Apple Warns Palm Pre Users: We're Going To Break Your iTunes Syncing
from the shot-across-the-bow dept
I have to admit that I’ve never really understood Apple’s ongoing efforts to block any sort of compatibility with both iPod devices and iTunes. You may recall a few years back the big fight between Apple and RealNetworks when Real tried to let its software connect to iPods, which Apple treated as a gross injustice. Now Palm is doing the opposite, by letting the Pre connect and sync with iTunes software by making the device pretend it’s an iPod when connected to a computer. Apple, however, has responded with a neat little message that never actually mentions Palm, even if it’s entirely transparent who it’s about, warning people that Apple can easily break syncing when it updates its software. Of course, Apple did it in a way that it can claim wasn’t meant nefariously at all. All the company really meant was to make people understand that it has no control over how the Pre syncs with iTunes, and it’s possible that an update could break that syncing. Sure. Right. Except most people assume this means Apple intends to break it.
But I don’t understand why. For people who bought the Palm Pre, that’s only going to piss them off and drive them to use other software, taking them away from Apple’s products. Why does that help Apple? Having Palm Pre syncing with iTunes increases the value of iTunes. What’s wrong with that, other than being the latest example of Apple’s dislike of anyone doing anything not invented in Cupertino?
Comments on “Apple Warns Palm Pre Users: We're Going To Break Your iTunes Syncing”
Mike, you of all people should understand the “razor, razor blade” theory. Apple is just smarter than most, because they are really doing “razor blades, razor blades”.
Music sells ithings. Ithings push users to itoonz. I toonz sells players, loop. Why do you think that apple have become the masters of one upping themselves just in time to sell another wave of phones / players / whatever? The Iphone3gs is an amazing step for Apple, adds little that shouldn’t have already been there, and creates a new snob level (oh, you have an OLD iphone).
Getting involved in millions of music sales a year is nice. Selling each of those users a new ithing every couple of years is golden – in part because it creates millions more music sales, which helps to sell the NEXT ithing, wash, rinse, repeat.
Re: Re:
“Mike, you of all people should understand the “razor, razor blade” theory. Apple is just smarter than most, because they are really doing “razor blades, razor blades”.”
Er, actually Apple is doing the opposite. They’re giving away the blades and selling the razors. That’s why they care about the Pre et al.
Re: Re:
Err… Using your loop analogy, they have potentially stopped more users getting onto the loop altogether. Now they have what could have been potential customer cursing Apple and everything they produce. Does not sound very smart to me.
Re: Re:
And this is why I have never owned an apple product. I’ll gladly skip along listening to my SanDisk Sansa Clip which I paid 50 bux for, and loaded it with all the tons and tons of music I have with any program I want. Whee!
probably it will just cause palm to take 5 days or a week to reverse engineer any changes. Big whoop.
Re: Re:
“probably it will just cause palm to take 5 days or a week to reverse engineer any changes”
There’s that, and then there’s the “luddites” like me who have never wanted, needed, or found amy thing lacking with our lives becuase iTunes or the iPod or the iPhone weren’t a part of it. I have tons of music that I can play on my mp3 player and can play it on any device I want, including my cell phone, and I just refuse to participate in Apple’s crap. There’s always another option.
Apple lawsuit
Mike,
Isn’t apple involved in an anti-trust lawsuit in Europe about its failure to allow other devices to connect to iTunes?
Why piss everyone off?
One of the best ways to get a customer is to make a good impression. Give me a reason to buy your product….when companies pull crap like this, it just makes the end user have a lesser view of the company and will NOT increase the ipod sales, but rather make me want to find a product that is more open. AND I AM AN APPLE FAN! but this is still one of those quirks apple has that is really quite sad.
Because...
iTunes is a selling point for iPods, and iPods are where Apple is making the money (assuming the statements about the iTunes store being run at about break-even are true). In this scenario, making iTunes more useful to Pre owners makes those owners buy iTunes music WITHOUT buying an iPod. That’s not what Apple wants/needs. They need you to buy an iPod.
Now, if I was Palm, I’d play catch-up with the iTunes sync thing, as needed, but I’d also get get someone else (with links to the Amazon mp3 store) that I could call on as well.
The thing about iTunes is that it’s nicely integrated. There’s nothing there that’s hard to do, you just have to want to.
Re: Because...
iTunes is a selling point for iPods, and iPods are where Apple is making the money (assuming the statements about the iTunes store being run at about break-even are true). In this scenario, making iTunes more useful to Pre owners makes those owners buy iTunes music WITHOUT buying an iPod. That’s not what Apple wants/needs. They need you to buy an iPod.
Yes, I agree at a *first pass* and in fact have discussed how iTunes is effectively a “loss leader” for iPods and iPhones.
But… that still doesn’t account for why this makes sense. Because they should be focused on selling by adding positive value, not negative value. Are people really not going to buy a Palm Pre because Apple breaks iTunes for it? Or, the more likely scenario, are they going to get pissed off at Apple and be less likely to buy ANYTHING from them in the future?
I’d argue the second scenario is a lot more likely.
Re: Re: Because...
Wait a minute. Apple has never allowed third parties to connect to their ipod/iTunes ecosystem. Are you arguing that by continuing their current policies by messing with Palm, they’ll lose business from users who were expecting them to be open?
Besides, they don’t need to break Pre. They just need enough uncertainty about whether they will to prevent people from switching *from* Apple hardware to Pre. New users are a wash, they just don’t want Palm to be seen as a legitimate upgrade option by people who have invested in Apple hardware and software. The threat is enough to meet that goal.
Re: Re: Because...
Apple is the true monopoly in the high tech market.
I also believe “bundling” an unprofitable service with a profitable one and preventing anyone else from connecting a product they can offer that uses the unprofitable service is monopolistic and probably illegal -for example, BM was not able to prevent Amdahl from using the IBM OS on Amdahl hardware. Apple wants it both ways – they want to have products where they fix the price; and they don’t want anyone taking any of their business (how else do you figure they’d have the nerve to parent a magnetic power plug so third party power adapter companies cannot offer a Mac power supply? Apple, of course, is “popular” so no one at DOJ will be looking.. yet.
Apple’s margins on music sales via iTunes are thin. After burdening iTunes with Apple’s large marketing/ad spend, iTunes music sales are break-even at best on a stand alone basis. If customers can use iTunes without having purchased a high margin ipod/iphone, then Apple’s scheme falls apart.
And that's why...
I am a PC. 🙂
Apple isn’t saying that they will intentionally break iTunes for the Pre. They are not going to spend any time testing the Pre with new versions of iTunes. I can see their point.
Re: Re:
Of course crapple is saying they’ll intentionally break itunes for the Pre. With every software update they intentionally break iphone and ipod touch compatibility with other music syncing software (they change the database format). They’re the REAL evil empire.
I use Macs, but I don’t think I am one. Typical of Microsoft to miss the distinction.
Re: Re:
Dumb. If you recall, Apple had the “I’m a Mac” commercials for years before Microsoft ever got ahold of it.
Typical of Apple fans to assume that hating Apple == love for Microsoft. The point is that to use Apple, you have to use everything Apple. If you don’t use Apple, you can use EVERYTHING else.
Actually,
Actually,
Ugg
Apple users are smug effete acolytes.
That’s why I went from Amiga to PC compatible and Linux.
Never Bought Apple since Steve W. left the company.
Actually,
Actually, allowing iTunes access to the Palm Pre doesn’t increase the value of iTunes, pal. If any value is added anywhere, it’s to the Pre. Almost everyone uses iTunes in some form, or at least has it on their computer. Nobody who doesn’t have or use iTunes is all of a sudden going to realize, “Hey, with this cool new doohickey I bought, I can use iTunes–i guess I’ll start now.”
No, quite contrarily, since the Pre is so close in competition with the iPhone, that little ability of Palm’s might drive otherwise iPhone owners to go get their hands on the well-hyped little guy.
So, to recap, iTunes compatibility for the Pre:
enormous value-adding feature for the Pre, which probably will convince at least a few people that they don’t need an iPhone per se; and that exact same effect for Apple.
The extra one millionth of a percent of market share they probably won’t even receive from iTunes interacting with the Pre would be offset a thousand times by any amount of once on-the-fence iPhone/Pre potential buyers going with the latter because, “Hey, I don’t need an iPhone to have an iPod in my phone” is a pretty damn solid game-changer.
Re: Actually,
Yeah, I’m not sure where you get your figures, but “almost everyone” is still pretty stupid.
Re: Actually,
Almost everyone uses iTunes in some form, or at least has it on their computer.
LOL, uh no, you killed any argument you may have had with that right there. Everyone on the PC side that can’t stand crapple will NOT have iTunes on their PC. I’m sorry to break it to you, but that’s the VAST majority of the market.
I would think Apple would want to sell music through iTunes regardless of the player that is connected. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot by cutting out source of reoccurring revenue?
Plus, there’s the minor detail that Palm’s method of itunes sync is a violation of the USB device spec. I happen to believe that itunes should have a plug-in architecture to allow third-parties to hook their devices in. The problem, as Apple sees it, is that if and when things go wrong, people will ask Apple for support, and I’m sure that Apple doesn’t want to waste resources supporting Palm, Zune and SanDisk.
Re: Re:
Finally someone can make a legitimate point without having to put everyone else down. ahhh, comments….
ipod shuffle $79, bill of materials – $22
iPhone 3g unsubsized cost $499 – bill of materials ~
ipod shuffle $79, bill of materials – $22
iPhone 3g unsubsized cost $499 – bill of materials ~
ipod shuffle $79, bill of materials – $22
iPhone 3g unsubsized cost $499 – bill of materials ~$200-$250
8Gb flash ram upgrade for 3G – $99 – cost of 8Gb flash ram $10-12.
ipod nano 16gb – $199, $24 of flash ram + screen + player
itunes $.99-$1.29 – 66% to publishers, apple’s take – $.33 – $.40 per song minus costs to run the store.
let’s say they keep 25 cents a track profit and be overly generous. They’d have to sell an awful lot of music to make up the few hundred bucks they make for every iPhone. And since people can’t buy music on the Pre itself, they’ll lose revenue there too.
What most people don’t understand is that the product is the iTunes/iPodPhone/dockEcosystem system.
The key to iPhone/iPod dominance is iTunes as protected gateway to media on the computer (purchased and ripped) in and the proprietary dock connector as the gateway to locked up devices on the way out.
The day that a company cracks either of those for good is the day apple becomes vulnerable and they’re never going to let that happen.
Until retailers alone or banded together create a free music management / store software as good as iTunes, they are going to pound sand in the digital music market. And it’s a double lock. Even if they do, that software won’t work with iPhones and iPods so they’ll never get traction. This has been true for the last 4-5 years and will remain true and will only get harder for retailers every year, but they won’t or can’t do it.
Sure, amazon will get a few sales, but best buy,target, and walmart will be losers. And 3 years from now when and if any other phones get traction and iPhone is comfortably ensconced, they can always open the store. Meanwhile, they will still garner the sales from the other phones when folks use software like doubleTwist ‘sync’ their phones.
ipod shuffle $79, bill of materials – $22
iPhone 3g unsubsized cost $499 – bill of materials $200-$250
8Gb flash ram upgrade for 3G – $99 – cost of 8Gb flash ram $10-12.
ipod nano 16gb – $199, $24 of flash ram + screen + player
itunes $.99-$1.29 – 66% to publishers, apple’s take – $.33 – $.40 per song
minus costs to run the store.
let’s say they keep 25 cents a track profit and be overly generous. They’d have to sell an awful lot of music to make up the few hundred bucks they make for every iPhone. And since people can’t buy music on the Pre itself, they’ll lose revenue there too.
What most people don’t understand is that the product is the iTunes/iPodPhone/dockEcosystem system.
The key to iPhone/iPod dominance is iTunes as protected gateway to media on the computer (purchased and ripped) in and the proprietary dock connector as the gateway to locked up devices on the way out.
The day that a company cracks either of those for good is the day apple becomes vulnerable and they’re never going to let that happen.
Until retailers alone or banded together create a free music management / store software as good as iTunes, they are going to pound sand in the digital music market. And it’s a double lock. Even if they do, that software won’t work with iPhones and iPods so they’ll never get traction. This has been true for the last 4-5 years and will remain true and will only get harder for retailers every year, but they won’t or can’t do it.
Sure, amazon will get a few sales, but best buy,target, and walmart will be losers. And 3 years from now when and if any other phones get traction and iPhone is comfortably ensconced, they can always open the store. Meanwhile, they will still garner the sales from the other phones when folks use software like doubleTwist ‘sync’ their phones.
Re: Re:
Hit the submit button much?
People actually use iTunes as a music player? I only used it untill I found that Winamp can sync with my iPod. And the only reason I got an iPod was that it ‘fell off a truck’ and cost me $150AUD when they retailed at $320
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to use iTunes if they could avoid it. Gawd how I hate iTunes. It was like having an alien parasite in my computer while I had it.
Now I just use Foobar2000 and the foo_dop ipod client plugin. The whole things is a breeze to use. Easy and obvious click and drag functionality that doesn’t automatically do anything unless you explicitly tell it to. It has right click menus with obvious commands like ‘send to ipod’, ‘remove from ipod’ and so on, in addition to the normal toolbar commands. If you get the vst_wrapper plugin, it even lets you use vst plugins, so your equalizer can be a world class parametric if you want it be.
Yet another example of the glory of free at work.
ipod shuffle $79, bill of materials – $22 sale price to big box/walmart $35 if they are very lucky.
iPhone 3g unsubsized cost $499 – bill of materials $200-$250 sale price to at&t maybe $260, real profit maker there.
They understand $$ but
interoperability is not a term that is understood in the board room.
I'm a Palm...
Hi, I’m a Palm… and I am soooooo much better than one of those STUPID iPhones.
Hell, you can tell how much better I am by how much LIKE an iPhone I am. And now, I will PROVE how much better I am by syncing to iTunes!
Yeah, Apple are a bunch of losers, and us over here at Palm?
We rock, man. We innovate. We give the customer what the customer REALLY wants…
…Something like an Apple, but not.
Re: I'm a Palm...
hi i’m a palm pre and there is only one of me in the world and you can’t buy me.
oh yeah and i have no apps either. You can call me brick for short.
Since you don’t understand, let me tell you. Apple is a HARDWARE company. They aren’t trying to get people to use itunes for free, with other hardware. They want you to buy their hardware. It also ensures apple’s quality user experience, because they have control over the hardware and software, and you don’t have all these annoying compatibility problems. Apple has created a great market with itunes and the ipod, it has no obligation to let competitors in… Palm is welcome on the other hand to innovate their own software.
Re: Hardware Company is right
Apple is a Hardware company and only use their software to sell hardware. That’s why they only want you to use iTunes on an iPod / iPhone. That’s why they only want you using OSX on their hardware.
Apple is a hardware company.
Anti Trust and the Dems are back
Apple better be careful, the Democrats are back in power, look what happened with MSFT. Could you imagine MSFT trying to get away with the crap Apple does, even at their worst they weren’t as bad. Gee, a free browser built into the OS.
iTunes has a signifigant market share, perhaps close to a monopoly. The recording industry would love to take Apple down a few pegs, and they have lots of contacts in government.
Slapping down Pre or anyone else, could very easily trigger an Anti Trust investigation on this side of the pond, and I’m sure the EU is trying to figure out how much money they can extort from them as well.
What I think is really funny is all the fuss about the Pre and iPhone, all this NEW functionality is stuff I’ve had in my Pocket PC Phone for several generations. Ok, I’ll grant you the UI looks horrible, but it works. Try running TomTom, listening to music, getting E-mail syncs and notifications, all at the same time on any other device. Oh and while listening to audio through my blue tooth integrated stereo on my car.
For an app store, Handango has been around for what a decade or more supplying apps for Windows devices. Most of the apps are crap, just like the ones on the App Store. But hey they had the crap first 🙂
I have an Ipod Touch, I have not, nor will ever buy music from iTunes. I dont like ITunes, I dont rip my music with it and I dont use it to play my music…. but I do use it to sync my Ipod.. and sometimes use the remote app to control what songs play on the rare times i do use iTunes.(they play over my home theater system using a digital line from my PC since the only ‘puter in my home with iTunes is in the basement so it wont infect my other PCs…lol)
i notice that some people have said that apple *never* allows this, but there were some 3rd party phones that synced with itunes early on, and ipods used to sync with musicmatch jukebox on pc before itunes was available for pc, so yes, apple has done it both ways before. it’s only an issue now that they are the clear leader.
oh, and i have no idea why palm would want their device to work with itunes, itunes sucks.
@anonymous coward.
unsubsidized pricing (no contract) is the price+$300-$400 FROM AT&T.
Estimated margin on the 3G was 55%+
http://www.crm-daily.com/story.xhtml?story_id=60462
We’ll see about the 3gs in the next few days after someone does a teardown, but you’d expect them to have further cost-reduced the device. That is one profitable product.
$99 for a memory bump is at even higher margins
and don’t forget $99 for MobileMe, recurs yearly.
Apple can do what it wants...
Know what? Apple has no obligation to make sure that the Palm Pre can sync with iTunes. Whether or not they actually intend to break the syncing makes no difference, because they can and do update software regularly. If that update breaks the Pre syncing with iTunes, tough. I have no idea if the Pre has syncing with iTunes on its feature list, but it shouldn’t unless Palm has negotiated with Apple for that privilege. If it isn’t on the feature list, just something that’s there, then no one should be counting on it to continue to work.
If a Pre owner was sold a Pre after having been told by some sales person that the Pre supports syncing with iTunes, then that owner should be complaining to the store, or to Palm, or to management of who ever told him that he could do that.
My point, again, is that Apple has no obligation to support iTunes for anything but its own devices, and if that happens to break some other hardware syncing, it isn’t Apple’s fault, nor their problem.
If that sounds harsh, so be it, but I refuse to feel sorry for anyone that bought something like the Pre based upon a “feature” that is either a lie to the customer or an undocumented feature that shouldn’t be counted upon to work.
Re: Apple can do what it wants...
>> and if that happens to break some other hardware syncing, it isn’t Apple’s fault, nor their problem.
When you are the market leader and a monopoly it is a problem or more importantly THEIR (Apple’s) PROBLEM.
Think of it this way, what if Microsoft released a new version of Internet Explorer that broke Firefox. Would that be okay? Firefox worked great until you loaded IE8, after that it no longer would work as Microsoft found a way to disable it. How long do you think it would take for the anti-competitive lawsuits to follow.
I’m not saying I agree that Apple or Microsoft shouldn’t be able to break stuff, just that once you become the market leader, you’ll get sued for doing so.
By the way, for them to break the Pre would mean that they would have to reverse engineer the Pre, find a hole that wouldn’t break their iThings and yet would break the Pre. In that scenario, they will get sued and probably lose as their actions would be far from innocent.
I love the fact that Apple has to react. I love that there is a new competitor in town. Can’t wait for the Android phones to spread to Sprint and Verizon later this year/next and for Windows Mobile 7 phones to come out in Q1 of next year.
As Apple has demonstrated in the past, they will continue to try and over-price and over-control the market, which despite having cooler and fancier products on the market first ultimately will lead to their failure.
Apple maybe a hardware company, but as Microsoft has learned the real money is in being an “open” foundation company. If Apple wants to truly succeed in the long run, they have to make the iUniverse and an open one. I’m not holding my breathe.
Freedom
Re: Re: Apple can do what it wants...
MS upgrading IE and breaking Firefox just isn’t the same as Apple upgrading iTunes and breaking the ability of the Pre to sync with iTunes. The cases are so far apart is difficult to image how they can be compared at all.
IE and FF are both software, obstensively built to do exactly the same thing: display web pages. Now, if Microsoft insisted that you use IE to visit their own web pages, and did something to break or slow down FF when someone used it to access their home pages, that would be similar.
Oh yeah, but wait, they do. (Or did. Maybe that got changed.)
iTunes is proprietary and was built specifically to support Apple made devices. They built the hardware, they wrote the software, they get to decide what hardware the software interacts with.
Maybe in two years, Apple will have something to worry about, but with over 40 million iPhones sold worldwide I don’t think they have to worry right now.
For the Zillionth time....
Apparently only a few acolytes, and me, understand that the iTunes Music Store (ITMS) exists to support the iPod. Not the other way around.
When the iPod first came out, Apple created the ITMS to offer a value-add to the iPod. They also were roundly dismissed as being crazy to do so. Fast-forward to present day: The ITMS is a *major* player in online music sales and now all the naysayers want a piece of the action.
If you want to use iTunes to automagically manage music on your portable device, buy it from Apple. If not, please feel free to check out the scores of other solutions out there (check with your nearest Lunix user for suggestions).
Sheesh.
In 2008 itunes sold 1.07 billion songs so even if we go with dieselms conservative .25 cents a song that works out to close to 250 million dollars. Now I find it hard to believe that it cost 250 million a year to run itunes. Of course since it is midnight now I could be easily missing something here or my math sucks.
I have an i-pod nano 8GB and I absolutely despise i-tunes its slow and the user interface sux .I prefer Winamp its fast easy to use and free (the only draw back is it from AOL)
Play nice now Stevey...
Blimey – people WANT to use iTunes on other platforms? It’s been one of the main reasons I have never had any intention of buying an iAnything.
To me it represents everything that is wrong with Apple, whenever I start up my PC it just HAS to run in the background along with all the other Apple ‘services’. Getting music from other sources to work on my wifes iPlayer (free from a supplier) is a pain in the ass and taking that music to play on other devices is worse.
I actually quite like Apples design work and the look, feel and simplicity of a lot of their products (as long as you are doing ONLY what Apple want), but the extra layers of complications they add in if you want to deviate even slightly from an iEverything universe keeps me away.
It’s like the spoilt rich kid in the playground, sure he’s got a better ball and his toys are fantastic, but the extra overhead of always having to play his games his way and only ever speaking to an approved list of friends, (never ever talk to Mr smellyhead hairypalm kid) just makes it not worth the hassle. I’d much rather play with the other kid whoose ball perhaps isn’t quite as new, but who treats me like a human, doesn’t get in a strop if I want to play a different game somewhere else, and who plays nice with most of the other boys and girls…
MACS = Company controlled vrs PC/MS User controlled
MACs are a closed system – they control everything to make sure everything is compatible and a seamless end user experience. Company controlled!
PC are open. Microsoft is the dominate OS and must be very robust and dynamic to correctly hand all possible combination of stupidity. I am amazed it works so well. User controlled!
BTW: I like PC and MS in general because the vast array of things that I can do with it.
“For people who bought the Palm Pre, that’s only going to piss them off and drive them to use other software, taking them away from Apple’s products.”
Lack of iTunes support means less people buying Pre’s, not more people using the Pre’s software. Pre isnt driving the smartphone/music store bus, Apple is.
Apple breaking Pre syncs
Good on you, Mike! You have keyed on why I haven’t bought an iPod, and also why I don’t intend to buy any Apple products. To be honest, Ubuntu (if you are willing to put the extra effort into it) is superior to Apple and M$, so I likely wouldn’t be a customer anyway, but driving another nail in the coffin is not a good idea, as you pointed out (in effect).
MSC (UMC) = You have a brain
Sorry, I only use MSC(mass storage class)/UMC(???), ie drag and drop, for media transfer. Mainly because I have a brain.
Why anyone would use MTP(media transfer protocol) other then being obtuse or lazy, eludes me and I don’t think it qualifies as a protocol. Then again I’m weird like that, for example rather then “desktop search” I use subdirectories 😛
cool phone.
Ok so I just realized how much I miss having a custom tone for text messages… I know the standard one is very clean and fits in with the whole theme of the phone very well but with all the customization options on the Pre I can’t imagine why the only thing you can select for are phone calls.
I’m pretty sure if people are vocal enough about such an easy change then Palm will respond fairly quickly.
http://www.palmpreforum.org is all about the Palm Pre
The Very Reason I don't by Apple
Apple snobs and proprietary hardware… Is why iHATE Apple. They have a “your not as cool as me” effect. Steve Jobs is a jerk. Apple is overpriced… and most Apple/Mac users are a.s.sholes.
Windows 7
Blackberry
Palm
PC’s