Palm Says Apple is Abusing USB ID to Block Pre

[kiniku]

One thing is clear, if Apple responds with another block of the Palm Pre, Apple sees the Palm Pre as a worthy competitor to their own products. If the Pre was just another phone they wouldn't need bother. I really hope the Pre becomes a great enough success that they can continue to out innovate Apple on the market for user friendly smart phones.

I'd see Pre more "worthy" if they developed their own snyching applications rather than trying to use a competitor's. Clearly Palm thinks Apple's is worthy to use without their permission.

 

[Guest]

itunes isnt just some free app to go with apple products....They sell Music and videos on it. You should be able to use any hardware to sync up the music collection you paid apple for. How could you fools stick up for apple on this....
...on a side note itunes sux and no one should use it

 

[seboj]

[citation][nom]Chipi[/nom]What do you mean "back in July"?Where are you... I'm sorry, WHEN are you living?[/citation]

I'm living back in August.

 

[Nik_I]

why is apple allowed to get away with such anti-competitive actions while microsoft gets sued for billions of dollars for bundling IE and WMP with windows?

 

[Guest]

"Does iTunes have an EULA? Does it require you to use only apple products? If so, that is a great reason not to use itunes (I never have), but either way they are being babies."

Last I checked just about anything you install has a EULA so knocking down iTunes because it has one seems a bit silly when any other solution, besides not listening to music on a computer, is going to have you agree to an EULA.

 

[nachowarrior]

i'm still waiting for them to copyright the letter "i" and charge everyone to use it. Looks like we're getting a new letter in the alphabet to replace it at this rate. or we will just have to use "1"s

 

[g-thor]

Okay, I did about ten minutes of research. I just read the iTunes EULA. Under the permitted uses and restrictions, it does not say one word about hardware - what you can and cannot use. They state the usual - one copy on your computer, can't put it on a network (so technically, if I don't download a fresh copy for each computer I want it on, I am breaking the EULA), may only use it to reproduce copyrighted materials you are legally authorized to use, etc.

Then, I went to their download pages (both Mac OS X and Windows) and looked at the hardware requirements. There is no requirement to use it only with an iPod, iPhone or iAnything. The requirements for hardware only list the computer hardware the software can run on.

Nowhere does Apple state that I will, at their discretion, only be able to use their software product on their hardware product. Don't you think that's a detail that I, as a consumer should have before I install their software?

Some people have said that iTunes was made exclusively to support the iPod. Please cite your sources for that tidbit, as I haven't been able to find anything about that. As I understand it, Apple makes iTunes freely available to anyone who wants to download and use it, without stating any restrictions on what PMP you may use.

For me, that means Apple is morally responsible to either allow the software to support all hardware, or to change their EULA and their hardware requirements to let consumers know, up front, that they must buy only Apple's hardware to use this program.

 

[knutjb]

Competition in one of their most lucrative markets must scare the Apple Empire to be so brutal with iToons.

 

[Guest]

Your saying about apple programmes on Windows, but those apple programmes aren't pretending to be a MS product in order to work.

 

[Guest]

I smell a class action lawsuit. Apple is doing the same thing that Intel is currently in legal trouble for, pushing people to use their products over another, and going as far as making it impossible to use other hardware to use the music that, iTunes (Apple) themselves do not have legal control of, but are rather just a middle man for the distribution of the product. In this situation Apple is no more than Best Buy selling CDs, but what they are effectively doing is the same as if Best Buy were to make their CDs only playable on units purchased at Best Buy. This is completely illegal, and Apple has no right to do so. CD files that you upload to iTunes will also not be able to import to your Palm Pre and other devices, so you would have to transfer the songs from CD to another program, and then through to your other "non-i___" devices. This is a ridiculous move on Apple's behalf, and if I had the time to waste in court, you'd better believe I would head a class-action lawsuit on these money-grubbing imbeciles. Apple Legal department FTL

 

[fwupow]

The customer is always right and the customers always want maximum versatility to transfer anything to anything and play anything on anything. In the long run, companies that fail to appreciate this spiral down the crapper.

 

[Raidur]

On an ethical note. Itunes is one of the most, if not the most, widely used program to download music (legally). I know quite a few families of friends who don't even have an ipod and purchase music off of Itunes. Once their daughters got cell phones with MP3 players on them, thinking they were going to get the music they PAID for and OWN put on them, they found out something sweet, THEY CAN'T! Awesome!

So guess what? Now they pirate. Quite a few hundred dollars lost right there to Itunes/Apple, good job! Way to hurt yourself and not to mention, THE ENTIRE MUSIC INDUSTRY. Hurray!

 

[MattC]

Never thought I'd join THIS bandwagon, but reading the comments of the iTools here (not to imply that all Apple fans/users are tools; some definitely are) really drives home why so many people think Apple fans are oblivious. If there were many Microsoft fans (there aren't many, as far as I can see) they'd appear just as dumb. So to address a few points that people fail to grasp ....
People would bash similar practices by other products, such as microsoft's Zune, if many people used them. It's not the fact that it's apple doing it, it's the fact that someone is doing it. The thing that we, as consumers, want, is to have our cake and eat it too - we want to be able to buy a product and use it, and have it work with other products, even from other companies, where possible. We don't expect our xBox games to work on our playstation or PC, but if we buy music, we expect to be able to play that music anywhere. If you buy music from the applestore for about the same price as the CD, why shouldn't you be able to sync it to your Palm phone, too? Sadly, too many people don't understand what they're really buying when they go to the iTunes store. In the end, though, the fault is not entirely Apple's - the fools who buy from the apple store not knowing what they're getting are equally culpable.

 

[matt87_50]

... and the EU is attacking MS about IE...

 

[Caffeinecarl]

I'm disgusted with Apple anymore, but I've come to expect this from the company that dresses up FreeBSD and charges an arm and a leg just to get it with their look and feel on sub-standard hardware.

I bought the music, I used their software, and now that they've decided to go DRM free (for the music, at least) they're actually bothering to CHARGE me to "upgrade" my songs to the new "itunes plus" DRM free format! I bought the songs, they should "upgrade" them for FREE! They already have about the worst policy in the MP3 business pertaining re-downloads in that unless your download is somehow corrupted on the first try, tough shit. Even then you have to call customer service to get credit for it. Unfortunately for me, I don't do pirate music, so I'll be paying that stupid 30¢ a track just to replace the ones that haven't already been replaced by buying the CD's two weeks later.

Once I have freed all the songs I actually care about at all, I'm converting them ALL to MP3's and never touching iAnything again.

 

[r0x0r]

utorrent + right click/send to = WIN!

I don't understand why Apple doesn't open it's market to non-Apple devices. It's like saying that you can't use a Logitech mouse with Windows.

Unfathomable for a Windows user but perfectly logical for a Mac user. That's the impression that I'm getting here anyway. Could be wrong though.

 

[Guest]

"Exactly. Apple made iTunes for THEIR products. Why should they allow a rival to use their products software? Last i checked a company has the right to make software that is exclusive to their hardware. Palm a company that is dying and needs to the Pre to keep it alive is just using this as a marketing stint to try and say their shitty phone is a contender for the iPhone."

And microsott made IE for there product

 

[Guest]

Why should apple have to support an infinite number of piece of shit phone's and mediaplayers in THEIR software? (cause if they have to support palm then nokia and samsung etc will surely be next to demand this)

If there's any problem with itunes syncing with their non-apple phone or pmp people are going to be pissed off at apple because "iTunes doesn't work".

Let Palm build their own software or pay apple to support their wannabe-iphone in iTunes.

 

[david__t]

Apple know that if their software was available on other hardware then their over priced products would not sell - that is why they specify that only iMacs etc... can have the MacOS installed on them in the EULA and hence why Psystar were sued. If iTunes used the MP3 format rather than the stupid codec that they use now then more people would use it - and if it was freed up from iPod only usage then the iPod sales would drop. Heck, I know some people that use the word iPod as a general term for MP3 player - it is like Creative Labs and the rest didn't even exist! As we all know, the iPod is not top in sound quality or build quality but you do pay a premium for that so called "Apple Design".

 

[kartu]

[citation][nom]Vizzie[/nom]Why should apple have to support an infinite number of piece of shit phone's and mediaplayers in THEIR software? (cause if they have to support palm then nokia and samsung etc will surely be next to demand this) If there's any problem with itunes syncing with their non-apple phone or pmp people are going to be pissed off at apple because "iTunes doesn't work". Let Palm build their own software or pay apple to support their wannabe-iphone in iTunes.[/citation]

Who cares about their "support"? Who has ever asked them to "support"? NO ONE DID. It was Palm supporting the same protocols in their piece of hardware. Which Apple didn't like AND SPENT MONEY to BREAK IT. Got it?