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I remember when Real was advertising their iPod Compatible DRM. About 4 months later, Apple upgraded the iPod firmware and that was the end of that - and Real
by mdasen 17y ago
I remember when Real was advertising their iPod Compatible DRM. About 4 months later, Apple upgraded the iPod firmware and that was the end of that - and Real offered no upgrade path to make your music iPod compatible other than ripping to CD and back.
This will be a mistake that will make their product look unreliable. It's one thing to hook into a system where the company is doing nothing to help you, but also isn't actively trying to hinder you. Apple will hinder them.
There's even one easy way. The way that Palm is doing this is by having the Pre tell iTunes that it's an iPod that doesn't udnerstand FairPlay DRM and, therefore, iTunes should sync all of the non-DRM'd music with the Pre. However, there is no iPod or iPhone that doesn't understand FairPlay. So, Apple can simply update iTunes to eliminate that backdoor. Yeah, then Palm can just throw away the tracks it can't play. And then Apple can fool them some more.
I'm not saying it's righteous. Apple likes you to be 100% in their ecosystem and not play so nicely with others. However, it's hard to reverse-engineer a protocol that can be changed at any time. Sure, you can break DVDs, but that's because you can't replace every DVD player in the world that's already been sold. Apple can break compatibility with software updates.
Palm has created what looks like the best iPhone competitor to date. Clean, polished, and very Apple-like. And this just isn't a smart plan. It's a hack and won't be a reliable one and that will make the device look second-rate in a way that it doesn't have to.
- jrockway 17y agoIt's a hack and won't be a reliable one and that will make the device look second-rate in a way that it doesn't have to. If Apple wants to break this, they will also have to break all of their own (unpatched) iPods. I doubt they will do that, so this "hack" will probably end up working pretty well.
- tptacek 17y agoThat's only true if (a) Palm did a perfect job of making their device indistinguishable from an iPod in the configuration presented to iTunes AND (b) Apple never saw this coming and didn't landmine the iPod/iTunes link. It's definitely a tightrope walk. This exact arms race has occurred many times in the past, and I can't think of a single instance where the adversary didn't make at least one mistake.
- wvenable 17y agoThis is an arms race that Palm can win, though. If Apple finds a way to detect it, Palm can release an update to make it work again. At some point, Palm will end up with an implementation indistinguishable in every way from an existing iPod. If they've already done that, then the game is already over. If they haven't, it might take only one more iteration.
- tptacek 17y agoIf the customer base gets the idea that iTunes sync is a sometimes on-again-off-again unsanctioned affair, then that will be a pyrrhic victory for Palm.
- statictype 17y agoPushing out iTunes updates may be faster and more efficient than pushing out Pre updates (esp since those may be affecting the firmware itself). Still, if Palm is advertising this as a feature of the Pre, then they must be fairly confident that it won't break.
- mullr 17y agoUpdating the Pre may actually be easier. The thing's a cell phone, so it's always connected. If they planned for it, they could have isolated the iPod facade code and made it easily updatable over the air.