How Palm Re-Enabled iTunes Sync

I'm still trying to figure out why iTunes only talking to iPod is (according to Palm) any more of a USB agreement violation than Nikon Capture only talking to Nikons, HP printer software only talking to HPs, or any other vendor software/vendor hardware combination that only works with the vendor's devices.<p>Palm's confused if they think a compatibility check is a violation as opposed to, say, faking a hardware vendor ID. USB hardware IDs and network MAC addresses clearly have to respect the vendors' address spaces or the hardware standard falls apart.<p>Seems more likely this is a play to, yes, have the Palm device get press, but also ensure their site gets Page Rank from all the unique news articles' and blog entries' inbound links.

Palm should ask themselves whether flaky on-again/off-again integration with iTunes is really better for their users than writing a standalone sync program like Blackberry.<p>I don't really get Palm's reluctance to write good sync software. They've been avoiding it since the 90s.

Palm should've kept using their own USB ID and Manufacturer string, and allow users to override them to impersonate an arbitrary vendor. Including, of course, Apple. This way the Palm is in the clear, and it's the user that is responsible for the actual act of vendor/device impersonation.<p>But all things considered, all this will simply lead to Apple ditching USB or layering a custom encrypted protocol on top of it. So Palm's current hack is a temporary solution.

Instead of this pissing match over the horrible iTunes, Pre, Google, and Amazon need to get together and make better media software.

Now that the Pre is actually masquerading itself, Apple could go after them for trademark infringement!

Back in the day, AOL and Microsoft went through a similar war their messaging service. It was great from the consumer's perspective, interesting from the hacker's perspective, and petty from a business perspective--like the insistence on trying to kiss the hot girl in the bar last Saturday, drunk.<p>Now, here's the other thought: Apple has a lot of reasons to block imitation devices from accessing iTunes, the least of which includes perhaps security issues for its users, but also for the fact that being able to access iTunes, iTunes Store, and iTunes content might have very specific clauses drafted in its agreements with Apple's content partners. By not protecting that, Apple in itself might be in legal trouble.<p>So, this isn't just pettiness that Apple is taking in full delight of. Just a bit.