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Palm responds to the latest iTunes update.
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John Molloy
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In a late attempt to restore the status quo, Palm released an update on the 23rd to allow the Pre to sync yet again with iTunes.
This is a dumb move on Palm’s part.
Firstly it is proving that they have the geek cred to keep coming back at Apple to make it work. Well done guys. Now stop.
Secondly it shows that they are only interested in hacking their device to make it work with iTunes as opposed to actually do the right thing and develop their own software to read the XML file that iTunes creates - like all the other people who “sync” with iTunes. You know - why bother to actually work when you can cheat your way out?
So it boils down to this. I give Apple about a week before the cease and desist order hits Palm’s desk. Palm are attempting to pass the Pre off as an iPod. This will not do. Welcome to the legal system Palm.
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I tried the Pre yesterday, once again. I still think the keyboard blows. The one in the store ran very slow, quite disappointingly. I do NOT think the UI is as intuitive as the iPhone.
In short, it’s the best phone SPrint has, but it’s a far cry from my iPHone.
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capablanca
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[...]
So it boils down to this. I give Apple about a week before the cease and desist order hits Palm’s desk. Palm are attempting to pass the Pre off as an iPod. This will not do. Welcome to the legal system Palm.I concur that Apple probably has a cause of action. But they might choose to temporize.
Palm has bigger problems. The Pre is not taking the world by storm (ho,ho). l There are hardware problems, performance problems, high rates of return, few apps, and falling sales.
A high profile Apple lawsuit might give Palm a boost at a time when they desperately need one.
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DawnTreader
- [ Ignore ]
[...]
So it boils down to this. I give Apple about a week before the cease and desist order hits Palm’s desk. Palm are attempting to pass the Pre off as an iPod. This will not do. Welcome to the legal system Palm.I concur that Apple probably has a cause of action. But they might choose to temporize.
Palm has bigger problems. The Pre is not taking the world by storm (ho,ho). l There are hardware problems, performance problems, high rates of return, few apps, and falling sales.
A high profile Apple lawsuit might give Palm a boost at a time when they desperately need one.
Hmmm… Interesting issue.I don’t suspect many are attracted to buying a phone and signing a two-year contract for an on-again, off-again “feature” that isn’t officially supported by the company providing the online sales service. In my view it cheapens the product. Either offer full integration or no integration at all.
Apple may need to officially respond, but I think the issue will take care of itself. Sprint and Palm offering an iTunes hack is not the way to sell phones.
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I think you’re right, DT. iTunes sync isn’t even something that Palm can tout as a feature if Apple will only break it at every opportunity. If I was a Palm user, I’d be pretty frustrated by this. And they can ill afford more issues given the hardware quality problems they are having.
Apple is definitely in the better position here.
-Dan
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"ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" - Charles Darwin
What’s the difference between a Mac and a PC? Macs are designed, PCs are assembled.
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Apple has some experience with lawyers: Sue Palm and Sprint.
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Apple has some experience with lawyers: Sue Palm and Sprint.
Disagree. There’s no need for Apple to look like a bully against somebody that is not a threat. Update iTunes and lock it down again. Eventually the Pre folks will discover that the iTunes sync is not the “feature” they thought it was.
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“Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! The solution for America’s problem is not in terms of big government, but it is in big men over whom nobody stands in control but God.” ?Norman Vincent Peale
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John Molloy
- [ Ignore ]
Disagree. There’s no need for Apple to look like a bully against somebody that is not a threat. Update iTunes and lock it down again. Eventually the Pre folks will discover that the iTunes sync is not the “feature” they thought it was.
But that neglects that fact that the Pre is “passing itself off as an iPod”. Argue all you like about how Apple should handle this BUT Apple have to protect their intellectual property or anyone could step right in.
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Disagree. There’s no need for Apple to look like a bully against somebody that is not a threat. Update iTunes and lock it down again. Eventually the Pre folks will discover that the iTunes sync is not the “feature” they thought it was.
But that neglects that fact that the Pre is “passing itself off as an iPod”. Argue all you like about how Apple should handle this BUT Apple have to protect their intellectual property or anyone could step right in.
Agreed. . . just not sure a lawsuit is the best course of action.
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“Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! The solution for America’s problem is not in terms of big government, but it is in big men over whom nobody stands in control but God.” ?Norman Vincent Peale
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Paul Dorman
- [ Ignore ]
But that neglects that fact that the Pre is “passing itself off as an iPod”. Argue all you like about how Apple should handle this BUT Apple have to protect their intellectual property or anyone could step right in.
You may not be aware of this, but there is a “Develop” menu in Safari that you can enable. It lets Safari pass itself off as, e.g., “Internet Explorer 8.0”, or “Firefox 3.0.10 - Mac”, or “Opera 9.64 - Windows”.
Should Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera sue Apple over this?
The fact is, there is no crime in “lying” to a computer (unless its for nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA).
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John Molloy
- [ Ignore ]
You may not be aware of this, but there is a “Develop” menu in Safari that you can enable. It lets Safari pass itself off as, e.g., “Internet Explorer 8.0”, or “Firefox 3.0.10 - Mac”, or “Opera 9.64 - Windows”.
Should Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera sue Apple over this?
The fact is, there is no crime in “lying” to a computer (unless its for nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA).
Hmmm. Firstly, it is a DEVELOP menu - not generally available to normal end users - it is for DEVELOPERS. It is a tool to allow developers to check compatibility with web sites under development.
“The fact is, there is no crime in “lying” to a computer (unless its for nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA)”
So informing your competitors software that your hardware is their hardware is not “nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA”?
[ Edited: 24 July 2009 02:17 PM by John Molloy ]Signature
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But that neglects that fact that the Pre is “passing itself off as an iPod”. Argue all you like about how Apple should handle this BUT Apple have to protect their intellectual property or anyone could step right in.
You may not be aware of this, but there is a “Develop” menu in Safari that you can enable. It lets Safari pass itself off as, e.g., “Internet Explorer 8.0”, or “Firefox 3.0.10 - Mac”, or “Opera 9.64 - Windows”.
Should Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera sue Apple over this?
The fact is, there is no crime in “lying” to a computer (unless its for nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA).
And you, being an attorney, are certain that there is nothing “nefarious” going on?
I tend to think that the Pre will die it’s own death and Apple won’t need to sue. Honestly, from what I have seen the Pre is *exactly* what Apple has been accused of being by most of the “PC’s” of the world…pretty to look at, but nothing special from a “tech” perspective. A pretty iPhone wannabe.
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Steph :apple:
Id quot circumiret, circumveniat -
But that neglects that fact that the Pre is “passing itself off as an iPod”. Argue all you like about how Apple should handle this BUT Apple have to protect their intellectual property or anyone could step right in.
You may not be aware of this, but there is a “Develop” menu in Safari that you can enable. It lets Safari pass itself off as, e.g., “Internet Explorer 8.0”, or “Firefox 3.0.10 - Mac”, or “Opera 9.64 - Windows”.
Should Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera sue Apple over this?
The fact is, there is no crime in “lying” to a computer (unless its for nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA).
There may be a problem if the Pre is having Apple proprietary s/w installed as part of the syncing process, albeit I’m not a lawyer nor have I investigated the inner workings of the iPod/iTunes interlinking.
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“Once we roared like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security! The solution for America’s problem is not in terms of big government, but it is in big men over whom nobody stands in control but God.” ?Norman Vincent Peale
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Paul Dorman
- [ Ignore ]
You may not be aware of this, but there is a “Develop” menu in Safari that you can enable. It lets Safari pass itself off as, e.g., “Internet Explorer 8.0”, or “Firefox 3.0.10 - Mac”, or “Opera 9.64 - Windows”.
Should Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera sue Apple over this?
The fact is, there is no crime in “lying” to a computer (unless its for nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA).
Hmmm. Firstly, it is a DEVELOP menu - not generally available to normal end users - it is for DEVELOPERS. It is a tool to allow developers to check compatibility with web sites under development.
The point is that Apple’s software is lying to other computers… if it’s the lying itself that’s a crime, Apple should also be on the receiving end of multiple law suits.
“The fact is, there is no crime in “lying” to a computer (unless its for nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA)”
So informing your competitors software that your hardware is their hardware is not “nefarious purposes as defined by the DMCA”?
I’m not an expert on the DMCA, but I think it would only be criminal if they were circumventing encryption. Given that their accessing the user’s data that they could get anyway, I would say they’re merely using an undocumented API.
Let me be clear, I’m an Apple user… I’m typing this on my MacBook right now. I’ve been using Macs since System 7. I think Apple designs better hardware and software than anyone else out there. But if someone wants to use an undocumented API, there’s no need to use them. If it bothers Apple, they can change the API (as they did). If Palm can figure it out again, good for them!
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Palm: “on behalf of consumers, we have notified the USB Implementers Forum [USB-IF] of what we believe is improper use of the Vendor ID number by another member”
i.e. Palm says Apple’s response to Pre working with iTunes was to misuse its vendor id to deliberately prevent interoperability - the whole idea of standards like USB. (cheeky but fallacious argument IMO - interoperability is for data communication not device function).
OTOH, when Palm signed up to get its own USB vendor id, it explicitly agreed that id spoofing was forbidden…
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The point is that Apple’s software is lying to other computers… if it’s the lying itself that’s a crime, Apple should also be on the receiving end of multiple law suits.
I think you are probably wrong on this. Browser spoofing uses data in a field that isn’t fully defined, but whose purpose is to indicate how the browser will behave to facilitate interoperability. It is not a protected or trustworthy place to identify what is on the other end of the internet.
On the other hand, USB vendor ID’s are unique id’s issued under contract by an official body explicitly to identify the vendor of connected USB equipment. Indeed when they received their USB vendor id, Palm will have legally agreed that USB id spoofing is forbidden.
There’s no law against me typing “chicken” into my computer, but if I do so in a password field in order to access your bank account, it certainly is illegal. It’s the context and intention of the action that is crucial.
I think Apple most likely can stop Palm officially spoofing Apple vendor id’s. But there is not much they could do about users hacking WebOS to spoof USB vendor ids, just as there’s not a lot Apple can do about jailbroken iPhones.
