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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?"

2 of 656 comments (clear)

  1. 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).