Forums | MacLife

Those bastards are too lazy to invest in their own software to sync with iTunes yet they are more than willing to hack iTunes. Aren't there some legal implications to that?

It seems Apple are the ones who are being jerks here. A person who uses iTunes is likely somebody who's made purchases from the iTunes music store, yes? So these are people who have given Apple money, and who are using an app which Apple wants to have as much market share as possible, yet Apple's telling them they can't use these things with a competitor's hardware? Well, that's just going to piss people off and make Apple look like the bad guy. Again.

Palm released webOS 1.2.1 yesterday, restoring the ability to sync to iTunes for the first time since the Sept 22 iTunes 9.0.1 update.  From the article:

Palm today re-enabled synchronization through Apple's iTunes for owners of its Pre smartphone, ignoring warnings from a standards group last month.

Apple isn't being a jerk here, they provide APIs for accessing the iTunes library. They provide the means for Palm to develop their own software that will allow their devices to pull media from iTunes - Palm is just being lazy. BlackBerry managed to make their own software.

Apple's not being a jerk as much as they don't want to have to support every music player out there - just as they don't want to provide Windows support on the Mac.

Just wanted to clear up a few misconceptions.

Palm don't crack/modify/distribute iTunes. The Pre claims to be an iPod Video and iTunes pick it up on its own, no patches required.
Apple don't provide APIs for syncing third party music players. All they provide is an XML file which has the playlist/rating/etc. info. This XML file allows third party devices to one-way sync music. They can't two-way sync like a real iPod can, and you need another program running to do the actual sync.

In my opinion Apple certainly has no legal obligation to support Palm, but they are being smurfs by deliberately trying to block other devices. Unfortunately this will end badly for the user as per usual, since future iPods will likely have some kind of encrypted handshake to stop Palm and other vendors from syncing.

robco wrote:

Yes, Palm can develop their own software - like Blackberry did. Apple is in no way obligated to support third-party music players. You can't use the Zune software for any device other than a Zune. There are plenty of FOSS apps that Palm could modify and distribute freely. They're being lazy. It's not difficult to parse the XML file and get the information needed.

Palm is also using Apple's USB Vendor ID to fool iTunes into viewing a Palm device as an iPod. This is extremely unethical. Not allowing other devices is actually good for the customer. Apple's model has always been seamless integration between hardware and software. If/when Apple puts new features into the iPod/iPhone that are not supported by third-party players, that will be bad for customers. They'll blame Apple for the problems even though it won't be Apple's fault. A significant number of Windows bugs aren't MS's fault, but are due to crappy device drivers and shoddy third-party software engineering. But it's MS and the Windows brand that take the hit.

If I were Apple, I'd give Palm a taste of their own medicine and develop a bit of software that will cause problems on Palm devices, but not iPods/iPhones. If iTunes sees the Palm as an Apple device, it should have no trouble pushing a software update to it...

The "mis-placed blame" argument is awfully weak. I think you need to provide a link or two to back that up because I am sick of people using this unsupported hypothesis to rationalize Apple's bad acting.
Because my observation is that when people hook a third party device up to a computer they tend to blame the new device's maker rather than the computer maker.

All this fuss over syncing. I don't know why anybody even cares. Hell, for that matter, I don't even understand why people get so worked up over portable music players. Take those damned ear-buds out and experience the world around you for a change! Heck, maybe you'll hear that mugger sneaking up on you or that truck careening out of control, like, before it's too late instead of afterward.

Is there ZunePhone yet? Make mine brown!