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Comments: 396 +- Hardware: Palm Pre iTunes Syncing Back With WebOS 1.1 Update on Friday July 24 2009, @01:31PM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday July 24 2009, @01:31PM
from the cheeky-that dept.
from the cheeky-that dept.
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hardware
suraj.sun points out CNet coverage of Palm's newest OS release, which restores the ability to synch with iTunes that iTunes 8.2.1 had broken. "The news was posted on Palm's blog where it listed the new features and enhancements of the software update and nonchalantly added at the end: 'Oh, and one more thing: Palm WebOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync. That's right — you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).' Bold move, Palm. Bold move. It'll be interesting to see how Apple responds, and do you suppose the use of the phrase 'one more thing,' a phrase that Apple CEO Steve Jobs often uses to introduce a new product at the end of his keynotes, was intentional or am I just reading too much into this?"
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Intentional (Score:5, Insightful)
Intentional.
cat and mouse (Score:5, Insightful)
Why as a consumer would I be so dumb as to buy a palm if my itunes only worked intermittently or had no assured path forward. Sure one could perhaps use the old version of itunes while I waited for palm to fix it. But really that's not a strategy. I'm in that boat right now with my jailbroken iphone and did I not sort of enjoy the novelty of this cat and mouse game it would be a detraction not an attraction. I can't imagine most people want a phone that might not work some of the time. who needs to waste time like that?
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:4, Insightful)
Why as a consumer would I be so dumb as to buy a palm if my itunes only worked intermittently or had no assured path forward. Sure one could perhaps use the old version of itunes while I waited for palm to fix it. But really that's not a strategy. I'm in that boat right now with my jailbroken iphone and did I not sort of enjoy the novelty of this cat and mouse game it would be a detraction not an attraction. I can't imagine most people want a phone that might not work some of the time. who needs to waste time like that?
I know this sounds crazy, but most of the time I use my phone as a communication device.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why as a consumer would I be so dumb as to buy anything Apple if they're only goal is to extract as much money from me as possible by forcing me to use only their products? If a company like Apple wants to specifically break compatibility with their products for third parties then I would choose not to use their products. Why is it that people jump on Microsoft when they trap consumers but applaud Apple for the same behavior? I'm not saying Apple doesn't make good products (I think they do), but the pric
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Insightful)
2. With the exception of older DRM'ed tracks, you can put your music from iTunes on any device with any other software that supports said device and the proper file formats.
3. Palm is taking the lazyass way out and piggybacking on iTunes when anyone with three braincells could see this leapfrog coming a mile away. Yes, Apple is being dickish about this, but Palm damn well knew this would happen and they have a lot more to lose from pissed off customers than Apple does. The iTunes library is just an XML file. It would be trivial for Palm to make an app that reads said file and syncs without the need for iTunes to be running.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Insightful)
1. You can use your iPod with other software.
Only because people are continually working on reverse-engineering Apple's attempts to lock-out other software from working with iPods. And you can't use a recent iPod Touch or iPhone with any software other than iTunes, because Apple have explicitly locked out the methods used by third-party clients to sync with earlier versions of the iPhone.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Insightful)
The most obvious being, what if I chose to manually manage the music on my device? iTunes has no issue with this, but Palm would have to write their own GUI that would read the iTunes XML and then allow drag-n-drop sync.
Second, as a user, the last thing I need is another iTunes. I like the software. I know the software. It does its job well. If I want to buy a Pre, I as a consumer would just much rather use what I'm currently using.
Third, there are about a trillion edge cases with your suggestion. Like, multiple XML files. How will I know which XML file the user is using? I could have one in my All Users and one in my personal profile. iTunes has a simple option under the File menu to load a library. What would Palm do if they went gui-less and implemented your suggestion.
Finally, Palm isn't complaning that Apple updated their app. They just updated the Pre to match it. Why on Earth does it bother you so much? Apple are treating the iPod is hardly more than a hardware dongle for iTunes. Fine. But no reason to bunch-up your panties just because Palm circumvents their DRM. And don't kid yourself, that's exactly what a dongle is. DRM.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well...except in this case the Palm solution is a kludge, as it still requires iTunes - and furthermore doesn't survive an iTunes update without its own update. If that isn't the textbook definition of kludge, then I don't know what counts.
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Insightful)
This is probably more of a press battle than anything else and Palm is playing it pretty smart by staying in the public eye with this. Apple looks bad for deliberately locking them out and Palm looks technically savvy for coming up with another workaround.
Palm is just looking like a bunch of amateurs constantly having to fix their product. They can blame Apple all they want, but as a customer, you're going to come away with "this Palm product is a load of shit, it keeps breaking its connection to iTunes".
Unless Palm can make their product work consistently, it's going to be the loser here. It's just like if your Internet connection keeps going down. Even if it's not your ISP's fault, but the fault of some upstream provider, you're not going to just say, "well, it's not their fault, so I guess it's OK".
And Palm might be able to accomplish just that. Their update now reports itself, in violation of the USB standard, as being an Apple product. Very, very amateur, but sufficiently invisible to the user that, unless Apple is willing to force firmware updates on every iPod/iPhone owner, they may not be able to break Palm syncing without potentially breaking syncing with legitimate iPods.
Which makes me think that if Apple is unsuccessful in getting Palm to stop using it's vender ID, they will do just that, and add some form of encryption between the iPod and iTunes for authentication.
It's sad to see the once mighty Palm fall to being so pathetically amateur.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Funny)
And...receiving the Slashie award for Tortured Car Metaphor for 2009, it's QuantumRiff! (Crowd goes wild).
Well Bob, that was a fantastic example of a classic Tortured Car Metaphor. It was simply chock-full of inappropriate comparisons of business models, implications of conspiracy, and smug ignorance. One wonders how he will be able to follow up this incredible stupidity next year!
Parent
Re:Trivial? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, Palm could conceivably read the full iTunes XML, allow the user to create playlists, and sync from there, but that would involve more work for the user, instead of allowing them to easily sync already created playlists.
Playlists are included in the iTunes XML file.
Parent
Apple may not have a choice (Score:5, Insightful)
When tunes are stored on an ipod they are stored in a way that creates a speedbump to just trasnfering them off. basically the names are munged. Maybe they mess with the id3 tags--don't know. But apple has long been a proponent of speedbump DRM, that is drm that gets in your way enough that most users won't hassle with defeating it.
The real trick that apple accomplished was convincing the music companies that this was sufficient protection.
IN return apple probably has to make a reasonable effort to prevent cases where pod-to-pod transfers all proliferation of music. this would include nominal efforts to never have a legitimate channel for this.
they won't care if it's not perfect. But they probably are obligated to try.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Insightful)
You buy the Apple products because you LIKE the Apple products, and you LIKE the way they work together.
Now PalmPre starts syncing with iTunes, but doesn't sync right. That will look bad on Apple. Let's say the PalmPre somehow effs up your library. That will look bad on Apple. Sure, Apple can say 'we don't support the Pre' but if you're music library is hosed you're going to be mad at Apple.
Look at the Motorola Rokr, they licensed the technology from Apple to allow it to Sync. And Apple guaranteed it would work right and not screw anything up. I'm actually surprised (for better or worse) that Apple hasn't invoked the DCMA.
What Apple does NOT want to do is become Windows and have to support 80 billion solutions under the sun. Their strength is and always has been tight integration. Having to lose focus on that and suddenly deal with problems with every Tom, Dick, and Harry syncing with iTunes will delay new features and products.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Informative)
My Pre has worked continuously.
I just didn't update to iTunes 8.2.1. And besides, there are other ways to sync the Pre besides iTunes. It syncs the way all other non-Apple phones sync. It just throws in iTunes syncing as an extra bonus, which is nice.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:4, Interesting)
And if Palm would grow a few braincells then they would write their own damn software
Do you have any examples of a large and successful company wasting resources on development, by developing an exact clone of another company's product, rather than spending practically nothing to write a simple work-around?
I'd actually be curious to hear of some, because I would like to ridicule them for being so stupid.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You don't have to clone iTunes. You just need an XML parser and file transfer tool. Let the user use iTunes to enjoy their music on their PC, and let the Palm software sync the library.
Re:cat and mouse (Score:5, Informative)
You don't have to clone iTunes. You just need an XML parser and file transfer tool. Let the user use iTunes to enjoy their music on their PC, and let the Palm software sync the library.
Using Cocoa:
NSDictionary* theLibrary = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithContentsOfFile: [@"~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml" stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];
NSArray* thePlayLists = [theLibrary objectForKey: @"Playlists"];
NSDictionary* theTracks = [theLibrary objectForKey: @"Tracks"];
and you can go from there. To check the exact file structure, run "Property List Editor" and have a look at the contents of the file.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:4, Interesting)
well, actually, palm might embrace other existing software that is way, way more friendly towards them.
as amarok developers mentioned in akademy (http://www.kdenews.org/2009/07/16/business-free [kdenews.org]), amarok, as a crossplatform music manager/player, would be better suited for palm and would allow them to out-feature itunes with little resources.
Parent
Re:cat and mouse (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Does it matter where the XML file is read? (Score:5, Interesting)
"d if Palm would grow a few braincells then they would write their own damn software that would read the XML file in the iTunes library"
This what the Pre already does. It is just that Palm decided to let iTunes copy the files over to the device first, instead of reading directly out of iTunes. Why should Apple care were the XML file is read? From a technical perspective it is basically the same. It saves the user from installing additional software. The is one of the nice things about the Pre, no need for any additional desktop software.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Some apps are more useful than others (The web browser and YouTube applications are not very useful without some form of Internet connection because they don't cache anything) but apps like Calendar, Tasks, Memos, Photos, Music, SplashID, and Classic work just fine.
Even the email app
But... for how long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
More interesting quote from Palm (Score:5, Informative)
well, if anyone RTFA, there's an even more interesting quote from Palm:
Palm believes that openness and interoperability offer better experiences for users by allowing them the freedom to use the content they own without interference across devices and services, so on behalf of consumers, we have notified the USB Implementers Forum of what we believe is improper use of the Vendor ID number by another member.
Looks like Palm really is ready to turn this into a war.
Right idea, wrong mechanism (Score:3, Informative)
Palm could easily inter-operate with iTunes without pretending to be an iPod and abusing Apple's vendor ID. All it has to do is create its own synchronization driver.
"But wait!" the Apple-haters say. "Apple is an evil, anti-competitive wannabe-monopoly! There's no way it would allow such a thing! No way would Apple allow its precious iTunes on other devices! It wants to extend its iTunes dominance to the iPhone by locking out all competitors!"
I give you:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_too [apple.com]
facepalm (Score:5, Interesting)
Somebody mod this up. Palm is in the wrong here, but they're counting on capitalizing on anti-Apple sentiment since a lot of people are justifiably fed up with Apple. But Palm really needs to concentrate on making a better product -- if they want to compete with the iphone they've got to do more than piggy back on its success.
I really wanted to like the Palm Pre. I've still got my Treo, as beat to hell as it is, because I don't like the keyboard-less design of the iphone. (I text a lot and I like the Treo's keypad better than most). I have an ipod touch so I have most of the cool app features of the iphone without the AT+T contract. I went to the Sprint store to check out the Pre and I found it flimsy and slow, and its interface completely counterintuitive compared to the iphone. I was completely disappointed and now I might buy a Centro instead just because it's exactly what I now have except smaller and faster and it comes in green. So, yeah, I might opt for a feature set from like 1997 rather than the latest and greatest -- if that's happening in your product line, there's no way in hell you're gonna compete with the iphone.
Parent
It's perfect! (Score:5, Informative)
"All it has to do is create its own synchronization driver."
Why? All the driver would do is see the Pre and copy the files over.... kinda like it ALREADY DOES! This is because the "sync driver" is already inside the Pre. The Pre reads the iPod music library files directly. Palm already did the "hard work" of reading well documented files. They just chose to do it in a different place than the rest of the market. Why create a totally new way of storing music files, why you can just copy how someone already did it. The only reason the other devices need a driver is because they don't know how to read the library files directly.
This gives the best experience to the user. No additional software to install.
Parent
Re:Right idea, wrong mechanism (Score:4, Insightful)
but why as customer should I have to install that extra stuff when it Palm can offer out-of-the-box interoperability with iTunes?
Palm didn't abuse any vendor id. The were really clear (in round one) that this was a palm device. Thy used the vendor id only where it was a 'magic number' that was required to get interoperability.
Parent
Re:More interesting quote from Palm (Score:4, Informative)
Apple did all the engineering, R&D, and human interface work for iTunes. (Ok, other than what they bought in the beginning). Now Pre is trying to piggy back on this.
Interoperability with competitors' hardware is generally protected, at least in the US. See Coleco and other companies producing Atari 2600-compatible hardware, various companies producing unlicensed software for the NES, Sega Genesis, PS2, etc that had to use similar trickery to what Palm is doing.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Indeed, in fact, from my understanding of things (IANAL) the DMCA specifically includes exemptions for interoperability purposes..
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Standards are standards for a reason. Subverting the standard for anticompetitive reasons is wrong. Period.
Besides... who wants to install yet another damn program on their machine? I hate how each widget I get has some shitty driver it needs to have to get working with Windows, with some shitty software that never works. My Canon HF100? The video management software for it is abysmal. Palm is actually serving consumers by allowing them
Huh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I just updated my Pre too. Scares me though. While Apple is selling DRM free music, dost it really stop them from their software only syncing up to properly signed iPods? I mean I like my iPod, but if its going to be a device that needs a secure encrypted channel to transfer file for me to just use normally, I am not sure I would want to use an iPod again.
DVD Jon started some software that is like iTunes, but open, and made for any device. It looks pretty cool, though I haven't tried it yet.
it's called DoubleTwist, look it up.
-Taylor
USB Vendor ID (Score:5, Informative)
And because the world doesn't always make sense, Palm filed a complaint with the USB Implementors Forum, stating Apple is abusing the vendor ID (according to http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090723/you-can-almost-hear-the-shrieks-of-outrage-in-cupertino-cant-you/ [allthingsd.com] ).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting. What sort of teeth does the USB IF have?
I mean, the complaint is obviously going to fail, as I see it. If Apple wants to use their vendor ID to identify their own USB products so that iTunes doesn't work with anything else, that's within their right. Even if Palm thinks it's a dick move by Apple, I can't see anything actually prohibiting them from doing it.
Re:USB Vendor ID (Score:4, Informative)
First off, I don't like Apple. They sell high-priced fancy style-over-substance gadgets, IMHO. Now that we've got that taken care of...
I didn't see anything on the form stating that you can't use your vendor ID to identify your products, while it did say that using unauthorized vendor IDs is forbidden.
Parent
Re:USB Vendor ID (Score:4, Informative)
It's a strange thing to attribute such an intention on the USB vendor ID, I wonder if there's any documentation of that...
I own an x-keys [piengineering.com]. Now, when I plug in the X-Keys, my Mac is completely unable to make any use of it, because it doesn't map the keystrokes of the xkeys to any actions. The OS is absolutely receiving the key events through the HID driver, I've seen them in the IO explorer. Is Apple intentionally crippling my x-keys, or rather putting Pi Engineering at a competitive disadvantage because they don't provide software to map the HID events from my X-Keys to software events, while at the same time they DO provide software that allows people to map events from Apple's own gear, like the Mighty Mouse? Is Pi Engineering being "locked-out" of the Mac keyboard market because they have to ship a helper application along with their key arrays?
On the other end of things, it's not so much the interoperability as much as it is the branding involved. When you plug a Pre into iTunes with this voodoo working, it looks like an iPod, and iTunes says "iPod" when it's talking about the Pre. That's a trademark, and it implies (wrongly) that Apple created or sanctioned the functioning of the Pre, when in fact it makes iTunes do a bunch of weird things -- like make two iPod tabs appear in the preferences window, and other oddities. iTunes isn't really built to talk to a Pre this way, and Apple isn't really under any obligation to make it work this way. They've gone and made the library data readable through XML, so vendors can read the library wtihout nettling with iTunes's execution state.
All I can say is, if I wrote a program that wrote data to an open file format, and someone insisted on writing a special bit of code that patched my program and made it do stuff I didn't write it to do, and I was the one who started getting the support calls about it, I'd be sorta pissed.
Parent
and so it begins (Score:5, Interesting)
Now announcing iTunes Update Month!
Software update will have a new update for iTunes every 4-6 days, with an ever more entertaining list of "bugfixes and improvements", none of which will mention anything about palm.
I remember them doing this awhile back for a plugin for itunes that would add a second ipod to your list on the left, that you could drag and drop FROM. That spawned three iTunes updates in two weeks. People that diff'd the updates found basically all they were doing was adjusting their plugin acceptance code. Finally on the third update, they gave up on trying to filter it by behavior, and just plain banned the name of the plugin. It was at this point the author basically said ok I'm done, they're targeting me personally and that's not a war I'm going to win.
Re:and so it begins (Score:5, Interesting)
Or... he could have open-sourced and became immortal
Parent
This is some uber-clever marketing by Palm. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got that syncing feeling again (Score:4, Interesting)
Jobs: You synced my flagship product!
Palm are begging for a visit from the fuckup fairy (Score:3, Insightful)
1. There are defined APIs Apple provides to allow third party software to interact with iTunes, and do everything Palm needs.
2. Palm is better at sync software than Apple *anyway*.
Doing it this way is just begging for a visit from the fuckup fairy. Plus, I want Hotsync back. And a pony.
Re:Lost battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Palm is just being stupid. They have a lot more to lose from pissed off customers than Apple does. Palm, just make your own goddamned sync app like you should have in the first place. Yes, Apple is being a bunch of asses, but who didn't see that coming from a mile awa
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is Palm not trying to force Apple into making iTunes SO restrictive about syncing that Palm can sue Apple for anti-competitive behavior, eventually forcing iTunes to be actively open.
I say that Palm is doing the exact opposite of trying to avoid a lawsuit, but their intention is to be on the 'right' end of it. It's brilliant if it works.
Re:Lost battle (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think you understand what it is that Palm is doing here, if they were doing what you described (cracking the security of iTunes) that would be at best questionable, I for one would be completely against that kind of behavior. All that Palm is doing is changing the Vendor ID on their phone to the Vendor ID used by iPods. Basically, iTunes says "Hey, who are you?" and the Pre says "I am definately, definately, an iPod".
Unless Apple adds a new requirement to sync, there's little they can do to detect if the iPod is actually a Pre, and if they add a new requirement they'll be breaking backward compatibility with all the iPods out there that don't have the requirement implemented.
Parent
Re:Lost battle (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.precentral.net/how-palm-re-enabled-itunes-sync [precentral.net]
That's a bit shady, and for a group so concerned with open standards like USB, I would imagine more Slashdotters would find that practice questionable.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lost battle (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, actually, they're telling them that the Pre is a device made by Apple:
http://www.precentral.net/how-palm-re-enabled-itunes-sync [precentral.net]
That's a bit shady,
No, it really isn't. [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By breaking the USB vendor ID Palm is risking the bricking of Pres whenever Apple tries to do more than just a file sync.
Just how, do you imagine, would iTunes engage the Pre's firmware update system?
The Pre does NOT manage its firmware through iTunes. There is ZERO risk to a Pre's firmware from interfacing with the iTunes application.