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Palm Ignores USB-IF Warning, Restores iTunes Sync
An anonymous reader writes "Palm's cat and mouse game with Apple continues. Ignoring the warning from the USB Implementers Forum, with its WebOS 1.2.1 release this morning Palm has restored iTunes media synchronization in its new Pre smartphone — and gone so far as to extend sync to photos. And, according to Digital Daily, it has done this, once again, by using Apple's USB vendor ID. Does the USB-IF have any recourse here? Does Apple?"
I don't get why so many people who are against action like this keep buying Apple products. Of the people who are going to respond to this, I know that a large portion of them will have a MacBook, a larger portion will have an iPhone, and an even larger portion will have an iPod.
If you dislike their business behavior, do your duty as a responsible consumer and don't buy from them.
I remember a time when it was legal to reverse engineer things for compatibility purposes. (Was a long time ago... the 90s, perhaps?)
I lot of people are complaining the Palm thing smacks of fraud, but it is no different than telling Microsoft Word that the document is opening was made by Word instead of Open Office for compatibility reasons.
Also, the argument that Apple needs to break compatibility in order to protect itself is complete bullshit. If my Palm doesn't sync with iTunes, I'm going to bitch about it to Palm. Nobody expects iTunes to work.
No where did you say why Apple has to force iTunes to be compatible with third party devices. Anti trust is not a reason because Apple is not a monopoly.
So two questions I have are, does Palm not have sync software of their own for the Pre, and what is the legal stance on one product impersonating another in this context. This isn't the same as a clone. This is a Pre telling a competitors service that it is an iPhone. Is that legal?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Dead wrong bruce.
There is NO LEGAL REQUIREMENT for Apple to support Palm's products. Apple is 100% free to improve the quality and experience of their product by working with supported and tested devices. The software product iTunes does exactly that.
The hardware components, and Mac OS X generic USB support is, does, and will continue to interoperate as per the USB specification(s). This is exactly what makes it possible for any and all vendors to write their own apps for Mac OS X. It is utterly laughable for you to imply there is anti-trust here given the facts.
iTunes already extends functionality for 3rd parties. Blackberry have iTunes syncing, the proper way, and have had it for quite some time. Ditto for many other 3rd parties. Palm refusing to implement syncing with their device the proper way isn't promoting some kind of compatibility, it's just being lazy. And they are breaking the USB spec to do it, thus introducing non-standard behavior from a device.
Palm isn't doing what it can to provide compatibility, in fact, what they are doing is illegal in that they are breaking their contract with the USB-IF. Contract law is law, and breaking a contract is unlawful, ie illegal.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I don't think the USB-IF deserves that much blame.
While I appreciate what Palm is trying to do here, USB devices are supposed to identify themselves by the allocated manufacturer number, and it's common in my experience at least to have drivers locate the right device by checking manufacturer and device IDs.
Manufacturers using whatever IDs they like can result in collisions in the namespace, which will result in things like crashing and malfunction sooner or later.
Note also that my mouse uses the Logitech manufacturer ID, though it's a completely standard mouse that works with the standard USB functionality. It doesn't pretend to be made by Apple, or whichever company made the first USB mouse.
Apple, arguably, is a monopoly in the mp3 player space.
it has done this, once again, by using Apple's USB vendor ID
Rather funny to see this article right after "Identity Theft Is Usually an Unsophisticated Crime".
Whether it is a crime, I'm not so sure.
After all Apple is just about inviting this type of solution.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Please stop whining about what apple is doing. If you don't like it, don't use their proprietary software.
Freedom is feature, choose it.
Really ? Because last time I went into Best buy, it seemed like I could buy dozens of devices by dozens of manufacturers, and each was competing on price, features and look. And with any of those devices, it seemed like I could buy online music from dozens of sources or just buy music from Best Buy on CD which I could convert and use on those devices.
So where is Apple lacking competition in this space exactly ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Apple's concern is that the Pre shows up in iTunes as an iPod and people have been calling them about problems with the Pre.
That's both a trademark violation and annoying. Imagine how pissed Microsoft would be if a device maker had their device show up as a Zune to the Zune software and they kept getting support calls about some 3rd party device.
Yeah, yeah, it is funny that Apple is getting their first taste of how irritating it is to be the big bad guy, but it's not really fair because unlike Microsoft, they go out of their way to do things like maintain a plain text XML version of their library for interoperability. Sure, a plugin architecture would be better, but let's be honest, does iTunes really need more bloat? The program is already a war crime on Windows and it's getting that way on Mac OS too.
Actually, neither is criminal. No law was violated... (IANAL, so just kick me if I'm wrong and I'll go back to my X-Plane).
Palm HAS violated a 'gentlemans agreement' with the USB-IF.
Just because you don't agree with Apples actions, does not make Apples actions criminal.
It seems that you are prioritizing...
Palms money grubbing desire to make a profit off Apples work over...
Apples money grubbing desire to make a profit off Apples work.
While I share your opinion that it's Apple's right to block Palm, I just want to mention that, contrary to traditional slashdot wisdom, antitrust law does not require a monopoly. It also prohibits so-called "unfair business practices". Another case where no real monopoly is needed is multi-company collusion, though I admit that such conduct has the effect of a de facto monopoly. It's a fair question to debate the morality of blocking interoperatability. I like Apple, and it seems wrong for Palm to get a free ride on Apple's work, but where would the PC world be without interoperatability and standards? Why not allow printer manufactures to block third-party ink and toner suppliers? It's not easy, and anyone with too firm an opinion on this has probably not thought it through.
Fleur de Sel
Microsoft's not a monopoly either, but they were still accused of monopolistic practices and forced by the EU to open their Windows setup to multiple browsers (the "choose your browser" install popup). If Apple continues down this path, considering the iStore and iTunes represent 85% of all online music sales, then they too will be forced to open-up their software by the EU or the US DOJ.
So:
Is there a method Palm can use to import my iStore-purchased music into their devices, and not break the law or USB-IF rules?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
> No where did you say why Apple has to force
> iTunes to be compatible with third party
> devices. Anti trust is not a reason because
> Apple is not a monopoly.
That sounds a lot like the arguments Microsoft used to use. Nobody believed them either. Apple seems to be determined to illustrate the consequences of a failure to benefit from the lessons of history.
Thaddaeus A. Vick, Speaker for the Coyote
Of course Apple can figure out a way of stopping third-party sync. Microsoft's been doing something like that for almost 20 years, with various technologies, Office Doc files, login/authentication protocols (e.g. AD), etc.
If you would like to claim otherwise... show me how I can view a web site that requires ActiveX in Linux, without cheating by using something like MSIE in VMware or Wine. (Way beyond the technical capabilities of the average person)
The iPod/iPhone can probably be detected by more than the device ID.
If Apple's smart, they have a unique apple-signed digital certificate private key stored on each portable device. And that the 'certificate' also contains an Apple copyright statement, forbidding a third party from extracting the certificate from their device's ROM chips.
They could provide new firmware for the iPod/iPhone, and a new version of iTunes, that requires 'sync' traffic to be encrypted, and signed by the portable device's unique key.
Or take the easy way, and just introduce proprietary extensions to the protocol, that won't be revealed to third parties.
But again, Apple does offer interoperability, in a documented and supported way. Palm not using said interop mechanisms doesn't mean they don't exist. Going so far as to break the USB spec to not use the proper and documented way is getting even more ridiculous and shows that they will stoop to any low to save a buck.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I'm a fan of Palm and REALLY want them to succeed, but they seem determined to shoot themselves in the foot. Syncing with ITunes was a clever hack, but why didn't they simply cut a deal with another company. I'm sure Amazon would have been delighted to work with them to make their music store (non-DRM'ed MP3's) accessible to the Palm Pre. For that matter they could have added Audible audio-books, and Kindle e-books too. Then Palm seems determined (per recent Slashdot articles) to prevent developers from deploying open source apps to the Pre. Palm has a small window to make the Pre a success. Apple is eventually going to make the IPhone available to other carriers. Palm needs to capture a reasonable market share before that happens. That's not going to happen as long as they keep sabotaging their own product.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I think the argument is that they aren't really needing to do extra work to support the Pre. The extra work they're doing is deliberately un-supporting Palm, which achieves nothing other than annoying the customers of their competition. The real question is why bother with emulating an iPod at all, surely there's a better way for Palm to do this. There must be some quite compelling reason to go with this protocol over some other solution.
I'm pretty sure there's nothing illegal about the Pre telling iTunes it's an iPod. After all, Internet Explorer claims to be Mozilla, and Google Chrome claims to be Chrome, Safari, AND Mozilla! Now if iTunes started issuing firmware hash challenges to iPods, Palm would be stuck - to answer the challenges they'd have to ship a copy of the iTunes firmware which other than being very large would also be illegal. But I guess Apple can't easily update every iPod to support that retroactively.
Really, I've really got to wonder what Apples long term strategy is here. The constant stream of stories like this have to be causing recruitment issues if nothing else. They're already being questioned by the US Govt over the Google Voice issue and now they're apparently issuing updates intended only to break interop? Despite many rumors that is something I don't recall Microsoft ever doing.
No where did you say why Apple has to force iTunes to be compatible with third party devices. Anti trust is not a reason because Apple is not a monopoly.
Apple regularly boast they're #1 and the dominant supply of digital music, to the media, to the market and to consumers. They are the monopoly when it comes to portable music players and purchases, at least in the US. Now they're abusing it. All they need to do is say "We don't support sync from other devices". Deliberately breaking what works is them abusing their monopolist position. Apple are wasting shareholder's money going out of their way to break sync. Antitrust will follow, they have been the new MS for two or three years now. Only fanbois like you seem oblivious to it. Expect them to be fighting in court for a number of years with 3 years. Fast forward 10 years, apple will be old hat and google will be the next under the radar.
Apple is not a monopoly huh?
Have you seen their market share in portable music devices?
Use of the USB logo and USB name is trademarked and requires a license. This is more than a gentlemen agreement, it is a contract and is protected under contract law. Breaking a contract is in fact illegal unless provisions are made and respected about for breaking it.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
I have not been following this issue real close. But, and there is always one of those. What Apple is doing, should a whole lot like what Microsoft did in the DOS days with DRDOS. Microsoft was intentionally sabotaging their own software to look for specific string, and if found cause applications to fail. Granted, this Apple trick is slightly different, but it sure does seem similar. IIRC, Microsoft got sued and had to cough up a really huge clam on the order of a billion dollars or so.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Maybe Apple ought to push a "iPod" firmware update that bricks Pre's. This will teach Palm to fuck with them again....
They aren't? Find me an mp3 player that isn't an i*. What's that--it's less than 10% of the market? Sounds like the definition of a monopoly...
I were to use another company's MAC/Ethernet pre-fix code's for my own company's Ethernet cards ?
So where is Apple lacking competition in this space exactly ?
Yeah, but how many of those dozens of devices are overpriced shiny toys with fewer features?
More seriously, just because dozens of other options exist doesn't mean Apple doesn't have a monopoly. This article from two days ago cites Apple's iPod as having 75% of the MP3 player market share, and I've seen similar figures in plenty of other articles.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
So:
Is there a method Palm can use to import my iStore-purchased music into their devices, and not break the law or USB-IF rules?
Yes, there is, and yes, it's documented and supported, and yes, other 3rd parties are using it right now (Blackberry). iTunes keeps a copy of its database as an XML file which is kept up to date. The files themselves are stored on your hard drive and their location is written to this XML file. Any software can read in this file and then sync to any device it wants. Many 3rd parties are already doing it, be it stand-alone syncing software (doubletwist, The Missing Sync) or vendor provided syncing solutions (Blackberry's media desktop).
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
IANAL *BUT* I do believe that Palm can legally do whatever they like with the USB-compatible ports but what they might be doing wrong is continuing to call the port USB. to be USB to must meet the specs, and palm is breaking those specs so might be in trademark violation of the USB name and logo. They could just name the port something else and maintain compatability but I done think it is legit to call the port a USB port.
You're missing the point. Palm isn't (I don't think?) trying to claim that Apple is required to remain compatible with third-party devices. Palm is claiming that Apple is required to not intentionally DISABLE third-party devices for the sole purpose of remaining the only company with a device that can sync with your software.
Look, it's one thing to unintentionally break functionality due to a change your API in order to offer new features or functionality, and because you don't want to spend your resources supporting third-party devices. But it's quite another to intentionally break them just because you don't want them to use your software.
Ubiquitous car analogy: You buy a Honda Civic and your alternator breaks. Joe's Alternators has a third-party alternator that will work fine and is cheaper/has better features/whatever, but the next time you take your car in for service, they update your vehicles firmware, and now the alternator won't work. If Honda accidentally disabled the alternator because all of their new alternators have been updated to a tighter spec, hey; that's life. But does Honda have the right to disable all third-party alternators just because they want you to buy *their* alternator? Isn't that the very definition of anti-competitive?
If Apple and USB Interoperability Forum have worked to make the system deliberately incompatible, Palm has the legal right to circumvent that, and to sue Apple and USB-IF if they continue the cat-and-mouse game.
Unless Apple considers it a DRM/Access control technology that effectively controls the sync capability and helps protect the copyright works against being synced to non-Apple-authorized devices.
When it comes to Access control and Rights management type technologies, the DMCA helps assure against other companies having a "right" to circumvent.
FYI:
Contract law is law, and breaking a contract is unlawful, ie illegal.
We can get into a debate over the proper definition of "illegal", but the way you seem to be using it implies that, in the eyes of the law, breaking a contract is somehow discouraged as a matter of public policy. It isn't. Yes, the party you've contracted with can sue you if you breach, but the law actually goes to some lengths to permit breaches of contract to the extent that they promote economic efficiency.
From Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes:
Nowhere is the confusion between moral and legal ideas more manifest than in the law of contract...The duty to keep a contract at common law means a prediction that you must pay damages if you do not keep it - and nothing else.
caritj.org
So you're saying Apple has more market share thanks to a better product ? Isn't that how competition works ?
But more to the point, monopolies aren't just about market share, they are about a control position in a market. If tomorrow Apple decided to try and lock out other vendors, consumers have dozens of alternatives they can use and Apple will just be a bad memory.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Windows has a monopoly even though there are good competitors there giving their product away for FREE. Apple has no space to complain.
If it isn't legal, it should be. A possible precedent would be terminals - either hardware or emulators - pretending to be VT100s.
This is a Pre telling a competitors service that it is an iPhone. Is that legal?
No more legal than faking a MS Internet Explorer User agent string, to visit a website that displays broken pages to certain browsers.
(Once upon a time, it was necessary to fake user agent to visit certain MS web sites, if you were using particular browsers)
Apple iPod Video, according to usbdevs. What do Apple do now? Blacklist their own product or get sneaky? IMHO, Palm are doing us no favours here. What is most likely to happen next is a DRM-esque key exchange between iPods and iTunes, which will not only bugger up the Pre's sync to iTunes feature permanently, but syncing iPods to OSS applications will more than likely be the collateral damage.
If they wanted to be really nasty, they could probably brick a connected Pre in the process of updating Apple firmware to implement this key exchange. You're an iPod Video, eh? Here, have some firmware before we talk again. "Well, Your Honour, it was using our vendor and device ID. Not our fault our flash code bricked it. Pre flasher code in our update software? The very thought!"
This will not end well. I'd forget about making your device pretend to be something else, Palm. It might come back to bite you and your customers on the arse.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
That's a bit of a simplification law-nazi. First off--to my knowledge, breaking a contract is normally a civil offense. IANAL...but I don't think that you can generally go to jail for breach of contract. Secondly--such actions may only be decided by a judge or jury--as opposed to a flat out statement that killing someone for fun is illegal. Thirdly, it's highly unlikely to be illegal to break any given contract--as almost any contract I've seen signed in my life has terms and conditions that are flat out illegal or unenforceable in my state (and many others I've lived in). They circumvent this with severability clauses--but it technically does enable me to break...parts of the contract.
On top of that, any contract which is deemed in bad faith, unconscionable, or any number of a variety of things is just...pretty much thrown out. What were the terms of the contract to get into this group? Was an open standard created and an organization refused to permit membership unless a corporation gave up basic rights? Would such a contract be enforceable wherever Palm has their headquarters located?
Just because you want people to be able to give up the ability to innovate by signing a piece of paper doesn't mean it's that simple. And providing a third party, less functional API that exposes less functionality isn't exactly what most people would call promoting compatibility. You want compatible products--use the public APIs with your own s/w. Saying there's an API for palm is like giving me HTML access and saying I can still write a desktop application for your platform with that API.
I do believe that Palm can legally do whatever they like with the USB-compatible ports but what they might be doing wrong is continuing to call the port USB.
Unless USB-IF ties the USB patent license to the USB logo license.
How have you contradicted the point that breaking a contract is unlawful, hence illegal ? Even your judge agrees in that after breaking the law, there must be redressement in the form of damages. Not everything illegal is criminal. One means to break the law, the other means to break criminal law.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
If apple does offer "interoperability, in a documented and supported way" why does palm (And Linux) have to reverse-enginer the protocol that Apple use??
there is nothing "illegal" about breaking contracts. you just have to pay restitution if you breach a contract.
Microsoft is a monopoly. They control an overwhelming majority of operating system installs. That is what a monopoly is. That is not to say that monopoly is always bad, just that microsoft certainly qualifies.
Microsoft controlled the choices of operating system on the entire PC industry for a time and that seals them in as a monopoly. You could not buy a complete computer that was compatible with the industries standard programs because microsoft forbid it. Apple didnt control enough market to get enough programs on the mac to change this. The anti-monopoly lawsuits have opened this up somewhat which loosens the grip of microsoft on the industry allowing choice. one of the outcomes was the default browser setting being loosened up and another is allowing a PC vendor to sell a computer with another OS without penatly.
breaking the spec and non standard behavior? They are just faking an ID. This isn't making the USB do something weird. I mean against the rules maybe but I wouldnt call it standard breaking and certainly the only behavior it produces is the sync functions rather than doesn't.
Lots of programs pretend to be other programs for functionality. Reverse engineering is ok and i don't think USBIF will care.
Criminal? Have you entertained the possibility that neither are doing anything illegal? It sounds like what you're saying is that Apple is relying on the DMCA somehow, and Palm is in the clear under the interoperability provisions (although that still wouldn't mean Apple is doing anything wrong). At most, I suspect Palm is violating whatever agreements it has with the USB-IF, which probably requires conforming to certain standards in exchange for use of its trademark.
Personally, I'm curious why Palm is adopting this tactic. A number of people have mentioned that Apple provides some form of syncing API for iTunes? What is the disadvantage of that which leads Palm to this sneakier technique?
Please guys, mod him down for not knowing what he is talking about.
The iTunes database is available in plain straightforward XML format. On a Macintosh, you can read that database with two lines of code and get either an NSDictionary* or a CFDictionaryRef; the code for CFDictionaryRef is part of Core Foundation and open sourced. That database contains _everything_ about your iTunes Library. The music files are plain MP3 or AAC files. Apple wrote software that can sync the iTunes Library to Apple hardware, Palm can do the same for their own hardware.
They aren't? Find me an mp3 player that isn't an i*.
I don't own an iPod, but I do own a Nintendo DS with R4 expansion card and a Samsung Pebble. Both can play MP3 and Vorbis.
they are not breaking a contract
"Palm isn't doing what it can to provide compatibility, in fact, what they are doing is illegal in that they are breaking their contract with the USB-IF. Contract law is law, and breaking a contract is unlawful, ie illegal."
if you choose to take 99% of a standard and implement it differently that is ok. They may be violating trademark using the USB logo and name but there is no contract that they must honor.
Palm doesnt want to pay a license to connect a Pre to iTunes. Blackberry pays that license. Why should they pay a license so that customers can access data that they have already paid for? Especially when there is no technical limitation? only an ID that needs changed.
Keep in mind that customers install iTunes to buy media from Apple. iTunes is not a product that enables them to play their music. This is not a MSSQL server license where the product is the data store and you must license for the data store, this is a downloader that is provided for free.
Palm has circumvented the published API for doing this (for god knows what reason). And they've done so by "faking" a USB VENDOR ID.
Why not just used the published method as BlackBerry / RIM does?
Changing my MAC address on Ethernet ports doesn't break the Ethernet specifications, but it does go against the standard address allocation layed out by the IEEE (or whomever splits the address blocks between vendors). Maybe USB has these two schemes within the same umbrella organization, but for me there seems like no reason to be so.
I don't know the ins and outs of why Palm had to take this step to be interoperable (if the 3rd party license cripples their field of use for instance) but they did, and I don't see how this could be considered 'illegal' in any definition. They will at the worst be in violation of the USB consortium's rules. If they loose their status to sell USB, it'll mean that any applicable USB treaty patents could be used against Palm in court to stop them from selling the equivalent of 'USB'.
Bye!
So you're saying Apple has more market share thanks to a better product ? Isn't that how competition works ?
Actually I was saying that the iPod is an overpriced, shiny toy with fewer features than many of its competitors. The iPod just has that je ne sais quoi/popular cool factor that makes people want it, not because it's better on features or price.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I don't think you understand the concept of (or law surrounding) anti-trust.
He means for other devices to sync with iTunes music libraries, which other devices can do by reading the plaintext iTunes XML database. You are confusing that with Apple's attempts to stop people using software other than iTunes to sync iPods.
Honestly, does Palm really need Apple's USB vendor ID in order to enable iTunes media synchronization with its new Pre smartphone ? If so, there's something really wrong with Apple here, and not Palm.
s/Microsoft/Apple
see how ignorant your argument is now?
The duty to keep a contract at common law means a prediction that you must pay damages if you do not keep it - and nothing else.
True, "at law" means damages, but courts of law in the U.S. are also courts of equity. The remedy at equity is not damages but an injunction, and disobeying an injunction may land one in jail for contempt of court.
That's just it: They're issuing updates to explicitly BREAK interoperability. On two markets they have a 'monopoly' similar to MS with windows - portable MP3 players and online music downloads. That stinks of unfair or anti-competitive business practices and plenty of other random legal terms.
What if MS decided that all windows programs needed to be signed and licensed and sold through an app store they controlled?
I'm sure this will wind up in court with lots of bickering, motions, friend-of-the-court nonsense, appeals and so on. In reality we'd do better to just let the kids duke it out on the playground and see what happens. Would be even funnier if Apple implemented a hash check and palm found a collision to match it without 'stealing' code :)
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Palm is doing what is necessary to provide compatibility. If Apple and USB Interoperability Forum have worked to make the system deliberately incompatible, Palm has the legal right to circumvent that, and to sue Apple and USB-IF if they continue the cat-and-mouse game.
This indicates, Bruce, that you have a very tenuous grasp on the fundamental rules that USB devices must follow.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Oh, stop with that Apple is not a monopoly issue.
The only people who spout that line are Apple fanboys. It seems to be a mantra for them.
Note: Apple existed while Microsoft was being (and is still being) dragged thru a knothole. Therefore, Microsoft was not a monopoly either. There is no single manufacturer in any industry that has a monopoly. There is always an alternative).
Abuse of dominant market position is the issue here.
With Apple cornering WELL IN EXCESS of 70% market share of on-line music sales they have a dominant market position with the iTunes store, and the iTunes software.
Allowing you to purchase in the store, but preventing you from syncing the music or playing it on your choice of devices is an attempt to use their dominant market position in one industry to achieve dominance in another industry.
That is illegal in the US.
Monopoly doesn't even come into it. Its not the issue at all. You can only play the underdog if you actually ARE one.
So do give it a rest with the "Apple is not a Monopoly" nonsense ok?
There is no law against one machine lying to another. There is no allegation of theft, or attempt to defraud.
All there is is Apple treating some of their customers like second rate citizens. The black customers forced to sit in the back of the the technological bus.
So yes, Apple will be forced to stop restricting sync to its own devices only. Or they will have to document, license and publish the protocol to purchase from the iTunes store. Its just a matter of time.
You can not hold 70% share and still claim you are exempt from regulation because you have not yet achieved perfect monopoly.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Link? Apple has a pretty extensive developer site at http://developer.apple.com/ so if there was a way for non-apple devices to work in itunes then it should be documented there. I'm not even going to bother looking because if such a document existed there would be a lot more devices that support itunes. If this interoperable standard exists then palm would much prefer to use that instead of this constant can and mouse game of changing vendor id's.
I think if anyone tries to enforce a "trademark" on the term "USB", they might learn what a genericized trademark is. "USB" is the commonplace designation for that type of port, and is the recognized way of referring to-well, a USB port. I strongly doubt they'd have any luck arguing that it's a trademark rather than a generic word.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Why don't they just read the iTunes Library XML file? Seems pretty straightforward to me!
Matters may have been quite different if Windows checked the mouse's Vendor ID and refused to activate by default a standard mouse or keyboard with a vendor's ID other than Microsoft's.
Or if the Phoenix or Asus BIOS image was designed to only recognize keyboard or mice with a certain vendor id.
Yes, the third party KB and Mouse vendors could have eventually developed their own software (software not popular or included by default as most users' setups), but it would be so inconvenient to computer users, that the manufacturer would be likely to spoof Microsoft's ID.
Banning hardware for interoperating based on Vendor ID, when there is no technical reason for it (e.g. the profile is the same, the same 'standard' mouse/kb driver without the arbitrary restriction is just fine for the other vendor.). Is a sure path to seeing vendors want to spoof each other.
The USB-IF and Apple are dragging themselves into a trap. Palm is just the first high-profile vendor to be doing this. You can be sure there will be other devices doing the same, eventually.
One way for Palm is to have the USB id configurable by the user, which means that the user can change to the Apple ID at will to circumvent any lock-down by Apple.
That way Palm is conforms to the USB requirements and the users can be happy.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Palm is doing what is necessary to provide compatibility. If Apple and USB Interoperability Forum have worked to make the system deliberately incompatible, Palm has the legal right to circumvent that, and to sue Apple and USB-IF if they continue the cat-and-mouse game.
Probably this will eventually get to court, and Apple will be forced to extend itunes interoperability to other manufacturers.
I have not seen a more clueless post in recent memory. I would have thought that someone of your stature would have a better understanding of what is involved here. Palm is breaking the USB standard. There will probably be a lawsuit but Palm may end up facing fines and/or lose the ability to USB logos on their devices. They are in violation of the USB IF rules. They are not only using Apple's Vendor ID but also an Apple specific device ID. Device IDs are not necessarily unique under the USB spec so if a device need drivers to support specific features of the device, the OS will use a combination of the Device ID and Vendor ID to load the correct driver. If devices begin spoofing IDs like this, the entire schema for identification of USB devices will be broken.
Get back to us when you decide to leave the airy fairly land of Open Source/Academia and join the real world which is comprised of corporations with budget constraints and shrinking revenue streams. Some of us have to actually work hard for a living.
Apple provides a windows API for writing iTunes plugins and a similar API for OS X. They also provide the iTunes library in XML format which any third party developer can use to sync media from the library to their device. RIM makes use of this XML document to facilitate media syncing in their windows and mac Blackberry desktop applications and Palm could have done the same with the Palm pre.
It would be a trivial matter to write a syncing agent using the Library XML and I could probably write one in a few days.
Not only is palm using iTunes to sync media from the library but they are also syncing contacts and photos by piggy backing on the syncing services Apple built into windows/os x for syncing the iPhone and iPod touch. That goes beyond trying to just access media from iTunes.
If you really are the famous Bruce Perens, explain to me why Palm should be allowed to piggy back on Apple's work for syncing windows pictures and contacts. Would you support non-GPL software piggy backing on GPL'd software in the same way on linux or would you have a double standard on that issue? Are you telling us that you would attach a GPL violator but defend someone who is violating their license agreement with the USB IF?
I sincerely hope that you are not actually Bruce Perens and that someone has hacked your account because if that is not the case, you have become an embarrassment to the OSS movement much like RMS has become.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I see most comments here are taking the bait and going with what (I'm sure) Palm wants the debate to centre around.
In no particular order, and not to single anyone out, but just to illustrate: ... Microsoft was intentionally sabotaging their own software to look for specific string, and if found cause applications to fail. ..." ... Or take the easy way, and just introduce proprietary extensions to the protocol, that won't be revealed to third parties. ..." ... I remember a time when it was legal to reverse engineer things for compatibility purposes. (Was a long time ago... the 90s, perhaps?) ..."
"
"
"
I lot of people are complaining the Palm thing smacks of fraud, but it is no different than telling Microsoft Word that the document is opening was made by Word instead of Open Office for compatibility reasons.
And so on ...
This is not reverse-engineering. This is not circumventing proprietary extensions. This is not hiding code and hunting for it within applications.
This is a Hardware Device ID assigned by the organization that licenses a technology and insures those who use that technology do so in a way that won't, for example, cause a fire, since USB carries power.
The ID is not secret. You can get the hardware device ID of every manufacturer's product from a number of sources, including doing a Properties/Get Info on all the hardware connected to your computer. Software on your device can poll the 3rd party device for the ID string, to, say, load the right driver, or whatever.
" ... Apple's concern is that the Pre shows up in iTunes as an iPod and people have been calling them about problems with the Pre. ..."
A post that is much closer to the point. But, we can take it further than that. That post was an example of what could go wrong, with everyone who supports USB. Aside from the fact that this is the highly charged Apple/iTunes/iPod vs The World spin, it's really not about Apple at all.
Many posters have commented (quoted above) about how Palm vs iTunes could play out. And, I'm sure, some of that will come about sooner or later; Palm seems intent on forcing it along with more than a few others. Whatever.
But, it's the method Palm chose that is the real problem. The USB Implementers Forum sees this as the wedge that breaks USB compatibility everywhere. If Palm gets away with this, every offshore vendor gets away with it too. USB Cameras made by some unheard-of offshore vendor now report to Canon software as Canon cameras. Any and all hardware that uses USB can now be spoffed by offshore knock-offs. Support issues, as mentioned by a poster here, are real concerns amongst every hardware vendor and cost real money.
Some of that may already be going on, but to have a member of the Forum thumb their nose at the terms of those who insure USB "just works"?
Which is why the USBIF will not let Palm get away with this for much longer.
The questions then becomes what do the USBIF do, and why is Palm insisting on taking this road instead of another? It has as much potential to harm Palm, as a hardware vendor, as anyone else, including Apple.
Palm has it's own software but the iTune compatibility is merely a convenience for it's users. In short, Apple tries to lock up people into their product universe and iTunes is one of the ways they keep you. It's hard to switch over from an Apple device to any other because it's a giant pain to swap from iTunes to some other sync software. The reason why Apple goes to these lengths to stop this is simply because this whole idea of iTunes synching is not there because iTunes is such a great piece of software (it's actually, quite frankly, one of the worst pieces of software I've ever been *forced* to use) but rather it exists because it makes it easier for people to migrate from the iPhone to the Pre.
What Apple is doing here is very much anti-competitive . . .
people who modded parent up and perens down, i want to know what planet you're from. it's your fault apple doesn't care about interoperability: they evidently don't have to. thanks -- i hope you're always happy with the product.
it's like you woke up yesterday or something.
And if you look at that MS user agent string, you'll see that IE was itself faking a Netscape user agent string...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Use of the USB logo and USB name is trademarked
Then while the Pre is in iPod emulation mode, it could display the USB logo under a prohibitory sign. That would indicate that this mode is not USB (in the sense that GNU's not UNIX), even if it is still compatible with USB.
Simple solution... Palm can stop using the USB logo on these units, and use a picture of the physical connector instead, or something such as that.
No where did you say why Apple has to force iTunes to be compatible with third party devices. Anti trust is not a reason because Apple is not a monopoly.
Apple is large enough to be considered "monopolistic" in MP3 players, music downloads, or "consumer smartphones."
It would not be shocking if, after someone being stupid enough to sue over this, Apple wound up declared a monopoly on one or all of the areas I mentioned before.
You are largely correct, that monopoly is NOT the issue here.
Dominant market position is. So is using Dominant Market position in one industry to achieve dominance in another.
This is illegal in the US.
Apple owns 70+% of online music sales world wide. They have long since passed the threshold where regulation is appropriate. They should either open the iTunes store to other software, or open syncing to other devices with the same facility and elegance as their own devices.
As for your statement:
I like Apple, and it seems wrong for Palm to get a free ride on Apple's work
I will refer you to the huge overwhelming percentage of Apple OS software that is "borrowed" from open source.
Who is getting a free ride?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
But again, Apple does offer interoperability, in a documented and supported way.
In a second class, highly crippled way. There is no Sync capability. No playlist support.
The fact that they can not prevent you from drag-and-drop using your computer's operating system hardly constitutes a level playing field.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I have to agree. There would be only one reason for Palm to need to resort to USB ID spoofing. That would be because iTunes treats non-Apple devices differently and probably quite poorly. So in order to get the level of functionality out of iTunes, Palm has to "lie" to iTunes about what it is.
We have seen similar behavior from other vendors and software makers in the past, but quite notably in instant messenger clients and servers, web browsers and in Windows networking.
there is nothing "illegal" about breaking contracts. you just have to pay restitution if you breach a contract.
Please engage your brain - you can't force anyone to pay restitution unless there's legal recourse to apply such force. C'mon, exactly how do you think this process works without the force of law - company A is supposed to send its goons over to "visit" company B's boss?
In a nearby city here in Washington state, we just had a judge order that city's teachers to go back to work because they were striking and their contract contained a no strike clause. If breaking the contract wasn't illegal, why was a judge involved?
#DeleteChrome
Doesn't Apple have a stranglehold on the digital MP3 market with iTunes?
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
They don't have to. They just do it because it saves them from having to write their own sync code.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Within the context of Apple and Palm, you are correct. Nintendo, Atari, and various other companies have previously set precedence for compatibility.
However, Palms violation is with an organization they have a completely separate contract with. They agreed to not violate that contract, or the organizations rules in exchange for using the various USB trademarks, as well as receiving various patent usage rights. It is highly unlikely for the courts to decide that it is acceptable for Palm to violate a contract for a 3rd party even if a decision between Apple / Palm were to declare Palm in the clear.
This could get very expensive for Palms manufacturing division.
Better car analogy:
Apple Motors offers one of those gimmicky buy-our-car-and-get-free-oil-changes-for-life deals. Probably they're just trying to get you back into the dealership so they can upsell you on other crap, but hey, oil is oil, gotta have oil...
Palm Motor Company builds a swell car that has, among its other cool features, the ability to fool the greasemonkeys at the Apple dealership to give you the free oil change. Awesome! But is that really fair to the Apple Motors folks?
This analogy is way more sympathetic to Apple than I am, though. I think Apple should just swallow hard and realize that more people using iTunes is a win for them.
This is very true. I own an iPhone because Safari is pretty much the best mobile browser in a phone out there and because the app store is fantastic. As a music/video player though? It's WAY Behind the curve. It's not even funny. Apple makes players that are low on features and high on price. Here's some glaring omissions that pretty much every competitor has in players that have half the cost:
1) No transcoding. These days, most players will just play DivX natively. Not only do you have to transcode every file for the Iphone/Ipod touch/etc --- but apple doesn't even give you the software for it. Seroiusly. iTunes does not support transcoding from any of the most common internet video codecs/formats. About all it can convert on its own is mpeg/uncompressed avi/quicktime into h.264. This is ridiculous. Not only are they lacking in key functionality, but they force you to find third party software to overcome this deficit.
2) Hard drive mode support. Almost every other player lets you just view your video/mp3 files on the device as a hard drive and copy files back and forth as you see fit without using ANY software other than your operating system. You want to sync your files? Use iTunes. Nevermind that it's one of the buggiest/bloated/unintuitive/god awful pieces of software I've ever used. You're stuck with it.
3) Audio codecs. Apple players don't even support half of the codecs that other players support. Again, this is part of their strategy to lock you into the "itunes" universe.
I could rant for days, but I won't. The iPod touch is a great device, for separate reasons. But Apple does not make good mp3 players. They make some aesthetically pleasing, but very expensive ones and that's just about the nicest thing you can say about them. While my iPhone does frustrate me as a media player, it's "good enough" that I don't bother owning another player. But believe me, if I only wanted a music player, Apple wouldn't even be considered for a second -- and yet somehow, even excluding the iPod touch, they dominate that market. It's not because of superior products.
They established any early monopoly when they bought all pretty much all the 1.5inch hard drives and were, as a direct result, the only company making a small-form factor high-storage mp3 player at the time. Nobody else could offer the same amount of storage without making the player significantly larger. Even though their player was inferior in any number of other ways, this sold ipods. It got Apple a monopoly they still enjoy today, and believe me, they aren't "playing nice" in their efforts to keep it. They're not above using anti-competitive (though perhaps still legal, IANAL) tactics in order keep that monopoly. This whole Pre/iTunes syncing affair is merely one of them.
There are many music download and music access services available. Just go elsewhere. Like so many "firsts" on the Net - e.g. eBay, Yahoo, etc. - iTunes seems old in the tooth. Couple that with egregious DRM policies and attempts to choke interoperability. Why bother. I like Apple products, but who really needs iTunes for music. Other than as a software platform for playback, I could care less about the iTunes music store. Try these: http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b?ie=UTF8&node=163856011 http://pandora.com/ http://www.emusic.com/ http://www.slacker.com/ http://www.napster.com/ http://music.myspace.com/ www.youtube.com http://www.rhapsody.com/home.html http://www.walmart.com/music http://www.last.fm/ http://social.zune.net/music/ http://www.seeqpod.com/
What license? Blackberry pay no license, they just sync with iTunes in the proper manner, by reading and writing the iTunes XML file. Of course, this requires that they write their own sync software.
Dead missing the point, AC.
The issue is not whether Apple should support competing hardware. The issue is deliberately breaking competing hardware.
There is a tying argument that can be made, but I doubt it'd stick. Apple's weight in the space is hefty, but not quite as significant as Microsoft's in the PC space.
Microsoft IS a monopoly.
The court found that It met the definition of being a monopoly, but being a monopoly is not illegal in and of itself. What MS was found guilty of and slapped on the wrist for was using its monopoly to stifle and shut out competition.
If you read my post again I believe you'll see that I intended to do no such thing. Rather, your use of the word "illegal" seemed to me to be calculated to impute some sort of unsavoriness about Palm's conduct. I was just pointing out that, at least in the eyes of contract law, there is nothing at all wrong with breaching a contract.
caritj.org
Total rubbish.
Palm has no legal right to do anything of the sort. They are in breach of contract with the USB-IF by using Apple's vendor ID but that's not illegal (in so far as the act itself isn't, and breach of contract between two entities is not a crime).
Apple has absolutely no obligation to provide third party compatibility with iTunes for third party devices - they do offer an API that allows you to use third party devices with iTunes, but Palm has chosen not to go that route. Apple also does not have a monopoly on the music and cellphone market, and they don't have a monopoly on jukebox music software (that they give away for free I might add) or even online music stores (not that the iTMS has anything to do with this dispute, unless you choose to buy songs on there, and even then you can easily [using iTunes] move them into a format that will work with any music player).
iTunes exists to support iPods and iPhones. They have absolutely no obligation to make it play nice with third party players - they give it away for free after all, and it is very clear what it is designed to do.
Apple is very clear about what it offers up front - if you don;t want to be part of the vertically integrated experience, with all of the benefits and downsides that come with it, then you are free to use other software and hardware.
What's not ok is if you're Palm and you say "well, we want to use iTunes, an app given away by Apple for free, to sync music and photos with the Pre, and we're going to do that by spoofing Apple's purchased and contractually protected USB vendor ID" - are you really surprised Apple is stopping this?
Hint: it is not illegal for them to do so, nor is it illegal for Palm to do what they are doing. They are breaching their contract with the USB IF though, which is a matter between Palm and the USB IF.
There is also no anti trust issue here.
It has the feature customers want from a portable music player - the ability to play music.
Apple is complaining because it signed a contract with the USB IF and paid a great deal of money/legal expense/time/hoop jumping to obtain a USB vendor ID: a unique identifier for their company, assured by the USB IF that any device that reports this little code is an Apple product.
They're not complaining about competition. They even offer a way to use third party music players sync and work with iTunes - they just don't include in the instructions and API "copy our vendor ID and pretend to be an iPod".
I certainly agree that Apple is trying to use its dominance to gain footholds in other industries.
However, it is false to say that you cannot sync a music file purchased from itunes to another device. ITMS files are no longer DRMd. You can use any music player or music library managing software you like. What you cannot do is use itunes to sync it.
Small distinctions like this are worth noting
"This is a Pre telling a competitors service that it is an iPhone. Is that legal"-I can't fucking believe you got modded insightful.
To Palm,
Subject: USB Vendor ID Spoofing
Look into it.
IANAL and I could be wrong but Lexmark tried to do something like this in order to force people to use Lexmark branded ink cartridges. They put something like "(c) Copyright Lexmark yyyy" in the data that the printer checked to see if the ink cartridge was appropriate. If the Lexmark copyright notice wasn't there, the printer wouldn't use the ink cartridge. They then sued someone who had reverse engineered the interface and sold a competing ink cartridge for copyright violation. The courts held that this use of copyright violated the intent of copyright law and did not constitute infringement.
The difference is that Palm is violating a contractual agreement that says they can only call a port "USB" if they abide by the USB consortium's rules which says they have to correctly identify themselves and not claim to be Apple. It will be interesting to see how this sorts out.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
They didn't have to; they did it the wrong way. Other programs that synchronize media using iTunes, such as Nokia Multimedia Transfer and Salling Media Sync, synchronize iTunes media with devices the supported way, which is to read the iTunes library XML file and use that to do the synchronization. The Palm people decided not to do their own sync engine and to fake the appearance of an iPod, which is not the supported way of doing this.
It does exist. Palm is just lazy, and it seems you are too.
I have used several non-Apple music players with iTunes belonging to various friends from multiple vendors and they sync just fine.
It's not as elegant as an iPod, since it doesn't use the main Library file, but it does use the plaintext XML file that iTunes keeps up to date with its main library. This file does contain playlists, tracks, info and so on that allow you to sync with iTunes.
... desperate measures.
Face it. This is an act of desperation. Palm Pre is like pre-ejaculation, a whole lot of mess that nobody wants except the newbies.
Sorry, you're wrong here. USB is a specific technology which is licensed by every company which implements it. You're thinking of "kleenex" or "xerox" which became the generic terms for facial tissue and photocopy where they were once brand names.
The difference is that the competing brands made their own products which competed, turning the product into a commodity. While two different products which have USB ports may compete, their USB technology is licensed from the same place.
Just because everyone uses a term doesn't mean it's a genericized trademark.
The CB App. What's your 20?
Nothing I want more than a device where core functionality comes and goes week to week. Way to go, Palm! You guys are &#$% GENIUSES!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The previous story
Identity Theft Is Usually an Unsophisticated Crime
Suppose MS introduced a new executable format, and as part of that you had to specify vendor in the executable. However people notice something: If MS or one of their partners are specified as the vendor, the app runs at full speed. If anyone else is specified as the vendor, the app gets slowed down by the OS. So, other companies take to marking their apps as being made by MS, so that they don't run slower.
Would they be wrong to do this? Should MS be allowed to harm their apps on purpose?
This is the same sort of thing Apple is doing. It isn't a case of Apple saying "We don't support 3rd party devices, we aren't going to help make your stuff work." That would be fine. It is a case of them putting in an artificial check for the specific purpose of breaking compatibility with a competitors device.
It's not even code theft. It's reporting to be Apple, using a vendor ID unique code that Apple paid the USB IF for - a code that was assured to be unique to Apple.
No one is breaking the law on either side. Palm is breaking a contract with the USB IF though, and Apple has every right to ensure that devices that report Apple's unique, purchased USB ID on the USB bus are in fact Apple devices.
The analogy I would use is that Palm is forging tickets to a free concert put on by Apple - it's not illegal, and the concert venue has every right to impose more stringent security checks to look more closely for fraudulent tickets.
Apple does not prevent anyone from syncing their iTunes music purchases with a device of their choice. Any device that play m4a files can use those file. Apple does not hide them in some unrecognisable location. They actually put them in the bog standard Windows My Music folder, in a separate subfolder of course. In fact, they make it a point to tell you where the files are.
Apple will sell music to anyone, in a standard non DRM format too. They just won't let third parties sync with their software. It's part of their fair competitive advantage, something which you are allowed to have the last I checked. They put in the money, and took the risks, now they are reaping the rewards. And that is what capitalism is about.
It's very different from Microsoft achieving a dominant position in operating systems and then using that to threaten PC builders with withdrawing the rights to sell Windows, or to raise the price of Windows to force them to not sell competing software. Being a monopoly is not a bad thing. Abusing a monopoly position is. Apple is only catering to its iPod/iPhone customers, as they are allowed to do. They are selling a unique experience. Palm needs to best that, or stay out of the kitchen.
It is legal to reverse engineer things for compatibility promises - unless you explicitly sign a contract saying you won't do that. If Palm didn't sign on to use USB, they'd be allowed to reverse engineer until their hearts were content. But they've signed a contract waiving the ability to, among other things, use a forged vendor ID.
This is not reverse engineering.
-Daniel
Manufacturers using whatever IDs they like can result in collisions in the namespace, which will result in things like crashing and malfunction sooner or later.
Yes, eventually -- but the blame can be fairly clearly laid on the party that deviates from the standard.
You don't have to lack competition to be a monopoly, you just have to dominate the market. Once you're a "standard", this is generally about when it starts to qualify. Apple is as much a monopoly in MP3 players as Microsoft is in OS, despite both having competition.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
There are ways to provide iTunes syncing without using a forged USB device ID to fool iTunes into thinking said device is an iPod. There's an XML file containing all the iTunes library information, it is easy to read, and using it for this purpose is well-documented-- as many others have posted before me. It deserves reiteration because the Apple haters are simply conveniently ignoring it so they can go on spewing their vitriol.
Blackberry just released a Mac version of their desktop software yesterday that does it that way, and there are some third-party sync programs that use it, too, and have been using it for years. Has Apple altered iTunes one iota to break that method? Nope.
Palm is just being lazy/cheap and piggybacking off Apple's work, and they're subverting the USB standard to do it. Apple is perfectly within their rights to do what they did, and the USB-IF is within their rights to smack down Palm.
But Apple Motors will already store and organizing anyones oil for them for free, old or new, regardless of where they bought their car. And Apple motors may give you the free oil change, but you still have to pay for the oil. So if they will sell you oil, store and organize any oil for free, why not give everyone the free change?
Why not just used the published method as BlackBerry / RIM does?
Because doing so costs more money than the two hours of programmer time Palm has spent on this media sync feature.
1) No transcoding. These days, most players will just play DivX natively. Not only do you have to transcode every file for the Iphone/Ipod touch/etc --- but apple doesn't even give you the software for it. Seroiusly. iTunes does not support transcoding from any of the most common internet video codecs/formats. About all it can convert on its own is mpeg/uncompressed avi/quicktime into h.264. This is ridiculous. Not only are they lacking in key functionality, but they force you to find third party software to overcome this deficit.
I guess if you call a codec 3rd party software you are right, anything quicktime can play it can re-encode and other than drm protected windows media files and some old windows codec AVIs i have no problem opening any media file in QuickTime.
2) Hard drive mode support. Almost every other player lets you just view your video/mp3 files on the device as a hard drive and copy files back and forth as you see fit without using ANY software other than your operating system. You want to sync your files? Use iTunes. Nevermind that it's one of the buggiest/bloated/unintuitive/god awful pieces of software I've ever used. You're stuck with it.
Unless you just enable hard drive mode support on the ipod. If you do it shows up as a hard drive just fine. I know it is hard to check a box these days though.
3) Audio codecs. Apple players don't even support half of the codecs that other players support. Again, this is part of their strategy to lock you into the "itunes" universe.
This one I have to give you, but only this one.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
I will refer you to the huge overwhelming percentage of Apple OS software that is "borrowed" from open source.
Who is getting a free ride?
This is a horrible analogy to draw and discredits your argument.
The word borrowed can be used without quotes, as the BSD-style (and other similar licenses) allow for it; don't play silly games. The difference is, that code was FREELY given away for others to use, including Apple. In no way has Apple told anyone "here, fake our USB ID"; in fact, they have an alternate mechanism for allowing third-party devices to access the iTunes library on a customer's computer. Why haven't they gone that route?
The logos as seen here:
http://www.usb.org/home
are trademarks held by the USB-IF and its member companies.
USB does not qualify as a genericized trademark because references to USB are clearly for the specific interface as described by USB-IF. To have USB be a genericized term then USB must be commonly used to describe cables plugged into computers which it is not.
The iTunes software does treat non-Apple devices differently. It ignores them. Apple doesn't want to support other hardware with their syncing software, and aren't legally required to do so.
What they did instead was provide an API so anyone can access the media in your iTunes library. Plenty of other devices are able to access that library using the documented method, including the PS3 and Xbox 360 (3rd party software broadcasts your library through a UPnP server).
So there is more than one reason Palm "has" to resort to USB ID spoofing. And that additional reason is their laziness and cheapness about developing their own syncing software as stated above. This has been a long-standing problem with Palm devices. They gave up producing Mac sync software in particular from almost day one of their history, necessitating the development of third party tools such as "The Missing Sync for Palm".
Simliar to the reasoning above, you might say that Palm was in violation of anti-trust, since they had the most popular PDA of the time, and didn't support non-Windows platforms, forcing Apple and Linux users to reverse engineer the device's protocol and file structure.
I would characterize Apple's efforts as legitimate, and Palm's as inappropriate (I won't go to 'illegal').
There are generic USB interfaces (HID devices, mass storage, RNDIS, the list goes on) that implementers would be shady for locking to a whitelist of vendor ids and/or product ids. On that front, a competitor may cry foul and abuse of USB technology in an anti-competitive way.
On the other hand, Apple has a number of aspects to iTunes media sync that are not part of any industry spec, are not proposed as standards, not openly documented by the party controlling the technology, and are not guaranteed to stay exactly as they are understood today as they progress. Apple from a business perspective has clear motive, but from a technical standpoint, they don't want to give the impression something will work they do not commit to. Palm pulls similar stuff (an alternative media player was rejected from their App Catalog because it reverse-engineered unsupported APIs). Palm does get a point for explicitly suggesting homebrew for such endeavors, but it's clear that both parties aren't enthusiastic about their controlled user experience running away from their ability to guarantee consistent behavior.
Meanwhile, Palm is using vendor ids/device ids they are not supposed to use. This is simply bad form. It corrupts the use of the identifiers for the purpose of unambiguous identification.
If Palm wants to compete with Apple the way it is today, they should write their own proprietary stack and an iTunes competitor (either hooking into Amazon or some other competitor or trying to go it their own). I can understand though that they don't want to be in that business though. I would rather they did not do this personally, but it is an option.
If Palm simply wants to be the vendor of a portable media player portion of an open, interoperable environment, they should drive a standard that others can implement. Maybe they partner with another company to ensure one media sync software exists, but for all their complaining about Apple not playing fair, they are not pursuing measures which would allow arbitrary companies to properly interoperate. Maybe they can drive a new class id, or extend an existing one with an addional subclass and/or protocol id. The extent to their interaction with the USB-IF has been to simply whine, whereas their interaction should be to address an emerging common use of USB that may warrant a standard and making the requisite technical contributions to make that a reality. Maybe it's a higher-order specification (i.e. a standard database format, filesystem, and layout) that can either be on a USB mass storage device or an eSATA device, etc etc. Either way, I'd like to see that rather than Palm trying to subvert an Apple technology repeatedly.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
why not give everyone the free change?
Indeed, that might well be the wiser move. But as long as Apple hasn't chosen this appraoch, one could understand that they might find Palm's tactics a little sleazy.
Apple will sell music to anyone, in a standard non DRM format too.
Only if they run Apple software.
The same software that is a portal for their dominant market position also has syncing capabilities, but will only sync with iPod's.
A lot of people are missing this key point. iTunes is the portal to these music sales, and apple is preventing interop with that portal so that another of their products enjoys a unique advantageous position.
"His name was James Damore."
Wrong. I'm get sick of hearing this. How can so many people keep getting modded up for being so clueless? Apple already has an API for iTunes syncing. Blackberries support syncing with iTunes using this API. Palm are just being lazy again and expecting someone else to do the work for them, including ongoing support of Palm's devices.
Apple is not doing anything criminal at all. But Palm are selling people a device with a cheap hack that they know would have reliability issues down the line, as well as violating spec rules that they agreed to follow. They're idiots. In the amount of time they've spent pissing about with lawyers and maintaining hacks, they could have just done things the proper way and avoided all this BS, just like RIM did.
They even offer a way to use third party music players sync and work with iTunes - they just don't include in the instructions and API "copy our vendor ID and pretend to be an iPod"
Citation needed
If this were true, why should Palm need to use a fake id to sync with itunes?
No sig for the moment.
"That would be because iTunes treats non-Apple devices differently and probably quite poorly. So in order to get the level of functionality out of iTunes, Palm has to "lie" to iTunes about what it is."
Isn't it odd that so many other companies have had no difficulty writing their own sync software without spoofing?
-- My apologies if the above facts contain any opinions, or vice versa! --
And the idiots that worship it
I mean the corps is evil. Forcing consumers to comply. Nazis
You can't even watch a trailer in Linux. http://apple.com/movies .. you could before though!
So what is that about?
They make money from iTunes so why not let Palm sync. What is the fucking big deal?
I never liked Apple the company. It's the sort of business that would have behaved just as bad - if not worse - than Microsoft. If it had the monopoly over the PC market.
Apple you are shit and evil really. Perverted and egotistical. Like some evil corrupted rich madam bitch
What's unfair about Apple not letting Palm use iTunes? the use of iTunes on an OS is hardly mandatory and there are other ways of adding music to the Palm Pre.
Instead of wasting their time with iTunes sync they should write their own software.
There would be only one reason for Palm to need to resort to USB ID spoofing.
They're so late to the game that they've resorted to cheap hacks to get their product out ASAP, rather than wait and do things properly?
That would be because iTunes treats non-Apple devices differently and probably quite poorly.
RIM have managed. Although, I haven't yet read a review on the latest Blackberry, so if you can tell me what's poor about its iTunes syncing, that would be great. Because otherwise it's just speculation.
What if MS decided that all windows programs needed to be signed and licensed and sold through an app store they controlled?
Then there would be a significantly less problems with spyware and viruses on the Windows platform. Malicious programs that were discovered could be pulled, and we'd have a way to track down those responsible for said programs.
I fail to see the downside here from a consumers point of view.
No more legal than faking a MS Internet Explorer User agent string, to visit a website that displays broken pages to certain browsers.
Not correct. Palm is violating the license they signed wrt USB.
Palm is claiming that Apple is required to not intentionally DISABLE third-party devices for the sole purpose of remaining the only company with a device that can sync with your software.
But that's NOT CORRECT. How many times does this need to be said? Other devices can sync with iTunes. It may require extra software, but why is that such a big deal?
Apple does quite a lot to force incompatibility and to limit the options of their users to what Apple dictates. In their connectors, in their software, in the app store.
While I agree with the rest of your post, I don't agree with the connector bit. How does Apple force incompatibility with their connectors? The way I see it, Apple saw a need for a single connector on their iPod to allow plugging into various devices, such as stereos, powered speakers, etc., and there was no such connector before. Other music players, like my iRiver, have a hodgepodge of connectors: mine has two mini-USBs, headphone, line out, some weird proprietary remote-control connector, etc., on both the top and bottom. That's useless for "docking": you need a single hot-swap connector for that. A plain USB connector won't work because it doesn't have analog audio signal lines, which you need for a powered speaker or stereo. So, Apple defined their own connector that had every conceivable line on it, and they've been using that very same connector for their entire line of iPods since 2001.
If anyone's failed here, it's all the other makers for not jumping on the bandwagon and using the same connector. The only one to come close is Microsoft's Zune, which has a different and incompatible all-in-one connector, which is lame because while there's tons of third-party accessories for the iPod, there's very few for the Zune. The iPod was there long before the Zune came out, and had all the marketshare. MS should have just used Apple's connector.
And, it's not like it's secret, or expensive, or only available from Apple. You can buy the connectors from JIC, the manufacturer, or from various electronics distributors like Digi-Key or Mouser. The pin-outs are available with a Google search. Why other makers don't use this same connector, I have no idea. Surely not IP issues, because this isn't something copyrighted or patented; it's an electrical connector like any other.
As for anti-trust, I don't see how Apple risks this: they don't have a monopoly in anything. No one's forced to buy iPods for portable music: there's lots of competing players, including Zune (yuck), iriver, Sansa, etc. No one's forced to use iTMS: you can still buy regular CDs, or you can buy online from other places, including Amazon which uses MP3 and is cheaper than iTMS. Dominating the market doesn't equal monopoly in my mind when it's so incredibly easy to use alternatives. This is different from Microsoft/Windows where people are locked into Windows because so much third-party software only works in Windows. It's perfectly easy to buy MP3 music from Amazon.com for your iPod, or your Sansa or Zune.
The actual legal standard for a monopoly is the ability to set prices without regard to the offerings of competitors. MS was ruled a monopoly on PC OSes because they could set the price of Windows at several hundred dollars (retail) and ~$50.00 for OEMs even though their competition, (linux, the various open source BSDs, etc.) cost zero dollars.
In order for Apple to be ruled a monopoly in the digital music player market, they would need to be proven to have the ability to set the prices for ipods without regard for the price of other music players. This would be a very tough sell in a court of law.
The argument that iTunes has any sort of monopoly would be even tougher because it is free, and the legal definition relates to *inflated* price of the supposed monopoly holder's offering.
The argument that the iTunes music store is any sort of monopoly would similarly have to rely on Apple being able to price their song offings at an exorbitantly high level. Again this would be a very tough sell.
So, from an anti-trust perspective, it would be very hard for Palm or anyone else to argue that Apple is a monopoly.
Paul may (or may not) have a legal argument for using Apple's vendor ID from the perspective of interoperability, but the monopoly argument is not very likely to fly for the simple reason that Apple has real competitors in all these areas. These competitors' products are not prices so wildly below Apple's that Apple could be considered a legal monopoly in any of these three areas (digital music player, pc software for organizing/playing/purchasing digital music, online sales of digital music).
Apple is just winning because their offerings are preferred by the buying public, not because they've got any sort of lock-in strangle hold on the market.
Apple does not fucking offer interoperability. Quit spreading this LIE.
I'm not even going to bother looking because I'm terribly afraid that if I did, or even if I looked in something as non-developer-related as a common encyclopedia-like reference about iTunes itself, I'd pretty easily see I'm wrong, meaning I'd have one less avenue of anti-Apple rage, and my entire reputation is built around seething in my own hatred.
There, fixed that for ya. Like, where it says that it writes the library in an XML format that other apps can read.
Please. "Online music sales" and "music library manager software" are not, by any means, the same thing. Apple may have a de facto monopoly on the online music business, but iTunes is definitely not the only music library manager out there, and it isn't even the only one capable of playing files purchased via iTunes. Songbird and WinAmp (yes, that's still around) are two alternatives that come to mind, either of which could easily be made to support -- via proper and official means -- the syncing of iTunes's XML library file with a third-party device. Writing software to do it themselves is also an option for Palm, and one they're clearly capable of, as they've written sync software for ages.
The bottom line here is that Palm is being lazy, and now they're actively shooting themselves in the foot by intentionally violating the USB spec. If Apple wants to prevent devices that violate the USB spec from connecting to its computers, by all means, go ahead. Who knows what other parts of the USB spec Palm might be planning to selectively ignore in the future?
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In Korea, long hair is for old people!
It might be legal, especially if it's required to evade an illegally monopolistic blockage.
Regardless of the legality of Pre's move, if Apple is attempting to discriminate unlawfuly against them, they have no standing in court due to the doctrine of "Unclean Hands".
Pre might, however, be in breach of an agreement with "the usb consortium" or whatever gave them their vendor ID in the first place.
Paul may (or may not) have a legal argument...
should be Palm of course.
I'm pretty sure antitrust law DOES require something close to a monopoly. If Joe Schmo makes his own MP3 player, and his own online music store (selling his own bad homemade music), and makes the whole thing totally non-interoperable, I don't see how he'd ever get in trouble with anti-trust law, even if someone did complain, because he has so little marketshare. The only time anti-trust law is brought out is when a company dominates a market, and makes it hard or impossible for competitors to compete.
Why not allow printer manufactures to block third-party ink and toner suppliers?
That's simple: because you have to have some legal leg to stand on to prevent competition, like with IP law. Making a knock-off toner cartridge isn't affected by IP law, as long as you're not using some patented technology in making that cartridge. That would be like (forgive the car analogy) Ford trying to keep Fram from making compatible oil filters for Ford cars. They can't. There's no patented technology in there, it's just a simple filter like cars have been using for almost a century. (We'll skip the warranty and Magnusson-Moss issue here.) One company simply cannot prevent another company from making and selling products, even if those products are marketed as being compatible with the first company's products.
Of course, some printer makers tried to invoke the DMCA to prevent ink cartridge competition, by including a chip with a copyrighted code in it in their cartridges, but that failed in court because that wasn't the intent of the DMCA. But again, this was a copyright issue, only made possible by adding an unnecessary chip in the cartridges.
Personally, I don't see how Apple has any "right" to block Palm. If Palm can make their product interoperate with the iTunes software by sending a different code, then what's the problem? That the Palm device is "lying"? Too bad. There's nothing that legally requires someone to use the correct Vendor ID in their USB device. As long as it isn't specifically prohibited in the USB licensing contract (which allows vendors to use the USB logos etc.), I don't see how they can be stopped. And even if the USB-IF succeeds in this, the only thing they can do is prevent Palm from using the fancy USB-compatible logo on their stuff. Big deal. They can still put the connector there and use it. No one looks for that stupid logo anyway.
Apple's concern is that the Pre shows up in iTunes as an iPod and people have been calling them about problems with the Pre.
There are at least three different ways they could address that without blocking anyone, were that actually their primary concern.
That's both a trademark violation and annoying.
Even if Palm were actually using Apple's trademarks, which they aren't--USB vendor IDs are managed by the USB-IF, not the USPTO--Sega v. Accolade established that trademarks can't be used to block compatibility.
I suspect there are patents related to USB which are licensed to USB users based on compliance with USB-IF rules. So, if Palm breaks the rules (as it appears, deliberately and with advance notice), they may be in legal trouble.
(I did a quick look at usb.org, which doesn't have a good search, so the above is just an assumption)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
No, Microsoft IS a monopoly. "Monopoly", despite the "mono" in the word, does not legally require a 100% marketshare, only a large majority, and probably being declared a monopoly by a Court.
Only if you don't consider great usability a feature.
In order for this argument to hold you'd have to show that Apple's iTunes portal meets the legal definition of a monopoly which is the ability to set prices without regard for the offerings of others. Last time I checked iTunes tracks were not priced so far above other online music stores that any court would find that Apple hold a monopoly market position. Apple have a large share of the market because many consumers prefer their offerings, not because they have some sort of stranglehold on the market. The proof courts use to judge this distinction is the price of the supposed monopoly holder's offerings. By that standard, the legal one which actually counts in courts of law, Apple's iTunes music store is not a monopoly.
Ditto their digital music player offerings.
No, its not a horrible analogy. It very very accurate.
You object to the word borrowed. I'll substitute the word "Stolen".
Apple took a publicly funded OS and took it private. They also took cups, Webkit, IP, and about a dozens other opensource projects and build OSX on the cheap.
To this day, they give virtually nothing back to the community.
For many years, until threatened with a lawsuit, they refused to give anything at all back to the opensource community. Finally when it looked like they would clearly lose in court, and found that they needed to steal even more software to OSX economically viable, they started to contribute back only the minimal patches to things like webkit.
They support no opensource projects monetarily or with paid staff.
They have contributed no significant code base to the community. Even AppleTalk was totally reverse engineered before Apple condescended to provide source to a largely obsolete technology.
They lock everything down with restrictive patents, and have a kennel of Rottweiler Lawyers that they keep very active.
Apple is not a good community member, and never has been.
They take, but give back only the minimal that they have to.
For you to wander in here and say in effect "Apple found BSD laying on they street - It was free for the taking" is at least an honest portrayal of Apple's practices.
My point in the GP post above was that fanboys should not point fingers and scream "Free Ride" when their God of Gods did exactly the same thing.
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"Palm has the legal right to circumvent that"
Really? Citation?
You know that giving legal advice when you're not a lawyer is a bad idea and can get you in major trouble, right?
And HMV will only sell me a CD if I go into their store.
Boo freaking hoo.
Apple is not preventing any interoperability. It's just ensuring that its iPod owners get a better sync experience than competitors. And if competitors want their customers to get a better sync experience, they should spend the money to give them a similar or better experience. Apple is rewarding its iPod customers.
Besides, competition is encourage because it results in progress. So Palm should be trying to outdo Apple, rather than being a pale imitation.
iTunes is not the OS. Are you upset because the driver for the fancy extra buttons and LCD on your Logitech keyboard doesn't work with your Microsoft keyboard, or vice versa? Or what about those evil printer drivers! They only work with their own brand of printer!
If OS X refused to allow a Pre to connect then you'd have a point. OS X doesn't do this.
Does this interface support everything that the proprietary one does, such as transferring DRM'd files from the iTunes store? If it does, then why isn't Apple using it themselves for the iPod?
You accuse the GP of having double standards, but I think you're the one who contradicts itself . Do you use Samba? If so, then you have clearly double standards; you support programmers who "piggy back" on the work of Microsoft. SSH? WINE? FreeDOS? Open source is full of similar efforts; Palm cannot be censured for doing something which the OSS community has always been doing and which has benefited industry and users.
The problem is the sector who sees Product and Vendor IDs as "intellectual property" instead of protocol numbers. It's just a protocol; if the device follows it, there is no problem. That scheme is only broken when devices with the same identification aren't compatible; in that case, you could just request a product identification, since it's not worth the lost sales due to incompatibility. But in this case sharing identification is highly desirable by customers. Of course, not by Apple.
Answer: they don't, because iTunes just overwrites the XML file. Apple devices sync back, and so do Palm devices when Apple isn't getting in the way.
2) Hard drive mode support. Almost every other player lets you just view your video/mp3 files on the device as a hard drive and copy files back and forth as you see fit without using ANY software other than your operating system. You want to sync your files? Use iTunes. Nevermind that it's one of the buggiest/bloated/unintuitive/god awful pieces of software I've ever used. You're stuck with it.
Unless you just enable hard drive mode support on the ipod. If you do it shows up as a hard drive just fine. I know it is hard to check a box these days though.
The last time I messed with an iPod it was not possible to directly copy a music file and play it. I had to use iTunes on windows or MacOS (or a barely working hack on *nix) to copy the file.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Boohoo, Apple doesn't want Palm to use iTunes beyond their API. Tough bikkies.
If Apple doesn't want Palm impersonating an iPhone, they should have made it possible for any third party to use the iTunes library to sync everything.
I understand why Apple would want to only allow certain features in iTunes be possible with an iPhone, however they shouldn't whine if other manufacturers attempt to use these features themselves.
Palm isn't harming Apple by impersonating an iPhone, and if Apple wants to play cat-and-mouse with Palm it's their software. If I had Apple stocks, I'd want them to do something more productive.
A I see the Apple Fanboy Army has shown up to defend their God.
The USB spec also has a high degree of interoperability standards built in.
I note you choose to ignore those.
The point here, which you choose to ignore in your blind devotion to all things Jobs, is that Apple is using its Dominant (monoploy) position with the iTunes store to enforce the use of iTunes software.
They then go out of their way to block other devices from using the full capabilities of itunes.
Then then send armies of stooges out to whine about another company that was fully prepared to assume all costs of development and maintenance of a way to use iTunes, only to have grenades thrown at them.
But hey, that same stooge army has mod points, and anything on slashdot critical of apple will be modded into oblivion in short order.
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BlackBerry's Desktop Manager, released today for the Mac, syncs with iTunes, and it does so without having to pretend it's an iPod. Dozens of other applications for interacting with, and syncing with the iTunes library exist, most (all?) based on the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file which iTunes maintains as a readable version of its library.
In short, Palm could definitely have implemented their own sync mechanism which syncs with iTunes, but instead opted to trick iTunes, for some reason.
"explain to me why Palm should be allowed to piggy back on Apple's work for syncing windows pictures and contacts"
Because they are MY picture and they are MY contacts ; they are neither Apple's nor Palm's. What right does Apple have to say who should have access to MY information? I should not need to maintain a separate database of these simply because I wish to have different vendors for different pieces of software and hardware.
"I have to agree. There would be only one reason for Palm to need to resort to USB ID spoofing."
No, there's a second possible reason: Palm is too damn lazy/cheap to make their own interface, like RIM does for the Blackberry.
The real question is: why is Palm doing it the standard-violating way? I don't get it.
Except that in this case, the USB-IF *does* care, and has specifically stated that the vendor ID is to be used *only* by the company to whom it is assigned. In this case, that means that Palm has no right, under the contract they (presumably) entered into with the USB-IF, to use the vendor ID assigned to Apple. If Palm wants to forfeit their USB-IF membership, and the exclusive rights to their vendor ID, they can go right ahead; it's not a criminal offense to break a contract.
Not correct. Palm is violating the license they signed wrt USB.
No. The USB-IF doesn't like what they're doing, in releasing software that allows the user to spoof Apple's vendor id. That's not equivalent to violating a license agreement.
You're making a legal representation that would appear to be unfounded.
Violating a policy the USB-IF has come up with later is not equivalent to violating a signed contract or license agreement.
You might think of this as something like the IETF adopting a policy that makers of HTTP clients on mobile devices must use an assigned vendor id in their user-agent header, and no others, or they can't call their software a "Web browser". And it would be just about as enforceable...
Oh yeah... and what happens when Palm delivers software compliant with all new USB-IF policies on their devices, but makes an 'optional' "iTunes9 Sync Fix" patch warning on their web site, with a click-through disclaimer that the Palm will no longer be fully USB-IF compliant when installed?
But there is a technical reason for Apple banning such antics. Apple doesn't know if the Pre is exactly the same as the iPod it's pretending to be, so it could be a support liability.
Yeah, maybe that will keep some geeks happy, but not your average user.
Wouldn't Palm be better off just getting the Pre to sync with iTunes the proper way?
Ok, So Palm's doing this and you want Apple to let them. Tell me this then, what happens if a Pre user sync's up to iTunes and accidentally bricks or erases data on the Pre. Who do you think the customer is going to blame? Who's at fault? There's legal issues with what you are stating and Apple IS providing an approved way of interacting with iTunes. Palm has chosen not to go this route.
Also, how do you know that Apple is not under some contractual obligation to the record and film industries to NOT allow 3rd party devices access to their content? My guess this has something to do with this.
I'm not sure if Palm is just doing this for publicity or if they really just don't have the cash or talent to develop something on their own. Either way, Palm is going about this the wrong way. But if it helps you sleep better at night, you keep on believing that they are in the right thing here.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Printer makers DO block third party ink and toner. It is just that 3rd party ink and toner makers do the same thing Palm is doing. Some inks have a chip in them and 3rd party ink makers are bootlegging those chips.
You might want to read the referenced article. It states "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."
In other words, Palm is claiming that Apple is required to not intentionally DISABLE third-party devices.
Why is it I never have the mod points when I need them???
You COMPLETELY WIN this one. In the face of this one truth, nothing else matters and there is no other rational argument.
The fact of the matter is that Palm is doing this because its developers are too lazy or their management too dishonest to properly implement their own syncing solution. What other conceivable reason is there? RIM has had their own sync for years in their products. And it works perfectly well. They never needed iTMS. All they had to do to provide added value for iTunes users is to be able to read/write the XML. Most tellingly, Apple hasn't so much as lifted a finger in protest.
By all indications Palm picked this fight by deliberately choosing not to develop their own sync software like RIM did. They saw the cash cow Apple made in the iPhone+iPod+iTMS, and the management basically decided that they were going to ride atop it because (1) their status as a dying brand meant they had nothing to lose (2) as the underdog, they would get consumer sympathy even if their actions were found in violation of USB standards (3) it would be a lot cheaper than doing things right (4) should the tie-in be broken by Apple, they could pin the blame on them in the name of "consumer choice". So far, it seems like they calculated it just right.
Folks, it's not that freaking hard to figure out. I think that the legacy of Microsoft's anti-trust practices in the computing industry has had such a profound effect on the culture of computing that people are now hyper-vigilant about anything that might be vaguely construed as anti-competitive. In an ideal world, Apple wouldn't have to disable Palm's unsupported tie-in, because Palm would have made their product sufficiently innovative that it would stand on its own merits. After all, that's what Apple did with the iMac and iPod. It wasn't all that long ago that they too, were in dire straits. They didn't turn the ship around by engaging in dirty tricks. They did it by making good products. The Blackberry is also a good product. RIM was the first to do mobile email the right way (don't even get me started on Windows Mobile). When you do things right, you don't have to cheat to win. That's the real takeaway of the Microsoft story, not "get paranoid about anti-trust." Palm has forgotten the legacy of their past successes, all the more tragic in context of their enormity.
To the GPL question, obviously yes. That's how many projects take off; do you think the Linux kernel would be anywhere near where it is today if IBM wasn't developing it to support their proprietary extensions for the Blue Gene systems? If someone wants to use an OSS library in their program, that's great. It builds up the install base for that library, and increases the chance that that developer will improve the OSS library, and the developer doesn't have to implement that functionality themselves. See IBM and the Blue Gene system software for a prominent example of this; IBM builds proprietary solutions around Linux, and ends up contributing about 7% of ALL changes to the Linux kernel. Everybody wins! Admittedly, Palm is definitely breaking contract law here; in that sense they are in the wrong. However, I'd guess that an antitrust lawsuit against Apple would come out in Palm's favor; Apple is acting like a meaner Microsoft from 1999, explicitly breaking support for a competitor's device ):.
Have you been to http://opensource.apple.com/ ?
So, in airy fairly land of Open Source/Academia, standards are eschewed in favor of pragmatism, while Corporate America, with shrinking revenue streams, is obsessed about the standard?
A few days, in your spare time, off the books? Or would you rather just hack your Vendor/Device ID in five seconds to get it working? Which is cheaper?
How dare those bastards take advantage of extant libraries or programs. Next thing you know, they'll be compiling against Windows libraries and using Internet Explorer to display things.
Non-GPL software piggy backs on GPL software all the time. A large part of the web servers runs on GPL software, and every proprietary web browser is piggy backing on them. It's not sufficient to "piggy back" some software to violate copyright/trademark/whatever. If it were, the only way you could run software is if everything on the system was copyrighted by one entity.
Now, as for this being a USB IF violation, that's an actually valid point. But, to that end, if Palm is stripped of being able to advertise USB devices, so should Apple since clearly Apple's Vendor/Device pairing has nothing to do with iPhone specific quirks. No, Apple intentionally broke working software by misusing the USB specification.
RMS is leader of the Free Software movement. The OSS movement sprung about precisely because there were people interested in Open Software who didn't want to be associated with Free Software ideology; ie, they were more interested in pragmatism than "[Free Software]/Academia" ideology. It's funny you're actually argue for RMS's position and chastising Perens for being more OSS movement oriented.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Agreed 100%!
It's interesting that people seem to think that when a software gets popular enough, the company who made the software somehow loses the ability to make decisions about or have control over that software, that they poured probably millions into, and also becomes a monopoly at the same time.
I recall there was a time where Slashdot dogma was that any means of loading files onto a media player other than simple file copying to a mounted device was backwards, unnecessary and/or evil.
I'm not quite seeing what the big deal is, nothing is preventing Palm from making their own syncing and media management utility. I doubt it's anywhere nearly as hard as designing a hardware device and making a handheld multitasking OS that goes with it. Nothing is preventing the rest of the industry from making a standardized and open media management and syncing system. I would actually prefer that the iTunes system not become the defacto industry standard, I just don't see that as healthy for the long term.
Not really. Apple doesn't have to support the palm pre; they can choose to say that "the palm pre is unsupported hardware".
Apple regularly boast they're #1 and the dominant supply of digital music, to the media, to the market and to consumers. They are the monopoly when it comes to portable music players and purchases, at least in the US.
Digital music has more than 99% market share, very few LPs and tape cassettes are sold nowadays. Of that digital music, the huge majority is still sold in the form of CDs. Apple's market share in digital music isn't more than 20% in the USA, and less elsewhere. But music sales are irrelevant to the situation here anyway, because it doesn't make the slightest difference here whether all your music is downloaded from the iTunes Music Store, from Amazon, ripped from your own CDs, or whether your music is 100% illegal downloads.
But even whether Apple has a monopoly in portable music players doesn't matter. Apple doesn't have to help competitors, they just wouldn't be allowed to hinder competitors. And they don't. You can see this from the fact that RIMM has created an application to sync music from an iTunes library to their Blackberrys. There is nothing from stopping anyone to create their own sync software, or from creating their own music player cum sync software. And judging by the constant moaning about iTunes on Windows, creating something that is better at least on Windows with its 90% market share should be childs play. There is this application called Windows Media Player which is shipped with every single copy of Windows.
I would hardly call making available an XML file with a list of songs and playlists, as means of interoperability with iTunes. Maybe you're confusing it with iPhoto, which actually does allow interoperability with various cameras and devices. Like iPhoto, Mac OS X's default music management application, iTunes, too needs to be device neutral (especially when it can be achieved by simply NOT blocking devices based on USB vendor IDs).
I think, this type of application behavior only makes Apple look insecure. People will still buy iPods and iPhones, regardless of whether iTunes allows syncing with other devices.
The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children. -Linus
Microsoft is a monopoly. Under US law it was found to be a monopoly. What definition of monopoly are you using?
You might want to read the referenced article. It states "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."
Your quote is very easy to misunderstand, whether that is intentionally, I don't know. I'll spell it out a bit clearer:
Palm has complained to the USB Implementers Forum. Palm claims that Apple prevents the Pre from syncing with iTunes (which we know is true). Palm also claims that by doing so, Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement. The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaint.
What you haven't quoted is what the article further said: The USB IF's answer was that Palm is violating _its_ membership agreement by shipping hardware that pretends to be an iPod made by Apple.
Wait wait wait, let me get your argument clear...Apple uses its monopoly position with the itunes music store to enforce the use of iTunes software.
So Apple should allow other software to purchase from their media servers? That's a good one. Nobody is forcing anyone to use iTMS. If it was the piece of shit you seem to think it is, then don't use it. People use it because it is easy.
Why in the hell should Apple allow another company to benefit from the time and money it spent making itunes. The nice sync capabilities are provided by Apple as an incentive to buy an iPod.
The iTMS and iTunes, while the same program, are truly two separate programs. One allows you to buy digital media, which can be synced using the XML data. The other allows an elegant syncing experience for iPod owners. So, my friend. You're only angry because you've been taught to hate everything Apple. Palm refuses to write their own software to sync their device with music purchased via iTMS.
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
He was talking specifically about the iphone. It does not support this feature.
That is exactly what they were FORCED into providing by threat of lawsuit.
Everything you see there are those opensource projects that Apple has "borrowed" and must, by the terms of the license provide source for.
Yet for years they stonewalled this. They were finally forced to put this up
Have you been to:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/163909/apple_is_sued_after_pressuring_opensource_itunes_project.html
http://www.eff.org/cases/odioworks-v-apple
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No, they don't. Stop spreading this misinformation.
Palm has no standing to sue Apple for its games. The industry association is within its rights to sanction Palm for violating its terms and Palm is within its rights to keep reverse engineering Apple's "fixes". The most Palm can do is lodge a complaint with the FTC for anti-competetive practices.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
3) Audio codecs. Apple players don't even support half of the codecs that other players support. Again, this is part of their strategy to lock you into the "itunes" universe.
Do you live in an alternative universe where iPods don't play MP3s, or what?
Uh, wtf? Buy a sanza, copy and paste your music from wherever itunes has it, and you're golden. Or, you can use the XML data itunes provides to sync your media from now on.
Who forced you to use iTunes? Because I'm sure nobody held a gun to your head. Don't like iTMS? Use Amazon or the like, or hell, buy a cd. Don't wanna sync your iPod with iTunes? there's plenty of alternative, open source solutions available. You have no reason to complain about iTunes. Don't like it, don't use it.
How is it anti-competitive to stop a competitive product from using your software to help their sales? If I follow your logic, I can buy a few freight trains and put them on CSX rails without paying CSX right? It would be anti-competitive for them to prevent me from using something they own to benefit my own bottom line. it boils down to the fact that they don't have to provide sync capabilities. Since they provide ways of using iTMS purchased music with other players, they're still not being anti-competitive.
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
Mod parent up..
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
You can get software for the Blackberry that does all of this and more - link.
Spoofing USB vendor codes is bad because it's unnecessary and it creates a dependancy on another vendor over which you have no control.
Customers would be well advised to avoid the Palm product, because it has features that are just not reliable.
Wake up mate! Microsoft has manipulated and coerced manufacturers and system builders to only provide their OS for decades; I've yet to hear of Apple doing the same in the mp3 player industry. Microsft continually provides stories of behind the sceen not-quite-mob-style deals. That is part of Microsoft's history. The best I can say for them is I haven't heard of this activity in the past two years --- doesn't mean it hasn't happened, just I won't accuse them of it in the past two years.
Mostly Apple just ignores the rest of the industry and does their own thing. That does seem to be providing lest fuctionality at higher prices, but that is up to them.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Still not correct. The use of logos, patents etc. is the benefit that Palm gets by agreeing to behavioural restrictions. You don't get to pick which parts of a contract you comply with. You are making a legal representation that would appear to be unfounded. You might want to note that hardware and software are not the same thing. Oh, if Palm were to go such a route the they would still be in breach of contract with the USB-IF and there by using the patents illegally.
What file do you think iTunes reads?
Actually, iTunes has built in support for a limited number of 3rd party hardware devices. Some of that is legacy support carried over from the old SoundJam app that iTunes evolved from. (I have an old Rio 500 which used SoundJam for sync, and later iTunes.)
There are also some phones other than the iPhone hat legitimately sync with iTunes, such as the Moto ROKR and SLVR. (I own a SLVR also.)
Apple may not be legally required to support other devices with iTunes, but they have in the past and they could probably be convinced to do so in the future. It might cost some money, but I'm sure an arrangement could be made.
Totally agreed that Palm is being lazy and cheap by not writing their own sync software, or paying for someone else's product.
The iTunes library includes an XML file that lists and organises everything, and Apple provide various APIs to interact with XML files.
It may not be directly true that Apple provide a way for third parties to use this XML file, but it is true that they can do this simply by using a few components together.
Haha 5 insightful for a comment that's totally incorrect. Mods on crack.
BSD specifically allows the use that NeXT and then Apple put their operating system to. You say "stolen" but that is nothing whatsoever like the truth.
You say Apple give nothing back unless threatened. I point to Darwin, which was open sourced right from the day the public beta was released, and ever since.
You're strong on rhetoric, but very short on substance. That you were modded insightful saddens me, as Slashdot used to be a little more accurate than this.
And if competitors want their customers to get a better sync experience, they should spend the money to give them a similar or better experience.
I suppose you didnt mean by opening their own music store with similar buying power (as in, 80% market share), so that their own music store client could have integrated syncing with the same selection of music..
I know you didnt mean that, but thats what you said.
"His name was James Damore."
Funnily enough, Apple wasn't the one complaining so much as Netscape. Go back and learn the history of what happened and what the problem was with Microsoft's anti-trust activities.
Saying that you don't support something doesn't mean that people will stop expecting you to support it. Why should Apple have to take the flak for a product that isn't theirs? Why should they be put in the position of deciding whether to support the hack or annoying many people if they decide not to?
Palm knew what they were doing and knew this could happen. They should never have advertised the feature until they had a proper, reliable solution in place.
What kind of stranglehold would that be? Can they prevent anyone else from selling MP3s? No. Can they force anyone else to set the price at which they sell MP3s? No. Can they prevent people from using the MP3s they buy from other stores on their iPods? No. Can they prevent AAC files from the ITS being played on other media players? No. So what kind of stranglehold is this supposed to be?
>>Why not allow printer manufactures to block third-party ink and toner suppliers?
My sony digi-cam only take sony batteries. It gives an error message and shuts down when a generic battery is put in.
1. User agent strings are not USB IDs. They are different specs for different technologies and have different rules.
2. It is not comparable because there is already a workaround for the Pre -- they didn't need to fake the USB ID.
> If Apple and USB Interoperability Forum have worked to make the system deliberately incompatible, Palm has the legal right to circumvent that
You are factually wrong here. Palm are the only ones that broke the USB spec by sending Apple's vendor ID instead of their own. USB does not connect Pre to iTunes, it connects Pre to OTHER USB DEVICES such as Macs or PC's. Palm has a right to attach to a Mac or a PC, not to iTunes. iTunes itself is not now and has never been a USB device.
Pre can be plugged into Mac or PC and mount as USB mass storage, charge over USB power, and even attach as a USB audio interface or USB mouse if it wants to do that. Nobody is stopping that. However, there is no USB standard for media sync. There's no USB codes to say "I'm a media player with a syncable library." The iPod syncs with iTunes using proprietary commands because they are both part of the same system, not a breeding ground for 3rd parties like Microsoft makes.
Now, maybe there should be a USB standard for media sync. If you think so, you may want to promote that idea. Palm may even want to promote that idea. Apple may even allow USBIF to just standardize what the iPod is already doing, same as MPEG-4 is a standardization of the Apple QuickTime file format, same as the HTML5 canvas tag is a standardization of the Mac OS Dashboard. However, what you're demanding is that Apple create and maintain a 3rd party synchronization scheme without any standardization at all. That's like saying Microsoft should write all the Web standards because IE has 50%+ market share. That is not standardization.
I also have to point out that compatibility is not free. It's incompatibility that is free, and compatibility takes work. The iPod and Mac are both USB-compatible because Apple did the work to make them so, same as Pre required work from Palm to make it USB compatible. They implement the spec and so they can talk to each other using "USB language" and get things done for the user. There are no words for "media sync" in the USB language as yet. They have to be created. It takes fucking work. That work has not been done yet by anyone, least of all Palm. Demanding that we nationalize iTunes is a poor substitute for actual industry co-operation on a media sync standard.
Finally, I have to say that the fact that your little fact-free, law-free, anti-Apple bigotry got a score of 5 on Slashdot says bad things about the technical knowledge of today's Slashdot readers. Truly guys, if you want your Pre to have a particular feature, ASK PALM TO BUILD IT FOR YOU. Do not complain that Apple didn't build it for you. They are not your vendor. They are just a totally uninvolved vendor whose USB ID is being misused. The only action Apple has taken was to improve iTunes' ability to recognize iPods now that another device is pretending to be an iPod.
Microsoft is a monopoly. They can, and pretty much do determine the prices for computer software. Apple does not, by any stretch, determine prices for music. They have a lot of influence, but they are far from a monopoly. They are dominant, but that is not the same as being a monopoly. The two are not interchangeable, although a monopoly is almost by definition, dominant. Dominance is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for one to be a monopoly.
Should there be is the correct question.
Should Palm ( or anybody else ) be able to interface with consumer items like itunes without getting its hands slapped?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If a cars firmware breaks an engine accessory, id say there are larger issues at stake and its time to sell the car.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's not a monopoly. Does Apple have sufficient control over music to determine the price at which all individuals (including those not buying on iTunes) can access music? I think not. Apple is _not_ a monopoly.
Can we mod parent about +5? He gets to the crux of the iTunes/Palm problem.
But Apple does not make good mp3 players. They make some aesthetically pleasing, but very expensive ones and that's just about the nicest thing you can say about them.
I've yet to find another music player that is a good as the iPhone. It might not play FM or support OOG, but I don't care about that. Why don't you list a couple of non-iPod devices and explain exactly why they are so much better?
"explain to me why Palm should be allowed to piggy back on Apple's work for syncing windows pictures and contacts"
Because they are MY picture and they are MY contacts ; they are neither Apple's nor Palm's. What right does Apple have to say who should have access to MY information? I should not need to maintain a separate database of these simply because I wish to have different vendors for different pieces of software and hardware.
Absolute hogwash. It is your information so why don't you write a sync agent yourself? Do you expect open source developers to cater to your every need? If not, why do you expect Apple to spend money on developing features for free to support competitors? Shouldn't Palm be responsible for creating something like the Blackberry desktop client that RIM created?
The XML file for the music library is available for consumption by any developer and syncing contacts and picture from a windows or mac desktop are extra features Apple provides on those platforms as a convenience. They are not core features of iTunes. If you want those features for your Palm Pre, either write it yourself or pressure Palm to do it. Why do you insist that iTunes should sync external information for your third party device? Before iTunes offered syncing of contacts and photos, other products existing for PDAs of the day.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Palm has its own tainted history with DRM in e-books (overdrive.com) and syncing through proprietary protocols (markspace.com) - why are you defending them?
blockquote>
Apple provides a windows API for writing iTunes plugins and a similar API for OS X. They also provide the iTunes library in XML format which any third party developer can use to sync media from the library to their device. RIM makes use of this XML document to facilitate media syncing in their windows and mac Blackberry desktop applications and Palm could have done the same with the Palm pre.
It would be a trivial matter to write a syncing agent using the Library XML and I could probably write one in a few days.
A few days, in your spare time, off the books? Or would you rather just hack your Vendor/Device ID in five seconds to get it working? Which is cheaper?
Both Cocoa and .NET provide simple methods for parsing XML documents. If you wanted to go with a cross platform solution, you could either go with java or develop in .NET and port over to the mono framework and statically link for each target OS.
Forgetting that hacking the vendor ID is a violation of the contract terms signed by Palm, releasing a new version of firmware each time Apple defeats Palm's hack costs a great deal more in terms of developer costs, QA and deployment.
What makes Palm's actions so puzzling is that this cat and mouse game is costing them a lot more money than simply creating a sync engine of their own. They would have a much shorter QA cycle and it would not require testing of their entire firmware over again if they just built the tool.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Your comment about Palm's PDA at the end would ONLY be valid if Palm tried TO STOP said reverse engineering. They did not.
So, applaus for your high level of apple fanboyism that makes you blind to the fact that your own reverse example misses a key element. Congrats, you win a chance at kissing Jobs ass.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The last time I messed with an iPod it was not possible to directly copy a music file and play it. I had to use iTunes on windows or MacOS (or a barely working hack on *nix) to copy the file.
Rockbox solved that problem for me, no more bullshit ipod database
Two major points. One, Palm is probably already regularly updating their firmware anyways (well, one would hope); so, keeping up to date with Apple's changes, whatever they might be, is already a sunk cost. Two, there's nothing stopping Apple from dropping third-party support at any time or to "update" the formatting for third-parties regularly. Clearly they've shown they're willing to try to intentionally cripple a competitor. If third-parties are already being treated as second-class citizens when it comes to iTunes, why would you as a quasi-first class citizen back down when it will only put yourself in a worse position? I'd imagine Palm wants to obtain any edge it can seemingly get.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
"i have no problem opening any media file in QuickTime."
I do. In fact, Quicktime itself likes to bog down a dual core 1.83GHz system with 4GB of RAM on a HD video, while Zoom Player will open up anything tossed at it and not lag one bit.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Whilst I completely agree that Palm should stop playing silly buggers and write their own software, calling that monstrosity of a data structure "plain straightforward XML" is a stretch! I've used it as an example of how NOT to format data - it's almost as if they wanted to appear to be helpful and open but in fact make life as hard as possible. Remind you of anyone else's XML formats? :)
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
No! Palm is complicit in Apple's "monopoly". By failing to offer an alternative, and indeed using the same software they are facilitating Apple's continued dominance. I can find no reason to shed a tear for Palm.
Obligatory car analogy: Palm is trying to draft behind Apple and complaining about Apple tapping the brakes.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
What do you mean by "transferring DRM'd files from the the iTunes store"? The DRM'd files are listed in the XML library, and you could copy them, but because your device doesn't know how to handle the DRM they won't play.
Apple's not using it because binary formats are faster than XML.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
On two markets they have a 'monopoly' similar to MS with windows - portable MP3 players and online music downloads. That stinks of unfair or anti-competitive business practices and plenty of other random legal terms.
Not even close. You do not need to buy an Apple MP3 player - there are alternatives. There are also alternative places to download music.
In addition, there is nothing wrong with a monopoly. The problems arise when a monopoly is used to leverage a product in another market. But music from iTunes can play on other players now that DRM is gone. And music from non-iTunes sources still works fine on an iPod. Even if both the iTunes store and the iPod did represented monopolies, it would not be a problem because one product does not require the other.
The difference with Microsoft is that they were using their monopoly in operating systems to leverage other markets. Bundling MS Money with Windows for free was an illegal attempt to kill Quicken. There are many other examples - none of them are like Apple with iTunes and the iPod.
What if MS decided that all windows programs needed to be signed and licensed and sold through an app store they controlled?
That would be the illegal use of a monopoly - but only because Windows is a monopoly. If people could switch out Windows for an alternative OS and still use all of their programs then it would be perfectly OK. And as long as you can still listen to your favourite band on a non-iPod device - all is OK.
iTunes provides hooks for applications to get playlist information, locate actual tracks, and once you've done that they're just files on disk. Palm needs to provide their own hotsync anyway, and they had great hotsync technology in Palm OS, why do they need to use a backdoor instead of using documented interfaces?
The real question is why bother with emulating an iPod at all, surely there's a better way for Palm to do this. There must be some quite compelling reason to go with this protocol over some other solution.
From the user's perspective, someone who has been using an ipod/iphone/etc and syncing with iTunes is going to be used to that method and that interface. If they have multiple media players, it could get confusing having to sync the different players in different methods. So from a use perspective it is best for the user to be able to sync from iTunes. This also allows the media player to sync back while the other method cannot.
Then you have something eating up processor cycles and I suggest you look there. on my 1.83 dual with only 2gb of ram and the sad graphics chip in my macbook I have no problem. In fact the only other time I have problems is when streaming video from a file on my server, but that has more to do with caching than Quicktime.
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
"Unless you just enable hard drive mode support on the ipod. If you do it shows up as a hard drive just fine. I know it is hard to check a box these days though."
Great news! Please tell me where this check box is located. I tried using the help function and it claims I will find it in the summary pane but I just can't see it. I am using an iPod touch so maybe this capability is not supported for this model? I have tried various apps but frankly they are more than just a little lame compared to what should be the case for a USB2 connected device.
A little google search never hurt anyone but to save you the 15 seconds you decided not to do yourself http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1478
USB-IF can't really force companies to use any particular ID if some of the vendors are using the fact of the ID to lock out compatibility. They are really ripe for anti-trust if they persist in trying to do so.
Bruce Perens.
calling that monstrosity of a data structure "plain straightforward XML" is a stretch! I've used it as an example of how NOT to format data - it's almost as if they wanted to appear to be helpful and open but in fact make life as hard as possible.
It is in Apple's property list format. This is not supposed to be pretty; it's just *very* easy to use with the built in libraries. You can read more about property lists here:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/General/Conceptual/DevPedia-CocoaCore/PropertyList.html
Apple may also be seen as a monopoly - I think Palm has a good chance of making that point in court, going by the market share, and the size of the secondary market of various iPod-specific devices.
Bruce Perens.
But again, Apple does offer interoperability, in a documented and supported way.
In a second class, highly crippled way. There is no Sync capability. No playlist support.
The fact that they can not prevent you from drag-and-drop using your computer's operating system hardly constitutes a level playing field.
The grandparent message is correct. Apple offers a documented and supported way getting just about anything you want from iTunes; it's called AppleEvent support. I have written code that employs AppleEvents to access all kinds of iTunes information. For example, I've written a routine that iterates through playlists of all kinds and extracts their contents. I've queried the location of media files. Put simply, everything you need to write a third party app that synchronizes your media with iTunes is right there in the application's AppleEvent dictionary.
Please tell me where this check box is located. I tried using the help function and it claims I will find it in the summary pane but I just can't see it. I am using an iPod touch so maybe this capability is not supported for this model?
Nail, meet hammer. Specifically, the iPhone and iPod Touch models cannot be used as hard drives. Classic and the previous generations of Nano can be (not sure about the new video camera model). I'm not sure about shuffle - but you;d be better off with a USB stick anyway in that case.
iTunes sucks anyways, so why all the drama?
Microsoft, every time, has been a monopoly when they've been accused of being a monoply. While iTunes and iPod are a monopoly, there is a difference. First, you have to go out and choose to buy an iPod, which means you have other choices. Second, You don't have to use iTunes, which mean you have choices.
But the big deal in this case, is that you don't have to use iTunes. If you bought a Palm Pre to get iTunes interoperability, we'll you're a fool, sorry.
No matter what anyone really says on this forum there are a few real facts. There is a way for non apple products to sync with iTunes. You and Palm may not like it, but a way exists. Second, Palm can write their own software, Apple has never tried to stop any company from writing interoperability software that works within the EULA and other software bounds.
So for those that agree with Palm, tell why Palm doesn't just write their own software.
And why go after Apple they only have 13% of the smartphone market, or so? Is Palm jealous at Apples success?
As many people have posted already, there is an API for developers. I use Missing Sync for Palm and BlackBerry, and they get me everything I have in iTunes and then some (calendar etc). What it doesn't get me is the one song that I bought that has FairPlay DRM. Now if Plam is trying to spoof itunes to thinking that a regular iPod is connected, then they will be getting DRM'ed songs onto the Pre. And this is most likely a problem for Apple. If someone writes a FairPlay player for the Pre, there is now a "hole" in the DRM scheme that Apple can not plug. We've seen in previous stories that Apple's DRM contract with the labels requires them to fix any problems within a certain amount of time.
Do you routinely use profanity, or have you been so emotionally moved by a perceived injust moderation that you couldn't help yourself?
If it's the latter, you really need to think hard about what matters in life.
Oh, if Palm were to go such a route the they would still be in breach of contract with the USB-IF and there by using the patents illegally.
Could you post a link to the contract between Palm and the USB-IF? I'd like to take a look at it myself. Thanks.
"It is your information so why don't you write a sync agent yourself?"
It's your idea so why don't you teach me? Bear in mind I've only dabbled in Assembler and don't have much programming experience otherwise. Thanks!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Do you have any evidence for your conspiracy theory about Apple buying up all the 1.5" HDDs on the market?
Reading the XML file doesn't support playlists? Really?
There sure is lots of information under the following headings in my XML file for some reason (brackets have been altered to get past the HTML tag filter):
(key)Playlists(/key) ...
(array)
(dict)
(key)Name(/key)(string)Library(/string)
(key)Master(/key)(true/)
(key)Playlist ID(/key)(integer)8378(/integer)
(key)Playlist Persistent ID(/key)(string)F71331C9D57061AB(/string)
(key)Visible(/key)(false/)
(key)All Items(/key)(true/)
(key)Playlist Items(/key)
Please be quiet if you don't know what you are talking about. There really is no excuse for palm being too lazy or incompetent to develop their own syncing software.
One of these days i'm going to find this 'peer' guy and reset HIS connection!
What a load of BS. Apple do not have a monopoly on portable music players or music downloads by any stretch. You can even use iTunes to download DRM-free songs and use them on a non-Apple music player, imagine that!
The amount of insane zealotry in some posts is just unbelievable.
Although I'd love to be able to mount my iPod into the filesystem, and manage it that way, I can appreciate the historical reasons that Apple chose the method that they did, even if they're not particularly applicable anymore. (That said, it really is time for them to improve upon this)
I've never had a huge issue with iTunes, apart from a few gripes about memory consumption. I don't know of any applications that provide a similar level of functionality without having severe issues of their own (even if you ignore proprietary features such as iPod sync and .m4p support). Amarok comes closest, although I have to wonder if the developers are aiming to be a poster child for poor UI design (not talking about aesthetics -- Amarok's UI makes horrible use of on-screen real estate. Less than half of the window is dedicated to the application's primary function)
Windows Media Player can't figure out what it wants to be, Winamp's a bit sparse, and seems to have been mostly abandoned by its developers. Songbird still lacks essential features, and is also quite bloated.
Don't knock iTunes without considering that nobody else seems to have to produced a worthy competitor.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
1) The windows version of iTunes does NOT do this. The mac version might. You cannot get iTunes to play/transcode any codec other than whatever quicktime can play by default. It does not accept new codecs.
2) Unless I'm mistaken, there's no way to do this with the shuffle or nano or touch. In fact, only like some of the very early click-wheel models supported this. You can put music on with iTunes, but there's no way to copy music off without some sort of 3rd party software -- and even then its impractical.
I'm sure i could google you up some old articles about how Apple was pretty much monopolizing the supply, but you could just as easily do it yourself.
Apple has done some things right. Their accessory support is another thing. You can get a better mp3/video player from some chinese company that supports more codecs, has more eq settings, etc, etc, etc -- but you can't buy nearly as many accessories. You can't find an FM tuner that also charges that random player, for instance, or it fits into perfectly and mounts on your dash.
I mean to Apple's credit, they really understood the importance of using their market advantage to lock players into their products. iTunes and accessories both have both been huge tools to that end. Imagine if Palm had not only enabled iTunes sync support, but also cloned Apple's dock connector so that you could use any apple accessor with the Pre? That's probably not legal, but you can understand why Palm would feel the need to do something like that to compete.
It harms Apple in no way other than that it allows people to more easily switch away from their products towards one they consider better. As it stands now, however, switching away from Apple causes you to incur an actual financial penalty as all the accessories and *some* of the music you've invested in becomes useless.
It also saves Pre owners from having to install yet more software that constantly runs in the background, needlessly tying up CPU and RAM.
If Microsoft is a monopoly based upon its market penetration, then so too is the iStore.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
No there aren't. Only if you have an iPod from a few years ago. The current iPods and iPhones require iTunes. They won't work with anything else.
and this requires also that you must run their sync software in the background.
Making your competitors run extra software means there isn't an even playing field.
That's just dumb. Because what's Palm's alternative? To modify the iTunes Library XML directly. If that XML changes formats in the future, palm could easily corrupt it.
What palm is doing is actually safer. This is evidenced by the fact that iTunes locks the pre out without corrupting itself.
How about if Palm makes the vendor ID programmable by the user? They could preset it to Palm's ID and a simple google would turn up the correct Apple ID to set for iTunes compatibility.
You're talking about something entirely different. In the past, private employees were sometimes jailed or fined for interfering with their employers' businesses by striking. But over the years, the right to strike became explicitly codified by means of various labor laws. However, those laws generally apply only to private employees, public employees generally do not have this right as a matter of public policy. You don't want your police and sewer service shutting down over routine labor disputes. A "no strike clause" is usually put into public labor contracts so that the employee cannot claim ignorance of the law. But such a clause put into a private employment contract generally would be void.
Not even. Breach of contract is actionable, meaning, you can be sued. It doesn't mean that the plaintiff will necessarily prevail in any way shape or form. So, although a judgment may be entered against you, on the other hand there could very well be no penalty at all for the breach. That's what the courts are for. So until Palm actually gets sued AND a judge or jury enters judgment against Palm AND all appeals are exhausted, all this talk of what's "illegal" is premature.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
No they don't. Writing a daemon that reads and writes to an XML file (that has changed formats in the past) is NOT an API. Stop saying there is an API.
Palm is using an Apple vendor ID as part of their effort to make their device functionally equivalent to the iPod _at the hardware level_ and the USB-IF is whining? They're explicitly forbidding hardware-level compatibility now? One more item added to my list of evidence that the world is going to Hell.
Um... Apple has locked out other vendors. That is what this article is about.
-- $G
amaroK. That ought to cover it.
-- $G
But again, Apple does offer interoperability, in a documented and supported way.
Bullshit. As the above 20 posters that have gotten +5 ratings have said iTunes will not sync with a non Apple product. Except they wrote it in a iFriendly way to take the heat off Apple and put the blame on Palm which pisses me off.
Yeah Palm could write their own software that uses the library information but they can't use iTunes which is apparently what their customers are demanding.
I'm recalling articles from when it was formed. Long, long ago. I suggest you go to the USB-IF site and peruse their documentation.
How is Palm supposed to compete with Apple when they have a pretty good monopoly on online music sales?
It doesn't even support Flash/Javascript like the browser on my Nokia does :/.
"Palm is doing what is necessary to provide compatibility."
How can it be "necessary" if Blackberry/RIM can manage do it without faking vendor IDs?
"It is your information so why don't you write a sync agent yourself?"
It's your idea so why don't you teach me? Bear in mind I've only dabbled in Assembler and don't have much programming experience otherwise. Thanks!
It's not my idea. RIM has implemented a sync agent for Blackberry phones using the XML. There are plenty of examples of code on the net in Java, C#, PHP, C++ for parsing the iTunes Library.xml file. Perhaps you have heard of a wonderful invention called "Google" just type in your question and you will get the answer. For example, search on "parsing iTunes XML" and you will find a lot of code examples. I'm not going to write it for you. I have a full time job.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Bruce. Stop it with the intellectual dishonesty already. Google "parsing iTunes XML" and you will find a treasure trove of code to parse the iTunes XML library. But even without bothering to licence someone else's code, Palm could easily write their own parser. It is dead easy in either Objective C or .NET/Mono. Apple provides full access to the library including playlists through the iTunes Library.xml file. Syncing contacts and pictures are not something that Apple is under any obligation to provide to third parties. It was not originally a feature of iTunes and was only added to support iPods and the iPhone. There are plenty of syncing libraries offered by parties other than Apple to do that on windows and OS X.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Nothing prevents Palm from writing its own iTunes plugin to sync the library with their own devices. I would agree with you if Apple was attempting to block its competition out of iTunes, but here it seems like they are trying to avoid absorbing the support costs for Palm's devices. How is this unfair to you?
diegoT
"In a second class, highly crippled way. There is no Sync capability. No playlist support."
I don't have any first-hand experience, but your claim is inconsistent with what Blackberry says on their web site.
- - deleted - -. They're going to end up with an anti-trust suit if they persist.
Not likely, remember they are "cool".
I agree about iTunes. Seriously, this is supposed to be good software?
And I say that as someone with an iPhone, which is a pretty amazing piece of hardware. I'm not an Apple hater.
But you, like me, don't have to use iTune unless you want to purchase from their store, except to backup and sync your phone. You can turn off music and video sync and just sync contacts. (And even that is damn stupid....hey, I don't want to sync my notes with Outlook, how about you stop bitching that I 'haven't set up an account in Outlook' even though that sync is turned off? Or, even better, how about you make a damn directory of text files containing my 'notes'!)
There are plenty of apps that can sync music and videos to iTune. I use foobar2000. Yes, it can sync videos, if you put them in. (Annoyingly, it appears they've currently overlooked syncing ringtones.)
If you use some sort of podcast downloader, there are foobar extensions that can include pull directories in playlists at startup, although I admit I'm still using iTunes for podcast downloading.
Before anyone attempts to claim I said foobar 2000 was better than iTunes, I was not. That would be a stupid claim considering they're aimed at entirely different audiences, and foobar is just a audio player. I was just using that as an example of something that can sync iPods and iPhones. iTunes is shitty when compared to other media players aimed at the same novice-to-medium level users. It's the bare minimum player, and it has a lot of stupid design decisions. Even fricking Windows Media Player is better. Winamp is better, and I hate winamp!
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
For: stranglehold, see: monopoly. Thank you.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
Uh-huh, and I'm sure the Office XML formats are easy to work with if you use the MS libraries. The whole point of an interchange format is to allow people to use it who DON'T have the libraries. If that's some standard property format then whoever designed it either didn't understand XML, or the people who decided to use it to store iTunes data picked the wrong thing - it's simply broken for that purpose from any impartial POV. Anyhow, at least it's XML (of a fashion) rather than a binary blob, we have that to be thankful for.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
You're ignorant. Palm does not have to do this to provide compatibility. There's an easy path to get music from iTunes to the Pre without this.
Palm has no moral high ground here.
The Pre can't do that over the proprietary interface, either. Which doesn't really matter, because DRM is gone now.
DRM is not a question of how the files are transferred, but how they're encoded.
As for why: Who cares? Apple's free to use whatever method they want.
I don't think it's fair to call my comment "totally incorrect." considering it's a question, not a statement. And nobody have really answered it. So let me rephrase the question.
If you can just sync anything with a IPod, just by reading(And writing i suppose) the Xml file that ITunes produce, why does Palm and the Linux* developers think that it's a better solution to reverse-enginer the standard instead of just handling that xml file? It it just a major example of nih???
*Not talking about the guys doing Linux kernel development, but the guys developing the Linux player with a name I can't remember right now, that is supposed to be ITunes compatibile.
Okay, a lot of people here don't know what 'sync' is.
Sync, when used by itself, implies bidirection.
To demonstrate this fact, I will launch SyncToy 2.0, by Microsoft, which takes two directories and movies files between them. It has three options for this, one called Synchronize, in which all changes in either directory are propagated into the other one, and two other things not named synchronize which only move changes one way.
Likewise, when people sync things from an iPod, they're also getting a two-way sync in iTune. If you change your contacts in Outlook, and on your iPhone, the changes go both directions.
Got it?
Okay, let us explain this XML thing. iTunes, when started, writes an XML file with the location of all its music. Other applications can read this.
This is not 'syncing'. Hell, it's not actually a one-way sync either, it's simply providing a damn giant playlist of all files which third-party software can read to know where all iTune music files are.
Although I'm at a lost to know why third party software would even slightly need to do that to 'sync'. It would be smart, at startup, to import that list of music, so the application doesn't need to scan for music. Sorta an 'import your bookmarks' type thing. It could even run each startup to find new music fils, so you have a 'one-way' sync of that application from iTunes.
But that has nothing to do with syncing hardware. If a third party player puts a file on a device, it should actually store the location of that file somewhere locally so it can sync them. I.e., the application itself is going to know that X.mp3 on the device came from C:\blah\X.mp3, because it stored that location in a database when it put the file on the device. So it can copy file changes back and forth.
It's not going to have any interaction with iTune at all for this, so the iTunes XML isn't useful for syncing hardware devices at all. But we're not talking about syncing 'music files' anyway.
We're talking about syncing hardware players with iTunes. Making iTunes reflecting things that changed on that device, like editing playlists and downloading music from other computers or whatever. You cannot do that via the XML file, for the simply matter that iTunes does not, in any way, read that file. iTunes just writes it.
Now, you can probably get metadata changes back off your device and into iTunes, although that's mostly by accident...your third-party player would sync the file back off the device, and I think iTunes would pick up the metadata change when it started next, or possibly when it next opened the file to play it. Can anyone confirm this?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
1) no, i know for a fact that you can install 3rd party codecs in the windows version. How do I know this? Because I have installed extra codecs on windows versions of QuickTime. Some of teh Sorenson codecs used to require this in fact.
2)Someone has already posted the link to the apple docs that show one how to put a nano, touch and shuffle into HD mode. My 8 gb Nano does this just as well as my 160GB Classic. Maybe it does not allow playing from the partition, I have not tried under a windows formatted ipod recently.
So there's some kind of "unfair business practice" in iTunes? There was a point when people had a point, when Apple had encrypted songs. Now they're not. They spent their money, risked their capital, to build iTunes. Now if they don't want to share iTunes with Palm, who didn't contribute to that effort and aren't contributing now, this is an injustice? I think you're absolutely wrong. If anyone's doing an unfair business practice, it's Palm. I guess they do so in desperation, because they just don't have money enough to develop their own iTunes, or enough imagination, I suppose. Why don't they use the Google tools to sync their calendars, contacts and so on, and just rely on their own tunes container to recognize the Palm. Do it over their cool charger.
I think there's some people out there who are wedded to the idea that there's something wrong about Apple tying their hardware with their software. Balderdash. It may or may not be a good business decision, but why in hell should they be obligated?
And what's wrong with Palm making an app that reads Apple iTunes library and loads its tunes from there, then adds the Google calendar and contacts -- or some other, proprietary database if they choose? Nothing. They're just so short on sales and money that they're desperate.
Speaking to Anti Trust: go read the relevant laws, which were created to do something about monopolistic practices of the railroads at the turn of the 20th century.
The key ideas here are stifling innovation and consumer choice. Bugger those up and you might have the DoJ and FTC staring at you. DoJ seems to like to go after international cartels, while the FTC seems to look more at interstate trade, roughly corresponding to Sherman S1 and S1 respectively. Although it's the Clancy act that seems to get convictions.
I don't know a lot about US anti trust law, but I'm not sure the Apple Palm debacle qualifies as such. But I'm not the one you have to convince!
Need Mercedes parts ?
Microsoft had enough market share back in the '90s that they WERE a monopoly, and therefore their business practices came under close scrutiny. This is back before the Mac, and whatever penetration Linux has.
It will not transfer whatever DRM'ed files the user hasn't updated with non-DRM'ed files. That's the point. They're DRM'ed. You can easily replace them with superior (iTunes Plus) files, but if you choose not to, they won't transfer them to your Palm Poop. It wouldn't make a damn bit of difference if they did transfer the file, because you wouldn't be able to play it. It's copy protected, which is what the industry was demanding back at the beginning, and what the Movie and TV industries still are.
Are there Apple fanboys? Yes. There are also irrational Apple haters.
Explain to me why Palm should be allowed to piggy back on Apple's work for syncing windows pictures and contacts.
Because it's my data, not Apple's, and I have a right to store it on my Palm if I want. Was there any other way for Palm to achieve this goal? Does the iTunes API or Library XML cover this case?
I sincerely hope that you are not actually Bruce Perens and that someone has hacked your account because if that is not the case, you have become an embarrassment to the OSS movement much like RMS has become.
I disagree with you. And I believe Richard Stallman has never been a proponent of Open Source Software. He is a proponent of Free Software, which is not quite the same thing. Maybe you should read about the difference here: "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software".
Why don't you list a couple of non-iPod devices and explain exactly why they are so much better?
Well i'm not too familiar with other devices; i do however own a Cowon S9 and love it. I've owned it for probably 7 or 8 months at this point. The S9 has an OLED screen with a near 180 degree viewing angle, a solid state drive available in 8, 16, and 32 gigabyte version. It supports flac, it can view Dvix files. it can play flash games,it has a touch screen that is unnoticeably smaller(less than a quarter of an inch). in addition to volume, play/pause track skip, and hold controls on the outer edges. It can play 8 hours of video on a single charge, or 55 hours of music. It has user customisable themes. And it is about $100 dollars cheaper than an ipod touch of the same size
Oh, my god. All iPhones use the Apple store. All iPods -- or 99% of them -- sync with iTunes and use the Apple Store. Together, they are the largest music seller in the US, because Apple sells by far the most devices. They actually went out and innovated, you know? The Windows world was saying, "I want to drag and drop my songs to the player," and dissing iTunes. Okay. Now, iTunes just syncs too. You can put your CDs, or the kids tell me, pirated copies of music, on your iPod or iPhone. You could rip a friend's music as an mp3, or Apple lossless, or AAC. They have managed to eliminate the DRM they were forced to put on their music from the beginning, though Universal/NBC and other labels were kind of nasty, in that they gave Amazon the rights to non-copy protected music for at least a year before they gave the same rights to Apple. Kind of "restraint of trade," no? But anyway, now it's done. ANYBODY can copy the tunes to their device.
Of course, I recall during the DRM controversies, a fair number of people were trying to preserve DRM by making Apple support other schemes. Not only FairPlay, but PlaysForSure (until it didn't) and the Zune too. That was completely unworkable, but a lot of people just hate Apple's success in this field, and they wanted to jump on it too. Hey. I've got a Mac. If I buy a Zune, where's the syncing software? You'd think MS could write compatible software for OS X, no?
Fine. Let that nearly bankrupt company take Apple to court and fight away for a couple of years, spending all their money on lawyers instead of buying some music sync program and repurposing it to work with their player. And let Palm go down because only Slashdot idiots think they have a point.
At the moment, Apple does not support other players interfacing directly. If they did, it might have some point, but it would cost them a hell of a lot more to update each time they wanted to add a new feature. They'd have to check with their "partners." Okay, maybe there's something to that. But what would it involve from the "partners"? 1. Licensing fees to pay Apple for the use of their IP. 2. Cooperation with the partners, sharing costs and information. It becomes a LOT bigger job to interface with dozens of other players. What for? Apple makes its money selling hardware. The software they throw in for nothing.
They're under no legal obligation to open up their platform that way. You know, OS X can interface with Windows because of freeware interfaces. Windows never supplied them with their network and file codes. There's a ton of stuff that Windows does to only play with Windows.
Why not allow printer manufactures to block third-party ink and toner suppliers?
They already do this via the chips built into many modern cartridges, so you can only use Company X's cartridges for Company X's printers. Of course you can refill the carts themselves (and it's doubtful that that issue will be resolved anytime soon), but still. Already happenin' man and has been for years.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
iTunes is the largest music retailer in the United States, which is pretty incredible in seven (?) years. But count up all the sources of music, and you realize that it's just a player in a much larger industry. It is totally dominant in the iPod sales business. It doesn't need to sell to other players, because it isn't going after music sales per se, just the sale of iPods to load up with songs. Of total music sales in the U.S., how much does iTunes represent? Nowhere near monopoly.
And setting prices? You'll notice when MS announced the more capable Zune HD with a low -- possibly money-losing (or "dumping"?) price -- Apple promptly lowered prices on their new nano and iPod Touch.
All these shortcomings, and yet they're slaughtering the competition because people don't give a crap about anything that your rant is about.
2) Hard drive mode support. Almost every other player lets you just view your video/mp3 files on the device as a hard drive and copy files back and forth as you see fit without using ANY software other than your operating system. You want to sync your files? Use iTunes. Nevermind that it's one of the buggiest/bloated/unintuitive/god awful pieces of software I've ever used. You're stuck with it.
Unless you just enable hard drive mode support on the ipod. If you do it shows up as a hard drive just fine. I know it is hard to check a box these days though.
This is incorrect. The iPhone/iPod Touch do not have support for disk mode, and cannot be seen as removable devices under Windows or OS X. The only way to communicate with them in anyway simliar to this functionality is by either using proprietary software that interfaces with the Apple Mobile USB Driver OR by using SSH to SFTP files into it or traverse its tree structure in the shell.
Winamp can sync with the iPhone/iPod Touch, but it's a bit of a dangerous feat, considering how it has totally destroyed my library on multiple occassions.
Completely the opposite. Go look at Apple's developer pages and SDK, they provide clearcut access to their sync services. Anyone can write a program to interface with their iCal and address book databases, like BusySync and Spanning Sync. If you have a phone-like device you want to sync, Apple offers a plugin architecture called iSync, and if that isn't good enough for you, their SDK allows third party developers to step in, like The Missing Sync.
Does a developer not want to play by Apple's rules? Fine, Apple even offers its iTunes DB in XML format for other devices and applications to read, such as the iLife library that developers can tap into, and some have.
Palm decided to throw all of these out the window and circumvent the software with a bad hack. Apple does not want to be responsible for this hack, because Apple, and not Palm, will bear all the criticism if iTunes 9.1 breaks Pre compatibility, even though it's not Apple's fault. Apple basically left the front door open for Palm to sync its device through the proper channels, and Palm decides it really wants to enter using the window instead.
It's almost like you barely skimmed my post instead of actually reading it.
I'm NOT saying Apple needs to "open" their platform. I'm saying Apple shouldn't be *closing* their platform to legitimate uses such as this. Continuing to force other companies out like this *is* anti-competitive, since it prevents legitimate competition. Now, the USB-IF's ruling may change that, but the analogy stands.
You can break a contract. It's done every day. You can break it for any number of reasons. The most you have to do is pay damages. "Illegal" is different from tortious.
On the other hand, if the contract was unduly onerous, or had any number of flaws in it, it may be an unconscionable contract that a court can say you were legally entitled to leave without compensation.
Because the Linux guys have nothing to do with this and nothing to do with what Palm is doing. You're confusing 2 issues here. Palm is just using iTunes, which isn't available at all on Linux, to sync their hardware with the user's music. They can do this in a legitimate way, writing software that reads in the XML file and syncs, or they can do it the wrong way, pretending to be an iPod. They chose the wrong way.
Linux developers have another issue, and that is the encrypted database on an iPod. It has nothing to do with syncing your music files from iTunes, since iTunes isn't available at all on Linux. Apple provides a way to interface with iTunes, they don't provide a way to interface with the newer iPod Touch/iPhone. 2 issues...
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
...where would the PC world be without interoperatability and standards?
Since USB-IF assigns unique vendor IDs to its members, Palm cloning Apple's vendor ID is in fact breaking the USB standard. Imagine if vendors didn't respect their uniquely assigned IDs with other hardware, such as ethernet. That would be a nightmare for driver writers.
I don't see how Palm forging a vendor ID in direct violation of the USB standard is a good thing for the industry. It renders that portion of the USB standard meaningless.
I'm curious about the XML format. If the XML format has changes made to it, will the itunes program change? If not, I wouldn't call this syncing.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
At the time of the lawsuit, open-source OS's weren't even on the map as competition for MS Windows.
Nonsense.
Licenses. No license is granted by virtue of membership in the Forum to any patent, copyright, or trademark.
The USB-IF logo program is separate from membership, and non-members can participate.
Also, USB-IF doesn't own patents. Nothing requires a vendor to license anything through USBIF, except the use of the USB logo.
The USB-IF's most extreme possible recourse in this matter would appear to be to cancel Palm's membership, without refund of the $4000 annual fee, and kick them out of the logo program.
They can't stop them from licensing USB technology they don't own.
There's been no report of a special contract existing between Palm and USB-IF other than the normal membership agreement.
Ethically, no, Palm shouldn't be breaking their contract with the USB IF so they can sync with iTunes. It's just MP3s and AACs for God's sake, it's not like world peace is on the line here. By doing this, and taking this case to court, if they win, there's going to be jabberwocky, not just among USB device vendors but ANY electronics device vendor who relies on unique IDs.
Imagine if Broadcom or Realtek decided one day that for whatever asinine reason, they shipped integrated NICs with Linksys or 3COM MAC identifiers? Or if VIA shipped out CPUs labeled, "Genuine Intel?"
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
People wanting you to support someone else's product isn't your support liability.
Someone could call Apple and ask for support getting their Zune to talk to their PC too, or how to get their Zune to properly sync with iTunes, it doesn't mean Apple has to help them.
You either refuse to do it, or you bill the person calling in for support, for the service of trying to help you troubleshoot a non-covered product.
It's not as if Apple has provided a support phone number for the iTunes software, anyways.
1. User agent strings are not USB IDs. They are different specs for different technologies and have different rules.
It doesn't matter that the technologies are different, they are exactly the same thing. With the exception that there's an authority that assigns some vendor ids, intended to be used by the org they are assigned to.
Much like the IEEE assigns OUIs to companies that produce Ethernet hardware, for use in their MAC addresses.
However, that doesn't stop admins from locally assigning whatever MAC address they want, or even stop some manufacturers from being able to say "to hell with the registration authority" and burn whatever MAC address onto the EEPROM that they want.
Syncing contacts and pictures are not something that Apple is under any obligation to provide to third parties.
Sega v. Accolade. Look it up. I'd say it applies here pretty much directly. IANAL and all that, but the simple truth is that Palm wants to have first-rate compatibility with the Apple platform, iTunes is the way you accomplish that, and using Apple's vendor ID is the way to accomplish that with iTunes. If you really want to argue anything, I think you should argue whether Apple is obligated to provide any connectivity to iTunes at all. (I would argue that they are, but that's a whole different argument. Shall we go there?)
Trusting that Apple won't change the format of the XML file is a non-starter. Apple's not going to break compatibility with un-upgraded devices any time soon, just to spite Pre; that's a classic cutting off the nose kind of situation. Or, if they do, they're dumber than I thought. So I would argue, were I in Palm's shoes, that the only way to really ensure compatibility today and tomorrow is to pretend to be Apple to iTunes. Apple created this situation in just the same way that Sega created theirs; If Palm wants their device supported on OSX to the same extent as the iPhone &c, then they need to pretend to be Apple. That right has been repeatedly upheld. I would not look for Apple to win this battle. If they do, the repercussions for IP law will be devastating.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm only providing an explanation as to why Logitech Mice and Keyboards don't spoof Apple's vendor ID or the 1st mouse's manufacturer vendor id.
The reason is: they didn't have to do it, for the software that ships with the systems by default to at least recognize and use the device. In other words, the needs of their users are met by default.
If Operating systems discriminated, then Logitech would have had good reasons to emulate the Apple or Microsoft device that works by default as closely as possible and spoof the vendor id, in order to have the device work by default
Because working by default without the user having to go through any extroardinary efforts (like installing software) is very much a desired outcome for simple devices like Keyboards, Mice, Hard drives, and yes, MP3 players.
It makes no difference whether the layer preventing it from working by default is at the OS layer, or at the layer of media player software.
To be clear, iTunes happens to be the media player software users have installed by default, at least on Mac platforms.
For the hardware to work by default it needs to seamlessly interoperate with iTunes, without the user needing to install any software on the PC or take other special actions.
I bet most people don't even know that there's a USB logo and if it was missing wouldn't care.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Just like a struggling Apple with ~3% market share kept Microsoft from being an OS Vendor monopolist in the eyes of the courts for, well, much longer than it should have... Microsoft now produces a complex media player. But Apple is nowhere close to having a monopoly on any of those things. They do have a monopoly on iPhone/iPod Touch app sales and approval. You can jailbreak your phone, but that ostensibly voids your warranty. Put the two together, and it seems like you should have a violation of the Magnuson-moss act.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The last time I messed with an iPod it was not possible to directly copy a music file and play it. I had to use iTunes on windows or MacOS (or a barely working hack on *nix) to copy the file.
Allegedly it works with Rhythmbox now, which is how I handle my Creative Zen Vision M 30GB (HDD, eww. But it was cheap. Someday perhaps I can find a way to put a 32GB SDHC in it.) Many mp3 players work this way, for no reason I can discern. You need support for decoding and tags on the PC end anyway. Maybe they're hoping that any malformed files will crater your computer instead of your iPhone.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Apple has a literal monopoly on non-warranty-voiding installation of applications to the iPhone and iPod touch. They don't have one on any hardware. However, if Microsoft is a monopoly because it costs infinitely more than Linux, what do you call OSX? It's actually built more or less entirely from technologies which exist on Linux, although few of the ones we would identify as OSX features are as polished. Then again, Linux (or indeed, *BSD) has scads of features not present in OSX, at the kernel level. It is left to the reader to decide whether this is a good thing, but Linux certainly seems to have superior security to OSX, and it hardly bears mentioning where it stands in relation to Windows.
If it is necessary to pretend to be an iPhone in order to perform a proper bidirectional sync, then Palm likely has a point. Otherwise, not so much.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I, for one, would hate having ANOTHER sync program running on my computer. It's not that Palm is lazy for not writing another program, it's that they want to make things easy for their users by allowing them to use a program that they are already (on average) familiar with.
USB might not have to get genericized tho, as the words 'universal serial bus' are a pretty generic description from start. Merely using a TLA might not change that either.
The specific logos themselves would certainly be out of bound, but personally I can't say I've ever noted them; first thing I thought of as a logo was the USB trident, which I can't find any specific info on if it's actually trademarked (can't find one with (tm) on it, so I'd guess not).
So with universal serial bus probably available as a descriptive term, perhaps even TLA'd to USB, and possibly the trident, I suspect the actual USB logos may not be necessary. Certainly, with the way the USB-IF seems to have acted in this case, it appears that having their trademark may actually mean devices are less likely to interoperate with each other.
Why should apple provide support for hardware besides it's own?
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'm recalling articles from when it was formed. Long, long ago. I suggest you go to the USB-IF site and peruse their documentation.
If it was "long, long ago," could it be that your recollection of what the contract actually says is inaccurate? As mysidia points out, the USB-IF membership agreement explicitly says that membership does not grant any patent license. It doesn't even grant a license to use the trademarked USB logo--there's a separate USB-IF Trademark License Agreement for that, and USB-IF membership is not required to license the trademarks. It appears to me that you're the one making unfounded legal representations when you say that Palm "would still be in breach of contract with the USB-IF and there by using the patents illegally." In any case, it seems a bit presumptuous of you to claim that Palm would be breaching some contract when you don't actually know what contracts they've signed, and haven't recently read the ones that they probably did sign.
If you want to read the iTunes library, with playlists and all other useful details, use the XML file.
On a Mac: If you want to make changes to the iTunes library, use AppleScript to send the changes to iTunes.
On a PC, there is a COM interface to iTunes (see http://developer.apple.com/sdk/)
Realistically, few care about syncing changes back to iTunes. You can do it, but the real usefulness is getting the songs onto the music device.
If you want to sync contacts, addresses, etc from your device, there is a set of APIs from Apple to do this. iTunes is a bit muddier, but still possible to sync in both directions on a Mac, and most likely on a PC.
Palm are making themselves dependant upon another vendor, a competitor no less, which is poor business sense. It's completely unnecessary, and others are doing this without fuss (see RIM).
You are right, it is unlawful, and illegall......
that is, unless a court rules that Palm's actions were acceptable in this case, in which case they both violate a contract and do nothing unlawful. Just because you have a contract, doesn't mean that the contract itself isn't unlawful, like if I hire Paris Hilton to assassinate you. She gets the gun and shoots her foot off, and I go sue her for breach of contract for failing to off you. The judge gives me a rude gesture and say, "Sorry, your contract is illegal and thus, invalid.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
no, i don't think anybody is demanding that apple create and maintain a 3rd party synchronization scheme. that's a strawman you've built up there. what people find objectionable is that apple has recently modified a product to prevent it working with anything other than their own products.
let me spell it out to you:
modifying a product for other reasons than making it incompatible with 3rd party products is not objectionable. if compatibility with 3rd party products is broken, well that's just the way it is.
modifying a product to make it incompatible with 3rd party products is not okay. it's a bad way of trying to increase market share in a different market.
yes, it should be up to palm to make sure that syncing with itunes works. apple shouldn't lift a finger one way or the other. instead apple has invested time and money in changing how itunes works in order to reduce the capabilities enjoyed by palm's customers.
If Apple sues Palm, or if they start a proxy war through the USB-IF
So how is it a "Proxy war" to have a standards body uphold the standards they publish?
Again, this is not about Apple. It's about the meaning of USB-IF, at all, in any context. Do you honestly think it would be a good thing for the whole USB standard to crumble like a house of cards, just to spite your hated Apple? The ironic thing is, it doesn't even end up hurting Apple - just every device that uses USB, anywhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
and this requires also that you must run their sync software in the background.
So you run that INSTEAD OF the background iTunes sync process. There is still one process. One is not greater than one, therefore - not extra.
Making your competitors run extra software means there isn't an even playing field.
There is when any software can easily convert your iTunes library to their own software if they wished. Is it an even playing field to require Apple to write sync software for all competitors?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Let's say Itunes is a Record store, the mp3s are records (you know, those ancient vinyl disks), and the Ipod and the Pre are both types of record players.
As a consumer, you fully expect these suckers to play on any player you have. You paid your money for the record, you can play it on anything you want.
Now the Apple record store decides that they want to limit you to playing any records you bought from them only on the record player that they sell.
So Apple changes the holes on their records so they only fit on the record players that Apple 'approves'.
Palm on the other hand, doesn't like this, and start providing it's users with a replacement spindle that will make your Pre's spindle the same as the Apple one.
Suddenly you can play your records again and Apple doesn't like that.
So the tit for tat war begins. Apple changes spindles, Palm copies it, Apple threatens with lawyers, Palm laughs and keeps on making their players work.
This is a bit of an oversimplification of the situation, but for the consumer, this is pretty much correct. Is what Apple doing legal? Inal, but I find it very questionable. (The government has busted lots of products by lots of companies for other similar things.) And lets face it, we customers don't really care how it works, we just want it to do so. After all, we really don't expect what amounts to little more than a record store to limit what device we can play that music on. (Yeah, I know, Itunes can do a little more than just let you buy music, but that's a relatively minor point. Like I said, this is an oversimplification of the full situation, but still effectively accurate.)
What is most likely to happen next is a DRM-esque key exchange between iPods and iTunes
That really can't happen because there are all kinds of older iPods around, that simply will never get firmware updated. Apple would create a lot more trouble than they would solve...
If they wanted to be really nasty, they could probably brick a connected Pre in the process of updating Apple firmware to implement this key exchange.
I had the exact same thought, Apple is being pretty kind about this really because that is an option and really although it would not be very ethical, Palm would have no legal leg to stand on if Apple sent out a sequence of commands to what it thought were iPods...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Pre doesn't sync firmware through iTunes
It does when the music sync you send down to an iPod, just happens to have the side effect of "jailbreaking" the pre and executing some custom code....
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nobody is forcing Palm or RIM to even use iTunes. They can write their own music manager if they like, but obviously, if they want to leverage the iTunes music library, the user must run iTunes! It's not like Apple lock competitors out of iTunes. If they wished, they could stop iTunes producing an XML file and just store music data in a binary blob. Just because Apple don't write their software in the exact way their competitors would like, doesn't mean they are being anticompetitive!
There is an API available on Mac OS X for third-party devices that you have to be licensed by Apple to use. I can't find the link but its somewere within the Knowledge Base on their website.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
The last time I messed with an iPod it was not possible to directly copy a music file and play it. I had to use iTunes on windows or MacOS (or a barely working hack on *nix) to copy the file.
So cheers to Palm, for allowing you to use iTunes to sync your Pre!
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
If this were true, why should Palm need to use a fake id to sync with itunes?
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/themissingsyncforpalmpre.html
About The Missing Sync for Palm Pre
The Missing Sync works with Mac applications you already know and use â" Address Book, iTunes, iCal, Entourage and iPhoto â" to let you transfer and sync information and files between your Mac and Pre. And, you can choose what you want to sync.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Yeah, I also complain when Canon's software does not fire up when I connect a Nikon camera. Oh wait I don't because I do not have unreasonable expectations.
GET A CLUE! There is no requirement for device vendor A's software to work with device vendor B's products. If they want that, device vendor B should ask device vendor A to add such support.
In the case of iTunes, it seems there is an insistence of some argumentative sorts here to ignore that there is a difference between "iTunes the app" and "iTunes the music library" - the latter is just a directory structure and documented files with structure and metadata information. All vendors are free to access this, but Palm choose not to, out of laziness.
Palm choose to screw with a device standard in order to avoid hiring some cheap Mac OS programmer to write a simple sync application of their own. Stop making up excuses on their behalf, please.
(And ask them instead what they would have done if a device manufacturer back in the day faked a Palm identity in order to piggyback on the Hotsync application...)
This is a Pre telling a competitors service that it is an iPhone. Is that legal?
Internet Explorer tells the server it is Mozilla. Is it legal?
I had the same problem with an ipod nano 3rd gen. Linux can mount it as usb storage, put and retrieve files. But they don't get indexed by the player. Files already in the ipod have their name garbled (even if id3 tags are ok IIRC). I had to use gtkpod to send files properly, after updating some ID that lied in a config file in the ipod. See doc files of gtkpod for info. Terrible user experience, when you wander outside apple's garden, eh.
As for the topic, it's like changing the user-agent string to bypass website restrictions. If i were palm i'd do it temporarily, for the sake of connecting to itunes, and use my own id otherwise.
All legal questions aside, does anyone think that from the moral & technical POV, Palm is doing something wrong, here?
The question has no direct relevance to the case at hand, but I would still want to hear from people who answered yes to the above.
You really don't understand what a monopoly is do you?
the USB IF acts to maintain the USB standard - and it features vendor ID codes that are assured (by the specification) to be unique to each individual vendor who uses them.
They *must* act to prevent other companies from just deciding to use a Vendor ID *that does not belong to them* (read: have not licenced to use because the ID has been licenced by someone else, namely Apple).
How on earth did this get +1 informative?
The sole reason the USB IF exists in the first place is to prevent (or correct) issues like this arising, when one company breaks the spec for their own ends.
Yes, yes they do.
I know because I personally use such software.
I'm even using it as I type this post.
Oh wait, how can I, you told me it doesn't exist.
And you can get your player to "sync" back to iTunes - I have done it before on several third party players.
There's a whole section in Apple Dev about how to do it
What's the point in buying an iPod if the first thing you're going to do is install Rockbox on it?
Usability? What would you want a feature like that for? This is slashdot, as soon as anything becomes even remotely usable it'll be disowned for some alternative.
I'm surprised this hasn't happened with Ubuntu yet.
WTF? How dare you ago against the groupthink?! Immediately admit that Apple is a giant monopolistic badguy that does nothing good or else your account will be revoked! I mean...you can't talk about any of the open source stuff they give back! You can't talk about how people like their products without pointing out how those people are stupid mindless self absorbed asshats with too much money. I mean...how can you sit there and break the hypocrisy of standards?! The groupthink is well within rationality to demand that everyone follow standards except when the standards should be broken. I suppose next you will tell me that the Canon helpdesk shouldn't be forced into supporting Kodak cameras! I don't want to have to choose products based on their features, I want to be able to force the world to break standards to or otherwise misbehave to do what I want, but I want them to not break standards or misbehave for anyone else that I don't agree with.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
BlackBerry's Desktop Manager, released today for the Mac, syncs with iTunes, and it does so without having to pretend it's an iPod. Dozens of other applications for interacting with, and syncing with the iTunes library exist, most (all?) based on the "iTunes Music Library.xml" file which iTunes maintains as a readable version of its library.
In short, Palm could definitely have implemented their own sync mechanism which syncs with iTunes, but instead opted to trick iTunes, for some reason.
That's the bit I don't get (I don't use iTunes or an iPod and the only Palm hardware I have is a Tungsten T|X).
All of the data is on the disk already, it can't be so hard to just grab it and sync it with the unit. What's the point of having to hijack iTunes ? Doesn't Palm provide some kind of desktop software package any more ?
Why use two pieces of software to manage one piece of kit instead of just one ? Does Apple use strong crypto on their database (according to the above post, they don't seem to). Or is it just Palm being completely idiotic as usual ?
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
You don't really need fancy crypto challenges with secret keys and whatnot to veryfiy it's an iPod. Just do it like Microsoft and Nintendo did with their cartridges and XBox harddrives: Put a Png of you comany's logo on the device and calculate the checksum before you start doing anything with it. That way Palm would have to ship their firmware with the Png of the Apple logo by which they would violate Apple's copyright.
Doing it like that you don't need to implement a big crypto system for all your devices, don't have any secret keys to hide and don't break open source support.
It's completely unnecessary
It sure does generate a lot of publicity though...
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Paul may (or may not) have a legal argument for using Apple's vendor ID from the perspective of interoperability
First Palm, then Paul.
Soon, every Tom, Dick and Harry will be getting in on the act.
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
In iTunes it is ass easy to transcode...
Import movie to iTunes, go to the "advanced" menu and select "create iPod or iPhone version".
In Quicktime Player (based on the new quicktime X). Open the file, save as and select "iPhone or iPod" let it run and you're done.
Don't know about windows.
p.s. for those thinking that the new player is short on "pro features" QT Player 7 is in your utilities folder and gives you deep access to that other crap us dork-asses love. word on the street is that those features will be slowly rolled back in to the mainline player and QT Player 7 will be phased out completely.
Love,
-Simon
Well not according to my mother's iphone. It works like a harn disk just fine. I suggest you check your sources again,
OK
"Apple doesn't own any portion of my computer." "It's 100% owned by me, and should behave the way I want it to behave."
While physically you own your computer, Apple owns the ITunes software on your PC your just operating ITunes under Apple license.
From what I've read they do not actually let any device sync with iTunes, they let another application read an xml file that lists the catalog with various flags. That third party still has to waste the time developing an application to read through the file, determine which bits need to be moved and then move them. (Please correct me if I'm incorrect.)
Not sure why anyone would actually want to use iTunes but to each their own...
Apple a monopoly? Get a clue. Apple is not even close enough to dominate any market.
Palm violated their contract, lied to their customers, continue to lie to every device their hardware is connected and you defend it? But why do I waste my time arguing with a corporate shill anyway...
If you think it's bad to check in a driver if the device you speak to is really the one the driver was written for, you're a morron.
If you think it's apple's duty to write drivers for unrelated products from third parties, you're a morron as well.
Apple doesn't force incompatibility, apple just knows how to write drivers. No one with half a brain would sue apple for not writing drivers for other people.
>> It's not as elegant as an iPod, since it doesn't use the main Library file
So Palm did the work on their hardware to make it be "as elegant as an ipod"; and people somehow think that's a bad thing?
Apple doesn't have to provide ANY support. They just have to stop intentionally blocking 3rd parties.
All the ones yapping on about how Apple provides an xml file that allows one to access the library are being unreasonable. iTunes is the 'preferred' way of managing your music on OSX, what they should provide is a way for a third party to create a plugin, driver or whatchamacallit that allows third parties to create an interface for their devices that works transparently for the end user, Apple is all about ease of use right? Why force the user to use multiple applications to do the same task? I have no problem Palm solving this problem by spoofing an USB Vendor ID, hell, Apple should be glad that more people use their POS iTunes for music, it means more sales for them (if you swing that way, me personally, i wouldn't buy mp3's, i prefer the shiny thingies).
Bullshit. Pure, utter, uncut bullshit. Apple has no legal right to let other devices sync with iTunes. Apple is not a monopoly. Palm could have just as easily written their own damned software to sync the player, even one that reads the iTunes XML library file and lets you sync your library WITHOUT OPENING ITUNES. Whoever had the bright idea to use iTunes to sync with the Pre is a fucking moron. Yes, Apple are dicks, but Palm bloody knew that. They went ahead and relied on someone else's software (over which they have zero control) when they KNEW that the owner of said software would break compatibility. Then they flagrantly break the standards set forth by the USB-IF as if it's nothing, then actually have the audacity to whine to the USB-IF that Apple is breaking said standards! It blows my mind just how fucking STUPID Palm is being over this!
Apple is not a monopoly. There are a crapload of other phones, music players, sync software, and more out there. Consumer choice exists in abundance. All the music in a person's iTunes is freely playable on any device that supports the proper formats, minus DRM'ed AAC tracks that weren't updated. Your argument is the laughable tripe.
Fuck your a douche. Perhaps pulling Steve Jobs dick out of your ass would allow your ego to deflate a bit.
If Apple wants to play stupid games by filtering using vendor id then so be it, I don't see any other media managers filtering by device ID but since Apples crap is so popular at the moment Palms customers probably want their device to show up in their preferred media manager.
The iTunes library is an XML file. Anyone can write their own app that reads this file and can show all your iTunes tracks in their playlists, organized the same as your iTunes library. Palm is using a fake USB ID because they're either trying to make a point with iTunes interoperability or they're just bloody lazy and think that this game of leapfrog is easier than writing their own damned software. In either case, they're utter morons.
Not even close. You can play iTunes Store track in/on any player that supports AAC (as long as you don't have older DRM'ed tracks) and put any old AAC or MP3 into it. You can fill your iPod with music and never buy a single track from the iTunes Store. The reverse holds true: You can buy tons and tons of music from the iTunes Store and put it on a completely different player.
This is very true. I own an iPhone because Safari is pretty much the best mobile browser in a phone out there and because the app store is fantastic.
Actually Opera is the best Mobile browser out there. Does everything that Safari does + has multi-tab support.
Holy hell, what a colossal load of idiotic, ignorant bullshit. So Apple hasn't given their changes in the code back to the community? Webkit is their fork of KHTML. Notice Google Chrome? Gee, where did that come from? Oh yeah, Webkit. Anyone can build their own Webkit browser if they want. It's probably the best browser code out there right now.
How about WebObjects? Apple open sourced that one all by themselves, no pressure, no legal issues, no incentive. They just gave that one away.
The publicly funded BSD OS has a license that SPECIFICALLY ALLOWS FOR THEM TO TAKE IT PRIVATE. Quit your whining. Apple adhered to the license and did WHAT THE LICENSE WAS DESIGNED TO ALLOW. Seriously, stop crying over it.
Why exactly should they have paid staff to specifically contribute to open source? Wait, their staff already does this as they give code back in accordance with licenses! Maybe you don't realize that Apple is a business. They are there to make money, like any other business. Ergo, what purpose does it serve to have someone specifically working on code designed for other people to use and not Apple?
Yes, they do have patents and lawyers, a bloody necessity for a company their size. Take a few business courses, kiddo.
Seriously, crawl out of Richard Stallman's beard sometime and see the business world for what it is, not what you so wistfully wish it would be.
Allowing you to purchase in the store, but preventing you from syncing the music or playing it on your choice of devices is an attempt to use their dominant market position in one industry to achieve dominance in another industry.
WRONG! Music purchased in the iTunes Store (within the last few months, anyway, the non-DRM'ed stuff) is playable on any device that supports AAC and can be put into any music player that supports it! Did you forget that in your argument?
Maybe you should try thinking this stuff through before spouting off your ridiculous kneejerk bullshit.
The USB spec also has a high degree of interoperability standards built in.
Funny, the USB-IF chose to ignore those standards (the ones that THEY set) as well! They backed Apple. Whoops. I guess they should have come to you when they interpreted their own rules.
As for the rest of your tripe, it all hinges on the same grotesquely malformed logic that has dominated all of your posts in here. You whine about Apple fanboys, but you're a shining example of how the anti-Apple crowd can be just as monstrously ignorant and dimwitted as the Apple fanboys.
THIS THIS THIS X 1000!!! Palm is flat-out stupid in this. This whole fight could have easily been avoided (and their customers saved from having to wait if they updated iTunes), but they decided to take the retard route.
What definition of monopoly are you using and what is the point of anything you're saying? Apple has competition, has no say in the prices the competition set, has to take the competition into account when setting their own prices, has no means of preventing customers from buying form the competition, does nothing to prevent their own product being used with competing devices and acquired their position in the market in the face of competition.
And what would require them to do so? If you have a device and you want iTunes sync, write your own software and read the XML file. Yes, there IS playlist support. You could display someone's iTunes library just as it is in iTunes. No problem. Palm could have EASILY done this.
In the case of the Zune, imitation would not just be the sincerest form of flattery, it would be a validation of its reason for being...
PS - I agree completely re iTunes bloat. I just installed iTunes 4 on my Mac - don't need to sync with any new stuff and it works fine / runs fast for what I need...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Personally, I like iTunes. It automatically backs up my iPhone, syncs all of my pictures/calendar/entries/music/etc without having to do anything other than plug it in. Any music in my library with a given star rating or greater is automatically synced, how much easier could it get? It also does a pretty good job of organizing my music folders, so I don't have to do it manually. It can even play through wifi connected speakers quite easily. I've had other MP3 players and for me, dealing with "disk mode" is slow and inefficient. Browsing/ copying/moving/deleting between multiple folder structures takes more effort than a single click to mark music as good while I'm listening on my laptop. I'll admit that I've been frustrated by the lack of formats or automatic transcoding, but I doubt the average person cares as the device will play all of their legitimately and illegally downloaded music. I doubt the average person bothers with FLAC or watches movies on their phone.
iPods became popular because the vast majority of people who aren't overly computer literate find them easier to use as a whole.
I wasn't trying to say you couldn't change iTunes stuff from outside iTunes.
I was just saying the XML file is completely useless for this.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Yeah, I knew there were ways to control iTunes from the outside.
I was just taking issue with people talking about 'sync' and the XML file like they had anything to do with each other. You can't do anything with that list.
And you're right. I'm not actually seeing the point of anyone bothering to attempt copy non-metadata changes back to iTunes. Even play-count information is in the file metadata. The only things I could think of were altering playlists, and putting songs on the device somewhere else that you then want to show up in iTunes. It's absurd to even try to bother with those.
But, regardless of how much sense it makes to actually do, that is what people are talking about when they talk about hardware 'syncing' with iTunes.
But random people here misunderstood that to mean 'syncing the mp3 files', and, for some reason, think that has something to do with the XML file. This is doubly stupid, as syncing back the mp3 files put on a third-party mp3 player, by a third-party app, is trivially easy and obviously wouldn't involve iTunes at all, in any way, even if the file is also in iTunes. Just update the damn files, and, tada, iTunes is updated when it starts, or at least when it refreshes. (I have an iPhone, but I hate iTunes player interface, and don't use it to manage my music, so don't actually know how often it rereads metadata.)
And I have no idea why Palm is trying to use iTunes to sync, instead of just syncing the mp3 files, and then sending the (very few) pieces of data that iTunes needs to iTunes using their interface, to say 'Here's the new playlist, and also add these music file to your library that we just copied off the device into this location'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
If Honda started seeing an increase in ($$) service calls (and subsequent poor vehicle reviews) in relation to alternators, and then discovered that that increase was as a result of third-party "cheaper/has better features/whatever", would you fault them for tightening the spec to try and fix the problem?
Apple has always been about having something that works. It works because they control the hardware and the software for their products. They don't write their software for third-party products, whether or not they offer API's, nor should they. It's not anti-competitive to want their product to work as claimed. Palm has every right and even documentation on how to use those API's to write their own software to do whatever they want with the data... EXCEPT claim to be an Apple supported product.
Just how happy do you think Honda would be if Joe's Alternators claimed to be a Honda product?
Elegant in programmin terms - not in user experience.
Also, Apple is intentionally preventing a third party from pretending to be an Apple product.
If Palm want to sync the Pre with iTunes there is a fully documented, Apple-supported way to do it.
There is nothing wrong, but you have to pay damages... Uh ? Kinda weird logic you have there. Burning a stop sign also just results in a fine, it's still illegal. The problem is most people on here think that illegal means criminal. That is not the case. The law says you can't breach a contract unless there are provisions to do so and that you respect those provisions. The USB-IF has put no provisions about being able to use other vendors devices ID for interop in their contract, quite the contrary. And Palm hasn't paid any damages so they are in breach and open to a lawsuit or the revoking of their license right now.
Also, I was reversing Bruce Perens' statement because obviously, the poor boy has gone loco. Apple did nothing illegal in all this, they are simply protecting their hard work from being used by Palm in a manner that is in breach of their contract with the USB-IF.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
OS X recognizes all USB devices that implement a standard protocol. If the Pre implemented USB mass storage then it would be recognized just fine and pop up as a drive no problem. OS X also provides an API (SyncServices) to make it easy to support devices that don't implement one of the built in standards.
If I plug an iPod (or Pre, or Blackberry) into a Windows machine it doesn't know what to do with them either. You can't expect to plug any device into a computer and have it work by default. Something that implements one of the widely used standard interfaces, sure, but not any random device. That's what drivers are for. Palm just doesn't want to write their own driver software.
You can't expect to plug any device into a computer and have it work by default.
No, consumers do actually expect that. Mac users especially.
It works that way when you plug an iPod in, you can use iTunes straight a way, it works by default without installing any driver.
Apple is notoriously anal about their products, sometimes to the point of being utter dicks. This is no secret. Also, citation needed on all those years of stonewalling. Darwin has been available practically since it went public. I don't recall any multiyear period of refusal to provide source code. Enlighten me.
I agree with most everything you say, except this:
There is nothing wrong, but you have to pay damages... Uh ? Kinda weird logic you have there.
I should start by saying that this isn't just my reasoning, but that of most scholars in the field of contract law (hence the Holmes quote). And I want to also emphasize that I mean, in some sense, "morally wrong" when I say "wrong." But I agree that it's a surprising line of thought at first blush. Here's one way to think about it that I've found helpful: Contract law exists primarily to promote economic efficiency*. It is very helpful economically if actors can shift risks to one another and act certain in the knowledge that the contract will be fulfilled as promised. When a promisor breaches a contract, we make them pay to put the promisee in as good a situation as they would've been had the promisor held up their end of the bargain and no more. So, the damages aren't assessed to punish the breaching party (there are no punitive damages in contract law) but just to fulfill the expectations of the person counting on the promise.
From a purely theoretical perspective, its also worth thinking a bit about what "illegal" does really mean outside of the realm of criminal law. For example, if I negligently allow you to be hit by a rock shot out from my lawnmower, I haven't broken any laws. But, under the common law of torts, I still am liable for the damages. This is often the structure of the law outside of criminal law: the bare ascription of liability for actions, not the outright prohibition of them (as in crim. law). Contracts are this was as well. So is my negligence illegal in the usual sense of the word? I'm not sure. Again, I'm not arguing with you, I'm just sharing some thoughts about the word "illegal" that this conversation has brought to mind. And, of course, this has really nothing to do with the law, only our definition of "illegal."
* This is a controversial statement, but it's certainly true enough to work for our purposes.
caritj.org
When I said "you" I was elevating you above the status of the most clueless consumer.
So you're seriously suggesting that it is Apple's obligation to make sure ALL devices capable of playing an MP3 automatically work with OS X, out of the box, without installing any software?
It's not Apple's obligation, but it's what hardware makers want.
Since Apple's device works that way, they need to have their product do the same, or they will have a substantial competitive disadvantage.
In other words, there are very strong incentives for the other manufacturers to do whatever they need to do to make their product usable out of the box, with as little extra work by their customer as possible.
Having to switch from iTunes to a third-party media player is a big undertaking, and won't score points with the customer when considering a purchase.
It's best if the iTunes library can be reliably used directly w.o. software installations.
What's the official numbers on the marketshare of the iStore vs. Amazon.com and other online music sellers (there's a bunch of them, I don't know their names offhand because I don't buy music online)?
As I said before, there's clear alternatives if you want to buy music online: Amazon and the others. In fact, if you have a non-Apple player, you HAVE to use one of the others, since the iStore only uses AAC, which many/most other players don't support. Amazon.com uses MP3, which every player (including Apple's) supports.
This is really different from MS: if you want to run AutoCAD, for instance, you're basically forced to use Windows because AutoCAD only comes in Windows versions. If you want to run MS Office, you're basically forced to used Windows for the same reason. And if you want to read documents created in MSO, you have to use MSO for maximum compatibility. (Yes, OO.o works quite well, but it'll probably never be 100% because the MS formats are secret and reverse-engineered, and the OOXML formats are a mess.)
With music players, if you have a non-Apple music player, you can buy music from Amazon or others, or just rip the CD. With the Zune, you can buy from the crappy Zune store. If you have an iPod, you can also buy music from Amazon or others in MP3 format, or rip the CD. So, there's lots of choices out there, even if most people don't exercise them.
Again, I don't know the actual marketshare numbers for Apple vs. Amazon, but while they might be large enough to qualify for monopoly status, I think the fact that there's easy alternatives changes that equation somewhat. Music players simply don't have the technical lock-in that software and OSes do.
There really is no excuse for palm being too lazy or incompetent to develop their own syncing software.
You'd better be kidding. There's one reason, and only one reason that counts... everyone wants iTunes.
People want their iTunes... software and store. It's the defacto standard in how people acquire and manage music. Palm is admitting this, and making their device work inside those demands, regardless of barriers erected by Apple.
All other options are inferior (in that they are less palatable to your average customer) because this one application, coupled with one online service, has been artificially bound to one line of phones only. This is Apple selling iPhones using iTunes.
An XML file is not the same as an application and online store combination, and even my grandparents know this.
Yes articles from over a year ago are always accurate in describing what can be done today. Iphones certainly can be used as disks. Been there done that. and even a year ago you could do it without jailbreaking with a simple hack.
It is about superior products. The thing is that defining "superior" is a tricky business.
Nobody has developed the Apple-killer device+software+store combo yet. To win any one of those you have to have some popular recipe of design, functionality and mindshare.
Palm is doing what they can to attack one part of this powerful triad (the device part) with the Pre, while conceding the fight on the software and store front.
It's really that simple.
It is your data, but it's Apple's application. It's also Apple's unique USB identifier. It's one thing if Pre users were flashing firmware so their Pres said, "Apple iPod" when connected, it's another when Palm's doing it out of the factory.
Also, yes, there have been repeated posts on how 3rd party developers get this information from OS X and it's certainly easy to get that information under Windows. It wasn't required by Palm to get this data by piggybacking on iTunes. That's just lazy and dishonest.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Yeah, if I was selling a product I'd like it if someone else did as much of the work as possible too. That doesn't make it reasonable.
iTunes already has interfaces via which third parties can sync their devices, so the user doesn't have to switch to another media player. All Palm has to do is write some sync software to handle the Pre. Then the Pre could happily sync with the user's iTunes library and the only thing that needs to be installed is the sync software.
This one really is Palm either being incredibly lazy or pulling a publicity stunt.
It's about time someone started putting apple in their place hard luck apple suck it up (and hurry up and DIE)
Doesn't it make just as much sense to design hardware to work with the existing software as it makes to write new software, when the result will be a more reliable experience, and less work for the customer?
Apple doesn't provide an API for a third-party to write syncing software for iTunes. And the format of the iTunes database can change at any time.
Syncing contacts and pictures are not something that Apple is under any obligation to provide to third parties.
Would you agree that neither contacts or Photos are managed on windows/OS X by Apple through iTunes? Would you also agree that neither are organized or stored by iTunes in the library? They are provided through their syncing software only. So explain to me why Apple should be providing non-iTunes specific syncing services to third parties.
Trusting that Apple won't change the format of the XML file is a non-starter. Apple's not going to break compatibility with un-upgraded devices any time soon, just to spite Pre; that's a classic cutting off the nose kind of situation.
Please, stop it with the intellectual dishonestly. If Apple were to stop publishing the library within the XML file as well as their binary file, they would not only be blocking Palm but also RIM's desktop client and Mark Space's Missing Sync. Missing Sync has been offering media syncing services for WinMo devices for years. Although Apple does not directly use the XML file for the library in general use, it does serve as a backup should the binary database become corrupt and you can use it to restore the library on a new machine without copying over the binary file. It is especially useful for moving between mac and windows machines.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Not to mention WebKit, whose website states:
Apple employees have contributed the majority of work on WebKit since it became an independent project. Apple uses WebKit for Safari on Mac OS X, iPhone and Windows; on the former two it is also a system framework and used by many other applications. Apple's contribution has included extensive work on standards compliance, Web compatibility, performance, security, robustness, testing infrastructure and development of major new features.
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Explain to me why Palm should be allowed to piggy back on Apple's work for syncing windows pictures and contacts.
Because it's my data, not Apple's, and I have a right to store it on my Palm if I want. Was there any other way for Palm to achieve this goal? Does the iTunes API or Library XML cover this case?
The API can be used to extend the functionality of iTunes. I am not certain if that includes extending syncing features but the XML file is an exact duplicate of the binary library database. It is used by RIM for their Blackberry desktop application on windows and OS X as well as an Application called Missing Sync which syncs WinMo, Palm and Palm Pre devices with contacts, photos and non-DRM'ed songs from the iTunes library.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
iTunes was written for the purpose of managing Apple's hardware products. Getting a free ride on the back of Apple's software developers is not a right that any vendor has.
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I think the main problem here is that Palm is trying to get a free ride from Apple's software development efforts. Apple created the iPod product in order to make money, and offered the iTunes player as a free solution so that Windows users could manage their iPods. If I were to write a free software utility whose main purpose was to support my hardware product, and a competitor spoofed my hardware product so that they didn't have to waste the time and money to write their own software utility, I would feel cheated.
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Sega vs Accolade is a court case. I'll keep you from having to look it up as the grandparent asked you to: It concludes that you can't use copyright/trademark law to block interoperability. The case originally deals with some copied code necessary to make Sega Genesis (AKA Sega Megadrive) games work, but I would guess the court would likely apply same legal line to the ids in question. (The original issue that lead to Accolade doing the reverse engineering was that Sega charged licensing fees for producing cartridges; Accolade avoided these fees by reverse engineering everything, bypassing the check and producing the cartridges themselves.)
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
No they don't. Writing a daemon that reads and writes to an XML file (that has changed formats in the past) is NOT an API. Stop saying there is an API.
Ok fine, you can take that XML document, derive an XSD from that file using XSD.exe.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x6c1kb0s(VS.71).aspx
Then take that XSD again and run it against XSD.exe to derive classes to read and write XML documents of that schema.
So they don't provide a direct API but any programmer worth their pay can perform the above steps to create the necessary classes.
XML files can be APIs. For example, a WSDL is an XML document describing a webservice with defined inputs and callable methods. I've also encountered situations in my job where the only "API" for communicating with an entity is a series of XSDs describing the format of the data they want. I've used the above tool to derive classes for creating files in the correct format and for parsing their responses which also arrive in XML format described in their documentation by an XSD file.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Sure... if you arrange with the company ahead of time to explain that's what you'd like to do.
The xml file that describes the iTunes database is a) plain XML b) has been extended but has not been changed in such a way as to disable any third party software that uses it and c) appears to exist for the sole purpose of third party use. iTunes maintains it's own binary database but also keeps the XML version up to date to make it easy for others to use. Apple also provides SyncServices, an API for syncing devices. All you have to do is tie the two together and you're finished. As lots of others have already done.
Sure, Apple could write and maintain some sort of plugin architecture for iTunes. They don't want to. I can't say I blame them for not wanting to do all the work to support and maintain Palm's "iPhone killer," particularly not when they've already made it trivial for Palm to do so themselves.
This isn't about trademarks or copyrights, this is a matter of USB IF compliance.
Which Palm is squarely out of.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Given that Apple was the first into the whole PDA space with the Newton
I think you are confusing Apple with Psion, or Go, or Grid, all of whom released PDAs before Apple. In Psion's case, almost a decade earlier. Psion morphed into what is now by far the world's most popular smartphone OS, Symbian.
Da Blog
I'm not saying an XML file is the same as an application.
What I am saying, and let me be very clear on this, is that Palm needs to write their own software to sync their media player, and not be too lazy or incompetent to write their own software. Let me say it again, because apparently I haven't made my point clear:
PALM IS EITHER TOO LAZY OR INCOMPETENT TO WRITE THEIR OWN (COMPLETELY ITUNES COMPATIBLE) SOFTWARE TO SYNC THEIR OWN DAMN MEDIA PLAYER LIKE EVERY OTHER COMPANY OUT THERE.
Apple was not required to write their own XML file that gets updated right along with their binary file database. They could have said screw you to their competitors, and actually locked people into iTunes using a binary file that no one else could read without reverse engineering Apple's software. Instead, they made an easy way for someone to pull all of the information out of iTunes, and sync it to their own device instead of using iTunes.
Instead of Palm doing the right thing, and not being a bunch of slimy, incompetent, lazy fucks, they instead are stealing Apple's code, and using it to pretend they are an iPod, violating the USB specs that Palm already agreed to obey.
Instead of writing their own syncing software (and gee, let me digress for a moment. Palm has a history of writing really, really, really crappy syncing software. Its no wonder they want to use iTunes), they need to piggy back on someone elses work, because they are either too incompetent or too lazy to write their own software. Every other media player out there was capable of doing it. Every other media player allows people to sync their iTunes content directly to their player.
Why isn't palm? Right. Because they can't be bothered too. Because they are idiots. Because they are incompetent. Because putting that much development and Q&A work into an application takes money they can't afford to spend right now. Because they are getting trounced by Apple who finally made an easy to use application that works for most people, and can't afford to compete with Apple on a level playing field.
So, instead of putting their own resources into Q&A and testing and support, they need to pull this kind of bullshit, and when it stops working, they blame Apple, because Apple "broke" syncing with something that was never designed to support palm's piece of junk hardware to begin with.
Kidding? You're the one that's got to be kidding.
One of these days i'm going to find this 'peer' guy and reset HIS connection!
You're just one of the elitist geeks who doesn't get the appeal. Most of those things you mentioned were design decisions to limit the amount of complexity built into the system. It does what nearly everyone wants of a digital music player, does those things well, and makes them easy and approachable. Modding and computer enthusiast stuff may be your thing, but don't be so narrow-minded to think that is what matters to more than a small cadre of people on /.
~ I am logged on, therefore I am.
Do you live in an alternative universe where MP3s are the only means through which to play back digital music, or what?
Hint: Ogg or some lossless codec
You're rewriting history. iTunes was written before the iPod existed.
There isn't a bit of OSS-licensed software that Apple uses that they do not keep as open and for which the source to their changes is not available. And that even goes for software they own!
You are an ignorant piece of shit who deserves to die.
Typical Apple mentality.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It's legitimate now to break contracts and to lie? Or would that only be bad if Apple did it?
I hope you die for being such an asshole.
There is nothing stopping Palm from writing their own software. Lying is not "competing". It's lying.
Apple does not have anything close to a monopoly on anything. Amazon started their music store well after Apple. It seems to be doing well. Prices are pretty much the same anywhere you go, and certainly Apple is not the cheapest. So obviously Apple is not able to dictate the prices for online music sales. Apple has no real control over the market of online music sales, and certainly no control that harms consumers in any way.
Majority share is not the same as having a monopoly. Once shit-heads like you understand this, slashdot might be a better place.
Palm is crippling themselves. Apple is doing nothing more than making sure that devices are not lying to iTunes. I guess in your world it's OK to lie.
You deserve to die, painfully, for your sheer, unmitigated stupidity.
First of all, the USB IF is not enforcing anything. They are, however, upset with Palm for LYING. I hope you fucking die because someone lies to you about something important. You are an unethical piece of shit and don't deserve to exist.
Actually I was saying that the iPod is an overpriced, shiny toy with fewer features than many of its competitors.
If that is the case, why does iPod have 75% market-share? And don't give me that BS about advertising or something like that. Could it be because those other players are cheap and flimsy pieces of shit? Sure, they might have all the features you could possibly ever want, but their UI's are crap, and their design is crap. Who cares about zillion features if those features are tedious and cumbersome to use?
If iPod has 75% market-share, then obviously the buying public does not think that they are overpriced. If iPod had a tiny market-share, then you might be on to something.
The iPod just has that je ne sais quoi/popular cool factor that makes people want it, not because it's better on features or price.
Why do people want to have one? Do you really think that they want to have it because they see a bunch of dancing silhouettes on an ad? Did it ever occur to you that there's more to mp3-players that just features and price?
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Palm is doing what is necessary to provide compatibility.
Bullshit. Palm could do what RIM or Microsoft does: write their own syncing-software that scrapes the iTunes-libary and makes it available for syncing to the device. Of course that would require that Palm writes their own software, as opposed to leeching software made by others....
If Apple and USB Interoperability Forum have worked to make the system deliberately incompatible, Palm has the legal right to circumvent that, and to sue Apple and USB-IF if they continue the cat-and-mouse game.
There's nothing stopping Palm from using the iTunes-library for syncing. It's just a bunch of files and folder on the HD. They could write their own software that uses those files and folders in syncing the device.
They're going to end up with an anti-trust suit if they persist.
Since Apple is not a monopoly, I fail to see how they could end up in court over this.
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Monopoly? No. By latest estimates they have about 75% of the mp3-player market. 75% is not a monopoly and Apple has no "stranglehold". There are plenty of competitors both in players and marketplaces (many of those marketplaces are interoperable even, like Amazon). And the music sold in iTunes is interoperable as well (video is not, however).
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The XML file....is used by RIM for their Blackberry desktop application on windows and OS X as well as an Application called Missing Sync which syncs WinMo, Palm and Palm Pre devices with contacts, photos
So Palm had a better way to get info about contacts and photos. Fine.
and non-DRM'ed songs from the iTunes library.
Maybe this is what has Apple's bun in a twist. A Palm that says it's an iPod might be able to receive DRM'ed songs. But as a customer of iTunes, I have the same right to store all my songs where I please as I do my contacts and photos. I bought the songs, after all. Is third-party device storage of DRM'ed songs also permitted by the iTunes API or Library XML? If not, then I don't much care about Apple's whining about their Device and Vendor IDs. Maybe Palm should make the spoofing an option instead of the default, but factory-enabled iPod spoofing is in my interest.
I guess if you call a codec 3rd party software you are right, anything quicktime can play it can re-encode and other than drm protected windows media files and some old windows codec AVIs i have no problem opening any media file in QuickTime.
Funny, other than Apples formats and MPEG, it appears as though QuickTime is limited out of the box. It isn't like VLC, or even RealPlayer for Christ's sake. Everything requires a 3rd party codec. Windows Media Player seems to have this habit too.
Unless you just enable hard drive mode support on the ipod. If you do it shows up as a hard drive just fine. I know it is hard to check a box these days though.
Funny, every time I just decide to forgo syncing and just copy the files to my iPod running in disk mode, it never seems smart enough to figure out they are there.
I can't seem to get my Shuffle to support anything other than Apple's formats or MP3. No WMA support, no OGG, no Real Media support. I don't want to re-encode as that is slow and causes very noticeable loss of quality. I could understand not supporting DRMed stuff, as part of the point of DRM is for nothing to work with it, but really, how annoying.
The Gospel according to lolcat
It doesn't even support Flash/Javascript like the browser on my Nokia does :/.
So? At least the browser on my Nokia E71 is utter crap. I might use it if I'm desperate, but there's no way in hell I would use it for casual browsing. But the browser on my iPod touch is very, very good. Hell, I bet that I do most of my browsing with my iPod these days! Even when I'm at home.
Just because Nokia-browser supports some buzzwords does not mean that it's actually a better browser.
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I have 23 processes. I don't have anything eating up cycles. It has been this way for almost 7 years, now. Every time I reinstall XP it gets this exact same configuration.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
And setting prices? You'll notice when MS announced the more capable Zune HD with a low -- possibly money-losing (or "dumping"?) price -- Apple promptly lowered prices on their new nano and iPod Touch.
So? If Apple was a monopoly, they could have increased their prices. But they can't since if they market themselves too high, people will buy a competing device instead.
So, are you arguing that Apple is a monopoly, because Apple lowered the price of their product in face of harder competition?
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However, if Microsoft is a monopoly because it costs infinitely more than Linux, what do you call OSX?
Microsoft is a monopoly because they control over 90% of the market. OS X is not a monopoly, since it's market-share is about 5-8%.
It's actually built more or less entirely from technologies which exist on Linux, although few of the ones we would identify as OSX features are as polished.
There's plenty of stuff in OS X which does not exist in Linux. Core Animation, Quartz, Aqua, consistent HIG, Time Machine, Automator, Grand Central Dispatch....
Then again, Linux (or indeed, *BSD) has scads of features not present in OSX, at the kernel level.
Too bad that users don't really get to benefit from those features. I use both Linux and OS X. And in everyday use, OS X beats Linux 100-0. Linux might have more robust kernel, but it just happens that the parts of the system users interacts with are crappy when compared to OS X.
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It's even better than that, not only is all the data on the disk already but, as nneonneo points out above, Apple provide a nice neat .XML file (with a fully published spec) that tells any application that wants to know exactly where all the data is, plus anything else it knows about it, plus the playlists.
Palm haven't written any desktop software any more, I guess because their philosophy is "WebOs doesn't need to sync to your PC, it syncs to the cloud!" which is fine except most people don't yet have their music in the cloud.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Bullshit. As the above 20 posters that have gotten +5 ratings have said iTunes will not sync with a non Apple product.
this isn't really that difficult people! We are talking about two different things here:
a) iTunes
b) iTunes-library
You are right: iTunes will not work with non-apple hardware (apart from ugly hacks like what Palm is doing here). But you CAN sync the iTunes-library to third-party devices! RIM does it, Microsoft does it, why can't Palm do it as well?
What's important here is that can you take the contents of users iTunes-library, and sync it to a third-party device. and the answer to that is YES. No, you can't use iTunes to do it, but you can write your own piece of software that takes users iTunes-library, and syncs it to your device.
Yeah Palm could write their own software that uses the library information but they can't use iTunes which is apparently what their customers are demanding.
Have they demanded it? I would guess that they would demand the ability to sync their iTunes-libraries to the Pre. I mean, that's what's important, as opposed to demanding that they must be able to do it with some specific app. The thing that is valuable to the user is the library, not iTunes.
Right now Palm.users are stuck with a solution that may or may not work, as opposed to having a solution that works all the time. The former is the hack Palm is using, the latter is a proper syncing-software for Pre.
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That's a merge. Sync is normally one way
Rsync is one way.
Re-sync'ing a failed RAID1 array is one way (you copy only from the good drive to the replaced drive, you don't copy the all-zeroes from the replaced drive to the good drive.
The TV sync signal tells your TV which line the transmitted signal is currently on. It doesn't tell the transmitter which line your TV is on.
No, its not a horrible analogy. It very very accurate.
You object to the word borrowed. I'll substitute the word "Stolen".
Oh STFU already. How exactly are they "stealing" anything if the software was given to them for free? They are following the requirements of the license, and the authors of the software in question have not complained. So what exactly is the problem here?
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If Microsoft is a monopoly based upon its market penetration, then so too is the iStore.
What is "iStore"? And to put things in to perspective: Microsoft has over 90% market-share. iPods have about 75% market-share. ITunes Music Store is the biggest single music retailer, but it's not dominant. If we look at downloads only, I believe that it's market-share is about 80%. But there's no real barrier of entry here. Doesn't music downloaded from Amazon automatically go to users iTunes-library? And you could take your music from iTunes and move it to some other library or device if you wanted to.
Compared to operating-systems, there is real competition in the player-market and online music-stores. Yes, Apple is the biggest in both of them, but they do not have a lock-in that stops users from using some other device or service instead.
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Chill out. I have an iPod. I just don't delude myself that I got it because it was the best MP3 player I could find.
I think a lot of people get it because everyone else they know has one (except for that one kid with the Zune). It's probably the only thing they got to try using, and yeah, the UI is pretty nice. And a lot of them are probably bought because the kids nags their parents for an iPod.
As for me, the whole reason I have one is because work bought me a MacBook, and I got a $200 coupon for an iPod along with it, so in my case, it was cheaper than the alternatives.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Oh, stop with that Apple is not a monopoly issue.
The only people who spout that line are Apple fanboys.
Icebike, you are being a retard. Stop it.
Abuse of dominant market position is the issue here.
How is Apple "abusing" their market-position?
Allowing you to purchase in the store, but preventing you from syncing the music or playing it on your choice of devices is an attempt to use their dominant market position in one industry to achieve dominance in another industry.
You can sync your iTunes-library to other devices if you want to. You can also buy your music from some other store, and play it back on an iPod (or whatever you want to use). Again: stop being a retard. You are in no shape or form tied to iTunes.
All there is is Apple treating some of their customers like second rate citizens.
All there is the fact that Palm is either too lazy or too incompetent (or both) to write their own sync-software that syncs the users iTunes-library to their device. That is what everyone else does, but apparently that is too much to ask from Palm.
Or they will have to document, license and publish the protocol to purchase from the iTunes store.
What does purchasing music have to do with this? Why couldn't the user buy their music from some other store instead? What matters here is whether it's possible to sync the users library to third-party device. Yes, it is possible.
Its just a matter of time.
You can not hold 70% share and still claim you are exempt from regulation because you have not yet achieved perfect monopoly.
I honestly see no monopoly here. The barrier of entry is low, there are plenty of alternatives (both hardware and software).... Where is the monopoly? How is Apple abusing their supposed "monopoly"?
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Apple will sell music to anyone, in a standard non DRM format too.
Only if they run Apple software.
The same software that is a portal for their dominant market position also has syncing capabilities, but will only sync with iPod's.
But the user is free to
a) buy his music from some other store
b) buy his music from ITMS, and sync that music to his third-party device, using third-party software.
You are in no shape or form required to buy music only from ITMS. But if you do, you are not forced to use iTunes to sync that music to your device.
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A I see the Apple Fanboy Army has shown up to defend their God.
you are still being a retard. Your utter hatred for Apple is showing, and it's clouding your judgement.
The point here, which you choose to ignore in your blind devotion to all things Jobs, is that Apple is using its Dominant (monoploy) position with the iTunes store to enforce the use of iTunes software.
You can buy your music through iTunes, and you can then use those purchased songs in some other mediamanager. You are in no shape or form forced to use iTunes.
Of course the actual purchase is done in iTunes. But by same logic I could complain that I have to go to amazon.com, if I want to buy from their online-sotre.... If you don't want to use iTunes, feel free to use some other online-store then. There's plenty to choose from.
But hey, that same stooge army has mod points, and anything on slashdot critical of apple will be modded into oblivion in short order.
Maybe they are modded down because they are stupid?
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How is Palm supposed to compete with Apple when they have a pretty good monopoly on online music sales?
Apple does not have monopoly in music-sales. And I fail to see the point even if they did. The music purchased from iTunes can be used in other mdeiamanagers just fine, and they could therefore be synced to third-party devices as well.
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I used to be a longtime Palm user, only stopped carrying my Tungsten T3 a year or so ago after getting my iPhone. Palm has been an a downhill plummet for the past several years anyway. I used to love their devices in spite of their limitations as they were the best and most stable mobile platform, and the OS really seemed designed for the form factor instead of "squeezed" into it, like Windows CE always seemed to be.
Then, they starting changing the device hardware interfaces every few revisions and breaking old accessories. They purchased BeOS and subsequently sped up it's death. They never did properly support OSX with their Palm Desktop. They spun off and started an on-again/off-again relationship with their OS, pretty much abandoning PalmOS and halting development of things such as true/improved multitasking and start pushing Windows Mobile. They then come out with WebOS which is in many ways is just another entry in the iPhone/Android/etc. new generation mobile OS trend.
The childish tantrums they are having over WebOS and iTunes really shows in my opinion how they have edge as the leader in handhelds to just another follower.As has been pointed out time and again, there are legitimate ways that the iTunes library can be accessed and synced but instead Palm is LYING and trying to piggy back on Apple's work, and when things fail it's Apple that gets the support calls/blame not Palm. They should instead update their PalmDesktop to support the Pre and use the hooks that are available to add iTunes library syncing, but instead they are violating the USB specifications and abandoning their responsibilities and agreements as a USB-IF member and I truly hope they get slapped hard.
I have lost a lot of respect for Palm, especially over the course of the Pre debacle, and am not sure they would be able to win me back as a customer now. A lot of the people that made up the old great Palm are no longer with the company. Thankfully, in many ways Apple has picked up the ball that Palm dropped several years ago when they introduced the iPhone SDK/App Store.
They merely state what the hardware is just like the browser states "I am IE6.0, NT5.0,5.1". Even if it's made by Opera.
Because that, is by definition, a monopoly.
Same with patents.
If you're going to go out of your way to use obscure formats, you really don't have anything to complain about when you find it hard to play back your music.
How many of the shinny toys can you use to buy iTunes wares? None, except the ones blessed by Apple.
So Apple is using its dominant position in the digital music market in order to favour its own hardware sales.
Apple is perilously close to be investigated for monopolistic behaviour, only Apple fanboys are closing their eyes to this fact.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
75% isn't an effective monopoly?
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
"In order for Apple to be ruled a monopoly in the digital music player market, they would need to be proven to have the ability to set the prices for ipods without regard for the price of other music players. This would be a very tough sell in a court of law"
Lemme see, pretty much whenever one looks the price of an Apple gadget is the same. The price is fixed and companies are clearly not allowed to set the price as they see fit in order to compete for clients.
Add the exclusive contract with one mobile carrier per country and you are looking to something that looks quite similar to the IBM-Microsoft duopoly of early days.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Um, no.
rsync is a protocol and library to transfer small amounts of file changes. The rather simple program included with it named rsync, can, indeed, only go in one direction at once. Because to do anything else, it would need to keep track of changes in files, which means it would need to keep track of what you've done before.
Like the program named 'dsync' does, in fact. Or Microsoft's 'SyncToy' does.
As for RAID1, that rather disproves your point. Under your definition of sync being one-way, RAID1 would work by constantly have one drive's content copied to the other. And you could only replace the second drive, not the first. Which obviously isn't even vaguely how RAID1 works.
No, a 'resync' is because sane sync implementation won't copy failed data off one of the things it's syncing. In addition to noticing changes and propagating them across, they also notice total failure. And instead of idiotically thinking 'Well, I guess the guy erased all the data on this drive by putting in a new one, let me erase the data on the other drive, too', they copy the data to new drive.
That is what is commonly called a 'resync', when the system notices that a specific sync location has totally invalid data, or no data, on it, and hence needs all data rewritten there. The fact that RAID is smart enough not to copy information off a new drive does not make it one-way. This happens in RAID1, you will notice, with either drive, aka, it's bidirectional.
And a TV sync signal has exactly one item of data, and hence both ends cannot change it. More importantly, it is a timekeeping data. All time synchronization is one-way, hence no one needs to specify it. Timekeeping data is brand new and hence one end cannot 'change' it, while the other end 'keep it the same', hence two-way sync can never make any sense.
Whereas computer file synchronization and computer data synchronization both can be either one way or two way. If you mean 'two-way', you normally say 'sync'. If you mean 'one-way', you normally say something else, like 'mirror', or 'one-way sync'. Read this and notice that they say it's technically either kind, but they're talking about two-way. That's what everyone does, and uses specifics if talking about unidirectional. See also this, and note 'and vis versa'.
And, perhaps more important for this discussion, iTune sync with an iPod or iPhone is always two-way sync, and hence when people are talking about having third party devices syncing with iTunes, they are talking about the same thing.
And 'merge', incidentally, does not mean 'two way sync'. If I merge in changes to a file in a versioning system, I end up with a file that has both my changes and someone else...but they still have just their changes. Likewise, in Windows Vista, if I copy a directory to another location where one with that name already exists, I can 'merge' that directory into the other...but that won't do anything to the location I copied it from.
Merge is, generally, when two sets of changes end at one location, which is usually accomplished by copying all changes from one place and inserting them into another, hence one way. Although sometimes, instead, 'merge' means two-way but only 'add' and not 'delete'.
I can't think of any use where merge means propagation back and forth of all changes.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
No one is breaking the law on either side. Palm is breaking a contract with the USB IF though,
Is Palm breaking a contract with the USB-IF? I'm not trying to be snarky, I really want to know: Use of the USB logo requires an agreement with the USB-IF, but If I was a cheapskate and didn't want to license the USB logo, what's stopping me from just making up a vendor ID (possibly conflicting with one issued by the USB-IF) and shipping my product?
On that I am not certain - if Palm is using a USB logo anywhere on their device or packaging or indicating that it has USB compatibility then there will certainly have been a contract or ToU they have to abide by.
This may be covered implicitly (or explicitly with signed documents) when you implement a hardware device that talks on the USB bus (either by using a generic off the shelf USB chip, or rolling your own.
So, as to Palm's specific ills vs the USB IF, I am not totally clear - but Apple *does* have a licensed USB vendor ID and are entitled to protect it (or have the USB IF protect it for them by going after Palm in the event that they continue to use it).
I fail to see how anything I said could possibly be construed as justifying lying or breaking contracts. What on *earth* are you talking about?
Are you talking about the device itself "lying" to Apple's software? First, I don't consider that "lying", since we're not talking about a sentient being at any point in the process.
Second, even if a device delivering an invalid identifier to software *was* somehow "lying", think about these occurences that happen EVERY DAY: Forging http headers for QA/testing purposes. Replacing chips in your vehicle for better performance. Using third-party inject/toner cartridges, lenses for cameras, batteries, etc. NONE of that would be possible if hardware didn't "lie" to software. Does this hurt the market? Of course not. It helps foster innovation, which helps the market. Consider how much those inkjet cartridges or lenses would cost you if no third-party alternative was available.
Third, Palm isn't under contract with Apple not to do it, so there's not breach of contract. (Otherwise, Apple would have filed suit.)
As an aside, you may wish to consult with a professional for your anger management issues. All I did was express an opinion, then clarified what I meant. How that makes me an asshole is beyond me. And the fact that you hope I'll die for it? Yeah, maybe it's time to go back on the meds.
This is about a court interpreting what restrictions are OK to place. The previous precedent is for restrictions says that legal restrictions to certain activities do not apply if the restrictions are used to block the only way to achieve interoperability. If the vendor id is made a functional requirement by Apple (and the USB IF allows making it a functional requirement) then this weaken the position of the USB IF, and would seem likely to have those clauses of the contract/spec narrowed by interpreting as "unless made necessary to allow interoperability", just like copyright and trademark law was narrowed.
It's not a done deal, as there's complications through the use of a separate entity (the USB IF), but it's a relevant precedent.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Well you have already answered your own question... xp
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
Or is it just Palm being completely idiotic as usual ?
Actually Palm is being extremely smart here. By acting like an iPhone they are diluting the iPhone brand and making their own users feel like their device is "Just as good" as an iPhone even if it isn't. It's a pretty blatant and disgusting attempt at leaching onto the popularity of Apples brand.
-- Adam McCormick
Making your competitors run extra software means there isn't an even playing field.
iTunes is a free application for syncing iPods and iPhones. Are you also mad that BlackBerry Media Sync doesn't allow iPods or Palm Pres to sync with it? That the Zune software doesn't allow iPods or Palm Pres to sync with it?
It's so unfair that device manufacturers have to write their own drivers and software for the device...
Apple's under NO requirement to let the Pre work with iTunes, at all. They can deny access to iTunes for any reason. Sega versus Accolade would only serve useful if Apple wouldn't let the Pre work with OS X. Which they are. The Pre works fine with The Missing Sync(even Syncs iTunes library!).
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Would you agree that neither contacts or Photos are managed on windows/OS X by Apple through iTunes?
This is not relevant. The Magnuson-Moss act permits you to use any compatible device, supply, or part as a replacement without voiding your warranty, proving that workalikes are a desirable outcome. The DMCA expressly permits reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability, which is what this is. And Sega v. Accolade shows that using a copyrighted string (not precisely what is happening here, but applicable enough) to be recognized as a team player is legal since that is an artificial barrier to compatibility, just like USB IDs. Apple's deliberate manipulation of this situation is anticompetitive. Whether Apple likes it or not, they have created a standard for iPod communications, and Palm is only trying to utilize it. They have every legal right to do so, and the USB IF's control of USB IDs may in fact be illegal since they have a monopoly on approving their use and disallowing their use creates an artificial bar for users.
Please, stop it with the intellectual dishonestly.
I believe that a typo like this is your brain's attempt to stop you from saying something stupid. Apple created and then destroyed an entire clone market, you think they give a fuck about these other companies? RIM is a competitor. Wake up.
Although Apple does not directly use the XML file for the library in general use, it does serve as a backup
Blah blah blah, a lot of irrelevant shit deleted. If Apple changed the format, they'd know what they changed it to, so this is an irrelevant argument.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
And even as competing brands have made copiers and facial tissues, you'll find that no one uses the brand names, even now. Common usage does not trump brand names. Now, the brand name owners might not have a case for common usage of their brand names in popular works and such but as far as advertising goes, yeah, no one else can use them.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Do you work for Apple?
1)Ah yes DivX - Embrace and modify. Take a perfectly good open standard like MPEG4/H2.64 and modify do that you need an licensed addition codec to make or view. No thanks I will stick with an MPEG video standard thanks.
2) Well the class iPods do support hard drive mode. The touch and iPhone are much more advanced allowing software applications. I don't think Apple want end user tinkering that way.
It's a support nightmare.
3) How many audio codecs need to be supported? MP3 and now AAC are clear now the dominant standard. We don't need 50 new standards just supporting these two plenty. Maybe if you stopped "getting" your music from torrent sites you would care so much?
Yeah I could rant for days as well. Successful does not equal monopoly. They are successful because they worked hard at it. But it seem the trend to butcher companies, especially American companies, because they have become successful.
Let me steal, sorry spoof, your vendor provided and registered MAC layer network address and well see how happy you are about that. I'm thinking you wouldn't be so keen on that practice.
And forcing your competitors to actively support your hardware with their software is? Because that's what will happen (legally speaking) if Apple gives up before Palm does. Apple will have conceeded that they do support syncing with a Palm Pre through iTunes. Then, when something bad happens, or Apple changes their sync protocol to enable a new feature, and iTunes bricks a few thousand Pres, Apple would be liable for the damages.
Apple has been *very* clear to Palm that they do not approve of Palm trying to piggyback on the iPod sync protocol (which is not documented for external use). If Apple gives up, they've just become an 'apparent agent' of Palm (in a legal sense) who may from that point on to provide a sync solution regardless of their own desire to do so, or even Palm being willing to cooperate.
Apple doesn't have access to the Pre code-base. A change at Palm could break syncing.
Palm doesn't have access to Apple's internal iPod sync documentation. A change there could break syncing. If Apple conceeds the fight and becomes an apparent agent of Palm, *APPLE* ends up being responsible for maintaining the functionality.
Apple doesn't want to be responsible for maintaining sync compatibility between iTunes and a third-party product which could change behavior at any time.
Palm doesn't want to either, which is odd, since the product in question is *THEIRS*.
Enforcing compatibility requires that you be able to be certain what a given device is by reading it's various IDs. When a device starts lying about it's Vendor ID or Manufacturer ID, it is breaking compatibility with the USB standard. Using your logic, I should be able to create a USB device which advertises itself as a Microsoft product, manufactured by Microsoft. From that information you would then be required to deduce that my device is, in fact, a webcam produced by IdiotCorp and load the proper drivers.
Try re-badging a Chevy with a Toyota logo, and see if the Toyota dealership will replace your break pads with genuine Toyota parts.
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