iTunes 8.2.1 now available for download - Page 2

This is a clear case of monopoly from the Apple, which is bad. What if tomorrow the MS doesn't allow the iTunes and Safari to run on the Windows. Will the Apple then cry foul?

MS breaks third party software all the time. They just do it sneaky.

How does it work with AT&T in England? Is there any advantage to go with AT&T rather than having gone with O2 for us as our daughter calls us here in the US, and we call her. It gets expensive. Would be have been on AT&T's network, so no roaming international charges?

This gets more confusing by the minute. None of these companies can answer these questions with the same answers each time they are asked.

Your bill is a lot lower than mine, for the same equipment:

My family plan is the Unity 2100 minutes for $100.
My data plan is $30
2nd iphone is $10/line + $20 for data plan
Third phone is $10/line
Unlimited text is $30
Taxes are $40

Total for me is $240

The lawsuit would fail. The only possible grounds for a lawsuit would be from the other direction. Apple forcing people who buy ipods to use itunes to load music onto them, thus using their strong mp3 player market share to minimize the use of non itunes media players.

Apple is by no means required to allow the Pre to sync with itunes.

What is your definition of monopoly regarding iTunes?

You can't include the taxes in that because they vary.

I imagine that this happened earlier than Palm hoped it would - there is no doubting that Palm aren't working on their own Sync application for the Pre, just that with their limited resources and poor management they hadn't got around to it by the time the Pre itself was ready. Oh, and don't hope for anything for the Mac.

On the other hand, I think that Apple should be providing a platform for sync, instead of using their internet media might (almost a monopoly) to crush competitors. It's Microsoft in the 90s all over again, and it's bad for consumers, it leads to protectionism instead of innovation, and so on.

For that to happen there would need to be evidence of Apple purposely trying to limit the Palm and since Palm is masking as an iPod as it is and the files and DB are freely accessible, it doesnt seem promising for a case to take hold.

As I stated before, I think its in Apples best interest on a couple fronts to allow these devices to connect to iTunes for media sync. Having another app tie to the iTunes DB, or worse tying just into the files, bypassing the iTunes DB altogether, could pull people away from from the iTunes umbrella altogether.



Apple even stated that new updates could affect these devices.



C&G created SoundJam, Apple bought Soundjam and created iTunes.There has been too many years and too much growth to iTunes to not give Apple any credit. With your logic Apple didnt create Mac OS X or iPhone OS X since they bought the OS from NeXT.

iTunes has a monopoly on the media player software market?

Well, Apple sure used to advertise on their own website Rio/Nomad, etc. compatibility, and it looks like it still exists! See:

http://www.rioaudio.com/itunes/
and
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2172

Hrmm...

"What is AT&T?" <- English Person

The person you replied to is from New England, which certainly isn't England, Europe. No idea why you would be getting international charges calling NYC to New England.

Yikes, things are expensive in your country!

Here in the United States it costs less than $150 for two iPhones.

Except that MS has a clear support and development platform for Windows. There is no clear platform for adding devices to tie into iTunes. Remember, it was pretending to be an iPod to gain access.



That support page has been brought up before. Despite the modified date from last year its an old article that lists old devices. It appears that Apple no longer supports other devices in iTunes.

iTunes is not a monopoly, but breaking support for Palm Pre is a clear case of monopoly. I am not a fan of Pre but this is a bad practice from the Apple.

If Palm is less stupid than a sack full of hammers, they're already sitting on a (probably lame) sync program already. They'll ship it this week and everyone will praise their responsiveness.

If Palm is less stupid than a sack full of hammers, this was their plan all along.

So we'll probably see PreSync some time in October.

Why SHOULD Apple be working on a platform for sync, that I suppose you mean would work with competitors devices?

That's not something they should be working on. It's something they might think about working on, but I don't see why. Apple is a hardware company as we continually state, and iTunes is a service for their hardware customers. Now that their music is DRM-free, they have done their bit. We can hope that other industries will eventually allow DRM-free content, but I won't hold my breath.

Other than that, Apple doesn't have to do anything.

Apple isn't trying to crush competition. What have they done to other player manufacturers that was an attempt to crush them other than to make better software and hardware?

Is it Apple's fault that they had the foresight to approach the music industry they way they did and convince them to sell music at decent prices?

Others could have done that first. Surely Sony, with a big music company and Walkmen could have done it by themselves.

MS did some nasty things that resulted in their monopolies. Apple hasn't.

Apple just expands its ecosystem by coming out with better products and services, which is fine and perfectly legal. MS expanded theirs by doing illegal things to others, and preventing others from doing what they should have been allowed to do, often with under the table threats. This has been established in TWO ant-trust cases against them here in the US.

[QUOTE=solipsism;1449176]Except that MS has a clear support and development platform for Windows. There is no clear platform for adding devices to tie into iTunes. Remember, it was pretending to be an iPod to gain access.


Well I really don't know how it was gaining access, however targeting any third party hardware particularly is a bad practice from the Apple.

That makes no sense at all.

If it isn't a monopoly, then breaking support for something that isn't a monopoly doesn't have anything to do with monopoly.

And to be really technical, SoundJam was created by Bill Kincaid and Jeff Robbin via a company called SoundStep. It was *published* by C&G, but it was never C&G's product.

(I don't know if Apple bought SoundStep or just SoundJam, though.)

Correct - you pass go and collect $200

Um, why would you ask APPLE to fix a bug in ADOBE's software? Flash is ADOBE.

I find that odd. I would call 611 from your iphone and talk to customer service about changing your plan. I think you should be able too. Let us know what they say.

James

How do you know that this is TARGETING any specific hardware, i.e. the Pre? If they're closing up a hole that they never needed to close before, then it simply is making sure that the device, which is supposed to be an iPod, or iPhone, really is one. That's not targeting anything, just improving the verification process that's always been there.

You could also say that unauthorized devices such as a Pre could cause unexpected problems with the software, causing it to crash, act strange, or otherwise not function properly.

Apple is also protecting itself from people who might not know that Palm is doing this without permission or cooperation from Apple, thus saving themselves from unwarranted complaints from Pre customers when problems inevitably occur.

OK then MicroSoft created Excel and Word not Lotus or Wordperfect. Microsoft also created Windows.
You can't have it both ways.
Apple bought it - they did not create it. They may have refined it and added to it- but they still did not create it.

First of all, as it’s been stated the Pre was never supported by Apple in iTunes.

Secondly, there is no proof yet that Apple purposely broke iTunes syncing from the Pre in this update. Note that Apple could have made changes to iTunes when this was first announced from Palm or released a point update to anytime within the last month and half since the Pre officially came out. Seems like a long time to wait to do this.

Finally, since the Pre was showing up an iPod so the worst that can be said at this point is that it only broke support for unofficial devices pretending to be iDevices, and pretending to be another company’s product is not exactly the most legal maneuver.

If Palm can afford to make a Pre then they can afford to invest in their own Software Development to make their own program unless it is truly that useless. I'm put money on useless!

Its true, taxes vary but what are we talking about? a 1-2 percent variance between states? He said his bill was $172, do you always back out your taxes on your bill?

By your logic and limited grasp of the great English lexicon I am sure you believe that. Just as you believe that people who prefer glossy are ignorant and that AT&T hasnt yet upgrading their network despite the billions invested in adding 3G to 2G areas, faster HSDPA, adding HSUPA, adding more towers, and working to move to a wider spectrum.

I think the whole thing is a PR war both on the part of Palm and Apple and Palm may have just scored a direct hit.

This kind of stuff points directly to the flaw in Apple's tendency to be secretive. While it's generally a brilliant strategy not to talk about what they are doing and while it's served them very well in the past, now that they have such a high public profile and are in the news all the time, getting new customers etc., I think it works against them in many ways.

For new products its still a great strategy, but for software less so in that smaller developers sometimes get blindsided. Now that Apple is trying to get some of the bigger developers and partners on board the Apple express there is a danger of totally screwing over some of those same partners because they refuse to get into describing a road map in even the most general of terms.

In this specific case, involved as it is with issues of monopoly and market dominance it's just foolish to remain silent IMO. A simple announcement that they are specifically doing this thing for a specific reason, and perhaps even announcing the intention to allow *licensed* syncing of other devices in the future, or even pointing out that iTunes is all XML and can be easily linked to would go a long way. In cases like this the silent secret treatment gives them no upside at all and yet delivers veritable mountains of bad press.

Perhaps Rubenstein was counting on this so he could paint Apple as Goliath and Palm as David with the sling. Knowing Apple and Steve Jobs as he does he likely knew this would happen and will milk it for all the PR he can. (that's assuming that they do have an alternative sync program in the wings).

Because that would add value to their operating system. Maybe because it would hurt an operating system competitor - Microsoft. Maybe because it would benefit consumers.

Maybe Apple should be broken up, in order to keep its constituent parts competitive and consumer friendly.

We can see how damaging to consumers and to Microsoft itself keeping Microsoft a single entity was, with hindsight.

Or maybe Apple shouldn't use one part of its business to make another part anti-competitive, and damaging for consumers.

In addition it just creates fuel for the apple-haters out there.

I do, when its not a consistent value that works for the discussion. I pay $69 +tax for my iPhone. There is nothing wrong with that. I think its more than just sales tax that varies with phones, but variances in the other taxes, too.

When I consider the price of a product or service, I understand that there will be taxes. but I don't use the taxes as a comparison point because they are just a fraction of the total, and don't change the story much from one company to another. But across the country, there are big differences. Here in NYC we pay almost 9% taxes. There are States where there are none.

That's a big difference!

Perhaps all this will do is open more people's eyes as to what truly awful trash itunes is when they find an alternative.

This is one more anti-competitive, senseless, move by Apple, only meant to inforce an ILLEGAL monopoly. In fact, Apple acts just as if it were led by an ignorant, resentful high school graduate, instead of being the large multinational it should be. Success breeds success, and small-minded actions bring ultimate failure. R.I.P., Apple.

Well put. All they need is a simple media player with send and fetch functionality for purchases. There are plenty of itunes alternatives. It amazes me people rely so much on something that (to me at least) is so stupid.

BTW, are these updates necessary to continue using the software? What's from stopping someone from NOT upgrading? If it aint broke, don't fix it, know what I mean?

Yes.


Sure.


Right.




(head explodes)

this made me laugh hard

People are acting like Apples Software Updater said, This update is recommended for anyone using a Palm Pre."

What monopoly???