Palm updates Palm Pre webOS software, "fixes" iTunes bork

I'm a long time Mac and Windows user. I for one am enjoying this game of tit for tat. The success of the Palm Pre can only be a good thing for iPhone users. Competition is healthy. Quite frankly all you have to do is look at the failure of Palm over the years to see that. Everyone seems to forget that this is not the first time Palm and Apple have gone head to head. Remember the Newton? Ultimately it was the success of the Palm Pilot that killed Newton. The Pilot was simple elegant and extremely useful. Sound familiar? Palm owned the PDA market and eventually, for one reason or another maybe complacency maybe simple lack of vision, lost their way. The Treo was the first "Smart Phone" it had no competition. Even so Palm could not make it the huge success that RIM eventually did. Now Apple is king of the Smart Phone Market and of course the PC/Linux/BB Fanboys( had to get that in) are looking for that iPhone killer. They've been going nuts trying to find that iPod killer for years as well. The Pre is designed by Apple guys. They come from "that' environment they are no more PC guys then Steve Jobs is. I find the whole thing just funny. This iTunes thing also smacks of something very personal. Jobs and Rubenstein used to be friends as well as colleagues. Now they are enemies. But the Pre is no more a threat to the iPhone then the iPhone has been to the BB. The Pre is a great device in it's own right and Apple should be able to learn from not only their own success but the success of others.

It's funny how both companies are tit for tatting on this. Apple shouldn't worry about people syncing with iTunes. They know they have a good iStore. If Pre users want to sync with iTunes its good for Apple as long as the iTune users buy stuff from the iStore. If it is for just managing play lists.. well, I don't think it's too much of an issue for the Palm Pre users as it is just as easy to import files into the Palm Pre Media player. Apple should worry about the Pre having more functionality and apps in the future than they do. So far the iPhone has many more applications than the Pre so they should have a lead for now. Next generation iPhone will need to have better speed, multitasking, HD Video camera, better battery life and of course better network - not just ATT.
Short term skirmishes always is a distraction. Get real and go make iPhone a better device instead of worrying about the pre syncing with iTunes. Worry about the software which are being media servers, as they organize media, serve media content in all different formats (streaming over the internet, play over LAN, etc). As being able to play your own media files from the Pre, iPhone, other phones, through the internet, will be more powerful than even syncing your files to the phone and taking up memory on a limited memory system, where you can play High Quality medial from the browser or from your own media server as a online radio/video station.

I completely agree with the article.

If Palm would not bash the iPhone then, yeah, I would see syncing it up and it should work. Palm's got no leg to stand on when they bash the very company they try and sync with.

Not to mention it's just lame that they try to grab on to iTunes' coattails. Palm, if you say your software is All Dat, then be prepared to back it up with some effort to actually go make your own.

Stuff like this makes me wish (however malevolently) that Palm would just fold up and be gone. They're positioning themselves more like the sour-grapes Rhapsody.

I'm astounded at how many people in this thread think like corporations instead of consumers.

Let's be clear: Apple is not doing this because they're 'angry' at having their hard work on iTunes (which they bought from a third party) piggy-backed by some freeloaders; Apple expends great amounts of effort and money to make their platform interoperable and easy to develop on. Apple wants third-parties to develop on their platform; arguments to the contrary are ridiculous. (Go install the OS X SDK and see how much effort and money Apple put in to it to make it so software developers can 'freeload' on their platform.)

Apple is blocking the Pre to defend their iPod / iPhone market, nothing more complex. Rational ppl agree on this.

Apple will do what Apple has to do to protect market-share and increase profits; this is their role as a corporation. Apple doesn't sell me a computer to make me happy, they sell it to me to make money. Apple will do what is in Apple's best interests.

WE are not corporations tho, we are consumers. And we have a very important role too: Our role is to do what is in our best interest and demand products that make us happier, healthier, more productive. And if we demand this of the corporations, that is what we will get.

When Apple reduces the capability of my computer and my software to shut out a competitor, how does that help me? I bought their computer, their software, music from their store, and now they're purposefully blocking Palm's phone so they can sell their own phone? Why should I rationalize that? It doesn't help me, doesn't make me more productive or happier, it just limits my choice.

Asking me to rationalize Apple's actions that are against my own interests by looking at it from the perspective of Apple is like asking me to rationalize being eaten by a lion by viewing from the perspective of the lion: Sure I understand why the lion wants to eat me, but I will always (and am ethically justified to) put my own interest in staying alive above the lion's need to eat. To do otherwise is irrational and against nature (and is one of the few beliefs that is truly worthy of that defense.)

Unless you're an Apple shareholder (and perhaps even if you are) this expenditure of effort to block interoperability and reduce the capability of your software is plainly against your interests and you are irrational to defend it.

"The main difference is that your Camera is user generated content; Apple are not responsible for any royalties owing to your friend."

We're not talking about DRM'd content; DRM interoperability is a whole other argument.

Apple is in no way responsible for what I do with non-DRM content on my computer; the files are all there in my filesystem and can be copied by hand. Blocking them from being synced via iTunes is simply an anti-competitive—and more significantly—anti-consumer tactic.

I'm interested to see what the USB Implementers Forum thinks of Palm identifying the Pre as being manufactured by Apple.

From the form required to get a USB Vendor ID:

"Unauthorized use of assigned or unassigned USB Vendor ID Numbers and associated Product ID Numbers are strictly prohibited."

And also how they react to Palm's preemptive complaint to the USB-IF regarding Apple's use of their Vendor ID to block access to iTunes.

Palm doesn't need to create their own iTunes - they just need to create sync software that works with iTunes. Just like Missing Sync does now for all kinds of media players and smartphones.

The offense here isn't that Palm is working with iTunes, it's the *way* they did it - impersonating an iPod by spoofing the USB ID is just a horrible idea, and bad for their customers. Think about it, what if Apple releases a firmware update for the iPod Classic that iTunes *thinks* the Palm Pre is? A user could click "yes" to the "update this iPod?" dialog, and next thing you know, you have a bricked Palm Pre. That's not good for Pre users, not good for Palm, and not good for Apple. Now imagine that a bunch of media players start following Palm's lead, and start spoofing the USB ID of other iPods, like the iPod touch? How much you want to bet that would kick off a crazy game the minute Apple lets Palm get away with such a dumb idea? What if all those people also brick their spoofed devices when iPod touch, iPhone, and other firmware updates come from Apple?

There's nothing wrong with wanting to sync music with iTunes, Palm just has to do it the right way that everybody else has no problems with. A small software company like Missing Sync can create software that synchronizes iTunes media with a Blackberry - why can't Palm do the same thing?

Apple should be glad Palm is doing this. It's free advertising for iTunes and it's a potentially huge revenue stream with all those Pre users using iTunes to purchase music and videos to fill up their memory expansion cards.

I wish Apple would do the same thing with iPhoto!

The other day my friend plugged her stupid Canon camera into my computer and iPhoto automatically downloaded the pictures from it! It sickens me that Canon can just piggyback on all of Apple's hard work they put into making iPhoto. I've heard that you can plug nearly *any* USB-enabled camera into a mac and iPhoto will just work!

Some might think that having your photo management software *just work* with whatever device you choose to plug into your computer is the right way to do things, but those people are just Commie idealists!

Everbody knows that the the first generation iPhone and the iPhone 3g SUCKS, they are laggy devices with limited power on it's hardware, the 3gs is not that bad but still not great, I don't why so many people buy an iPhone without knowing the specs, I was hoping at least 512MB RAM and 1 Ghz processor like the new TOSHIBA TG01 and a 8 megapixels camera with flash like a Sony Ericsson and a Samsumg phone and a front camera like the xpheria X1 or the nokia n97, here people don't know about phones they just buy whatever they are thrownin their faces: iPhone.