iTunes 8.2.1 released: Update cripples Palm Pre sync

FreeBSD and Mac OS X are not "father and son". They share the same grandfather. At best, they are remote cousins.

What Apple so I buy into all of your products but I cannot use iTunes with my Palm Pre? Just because I decided not to go the iPhone route you smack me in the butt eh.... This blows!

Maybe Palm was doing something wrong pretending to be an iPod device. Or maybe Apple is pretending that Dr Dos is not good enough to run Windows.

Palm would most likely be better off showing up as a mass storage device for loading songs onto. Palm should probably come up with their own software for syncing various things like contacts. They already have a known protocol to emulate. Making a client for Windows, OS X, and Linux would not be hard for them to do technically.

I'm having a tough time forming an opinion on this. I keep hoping that Apple would be more un-PC than they are. See the 17+ article to see what I mean.

Children don't own iPhones or iPod touches unless their parents give them to them. Children can't sign into contracts with AT&T. That's the way it is in the USA.

Apple's OS X is not Linux. But perhaps Apple should not drift too far from the FOSS spirit because they do use FreeBSD. That and NeXT Step saved Apple from extinction.

Apple is also still providing rather valuable and profitable infrastructure through iTunes. Maybe they could sell a license to the Pre? Competition is healthy. More so if it pays you to compete.

I personally would welcome it if Apple were forced (yes, forced) to open up iTunes for third party musical devices.

The American justice department doesn't seem to be inclined to do so - who knows... maybe the EU can make something happen.

I own an iPhone, so it's currently not a problem for me. But I like the Pre, hate vendor lock-in and these defacto monopolies.

To me Sony and Samsung players sound a lot better than the iPod. But they all come with crap software.

I am not surprised at all.

First off, this isn't anti-competitive behavior on Apple's part. If Apple banned Palm's software from running on OS X or from their devices being hocked up to Apple's computers, then that would be different.

Second, Steve Jobs has made it very clear that Apple makes iTunes and runs the iTunes music store, not to make money, but to help facilitate the sale of iPods and iPhones (that sale is what makes money for Apple). So Apple's goal is to break-even on the iTunes store and make their money selling the hardware, so they WOULD lose money if they allowed Palm to take advantage of iTunes and not pay for it. The lose in music sales to Palm Pre owners is irrelevant.

Apple had no choice.... they had to stop the Palm Pre from syncing. Palm has to licensee and/or create their own software/solution for syncing and pay the associated costs of that solution. If Apple allowed them to continue using iTunes, it would be tantamount to subsidizing Palm Pre sales (and therefore having Apple customers pay for Palm Pre users). Apple is also legally responsible to their shareholders - they had to stop this theft.

Palm advertising that the Prē syncs with iTunes, without confirming with Apple first is poor business practice.

If they had been already rejected by Apple, they should have sourced an alternative way of syncing; similar to how Nokia Media Transfer or Salling MediaSync does. Syncing by pretending to be an iPod is just asking for trouble.

I wonder if this kind of action could be construed as anti competitive.

What's the big deal? Nokia uses multimedia transfer manager which works very well with iTunes, can't Palm do something similar?

This is a horrible thing for Apple to do... it's one thing if the update broke the Pre sync accidentally, but to go out and actively break the the sync is bad.

If Microsoft did something to Windows to make it so that only Zunes would work, the whole internet/Apple community would be up in arms.

This is the behavior of a monopoly. With the huge market share iTunes and the iPod have I can see lawyers seeing these actions as being anti-competitive. I wouldn't be surprised if Palm caused Apple some legal problems over this.