually irrelevant to antitrust law as it applies here because it is perfectly legal to gain a monopoly via several methods. Apple isn't being accused of illegally maintaining a monopoly, just leveraging the monopoly into another market.
Huh? Palm is free to write an iTunes plugin to sync up with their Palm devices.
They are, but not with the same APIs Apple uses and without the same level of functionality. Don't you think if Palm could get the same level of functionality using a plug-in they would have done it? Do you think they'd be risking censure from the USB committee if they had an easy way to compete evenly with the iPhone? The point is, right now iTunes the program is the interface to iTunes the store and plugging in in iPhone and plugging in any other device results in different functionality within iTunes. If iTunes constitutes a monopoly, which it well could, that is clearly tying.
You said: Apple is potentially leveraging their influence in the online digital music sales market to gain a competitive advantage in the smartphone market.
The fundamental complaint here is both Apple and Palm are competing in the smartphone market. Both want to deal with digital music and Apple is dominant in the digital music market. To compete fairly palm needs to be able to have the same access to the iTunes store as the iPhone does and they claim that is impossible given what Apple has presented as public APIs so they hacked a work around. The illegality of Apple's actions hinges on two things:
From where I'm sitting the first is probable in some jurisdiction and about 50/50 proposition in the US. The second seems fairly certain or either Apple or Palm would have used the third party interface and solved all potential issues like this.
The Sherman Act says actions meant to preserve market dominance are illegal when they destroy competition itself.
No, it doesn't actually say that. Read the act and the subsequent legislation including the Clayton Act and the Robinson-Patman Act. Market dominance by definition means that you have destroyed competition. What anti-trust law guards against is elimination of competition to the detriment of consumers. That is a MUCH harder case to make.
Apple isn't disabling the Pre's syncing because of worry about consumer, they do so because letting the Pre sync could damage their iPod sales. Despite a variety of alternatives, iPod's still command a healthy share of the mobile audio players market.
Apple is in the business of selling hardware - iPods and more importantly iPhones. So is Palm in the business of making and selling phones but NOT MP3 players. Apple has created software and a download service that helps create a market for their devices. These services have been quite successful. Palm has (to my knowledge) not created their own iTunes equivalent but instead has chosen to free ride on Apple's investment, knowing they will sell phones at Apple's expense. People who buy a Pre are probably not going to buy an iPhone as well. So what reasonably argument can we make that Apple should be supportive of this? I certainly can't think of one.
A case also could be made that Apple's disabling the Pre's ability to sync as a native iPod is illegal product tying - i.e. requiring the purchase of one product to complete purchase or use of another.
Tying is not generally held to be illegal unless there is no relationship between the goods offered for sale or some sort of price discrimination. There is no compelling argument for tying here because each part of the service is independent (you don't HAVE to use iTunes or ITMS with an iPod).
An MP3 player by itself isn't especially useful without software to load the files on to the device but you don't have to use Apple's software to do it. ITunes is merely one of many ways to manage a music library and interface with an MP3 player. Even iPods don't require iTunes to work nor does iTunes require an iPod to be useful - you can play music from iTunes without even owning an iPod. Furthermore iTunes is free so no one is required to pay anything to use it.
ITMS is a service and the product it provides (MP3 files) can be obtained easily elsewhere for similar if not lesser cost.
Morally? Doesn't it seem a bit greedy of Apple to stop the Pre from syncing just because Palm wanted to make life easier for users and making it a PITA to use a Pre might get some people to buy iPods?
Palm isn't selling MP3 players. Palm sells phones. Palm is trying to be a free rider on the work of Apple. Apple is in the business of selling handsets like Palm. If someone buys a handset from Palm they don't buy one from Apple. It's a zero sum game. Why should Apple pay to support Palm when it is perfectly legal for Palm to set up their own version of iTunes and ITMS?
However, none have the breadth that ITMS has as far as selection. It's much like how WalMart isn't a monopoly because other companies sell lots of the same stuff-they just happen to be hundreds of times bigger than your average supermarket chain
That's a fairly good analogy and illustrative. Apple is for the moment the 800lb gorilla in the MP3 music market. Like Walmart however they are no where close to being a monopoly. Dominant? Yes. Influential? Certainly. Monopoly? Nope. A monopoly that is detrimental to consumers? No way. Sorry but you haven't convince me that Apple's actions are in any way illegal.
I certainly don't.
I mean, how can they make it ANY easier? I plug in the Pre to a USB port, I copy over music files to any directory I want, I sync/unplug the Pre. Done! It doesn't require or need iTunes. Besides, iTunes doesn't run on Linux or BSD, but using usbstorage to copy over the files works on *EVERYTHING*. No cost, nothing to download, nothing to install, nothing to configure, no "end user license agreements", no Internet required, no registration, no spyware, no special accounts, no magic daemons running.
Guess what? You can do the same thing for pictures and videos, too. It is simple, fast, easy.
As a Pre user, I find the waste of time and energy on this iTunes compatibility thing frustrating when there are plenty of other, BETTER uses of Palm's development time and energy.
At the very least Palm would need to strip all the USB logos from all of their products.
That's probably all they can do, actually.
And it would be a real pain in the ass for Palm to do. They'd have to re-design their packaging and promotional materials to get rid of the USB logo, they may even need to edit the copy to remove some references to USB compatibility. This costs money and takes time. Then they have to recall all their product in the sales channel and all the promotional material. This costs Palm more time and money and it also costs time and money for their channel partners.
You think Sprint is going to be happy to round up and ship out all the Pre boxes, flyers, endcaps, and other materials in every single on of their retail locations and warehouses ? No they will not, they'll probably send Palm a bill for it.
How about Verizon or any other carrier working on bringing Palm WebOS devices to market ? They have to stop, destroy or return materials and make new versions of *everything* Palm related. If there's a "will be available" clause in the contracts, the new carriers might be in a position to re-negotiate and get a better deal for themselves.
Worse even than damaging the relationship with the cell carriers who are essential to Palm's survival is the period of time in which the Pre (or Pixie or whatever else is coming) is simply unavailable to buy. Let's start with the fact that some people will simply delay replacing a Treo for a while, but people simply shopping for "a smartphone" will buy something else; be honest now, who here would think "we'll buy something next month, Palm is just doing a minor product recall".
Let's say it takes a month to repackage everything without the USB logo. That's a whole month with *no* revenue from WebOS devices. US$0.00. That probably won't put Palm out of business by itself, but it will hurt. Businesses NEED to make payroll, they need to pay their bills (every line item for "late fee" is money they just pissed away) and missing loan payments not only adds late fees but can make it harder or more expensive to obtain credit. And the stock price is usually not directly tied to line-of-business operations, but missing a month's revenue and thereby a quarterly earnings estimate will hit a lot of people in the pocketbook.
Prediction: Palm will cave, they're in too precarious a position to take on the huge load of shit removing the USB logo from their packaging would be.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Explain how you are forced by Apple to use only the one store for your music purchases.
Let me repeat the part that *you* missed. iTunes is there to manage the iPod and iPhone. The fact that you can use it without any other Apple product is irrelevant. You can take the music you download and use it with any other media player that supports the format. How exactly is that anticompetitive? They have plenty of competitors both in terms of the hardware and music store. The fact is, Apple are successful. If iTunes somehow prevented you from using your third party music player at all, that would be anticompetitive. If they prevented you from using another music store, that would be anticompetitive. If they converted all your mp3s to DRM'd AAC that can only be played on an apple device, that would be competitive. Providing, for zero cost, to anybody in the world, software designed to manage the music on music players manufactured by Apple that also has significant additional functionality that does not require you to purchase their hardware is NOT anticompetitive. Deal with it.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves