Re: Underhanded Apple Disables Palm Pre/iTunes Sync

In article
<97af398b-2455-4cb0-9d3b-c8203cd97ef0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
ed <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jul 16, 2:19 pm, ZnU <z...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 ed <n...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 16, 10:10 am, ZnU <z...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip>
i suppose it is a matter of perspective, as i absolutely think you're
pushing a bit too far with your description of counterfeiting.  :D
thing is, most people who are going to be using itunes w/ a pre are
probably apple customers anyways.  if you're on a mac, well you
obviously use itunes.  if you're on a pc, you're probably buying from
the itunes store, as itunes, as a stand alone music manager doesn't
exactly get rave reviews from a lot of pc folks.  and your 3rd point
may have been true when itunes was first released, but the itunes
store's 30% gross margins have got to make it a good businees given
(what we can assume about) their costs.

It's worth noting that Apple does provide supported ways for
third-parties to integrate with iTunes. For instance, iTunes maintains
an XML version of its library data, which contains basically all the
information you'd want about file paths, metadata, playlists, per-track
volume adjustments, etc.

Palm could have easily created a utility that read this file and synced
iTunes with the Pre. If they had, the Pre would almost certainly still
be able to sync with iTunes today.

yup- not as seamless for existing itunes users though, which i think
was the point...

I don't know how syncing works with the Pre. I assume there's some Palm
app that handles it.

for media, you can either mount the pre as a usb drive, and manually
sync it, or use a program that can easily sync to usb devices (windows
media player, etc). if you have itunes, well, it showed up as an
ipod. i.e. for most people, it would have worked whatever way they
were already used to. everything else basically syncs over the 'cloud'
- there is no dedicated desktop app anymore. there is exchange sync,
google sync, facebook sync, etc, all over the cloud. that approach
makes a lot of sense, rather than having Yet Another App with
duplicate functionality.

I guess that makes some sense.

[snip]

But with no specification to work from, Palm has no idea what range of
behavior actual iPods support, unless they've gone and reverse
engineered iPod firmware or something (which I seriously doubt).

i'm pretty sure they have a pretty stinkin' good idea of the range of
behavior actual ipods support... they apparently have a lot of ex
apple engineers over at palm, and jon rubenstein, who is often
described as intrumental to the creation of the ipod (sometimes simply
credited w/ the ipod) joined palm in 2007 and headed r&d, and was just
named ceo. he is also credited with creating the pre.

Letting someone with insider technical information be involved with the
implementation process is just opening the door for a lawsuit. I
seriously doubt they did that.

Not to mention the fact that actual iPods have upgradable firmware.

sure. and if they change the firmware of the classic ipods it to the
point where the pre can't sync, it's almost guranteed to be largely
just to break compatibility, eh?

--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
.

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  • Re: Underhanded Apple Disables Palm Pre/iTunes Sync
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  • Re: Underhanded Apple Disables Palm Pre/iTunes Sync
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