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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 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.
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
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?
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
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.
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??
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.
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?) ..."
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.