

Apple Blocks Palm Pre iTunes Syncing - blasdel
http://www.precentral.net/apple-blocks-palm-pre-itunes-syncing

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jsz0
I'd be more upset with Palm than Apple on this one. You can't really expect to
use another companies software through a hack like this. Passing it along to
users as a feature is pretty shady IMO. The problem for Apple isn't the Pre
per say -- it's the fact that if they don't block the Pre now they may get
themselves into trouble later on when more people start using iTunes with
third party devices unofficially. Eventually Apple may want to change the way
iPods sync and suddenly all these users are unhappy and confused that it no
longer works. They are better off doing it now when relatively few people are
relying on it. Apple has zero obligation to support Palm's hardware. iTunes is
not an open platform for third party devices to sync to. Palm decided to
advertise this hack as a feature and now it doesn't work. That's on Palm, not
Apple.

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jarrodtaylor
Not only is this on Palm, but I suspect they planned it. They knew Apple
wouldn't allow this to happen. It forces Apple to generate their own bad
press. Next step is for Palm to write a workaround and look like the hero.
Except they should've been paying attention when RealNetworks tried this a few
years ago. That strategy relies on turning Apple fans against Apple. And if
you follow the tech industry at all you know how difficult that will be (hint:
damn near impossible).

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ivanstojic
Gee, that was an amazing surprise. Not.

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robotron
If Microsoft specifically set out to make their software incompatible with
third parties what would happen? Oh wait it did...

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jemmons
Um, isn't Microsoft's whole business based on selling an OS that supports as
many different varieties of hardware as possible? Specifically, in this very
space, wasn't the whole point of "Plays for Sure" that there were a multitude
of hardware devices made by a multitude of venders that interoperated with the
Microsoft solution?

I'm going to go ahead and call shenanigans on your post. I don't think it
holds up to scrutiny.

Now if you want to make an argument about how Microsoft hid APIs in it's
operating system so that its office suite or browser performed better than
anyone else's, or how it bundled its browser to try to use it's OS monopoly to
strangle competition in another market, you'd have a point. But it should be
clear how those are vastly different circumstances that cannot meaningfully be
applied to the case of media jukebox made by company "A" and random hardware
media player made by company "B".

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robotron
That's what I was referring to. Oh well.

