RSSIn the Palm of iTunes' Hand: Why won't Apple play nice?
By Carmi Levy | Published July 16, 2009, 9:48 AM
I tune, you tune, we all tune to iTunes.
Except if you own a Palm Pre.
Or anything without an Apple logo, for that matter.
When Palm announced earlier this year that its spanking new Pre smartphone would be able to sync with Apple's iTunes, it raised eyebrows for tweaking the nose of the mighty fruity company. After all, Apple has spent years -- and likely huge amounts of money and countless souls of lawyers and judges alike -- setting the standard for zealously protecting its intellectual property. One doesn't cross Apple lightly, or expect to get away with it for too long.
The other shoe drops
So it comes as no surprise that barely a month after issuing a support note containing a thinly veiled warning against the practice, Apple has officially and concretely responded to Palm's opening move by releasing an update to iTunes. Known as version 8.2.1, the new code specifically kills the ability of earlier versions of iTunes to sync content on non-Apple devices. Palm Pre users with a particular addiction to iTunes now face a short list of inelegant alternatives: They can either elect to never upgrade iTunes beyond 8.2, or revert to dragging and dropping their music files onto their device. If they're feeling really adventurous, they can always pull out that scuffed up first-generation Shuffle from the junk drawer and go to town. Either way, the Pre's days as a wannabe-iPod are over.
Of course, Apple is free to do whatever it wants with its software. It built iTunes as a value-add to its iPod -- and later iPhone -- franchise and in doing so taught the rest of the industry that you needed more than a cool device to dominate the media player market. The resulting troika of hardware, software and online store set the bar for seamless acquisition, management and use of content, and now most other players in this space are rushing similar software/store combinations to market. But Apple was the first, and it remains the gold standard against a fleet of half-hearted competitors.
Apple rightfully owns the digital music market, and since all's fair in marketing and war, the company is completely justified in protecting its interests when at least one of the legs of its painstakingly built triad comes under threat. We may not have liked the kid at the playground who took his ball away from us and went home in a snit. But it was his ball, after all.
Because iTunes is an OS
What's good for the company, however, may not be good for the rest of us…and that playground kid always ended up with no friends, anyway.
Apple's move to cut Palm off begs the question of how closed we want our operating systems to be. And don't doubt it for a second: ITunes has evolved into an operating system in its own right, an ecosystem within which developers and content creators bring productions to market, and within which consumers consume those productions and fuel significant revenue streams for all involved. Like any good OS, iTunes is now the focal point of a large, vibrant marketplace within which a wide range of stakeholders interact almost constantly as they build increasingly sustainable businesses within it.
We may dismiss iTunes' claim to OS status because it's "only" music and video, but there's no denying how influential Apple's once-modest playground has become. And given the broader world's slow and inevitable move toward more open platforms that invite diversity in, Apple's decision to maintain its walled garden suggests it's nowhere near comfortable giving up even the slightest bit of control.
Apple's core values have long revolved around tight integration of hardware and software, and rigid control of the resulting environment. By keeping third-party hardware vendors out, Apple avoids the kind of billion-iteration challenge faced by Microsoft, which devotes vast resources to ensuring Windows runs on every combination of system board, video subsystem and disk controller known to humankind. Apple's short-lived experiment with clones in the mid-90s ended for precisely that reason: The company's culture simply couldn't accommodate a big, wide interface with third-party providers. Back then, Apple decided it would be easier to design an experience around a small number of its own designs. That fanaticism holds true today whether it's a Mac or an iPod/iPhone, and will probably remain true in virtually everything Apple brings to market for the forseeable future.
But it's publicly unfair
While this may be good for Apple, it makes me wonder how this serves the public's interest. Do we want one company exerting such tight control over something that's so instrumental to so many of us? Is it fair to consumers that the now-mainstream capability of iTunes can only be had on Apple-branded devices? And does barring access from competing hardware ultimately harm Apple's ability to grow its market? You may laugh at that last one -- after all, Apple's done pretty nicely for itself thus far. But you've got to wonder whether revenues would grow more quickly if iTunes could be used seamlessly on a wider range of devices.
Want more heresy? Should Apple's App Store be open to other hardware platforms aside from the iPhone and iPod touch? Would the iPhone universe be a happier, or more profitable, place if iPhone apps ran on non-Apple hardware? It's fair to speculate given the slowly growing open source influence in the mobile market as Google's Android OS is joined by offerings from the Nokia-backed Symbian Foundation and LiMo. While it's preposterous at this point to assume any of these new entrants will render Apple's model obsolete overnight, it's not much of a stretch to conclude the open source trend is being watched carefully in Cupertino. But will that be enough to convince Apple to voluntarily play nice with Palm and any other vendor that wants sanctioned hooks into its software?
We may never know, because hell will probably freeze over before Apple pulls down the walls to its various gardens. From where Steve Jobs and Co. sit, it ain't broke, so they have no intention of fixing it.
Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.
Honestly I would not have itunes on my computer if not for iPod/iPhone. There is not one feature in iTunes that I would make it my default media player. There is no real alternative to iTunes for Apple devices. Ofcourse for Palm though there is so why should there be a problem.
From my point of view if any one looses here it would be apple loosing on posible revenues from the Palm users .
Score: 0
|Because you have to look at the bigger picture. If Apple open up iTunes to other pieces of hardware, then there's no longer an arguement as to why Apple should be allowed to restrict Mac OS to their own hardware only.
Score: 0
|The only argument they have is by limiting the hardware they control everything thus making it a more stable platform.
Score: 0
|That is why interoperability enforcement is so important.
Score: 0
|Apple has built their business model on hardware revenues. If they sold iTunes, then it might make (business) sense to let other devices sync to it, but they don't, they give it away so that they can sell more iPods.
Before you bring up music/media sales, it is well documented that they don't make significant money from those. It is all about the hardware.
Score: 2
|Apple should be ashamed of themselves. This will cause Apple to lose hundreds or possibly even thousands of customers. Considering Microsoft has already stolen a significant amount of Apple's customers does Apple really want to lose even more customers? Palm users should have the right to use whatever music service they want as long as they're willing to pay for it.
Score: 1
|To me this sounds like Apple did something stupid...If the Pre has the ability to sync with Itunes, wouldn't that mean that pre owners are more likely to use Itunes to purchase their music, tv and movies?
Now that its being blocked wouldn't this be considered negative and now they lost all those potential sales as well as future ones and could alienate other people just by word of mouth of what Apple did?
Score: 1
|Wow.. they are acting like Sony with the BR. I think Sony was smarter.. they get a piece along with the MPAA for each device with BR in it..
Score: 1
|Surely the only reason you would ever let iTunes near your PC is because you have an Apple player?
Therefore, I don't really see the problem. This is just Apple looking after their own.
What *is* a problem is that said Apple player owners have no choice but to use iTunes, because Apple actively lock out third party tools and utilities synching to them. This is something that hurts Apple's own customers and drives them away.
iTunes is not exactly a selling point of any product. It's a downside.
Score: 0
|Apple had an ingenious plan really. First they require you to install their bloatware* onto your system to use their devices. That forces many to use only the iTunes software unless they want to maintain multiple libraries. Then they restrict other devices from using their interface.
Having a device that can sync to more than one library makes it a better device imo. It’s probably in Apple’s rights to alter their program as they want. But I’m not buying any more apple products. I don’t like to be so limited in what I can use.
* I call iTunes bloatware. It’s a great program for the most part. But any non-essential software application that you can’t turn off is bloatware.
Score: 0
|Precisely the reason I no longer purchase anything made by the "mighty fruity company" Apple. It's not only Itunes, it's every thing Apple.
Score: 1
|"Why won't Apple play nice?"
What's the point in that question.
"Why would Apple play nice?" is a much more sensible one.
Let alone your silly redefinition of an OS.
Score: 1
|The issue thats keeps coming up here is similar to that of why must Windows support so much hardware?
When you become the dominant player, regardless of how you got there; eventually you start abusing your position and regulators should step in.
Now has Apple?
A) Become the dominant player.
and
B) Stated to abuse it's position of power.
Thats up to some debate. iTunes is their platform, and they can choose to what they want with it; until the day were you have no choice to but use iTunes, I fear that Apple will keep everyone else out.
Score: 0
|Apple built iTunes, painstakingly over the course of years, and it is so successful because the Apple engineers are brilliant.
Then Palm comes along and latches on like a parasitic leech, trying to freeload off of Apple's innovations, successes and efforts.
If you've got a leech freeloading and sucking your blood, you kill it. Apple was absolutely right. Palm should be ashamed of itself.
Score: -4
|Then perheps you're not eligable to become an Apple engineer.
Score: -1
|Apple owns iTunes. I wouldn't want some broke a** company like Palm ridin' a donkey to the end of my rainbow either.
Score: -3
|When will I be able to play Xbox games on my Wii? It's not fair!
Score: -2
|Why does the Zune software not allow other media players to sync with it? I don't see articles about this.
Score: 0
|The "Zune Software" is a syncing client.
The iTunes software is a media player/library.
Slight difference in application.
The only real comparison would be Windows Media Player, which syncs to any number of devices.
(Note: No preference for any device or software is implied, nor any opinion regarding a companies rights to with-hold or provide functionality)
Score: 1
|Ummm... The Zune software acts as a media player with a library too.
Score: 1
|Zune software any day is a better media player than the old style itunes...and it doesn't hog memory like itunes...
Score: 1
|Huh...
I think you may have me there. Don't own either of the devices, but....
FWIW: The zune software isn't shipped/marketed as a media-player/library. It is marketed for the Zune. iTunes, however, is marketed separately from the "iDevices". That alone is a pretty big difference.
Score: 0
|That's where I would go if I were Palm. Make a deal with Microsoft first though. I think if more people used the zune software (which you can use if you don't own a zune) then more people would see that it is a serious contender to iTunes. You can even have them read from the same library. Zune software just watches folders so if you set it to watch the itunes music folder when you add stuff to itunes it will add it to zune too.
Score: 1
|"(which you can use if you don't own a zune)"
Don't know if that was a pot-shot or not, but...
Sure you can. But they simply don't market it outside of the Zune right now. They could...probably should. But being Microsoft, they're waiting...for something. 3rd new moon on the 29th of feb or something. ;)
Score: 0
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