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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."
Why syncing with iTunes need to be authorized?
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
Not only does it not need to be authorized, it is also legal to circumvent any and all obstructions which have been put into place to prevent syncing with iTunes, per explicit exemption in the DMCA for creating compatibility.
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.
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.
Why can't Palm write their own syncing program?
The iTunes tracks aren't protected by DRM.
Palm was trying to get a free ride by not having to write their own syncing program.
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?
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.
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.
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-?
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.
Why don't you pull your head out of your ass. Apple provides an API toallow iTunes to snyc to anything. All palm needed was a plugin. However palm broke their USB speecs, and legal agreements they lied to end users, iTunes and the USB-IF
Instead of following the rules palm stole and lied to every pre owner and your too stupid to see that. Apple constantly changes things and yetstill have a better user Interface than msft who won't change their underwear.
I'm impressed by this persuasive post full of pertinent facts and references, and I only have a few lingering questions:
Thank you for your many thoughtful contributions to this discussion. :-)