Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#1

Post by jballanc » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 8:35 PM UTC

Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest
news.cnet.com

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#2

Post by tptacek » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 8:41 PM UTC

I eagerly await the 1000-item-long comment thread about antitrust, unfair competition, and Apple's history of bare-knuckled business practices. Really.

But before we kick that off, can I just chime in with the observation that the overwhelming likelihood of just this event made it irresponsible for Palm to promote iTunes syncing for their device?

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#3

Post by wysiwtf » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 9:07 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

I eagerly await the 1000-item-long comment thread about antitrust, unfair competition, and Apple's history of bare-knuckled business practices. Really. But before we kick that off, can I just chime in with the observation that the overwhelming likelihood of just this event made it irresponsible for Palm to promote iTunes syncing for their device?

I agree with that. I'm sure that they would rather have their own syncing app that simply works with the iTunes library rather than masquerading as an iPod and leaving it up to iTunes to do all the work. That's just plain crazy if you think about it, but in their rush to market this was probably the easiest way. Surely there is a team at Palm working on a standalone app as we speak. Other handset manufacturers use their own applications for the sync and simply utilize the iTunes library data, in time Palm will too.

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#4

Post by nopal » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 9:16 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

I eagerly await the 1000-item-long comment thread about antitrust, unfair competition, and Apple's history of bare-knuckled business practices. Really. But before we kick that off, can I just chime in with the observation that the overwhelming likelihood of just this event made it irresponsible for Palm to promote iTunes syncing for their device?

I completely concur.

I wonder now many consumers saw the small print stating, "Compatible with iTunes v8.2. Compatibility with future versions not guaranteed."

It seems irresponsible for Palm to put out a feature that relies on a hack, knowing full well that it would likely break when iTunes was updated.

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#5

Post by potatolicious » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 9:31 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

I eagerly await the 1000-item-long comment thread about antitrust, unfair competition, and Apple's history of bare-knuckled business practices. Really. But before we kick that off, can I just chime in with the observation that the overwhelming likelihood of just this event made it irresponsible for Palm to promote iTunes syncing for their device?

I agree that it's irresponsible for Palm to promote iTunes compatibility - but someone had to be first. Without a clear, actual case of "Apple shuts down competitor by software patch" one cannot make a case against Apple as a monopolizer. Hypothetical "Apple can shut down competitor" cases do not convince mainstream lawmakers and media.

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#6

Post by viraptor » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 9:36 PM UTC

It's kind of amusing to see... I'm pretty sure people at Apple realise that just by breaking compatibility they won't force any special amount of Pre owners to suddenly buy an Apple product which does work with iTunes. They just bought Pre - why would they even look at iTouch / iPhone? Maybe iPod, but probably not before the next salary.

Also, I guess someone told them that this move has the same problem as DRM. Now Pre will improve compatibility. The only real way to block Pre would be to introduce a public key infrastructure support + certificate checking in iPods & iTunes, which I believe they don't support yet. (and it would require a mass firmware upgrade)

But they could just count on Pre users getting interested in iTunes and their store (which would give them profits). They could even detect a connected Pre and splash-screen advertise iPods to them. So... was it really something they had to do? Did they actually think before the default defensive move?

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#7

Post by mleonhard » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 9:44 PM UTC

Apple is just as bad as Microsoft.

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#8

Post by jrockway » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 9:53 PM UTC

This is why I use free software; software that works in my interests, instead of actively against it. I don't really understand why people would use software that intentionally limits their rights, but it makes me sad.

Amarok is vastly better than iTunes, if you are into that kind of thing. (I personally use xmms2 and a variety of perl scripts to control it, but I can see how that's not exactly suitable for everyone.)

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#9

Post by mrkurt » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 10:02 PM UTC

What's really interesting is who this hurts -- iTunes on OSX users who may have purchased music from the iTunes music store.

Windows users have a number of really useful and viable options to iTunes for managing their music. OSX users... don't. If I were still on Windows, I probably wouldn't have been using my Pre with iTunes to begin with. Unfortunately for me, I switched to a Mac not long ago, so I'm stuck with iTunes and a whole bunch of crap alternatives for managing my media library.

Great job, Apple, I'm so happy to be a Mac user.

Re: Apple breaks up Palm Pre, iTunes lovefest

#10

Post by mingyeow » Wed, Jul 15, 2009, 10:12 PM UTC

Apple deserves MUCH more rap and lawsuits than they currently get. They make amazing products, but that should be independent of their business practices