USB group says iTunes can block Pre
Apple now has the support of a USB industry standards group in its battle to keep the Palm Pre from using the iTunes music service.
The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) said in a statement Tuesday that Apple can block the Pre from connecting to iTunes. The group issued a letter to both companies warning Palm that further attempts to use iTunes would violate the group's policy.
The voice of the USB-IF is strong in this case since the group is responsible for issuing Apple the hardware vendor ID that lets its devices connect to iTunes via USB. Palm has used this process to its advantage by simulating the same ID for the Palm Pre, tricking iTunes into thinking the Pre is an Apple device.
That scheme worked until the recent release of iTunes 9, which broke the Pre's access, prompting Palm to complain to the USB-IF that the vendor ID blocks competitors.
But the group supported Apple's stance and cautioned Palm by letter that any further attempts to use the code would be a violation of its rules.
In its initial complaint, Palm told the USB-IF that the latest update of its WebOS would restore iTunes functionality to the Pre. In response, the USB-IF quoted policy and reminded Palm that it may use only its own issued vendor IDs, not those of any other company. The group asked Palm to clarify its intentions within seven days.
Palm and Apple were not immediately available for comment.
Even before the Palm Pre was released in June, people discovered that the device could connect to iTunes. Since then, Palm and Apple have fought a tug-of-war over iTunes access. Apple has issued various iTunes updates to block non-Apple devices, triggering Palm to find a way past them. Despite not-so-subtle warnings from Apple, Palm has remained persistent.
Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET. 
Maybe your anger should be directed at the music store that doesn't allow you to do whatever you want with your purchases.
You do what ever you want with your iTunes Store purchases, subject to the license under which you make the purchase. Note that you are not really purchasing music, you are licensing it.
Maybe you should direct your anger at Palm who did not write their own tunes software.
you just reworded what he said. you can do whatever you want, as long as what you want fits their terms and conditions.
maybe we should just buy songs instead of licenses to listen to songs and forgo all this fine print altogether.
But the only reason anyone uses itunes is that they're stuck with it on a mac, or stuck with it for their ipod. I'm not going to carry an ipod along with the Pre (not to mention that there's 3rd party software for ipods), and there are already several alternative music players for the Pre even before the app store has launched.
There are also servers for the common media players (winamp, etc) to stream straight to the Pre, so there's really no need to be stuck with itunes' abysmal handling of your files, massive resource use, and inability to use FLAC files (while supporting their own proprietary version that nobody else uses).
Personally, I can't wait until someone makes a slick Foobar integration for the Pre.
Maybe your anger should be directed at the music store that doesn't allow you to do whatever you want with your purchases."
You are absolutely right. Someone who invested time and money to create the ecosystem and seamless user experience that Palm is trying to tap into without any investment or innovation of its own (as pointed out by jaguar717). The point is that by investing $0 on the development of a proper sync application (which could sync with iTunes just fine like Blackberry's sync app does) they have screwed their own customers who would like to have a seamless user experience. Palm clearly doesn't give a **** about its customers if it can save a buck in the process. You want to buy a product from a company like that, be my guest.
As to your beef with iTunes restrictions on purchased music, those restrictions (unlike the extent of Palm's shoddy support of iTunes syncing) are well known and publicized. If you don't like it, simple: buy elsewhere.
not quite true You ARE buying the music. The Artist/publisher and songwriter are selling you copyrighted content Through the iTunes service/software you are licensing.pretty much the same way you buy a book or an old fashioned record or tape. You are LICENSING apple software to manipulate that music. If you bought DRM laden music that is between the buyer and apple. APPLE is licensing the content to distribute it in the form they use.They then have to pay royalties of varied amount depending in whether the music is sold clear of DRM with DRM or streamed. Of course apple is trying to get you to use their hardware. It is their choice to license the use of iTunes software as they see fit.
Buy it DRM free! that is the buyers choice. Then you can manipulate the music to play it on another device. You can also buy your music from somewhere else other than Itunes and save yourself trouble.
Just PLEASE buy your files/media and don't violate the copyrights of the music you like. Not ALL musicians are rich. especially Indie artists.
FWIW there are conflicts currently concerning apple not paying the copyright owners correctly too!
I would think Palm owners could just switch to another service to buy their music.
Do you think that you could afford to buy music? If you did then you would have the right to sell downloads, put it on CDs and sell those.
I know, let's try to get out of the toilet we created for ourselves by tapping into Apple's hard work, money, and efforts.
FSCK Palm.
And we'll use any of the several other players that already exist, even before the launch of the app store which will surely bring more powerful and lower-level capabilities.
Apple is just punishing it's own customers who don't have an iPhone, mafia style.
Can you imagine Apple introducing the iPod in 2001 and saying that they were going to use Microsoft's media center software to sync everything? And, BTW, they didn't bother to get permission from MS?
Maybe Palm should have been busy putting time and money into a media management/software solution instead of wasting it on BeOS and Folio.
You can't even USE ONE on a Mac.
Pot, meet kettle.
While I have my doubts that iTunes integration is "critical", I do entirely agree that not having an official agreement in place with Apple was a very stupid thing to do when everyone could see the outcome coming. It's a bit like playing Russian Roulette but putting a few more bullets in the revolver for good measure. For a company that is depending on this product to continue operation I completely fail to understand why they would have done something so unbelievably dumb by partially handing their destiny to a competitor.
How is this not a fair use of your iTunes license?
The iPhone is great until you connect it to AT&T's network, the only one Apple let's you use. iTunes is fine until you want to load your songs on a non-Apple device.
You can copy a DRM-free AAC file elsewhere and use it fine. You can use other software to play AAC files. You can play it on your Zune and other devices that support AAC.
If Palm wrote their own jukebox software to manage Palm Pre content, you could copy the file purchased on iTunes to that software.
What you can't do is arbitrarily change the vendor ID on the device.
I find it pretty easy to movie music files out of the iTunes folder to anywhere I want them.
hahaha, what a retard!
It's just odd that people don't feel this way about everything in their lives. Like if you bought a Panasonic flashlight and weren't allowed to use any other type of batteries except Panasonics. Or say, Polo Jeans suing because you matched a Tommy Hillfiger shirt with it. Or, to continue, you buy a Dell PC, but it won't work without anything but Dell monitor.
It's rediculous to make and sell a product and then not allow people to use it how they see fit, even if it's in the "rules". Consumers rights are going out the window.
Yes, that's exactly what's being said. And he/she has a very valid point.
If I bought a Dell computer, and it only worked with a Dell mouse, don't you think I would be a little upset? The way Palm went about making their device compatible with iTunes isn't the best (honestly, IDK anyone who willingly uses iTunes, but W/E) but Apple's constant effort to get the user to use a product as they see fit is not one people should support.
Eventually, just like other companies that attempted to build a completely closed system, the industry will work around those unwilling to promote interoperability and develop something better. Ask IBM, Compaq, Palm, etc. They all found out the hard way. Apple better hope that they remain on the creative cutting edge for a very long time. If they can not keep up with new ideas then that is when they will find themselves behind the curve trying to catch up.
A device vendor spoofing another vendor's USB device vendor ID is tantamount to criminal action.
Who knows what else they're doing or trying to do?
It does violate a number of public agreements; those with Apple and the USB-IF and potentially laws in many countries.
Money talks, BS walks. Most companies, including Apple, are willing to talk.
Business requires negotiation.
If two parties cannot reach a deal, then subterfuge is not the right path.
That's wrong. Would we back a printer company that used HP ID's to fool a PC into beleiving a OfficeJet was attached when in reality it's a Brother? I know that may not be the best example, but hopefully there is a point in there somewhere.
Why isn't Palm licensing access from Apple? Seems like an untapped revenue stream and another way to further bury Microsoft and the record companies. (And why doesn't the word license even appear in the article?)
The following is a quote:
Reality check:
The only "lock in" with iPod/iTunes is if you choose to buy DRMd content from the iTunes store.
iTunes/iPod works fine with MP3 and unprotected AAC files from any source (video files, too) - legal or otherwise. It will rip your CDs to MP3 if you don't like AAC. The only things you have to get from the iTunes store are firmware updates and iPhone Apps.
iTunes stores all its music files as regular disk files. It will sort them into artist/album folders and number the files for you, if you choose. Copying files to a vanilla MP3 player that works like a USB drive is a cinch.
Although the main iTunes metadata file is a proprietary binary, iTunes maintains a mirror of all the metadata you are likely to need, including your playlists, as an XML file with a fairly obvious structure. Its easy to write scripts to parse this and sync playlists, generate m3u files etc. 3rd Party Applications like Missing Sync will let you choose iTunes playlists and sync them to your phone. Games such as Oolite will look for specific iTunes playlists and use them for in-game music.
Buy MP3s from Amazon and their download app happily stuffs them into your iTunes libfrary for you.
OS X has a "Sync Services" framework, with a published API, to let third parties sync contact and calendar data with their devices.
No, Linux isn't supported - pity but join the queue. Guess what: my HTC Hero Android phone doesn't fully support Mac* or Linux either.
All Apple is refusing to do for Palm is let them integrate Pre into the main iTunes application. That would require Apple to publish and maintain a plug-in API for iTunes which would cost Apple money. Why should they?
Well, maybe someday a court will decide that Apple have a dominant position in the media player market, and further deiced that the "openness" described above is not sufficient to satisfy anti-trust laws. Then, and only then, will Apple be obliged to help others compete with their products.
Also bear in mind that what anti-trust regulators are really concerned about is using a dominant position in one market to strong arm your way into another. Apple has built the iPod/iTunes/iTMS tripod up from scratch, popularising the pocket MP3 player and virtually inventing the legal music download market, not by leveraging an existing monopoly. The only aspect that's even worth debating in that context is whether they're using iPod/iTunes/iTMS to strongarm their way in to the Phone market. Looks to me like the main reason for the iPhone's success is that previous smartphones (esp. WM) were pants - and if you think their harming the market ask yourself what the Palm Pre, Android or the various 3rd party WM skins would have looked like - or whether they would exist - without the iPhone shaking things up.
(*I should qualify that: HTC provide a calendar/contacts sync application for windows only - same story with firmware updates. Android is fairly hardware-agnostic, provided you're happy to use Google for calendar/contacts).
What if RIM had decided to use Microsoft software to sync Blackberries, and on top of that didn't get permission from MS? Pretty stupid.
Looking at these reactions I must be alone when I applaud Palms efforts in interoperability.
Now, is it really smart to advertise a feature of your user experience over which you have no control? Especially, when that feature depends on a competitor? Especially, when that competitor is infamous for its "walled garden" business model? Especially, when your company is betting the future on said product? Especially after Palm completely belittled the iPhone when it came out ("They're not just gonna walk in here?") Especially after Palm never put any effort into syncing Palm Treos with Macs?
This is not a difficult situation to fix but one that requires both sides to meet and do business rather than have the "techies" show off their "l33t" hacker skills.
:D
You can buy songs all day long and point Palm's software to the iTunes library folder to access those songs.
Oh that's right Palm doesn't have a software product. Well maybe there is a open source or pay for play software out there that runs on the Windows platform that can access the songs stored in your iTunes folder.
You can do with the songs what you want within the rights you agreed to. Just like you agree to the rights on a CD when you open the wrapper.
And don't be stupid, Apple didn't create the rights and licensing of the songs, the RIAA did. If you don't like it, complain to them. Some how I doubt very few people who have posted here have ever read the licensing of the songs they purchase whether on CD or via download.
- by aka_tripleB September 23, 2009 11:57 AM PDT
- What Palm should do is open their code up enough so Pre owners can change the code themselves, the they can't really get in trouble with Apple or USB-IF because they can make the devices as open as they like. Then any action Apple or USB-IF take could have legal reprocussions and Palm would likely have to get involved directly. It's not like many people who use Palm devices wouldn't be able to change the code themselves if Palm let them.
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