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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?"
The fact is compatiblity is already present. Apple allows 3rd parties to sync the iTunes library to their devices and it does it in a documented and supported way. Palm is just deciding to ignore all this functionality and they are breaking the USB spec to do it, just so they can save a few bucks. Now it has gone as far as the USB-IF commenting that Palm is breaking their license agreement (or contract), which in and of itself is illegal. Next step is probably to revoke their license to use and display the USB name and logo on their product's marketing material.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
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
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.
They don't allow anybody to sync. What they "allow" by not specifically forbidding, is access to the iTunes library. You can read playlists and such from it. If you want to sync, you need to write your own software to do it, which some companies have. However, only non-DRMd files can be transfered in this way. If you have a song you bought on iTunes that is DRM'd, you cannot sync it except through iTunes, which will only connect to Apple hardware.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
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.
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.
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.