“Back when the Pre was announced, a frequent conversation topic among developers was ‘competition’ — as in, it would be great to have some healthy competition against the iPhone. At the time, the Pre looked promising, and seemed to be the first viable competitor to come along and really challenge the iPhone. Sadly, nine months later, what could have been competition has really just become a tired, childish annoyance. Whatever hype and capital Palm built up around the launch of the Pre has been squandered on a pointless and trivial cat and mouse game with Apple over iTunes sync. The saddest part is that this was totally unnecessary, though Palm wants you to think otherwise,” Craig A. Hunter blogs.
“You see, Palm doesn’t need the iTunes app to sync the Pre. They don’t need to draw Apple’s ire, or play yo-yo with their customers over this important capability,” Hunter writes. “They can sync the Pre to a customer’s iTunes music library with a public, open, and documented approach that has been used by third-party developers and device makers for years. This capability was created by none other than Apple itself.”
Hunter writes, “Turns out it’s a simple matter of reading the iTunes music library XML catalog file on a customer’s computer, and using that to create a sync capability for the Pre. Not only is that XML file plain-text and human readable, it’s got a published document type definition (DTD). Apple has developed this XML approach specifically “to make your music and playlists available to other applications” (see KB HT1660). Combined with the music files indexed by this XML catalog, you have everything you need to know to access or sync iTunes music. I don’t know how Apple could be any more open or flexible about this.”
Hunter continues, “Why Palm can’t respect or understand this is beyond me… Clearly, other companies know how to sync painlessly with iTunes music (see RIM’s Blackberry Media Sync for example), so why doesn’t Palm develop a syncing solution for their own hardware? The exact reason is unknown, but my guess is that it’s a combination of things. Perhaps Palm doesn’t have the resources to develop their own sync app. Or maybe they want some publicity. Or maybe they just want to push Apple’s buttons. Who really knows. But I seriously question the strategy and brains of any company that ties critical product capabilities to the unsupported use of their competitor’s software. I mean, really? Can it get any more ridiculous? Can you possibly send a more mixed, less confidence-inspiring, ‘we’re a bunch of hacks who can’t provide our own sync software for our products’ message to customers?”
Full article – very highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: The longer beleaguered Palm persists in this stupidity, the more we wonder if Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein is either (a) harboring a grudge that’s driven him insane or (b) he’s still really working for Apple.
5 Day Most Commented