Comments on: Apple breaks up Palm Pre-iTunes lovefest
With the release of iTunes 8.2.1, Apple puts a stop to the Palm Pre, iTunes synchronization.
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Whatever happened to, "It just works?" I guess what they really mean, "It just works... unless you bought it from someone else... then we'll actively try and sabotage you."
Do you not understand things easily? Because its not complicated. Person A uses iTunes to manage their music. Person A uses a Palm Pre. What's better for the customer: using iTunes to sync their music (thereby simplifying the entire process and the customer comes out ahead) OR Apple forcing the person to install yet more software and manage another interface (or possibly ditch iTunes altogether) thereby forcing the customer to lose and only Apple comes out ahead.
This is yet more proof that Apple doesn't care about its users. It only cares about itself. It will screw you over completely if you don't decide to do things their way. MS isn't even that bad. I shudder to think about how blind one must be to think that Apple is even remotely less evil than MS in terms of business practices and customer treatment.
It isn't right for another company to leech someone else's software like that.
How is it possibly anti-competitive to "lock-out" Palm? Palm needs to create their own software. You people need to learn some business law. This is more infringement than anything.
Its completely anti-competitive. Apple is a dominant force in digital music sales and its using that position to force people to buy iPods and iPhones. Its *EXTREMELY* and *BLATANTLY* anti-competitive. If you have to have just been hit in the head with a Mac Book to not understand this.
iTunes is *NOT* made for another Apple product. Apple is *using* it to push their hardware sales. Just like MS was using their OS to push IE. Why is the second anti-competitive while the first isn't? Because the first *IS* anti-competitive.
iTMS is a store, iTunes is a jukebox/online store portal/whatever Apple slap on it in recent years.
Amazon is a more dominant B2C practice, yet it actively shut down unofficial portals.
Why may ask you? BECAUSE IT CAN!
Apple never intend to make this store publicly accessable, the store is build around the concept of vertical integration!
In fact without iPod + iTunes bundle, nether will be as successful as they are today.
So are you saying because this business strategy worked so well, we should be up in our arms and seek to destroy it?
I think not.
There are competitions out there, just they are not compete with a single device or store, but a whole inseparable eco-system.
Apple chose the all-in-house route, and it's been tough. Others may see partner-up a more viable business mode, and that's their choice, by doing so, they gave up the same level of control.
Quit Whining! Build your own alternative solution! Then we can talk, Palm.
I don't think palm was trying to be too devious either, I hate having to install a new program to accomplish one task, so they thought they could just tap into the already established user base as a convenience factor for the common user. The pre, unlike other devices, still functions without it, it can communicate with the os directly.
And on a side note, i thought the greatness of the pre was that it could operate in the cloud quite well? Why are people still tethered to a computer.
I'm fairly certain the iPhone 3G is the first and last Apple product I'll ever own. Apple's business practices make me miss Microsoft. Yea, you heard that right. I think Apple makes MS look like a saint. Though, what do I know? I only care about customer's rights? All Apple loyalists seem to care about is Apple's rights. Its odd really. Apple just gets the public to fight for them at the cost of their own rights. Sell your soul to Apple and you'll have no problems, try anything else and Apple will make your life a living hell. You can't just dabble with Apple. You need to go all into their ecosystem or else nothing ever works right.
If you want sluggish, try to use the pre... I went into the sprint store to try it out and found it to in some cases unusable.. I brought up the calendar app, and it took so long to switch to the month view(on a device with no data) that I thought the program had just was not working... Finally when I tried to switch out. I completed the switch into the mode.. Meanwhile, I can switch in and out of my apps on my 3gs as smooth as butter.. And that includes my photo realistic flight simulator app..
The fact that Apple products are more expensive, yet sell so well, speak volumes about how great the product is.
"Oh look, iTunes has a music library management feature that is automatically utilized and can't be turned off. Might as well use that. Oh, I want to buy an mp3 player. Oh... only Apple products will sync with my already built library. Guess I'm being FORCED to buy from them, unless I want to make my life more complicated by managing two musical libraries."
If Apple wanted to be non anti-competitive then they should remove the syncing component from iTunes and have iPhone/iPod syncing software as a standalone component.
You totally miss the point on this subject. No one ever FORCED you to install itunes in the first place. That was a deliberate action on your part. You either downloaded it from the internet by your own choice or you installed it with an ipod/iphone purchase as the companion software. It is offered free as a download on the internet because you can use it to organize your music and purchase music and use it all you want on that computer. No where does it say it will support any portable players or phones other than apple branded devices.
Itunes did not become that #1 music retailer because people were forced to buy there. I do not remember a single time when i was shopping for music that someone put a gun to my head and told me i had to go to itunes or else. I do not own a single apple device but my wife and I have purchased music for our verizon phones through their service and no brick came shattering through the window of our house with a note saying "next time use itunes or else...."
The itunes software is apples and its theirs to do with what they want. Just like every other software/hardware developer out there. Lets all call the FTC and make Nvidia distribute a PhysX version for ATI, Intel and S3 graphics cards. They give it away for free on their website and it works good, so they are being anti-competative in making it for their cards only. Or how about we call them because i want to use my PS3 on Xbox Live. They shouldn't be able to lock it to their hardware when it offers such a good online game experience.
I just bought a laser printer combo, which came with a printer monitor and scanner software etc. It doesn't work with my Lexmark all-in-one printer and scanner. Thats anti-competitive. I can freely download the software from their website so I should be able to use it with any printer i own by your reasoning.
The list of companies that lock very popular or even industry segment products to specific hardware is an extremely long one, longer than i could possibly imagine and i am imagining a very long list, but i don't even know but a small fraction of the hardware and software available at the moment.
My problem is that out of all that list it seems that Apple is the target of 99.999999999999% of all complaints about the subject, even when 99.999999999998% of them are just apple bashing.
Never again will I fall for that iCrap stuff. I'll manage my 15,000+ track MP3 collection very well without it and have no trouble syncing with my Sansa player or Windows Mobile phone.
iMac doesn't exist in IT. Well! how many IT guys/girls want to deploy iMac servers in their networks?
I don't need to spend 2 or 3 times the money to attempt to get the same (but not quite) services and performance from a boutique product.
They control the market because it's a great application and people CHOOSE to use it. Others can use the dozens of other products available. But why would you want to?
For us iPhone owners, its a natural and elegant extension to the ownership experience too. Perfect device and perfect integration (as long as you're smart enough to be on OSX).
Pardon me while I laugh until I cannot breathe.
Apple controls the market because it received an early monopoly on digital content distribution. It did not win because it's product was superior, it won because it was the only product on the market.
Microsoft defeated Apple in the PC business because its product was superior -- more open, more powerful, more flexible and at a lower cost. But even Microsoft at the height of its power wouldn't have deliberately broken a competing product running on its monopoly software like Apple has.
When they've been forced to compete on product, like PCs, they've lost.
Try tell Real microsoft didn't block their application. or Apple's quicktime for that matter.
(Where do they find these people?!?)
Palm build ur own software, you big smoocher...Apple does all the work and you get the easy part...making cheap phones(pre) that sync with itunes(APPLE)
good glad ur gone.
Go APPLE!
You've got to be kidding me right!!!! Windows is an operating system.. There would be something seriously wrong with microsoft not allowing apple to write software for a system that is designed for third party application to run on... In fact microsoft writes software for Mac OS doesn't it!!! Last I heard, they were even working on software for the iphone! iTunes is software that apple created as media player for mac with the and designed to work with their devices. The only reason they make a version for windows in the first place is to be able to sell ipods to windows users.. I always find it funny when people equate apples success with monopoly while at the same time knocking their products. Creative had a an ipod like device(creative zen i think) way before apple, but they are not even an after thought anymore. Apple came into the market with a better offering and people bought it and they became the #1 vendor.. So now their reward to producing the better solution is that they should let their competitors leverage their work for their gain! What planet are you people from!!! By the way, the palm pre owes it's existence to iphone.. They all do.. Apple again came along and showed us when the mobile device experience should be and everyone(palm included) has copied it and as a result, consumers have much better product options... If not for iphone palm would probably be completely bankrupt right now.. By producing a product that reset the bar for mobile devices, leveled the playing field allowing them time to create something that could compete again against rim, nokia and so on.. Now they want apple to provide them free software for their devices too!! Come on!
However, as another poster pointed out, you need iTunes to purchase music from the iTunes store. That means: you would:
1. have to launch iTunes to buy a song.
2. then launch Songbird & import the new song.
3. then sync the Pre with Songbird.
It should work, but it does introduce additional steps.
Apple, with 90% share, breaks Palm sync on its monopoly software platform (iTunes) to block competition and preserve its monopoly, and it's hailed as a hero. Apple partisans scream "make your own music software!"
But if Microsoft, with 90% share, was to break iPod sync on its monopoly software platform (Windows) to block competition and preserve its monopoly and told Apple to "go make your own OS for PCs and stop leeching off our work," Apple fanboys would be burning Ballmer in effigy and demanding the DOJ immediately intervene.
Goddess bless the double standards of the iDorks.
Even when I bought tracks on iTunes years ago I used NoteBurner to convert them to MP3 because I oppose the hold they have on the market. It is my music and I should be able to play it on whatever devices I want, whenever and however I want. Apple's move is monopolistic. They can argue BS issues about we cannot be responsible for what those devices do to iTunes, yada yada yada, but the absolute truth is they just want to impede use of any other device on iTunes (iTunes sucks anyway as a player/library/sync solution). They could merely add a line in the user agreement about not being responsible, let users then make their own choice, and be protected from any harm since it is in your user agreement - use other devices at your own risk. But clearly, they have other intentions - to lock everyone out. I hate lawsuits but, sometimes they are necessary...
Explain to me why this one company out of all the companies out there has to change all their software/hardware to fit the whims of every poster on these tech sites or be burned at the stake by an angry mob.
Microsoft did not prevent you from downloading other browsers but Apple's move is similar to Microsoft doing this. Their goal is for the world to use AAC instead of MP3s because this ensures consumers are locked to Apple. Your music then cannot be played on non-Apple devices so, the only way I can listen to my AAC music is via an Apple device connected to my PC, home stereo, gaming consoles or whatever, short of a hack, of course. The move is not so much about computer dominance as much as it is keeping control of the music labels. So long as they can inhibit the popular growth of the music playing devices, the world has to turn to iTunes if it wants to buy music. I often find a track I want on iTunes that is not on Napster and I refuse to buy it. So now, I'm locked out of that track. Apple's AAC format ensures they keep a stranglehold and until another device can show it can compete, they will continue to do so. The Pre represented a threat to this and so when Apple had the opportunity to hinder it, they did it - not because they are concerned about how it may harm iTunes but because they are concerned about how it may harm their music dominance. This is wrong. Consumers should have better choice and it is not possible until iTunes loses its 80-90 percent dominance in downloaded music...
AAC was developed with the cooperation and contributions of companies including Fraunhofer IIS, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Dolby, Sony Corporation and Nokia, and was officially declared an international standard by the Moving Pictures Experts Group in April 1997. (note no mention of Apple developing it in any way) AAC's best known USE is as the default audio format of Apple's iPhone, iPod, iTunes, and the format used for all iTunes Store audio. AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's Playstation Portable, Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii, the Nintendo DSi, Creative ZEN, Microsoft Zune, SanDisk Sansa, Cowon Media Players, Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player, Palm Devices, and has also been adopted by the major standards organizations including the ISO MPEG (MPEG-4), 3GPP and 3GPP2, DVB, as well as XM satellite radio. (compiled from multiple sources in less than 5 minutes, so the list is probably far greater than what I have here)
Explain to me please how Apples use of ACC is part of their grand scheme to enslave the world and force every living soul on the planet to tied to Apple when its not even their format, its an open standard used by just about everything that plays recorded or streamed sound in the last few years.
What does Napster or any other store only being DRM free for a year have to do with anything. So they weren't DRM free, neither was the iTMS, and neither were any other sources of legal music downloads in that time frame. So you were somehow forced to use iTunes by this? You could have purchased from ANY other store and converted them the same way. Your whole arguement does not hold water at all although it is so often repeated in any discussion about iTMS. There are a lot of people that use iPods and never have purchased a single song from the iTMS and don't even use iTunes on their computer.
And your analogy of the Microsoft/IE to Apple/iTunes is flawed. Apple is not preventing you from downloading music from Amazon Music, Zune, or any other Music store. You can rip all your CD's to it, import any music files format it supports that aren't protected by some other companies DRM restrictions. You can un-install it at any time and not lose any of your music.
BTW the musicindustry forced Apples hand as much or more than they forced the industry, recently he wanted DRM free songs, which as you stated yourself they were already offering elsewhere, and they wanted multi-tier pricing, sounds more like a trade-off to me than one side forcing the other. Prior to that he wanted 99 cent songs when they wanted higher prices, but that wasn't using iTunes dominance to get it, as iTunes was just launching when that happened and had no clout to through around in the first place.
You know I have never owned a Apple product and the only music players our family have ever had are CD players, XM Radios, and our cell phones through verizon ( my Omnia, wifes Alias, sons Juke (i believe thats the name) i don't even have iTunes installed on any of the 4 computers in our house (2 Vista / 2 XP) as we just use Windows Media Player. I tried iTunes a long time back and used it to rip all of our CD's to my computer and then make some MP3 collections on CD to take with me in the car as I drive over 60K miles a year for work. I don't have any Apple software currently installed except Quicktime on my Vista desktop just because some of my hobby software outputs in .MOV format. I'm not sure that I even like Apple as a company, but what I like even less are people that think every company has to bend and give into every demand that anyone makes or they are an evil empire that needs to be taken down. I don't campain for MS to be overthrown, and although i am a Vista user personally, it does have more annouying aspects than almost any previous OS they have released except ME. If Apple is a monopoly that needs to be put in its place then MS is also. Because you are saying that no matter how much competition is out there and how many other choices you have, if you are the market leader you are a monopoly.
BTW...the Pre is a POS anyway. I am not impressed by it at all.
I'm a MAC snob and i know it. I look good. And i look better with my iPhone and MAC.
Apple, you see, is special and magical. It has a right to demand continued compatibility and good support from Microsoft... but other vendors shouldn't expect that Apple will even allow their hardware to interface with their monopoly software.
It's all part of the great Apple double standard.
Seriously, is there a secret anti-apple religion that I didn't know of?
Why are you repeating each other and then say "Amen"?
I see a pattern here. Hmmmm
Now, the PC crowd is crying that Apple is a 'major player' and playing hardball with others who would tap into their technology without so much as thinking about paying a royality or even asking.
I'll bet Steve Jobs crawled off of his death bed to personally demand iTunes do an update to stop Palm.
In fact, Palm faithfully supported Apple customers and Apple itself with timely updates of its syncing software even when Apple was days from liquidation.
Apple has repaid that favor by screwing Palm and its own customers.
- by justusderdv July 15, 2009 3:58 PM PDT
- I guess I'll have to take another look at the Palm Pre if it's that good that it turns Apple green with envy. When a corporation starts behaving like an irrational pre-teen with her feelings hurt, you can bet somebody has kicked them right in the ego.
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