Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Palm Ignores USB-IF Warning, Restores iTunes Sync

Posted by kdawson on from the gauntlet-firmly-on-floor dept.

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?"

21 of 656 comments (clear)

  1. Stop buying from Apple. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Stop buying from Apple. by beelsebob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Third possible explanation:

      They don't let a political argument between two companies stand in the way of buying the device they see as best suiting their needs.

  2. I remember by ShakaUVM · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:I remember by Idbar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're right, proof of that is that IE and Safari still add the string Mozilla to their User-Agents.

      If that ensures compatibility, of Palm's products, I guess they are making the effort to keep their customers happy (even though iTunes, at least for Windows, is the worst piece of software ever).

    2. Re:I remember by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, they "allow" it by providing a human readable, documented XML file which is kept updated by iTunes only for the convenience of third parties (iTunes uses it's own, binary database). I'm not sure what more they could do to "allow" third party access to the iTunes database.

      No, Apple doesn't write the sync software for you. Why should they? Write your own.

      The point about legacy DRMed music is interesting. Do DRMed files work on a Pre synced through iTunes?

  3. Re:Apple's activity is criminal here, Palm's is le by Mike+Rice · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:Apple's activity is criminal here, Palm's is le by itzdandy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Patents by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Patents by The_DoubleU · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Unless USB-IF ties the USB patent license to the USB logo license.

      Or USB-IF could revoke the patent license because Palm is not following their regulations. Then Palm can be sued for patent infringement.

      --
      What power has law where only money rules.
    2. Re:Patents by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Or USB-IF could revoke the patent license because Palm is not following their regulations. Then Palm can be sued for patent infringement.

      Which'll never happen. Palm may not have the best product now, but they had several years' head start on just about everyone. Can you imagine how many iPhone features are covered by Palm patents?

      If Apple sues Palm, or if they start a proxy war through the USB-IF, they might as well move their company from California to East Texas, because they'll spend the rest of their lives in patent litigation.

    3. Re:Patents by sunspot42 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Can you imagine how many iPhone features are covered by Palm patents?

      Given that Apple was the first into the whole PDA space with the Newton - remember, they coined the phrase Personal Digital Assistant - I should think that quite a few Palm features are covered by Apple patents. Palm isn't exactly in any financial position to wage a lengthy patent war with Apple. Whereas Apple is sitting on enough cash to buy Palm many times over.

      You'd think Palm would go around the whole iTunes sync issue entirely. Just develop software (or customize existing software, like MediaMonkey) that pulls in the existing iTunes library and allows it to sync with the Pre.

    4. Re:Patents by steve_bryan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Brief answer: Yes, a mere figment. The Apple Newton is recognizably an ancestor to the current iPhone/iPod touch. The Psion products from the late 80's are more like pocket calculators with an attitude. Apple created the category of PDA's at least a decade too early and dropped it because of the product being commercially untenable at the time. Remarkably they managed to sneak back in under the pretense of creating media players and arrived just as the needed technology and infrastructure matured.

      To be less brief in my dismissal of Psion compare the API's and development system that Apple provided for third party developers for the Newton versus what Psion had. The difference was much more than slight.

  6. Re:I Wonder What Would Happen If... by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One difference: with Ethernet, duplication of MAC addresses causes a malfunction of the network itself. Prefixes are assigned to companies for a technical purpose: to insure no two companies ever manufacture cards that share an address. The USB vendor ID isn't used for addressing, so as long as the device correctly implements the capabilities it advertises itself as implementing (which aren't tied to vendor ID) there should be no hardware-level malfunctions. Apple's trying to use the vendor ID merely to block sync with devices that would otherwise be technically perfectly capable of correctly syncing with iTunes. IMO it's Apple's right to try that, but nobody else is obliged to go along with them.

    I'd note that vendor impersonation has a long history. Microsoft themselves do it, Internet Explorer to this day claims to be Mozilla in it's user-agent string, and this was done with the deliberate intention of fooling Web servers into thinking it was actually Netscape.

  7. Re:Apple's activity is criminal here, Palm's is le by Z00L00K · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.
  8. Re:To give people an analogous situation by erroneus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Microsoft has already been taken to court and lost for behavior that is quite similar to what you describe.

  9. How do they sync back? by Kaseijin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:How do they sync back? by JohnFen · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If Apple let third party devices to sync back to iTunes then it would be possible for a poorly designed device to cause serious harm to your media library. Supporting such devices in a relatively safe manner is possible but it would be very expensive.

      I hear this sort of argument all the time from Apple fans. The thing is, this sounds like Apple insulting their users -- in effect, calling them all dumbasses that need to be restricted in what they can do because in the end they'll blame Apple for things Apple has no fault in.

      Perhaps that's true, and Apple fans are largely stupid. Or perhaps Apple fans are largely intelligent and Apple is wrong in being so condescending.

      Either way, that argument tells me that Apple does not make products that are aimed at people like me -- intelligent,sophisticated users who want flexibility and freedom.

      That, at the root of it, is why I don't, and won't, buy anything Apple and discourage others from doing the same.

  10. Re:Apple's activity is criminal here, Palm's is le by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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
  11. Re:Apple's activity is criminal here, Palm's is le by 10101001+10101001 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    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?

    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?

    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.

    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.

    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?

    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.

    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.

    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
  12. "Proxy War" by SuperKendall · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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
  13. Re:Apple's activity is criminal here, Palm's is le by jo_ham · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.