No, I'm not looking at it backwards. Apple only only has a small market share for phones (around 1%), they can hold onto their secret sauce all they want to (which won't help them), or they can add features to iSync to allow others to access iTunes that way, and extend the appeal of OS X.
Apple developed a good tool with iSync, they should extend it to make things more seamless.
I mean this in the nicest way possible; that's crazy talk. The iPhone is outselling all WinMo devices combined. The iPod has over 70% of MP3 sales. iTunes is the #1 music retailer in the world. All of this has been accomplished without any help from the Pre. Apple has no incentive to give up exclusive rights to the goose that lays golden eggs. What you don't seem to understand is that Apple, and its users no longer need the rest of the market place of crap mobile devices. Apple should not improve iSync; they should kill it. BB, HTC, Palm, Nokia, and the rest can sell me devices the same way they sell them to everyone else. They can make compelling products and write compatible software. That is how Apple earned my business and I am very happy with that arrangement.
So your brilliant plan to sell more Macs is to add complex functionality for 99% of all the other phones out there with varying HW and SW. Despite this not working too well with a simple app like iSync and despite Apple keeping iTunes on Windows and OS X looking and functioning as identical as one can get when using different SDKs. This, somehow will increase Mac sales to a point thy outweighs your 99% built in service for every other phone out there and keeps the customer happy despite the added complexity and program size for iTunes--only on Macs according to you--to support all these phones.
If Apple ever does what you want then I'll be selling my stock as it is a sign the company is going to fail miserably.
No, that's not what I said, I said to create an interface, and allow others to connect to that interface. if you have issues with that then there is something seriously wrong with you.
I mean this in the nicest way possible; that's crazy talk. The iPhone is outselling all WinMo devices combined. The iPod has over 70% of MP3 sales. iTunes is the #1 music retailer in the world. All of this has been accomplished without any help from the Pre. Apple has no incentive to give up exclusive rights to the goose that lays golden eggs. What you don't seem to understand is that Apple, and its users no longer need the rest of the market place of crap mobile devices. Apple should not improve iSync; they should kill it. BB, HTC, Palm, Nokia, and the rest can sell me devices the same way they sell them to everyone else. They can make compelling products and write compatible software. That is how Apple earned my business and I am very happy with that arrangement.
Yes the iPhone is selling really well, it makes up a total of 1% of all the phones in the world, 1% is a real large percentage. I don't care about the pre, I don't care about windows mobile, I care about the devices I own. There is no incentive for those others manufactures to support the Mac, they have a very small market share, ie no return for them. If Apple was to drop iSync, I would stop purchasing Macs, and I am sure there are others who would do the same. I have no desire to purchase an iPhone, so if they want to restrict themselves to their little toys, they are welcome to it.
If Apple was to drop iSync, I would stop purchasing Macs, and I am sure there are others who would do the same. I have no desire to purchase an iPhone, so if they want to restrict themselves to their little toys, they are welcome to it.
At least we have gotten to the heart of the issue. You and I see the market in very different ways. It seems we "Think Different."
Long past are the days when Apple needs to go to hardware venders with hat in hand, begging them to please write compatible software for the platform. Apple already expends resources on helping companies get their drivers up to speed. They already have compatibility frameworks in place like iSync. They have already bent over backwards. I, personally, hope Apple makes a killer printer with exceptional software, make it available to Windows users, and put the printer companies out of business. I would be very happy to live in an Apple universe. Hardware venders can get on the train or get run over by it. Any business that does not treat my business as valuable as a Windows user's can pound sand.
Back on topic, iSync was built as a compatibility framework for lazy manufacturers; I'm looking at you, Palm. iTune is exclusively for iDevices. Palm has three good choices. They can use iSync, roll their own, or pound sand.
Well I think now Palm should concentrate on first establishing the Pre before starting a fight, since it being reported that Verizon have just cancelled their plans to launch the Pre based on weak sales from Sprint. USA is one of the major markets for Pre and it does not perform in their own backyard, it may affect its profile in other markets.
Well I think now Palm should concentrate on first establishing the Pre before starting a fight, since it being reported that Verizon have just cancelled their plans to launch the Pre based on weak sales from Sprint. USA is one of the major markets for Pre and it does not perform in their own backyard, it may affect its profile in other markets.
While you are correct that Palm should spend its resources on making a better product, there is some dispute about the credibility of the article you linked. Other reports are surfacing that the Verizon deal is still on. If Verizon were to publicly cast aside the Pre, that would probably be the death of Palm. I don't they could survive that kind of rejection. Perhaps they need to start looking at partnerships with Boost Mobile or some other second tier carrier.
Apple should not improve iSync; they should kill it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac Voyer
They already have compatibility frameworks in place like iSync. They have already bent over backwards.
Back on topic, iSync was built as a compatibility framework for lazy manufacturers; I'm looking at you, Palm. iTune is exclusively for iDevices. Palm has three good choices. They can use iSync, roll their own, or pound sand.
So one minute it is kill iSync, then you say the other manufactures show use it, which one is it?
So one minute it is kill iSync, then you say the other manufactures show use it, which one is it?
This is not a contradiction. IMO, they should kill it. However, since Apple does not take advice from me, it is there and should be used by people who want an easy way into the Mac platform. Instead of utilizing what Apple freely offered, Palm tried to take what was not on offer.
I reiterate, Apple should kill iSync. Hardware manufacturers who want our business should provide software that works on our platform. How many of you have struggled with crappy Logitech drivers that are not quite fully functional? How many have purchased pro audio interfaces from M-Audio that are a pain to use? How many of you own a printer or scanner that came with a Windows CD and nothing for the Mac? SCREW THEM ALL! They can all burn in hell for all I care. Apple is always only one product announcement away from disrupting their industry too.
This is not a contradiction. IMO, they should kill it. However, since Apple does not take advice from me, it is there and should be used by people who want an easy way into the Mac platform. Instead of utilizing what Apple freely offered, Palm tried to take what was not on offer.
I reiterate, Apple should kill iSync. Hardware manufacturers who want our business should provide software that works on our platform. How many of you have struggled with crappy Logitech drivers that are not quite fully functional? How many have purchased pro audio interfaces from M-Audio that are a pain to use? How many of you own a printer or scanner that came with a Windows CD and nothing for the Mac? SCREW THEM ALL! They can all burn in hell for all I care. Apple is always only one product announcement away from disrupting their industry too.
They won't support Apple, it isn't worth their while, the old 80-20 rules wins here I am afraid.
And Apple won't come back into the printer/scanner market, unless they are sticking their name on someone elses product.
This is not a contradiction. IMO, they should kill it. However, since Apple does not take advice from me, it is there and should be used by people who want an easy way into the Mac platform. Instead of utilizing what Apple freely offered, Palm tried to take what was not on offer.
I reiterate, Apple should kill iSync. Hardware manufacturers who want our business should provide software that works on our platform. How many of you have struggled with crappy Logitech drivers that are not quite fully functional? How many have purchased pro audio interfaces from M-Audio that are a pain to use? How many of you own a printer or scanner that came with a Windows CD and nothing for the Mac? SCREW THEM ALL! They can all burn in hell for all I care. Apple is always only one product announcement away from disrupting their industry too.
I really don't think you understand one whit of what it takes to operate a business. Getting emotional about these issues isn't telling us that you can consider these issues broadly outside your own interests. Not every group that wants a product is necessarily a profitable group to serve. Sure, hardware makers do want to sell products, but at some point, it's not necessarily worth selling their product to certain groups of people, doubly so if they have special requirements that took this given group outside the mainstream for a good while.
Apple used to make printers, if Apple didn't think it was worth keeping that division to support their own products, then why are you so angry that some other printer companies doesn't support Apple? Talk about a double standard.
Back in the PalmOS days, Apple had already discontinued their own PDA. Complaining about Palm having been unable or unwilling to support MacOS back then is hypocritical because Apple themselves had discontinued their own PDA product line and didn't re enter that market with a replacement product for a decade.
I really don't think you understand one whit of what it takes to operate a business. Getting emotional about these issues isn't telling us that you can consider these issues broadly outside your own interests.
I make no bones about being emotional about the issue, but not blind to business realities. The Mac platform is not an irrelevant market in the consumer desktop space.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
Apple used to make printers, if Apple didn't think it was worth keeping that division to support their own products, then why are you so angry that some other printer companies doesn't support Apple? Talk about a double standard.
I know Apple made printers and digital cameras for that matter. That was a different era and Apple was a different company. I think Apple could reinter those markets and redefine them just as they did the PDA/smartphone market.
Don't lose sight of my bigger point, though. My rant is about Palms recent actions regarding iTunes and the USB-IF. People were talking about Apple needing to improve iSync and/or give away free access to iTunes so that hardware manufacturers did not have to do any work to create basic software for their devices. That is demonstrating a misunderstanding of how business works. iTunes is a premium solution for Apple's premium products. iSync is a kludge for disinterested hardware providers. Apple makes a ton of money selling hardware with premium integration solutions They make nothing from iSync. Apple is not the culprit here. Apple does not need to do anything. Palm is the one who needs Apple, not the other way around. Palm thought they could partner with the USB-IF and steal Apple's lunch money. Palm supporters think Apple has an obligation to allow others to take advantage of their premium solutions. That is the topic of this thread and the context of my previous rants.
The Mac platform is not an irrelevant market in the consumer desktop space.
In the case of the old PalmOS devices, for the most part, they really weren't considered consumer devices in the overall market. They were mostly business devices, that's their primary market. I willingly bought the Missing Sync software for my Tapwave because I understood that I represent a niche market.
Quote:
Don't lose sight of my bigger point, though. My rant is about Palms recent actions regarding iTunes and the USB-IF.
Don't get me wrong on this, I agree that Palm should not have forged someone else's device identification codes.
In the case of the old PalmOS devices, for the most part, they really weren't considered consumer devices in the overall market. They were mostly business devices, that's their primary market. I willingly bought the Missing Sync software for my Tapwave because I understood that I represent a niche market....
Don't get me wrong on this, I agree that Palm should not have forged someone else's device identification codes.
I also had a Palm device back in the day as well as a WM device. I can tell you that those devices were no picnic on Windows either. A more relevant example is the iPod when it was initially released. Back then, I had a PC and used WMP. There was a community of people who owned iPods but wanted to use them on the Windows platform. iPods were Mac only at the time. I bought a solution to make that connection. As I recall, no one at the time was saying that MS had some sort of responsibility to make WMP compatible with the iPod and Apple wasn't interested in that market. Apple did not try to break into WMP through some sort of backdoor hack. They eventually wrote iTunes for Windows and the rest is history. Consider the sequence of events. The iPod only took off AFTER Apple wrote a world beating, multi-platform sync solution. Without that, the iPod would have never become the iPod. The Pre will never become the Pre as long as it is trying to be an iPod. The software is more than half the battle. If Palm does not learn that lesson soon, there will be no Palm left to learn it.
I also had a Palm device back in the day as well as a WM device. I can tell you that those devices were no picnic on Windows either. A more relevant example is the iPod when it was initially released. Back then, I had a PC and used WMP. There was a community of people who owned iPods but wanted to use them on the Windows platform. iPods were Mac only at the time. I bought a solution to make that connection. As I recall, no one at the time was saying that MS had some sort of responsibility to make WMP compatible with the iPod and Apple wasn't interested in that market. Apple did not try to break into WMP through some sort of backdoor hack.
I don't recall Windows Media Player having a device connection system at the time, I thought that came a few years after the first iPod. I never owned a Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Zune or Plays For Sure device, so I admit I can be wrong about that.
I did not have any problems with Palm Desktop for Windows.
I don't recall Windows Media Player having a device connection system at the time, I thought that came a few years after the first iPod.
I did not have any problems with Palm Desktop for Windows.
You might be right about that. It may have been the second gen iPod. I never found Palm desktop to be great on any platform. That is partly why iTunes took off the way it did. Until that time, no one had ever seen a device share data so seamlessly with a computer in the consumer space. People in threads like this who say that iTunes is no big deal should step into the way back machine.
Anyway, Jeff, I think we have entered the phase of competitive agreement. What do you see Palm doing as a next move in light of this USB-IF decision and possible Verizon rejection?
They make nothing from iSync. Apple is not the culprit here. Apple does not need to do anything. Palm is the one who needs Apple, not the other way around. Palm thought they could partner with the USB-IF and steal Apple's lunch money. Palm supporters think Apple has an obligation to allow others to take advantage of their premium solutions. That is the topic of this thread and the context of my previous rants.
They make nothing from iSync? How about the money I paid for my Macs, or the copy of Tiger, or the family pack of Leopard, or the family pack of Snow Leopard I purchased, are you telling me they could allocate any of that money to iSync?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac Voyer
iPods were Mac only at the time. I bought a solution to make that connection. As I recall, no one at the time was saying that MS had some sort of responsibility to make WMP compatible with the iPod and Apple wasn't interested in that market. Apple did not try to break into WMP through some sort of backdoor hack. They eventually wrote iTunes for Windows and the rest is history. Consider the sequence of events. The iPod only took off AFTER Apple wrote a world beating, multi-platform sync solution. Without that, the iPod would have never become the iPod. The Pre will never become the Pre as long as it is trying to be an iPod. The software is more than half the battle. If Palm does not learn that lesson soon, there will be no Palm left to learn it.
Yes, but Windows has a 90% market, Apple has a 10%, so if Apple wants to sell it's iPods to Windows users they had to provide a solution, the incentive isn't as high the other way around.
I don't think you realise what a great tool Apple has provided in iSync, I can connect multiple phones, or devices from a number of manufactures through one utility, I don't have to install rubblish from them all. But I have a seperate Application to sync music from iTunes to my phone, or another one to sync music to my PSP, it would be nice if this could be done from iSync
Infact I believe Apple should be syncing the iPod from iSync as well.
You might be right about that. It may have been the second gen iPod. I never found Palm desktop to be great on any platform.
It didn't put on any theatrics, but it did the job for me, at least the Windows version. The Mac version was left behind, I don't remember them making an OS X version of it, hence the Missing Sync.
Quote:
Anyway, Jeff, I think we have entered the phase of competitive agreement. What do you see Palm doing as a next move in light of this USB-IF decision and possible Verizon rejection?
They're going to have to make their own syncing apps, like they should have done in the first place.
Yes, but Windows has a 90% market, Apple has a 10%, so if Apple wants to sell it's iPods to Windows users they had to provide a solution, the incentive isn't as high the other way around.
This time around, Palm did not write software for either the 10% or the 90%. That is what makes this situation unique. Palm tried to get away with doing nothing at all. I do not believe they were just buying time until they finished their software; I think this was their whole plan. I believe they are shocked at the results and are sitting around trying to figure out what to do next. Why else would they have released with no software for any platform? Personally, I believe their next move is to escalate the matter to the courts. I bet they have people on the ground in East Texas right now.
Comments
No, I'm not looking at it backwards. Apple only only has a small market share for phones (around 1%), they can hold onto their secret sauce all they want to (which won't help them), or they can add features to iSync to allow others to access iTunes that way, and extend the appeal of OS X.
Apple developed a good tool with iSync, they should extend it to make things more seamless.
I mean this in the nicest way possible; that's crazy talk. The iPhone is outselling all WinMo devices combined. The iPod has over 70% of MP3 sales. iTunes is the #1 music retailer in the world. All of this has been accomplished without any help from the Pre. Apple has no incentive to give up exclusive rights to the goose that lays golden eggs. What you don't seem to understand is that Apple, and its users no longer need the rest of the market place of crap mobile devices. Apple should not improve iSync; they should kill it. BB, HTC, Palm, Nokia, and the rest can sell me devices the same way they sell them to everyone else. They can make compelling products and write compatible software. That is how Apple earned my business and I am very happy with that arrangement.
So your brilliant plan to sell more Macs is to add complex functionality for 99% of all the other phones out there with varying HW and SW. Despite this not working too well with a simple app like iSync and despite Apple keeping iTunes on Windows and OS X looking and functioning as identical as one can get when using different SDKs. This, somehow will increase Mac sales to a point thy outweighs your 99% built in service for every other phone out there and keeps the customer happy despite the added complexity and program size for iTunes--only on Macs according to you--to support all these phones.
If Apple ever does what you want then I'll be selling my stock as it is a sign the company is going to fail miserably.
No, that's not what I said, I said to create an interface, and allow others to connect to that interface. if you have issues with that then there is something seriously wrong with you.
I mean this in the nicest way possible; that's crazy talk. The iPhone is outselling all WinMo devices combined. The iPod has over 70% of MP3 sales. iTunes is the #1 music retailer in the world. All of this has been accomplished without any help from the Pre. Apple has no incentive to give up exclusive rights to the goose that lays golden eggs. What you don't seem to understand is that Apple, and its users no longer need the rest of the market place of crap mobile devices. Apple should not improve iSync; they should kill it. BB, HTC, Palm, Nokia, and the rest can sell me devices the same way they sell them to everyone else. They can make compelling products and write compatible software. That is how Apple earned my business and I am very happy with that arrangement.
Yes the iPhone is selling really well, it makes up a total of 1% of all the phones in the world, 1% is a real large percentage. I don't care about the pre, I don't care about windows mobile, I care about the devices I own. There is no incentive for those others manufactures to support the Mac, they have a very small market share, ie no return for them. If Apple was to drop iSync, I would stop purchasing Macs, and I am sure there are others who would do the same. I have no desire to purchase an iPhone, so if they want to restrict themselves to their little toys, they are welcome to it.
If Apple was to drop iSync, I would stop purchasing Macs, and I am sure there are others who would do the same. I have no desire to purchase an iPhone, so if they want to restrict themselves to their little toys, they are welcome to it.
At least we have gotten to the heart of the issue. You and I see the market in very different ways. It seems we "Think Different."
Long past are the days when Apple needs to go to hardware venders with hat in hand, begging them to please write compatible software for the platform. Apple already expends resources on helping companies get their drivers up to speed. They already have compatibility frameworks in place like iSync. They have already bent over backwards. I, personally, hope Apple makes a killer printer with exceptional software, make it available to Windows users, and put the printer companies out of business. I would be very happy to live in an Apple universe. Hardware venders can get on the train or get run over by it. Any business that does not treat my business as valuable as a Windows user's can pound sand.
Back on topic, iSync was built as a compatibility framework for lazy manufacturers; I'm looking at you, Palm. iTune is exclusively for iDevices. Palm has three good choices. They can use iSync, roll their own, or pound sand.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/17263...port_says.html
Well I think now Palm should concentrate on first establishing the Pre before starting a fight, since it being reported that Verizon have just cancelled their plans to launch the Pre based on weak sales from Sprint. USA is one of the major markets for Pre and it does not perform in their own backyard, it may affect its profile in other markets.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/17263...port_says.html
While you are correct that Palm should spend its resources on making a better product, there is some dispute about the credibility of the article you linked. Other reports are surfacing that the Verizon deal is still on. If Verizon were to publicly cast aside the Pre, that would probably be the death of Palm. I don't they could survive that kind of rejection. Perhaps they need to start looking at partnerships with Boost Mobile or some other second tier carrier.
Apple should not improve iSync; they should kill it.
They already have compatibility frameworks in place like iSync. They have already bent over backwards.
Back on topic, iSync was built as a compatibility framework for lazy manufacturers; I'm looking at you, Palm. iTune is exclusively for iDevices. Palm has three good choices. They can use iSync, roll their own, or pound sand.
So one minute it is kill iSync, then you say the other manufactures show use it, which one is it?
So one minute it is kill iSync, then you say the other manufactures show use it, which one is it?
This is not a contradiction. IMO, they should kill it. However, since Apple does not take advice from me, it is there and should be used by people who want an easy way into the Mac platform. Instead of utilizing what Apple freely offered, Palm tried to take what was not on offer.
I reiterate, Apple should kill iSync. Hardware manufacturers who want our business should provide software that works on our platform. How many of you have struggled with crappy Logitech drivers that are not quite fully functional? How many have purchased pro audio interfaces from M-Audio that are a pain to use? How many of you own a printer or scanner that came with a Windows CD and nothing for the Mac? SCREW THEM ALL! They can all burn in hell for all I care. Apple is always only one product announcement away from disrupting their industry too.
This is not a contradiction. IMO, they should kill it. However, since Apple does not take advice from me, it is there and should be used by people who want an easy way into the Mac platform. Instead of utilizing what Apple freely offered, Palm tried to take what was not on offer.
I reiterate, Apple should kill iSync. Hardware manufacturers who want our business should provide software that works on our platform. How many of you have struggled with crappy Logitech drivers that are not quite fully functional? How many have purchased pro audio interfaces from M-Audio that are a pain to use? How many of you own a printer or scanner that came with a Windows CD and nothing for the Mac? SCREW THEM ALL! They can all burn in hell for all I care. Apple is always only one product announcement away from disrupting their industry too.
They won't support Apple, it isn't worth their while, the old 80-20 rules wins here I am afraid.
And Apple won't come back into the printer/scanner market, unless they are sticking their name on someone elses product.
This is not a contradiction. IMO, they should kill it. However, since Apple does not take advice from me, it is there and should be used by people who want an easy way into the Mac platform. Instead of utilizing what Apple freely offered, Palm tried to take what was not on offer.
I reiterate, Apple should kill iSync. Hardware manufacturers who want our business should provide software that works on our platform. How many of you have struggled with crappy Logitech drivers that are not quite fully functional? How many have purchased pro audio interfaces from M-Audio that are a pain to use? How many of you own a printer or scanner that came with a Windows CD and nothing for the Mac? SCREW THEM ALL! They can all burn in hell for all I care. Apple is always only one product announcement away from disrupting their industry too.
I really don't think you understand one whit of what it takes to operate a business. Getting emotional about these issues isn't telling us that you can consider these issues broadly outside your own interests. Not every group that wants a product is necessarily a profitable group to serve. Sure, hardware makers do want to sell products, but at some point, it's not necessarily worth selling their product to certain groups of people, doubly so if they have special requirements that took this given group outside the mainstream for a good while.
Apple used to make printers, if Apple didn't think it was worth keeping that division to support their own products, then why are you so angry that some other printer companies doesn't support Apple? Talk about a double standard.
Back in the PalmOS days, Apple had already discontinued their own PDA. Complaining about Palm having been unable or unwilling to support MacOS back then is hypocritical because Apple themselves had discontinued their own PDA product line and didn't re enter that market with a replacement product for a decade.
I really don't think you understand one whit of what it takes to operate a business. Getting emotional about these issues isn't telling us that you can consider these issues broadly outside your own interests.
I make no bones about being emotional about the issue, but not blind to business realities. The Mac platform is not an irrelevant market in the consumer desktop space.
Apple used to make printers, if Apple didn't think it was worth keeping that division to support their own products, then why are you so angry that some other printer companies doesn't support Apple? Talk about a double standard.
I know Apple made printers and digital cameras for that matter. That was a different era and Apple was a different company. I think Apple could reinter those markets and redefine them just as they did the PDA/smartphone market.
Don't lose sight of my bigger point, though. My rant is about Palms recent actions regarding iTunes and the USB-IF. People were talking about Apple needing to improve iSync and/or give away free access to iTunes so that hardware manufacturers did not have to do any work to create basic software for their devices. That is demonstrating a misunderstanding of how business works. iTunes is a premium solution for Apple's premium products. iSync is a kludge for disinterested hardware providers. Apple makes a ton of money selling hardware with premium integration solutions They make nothing from iSync. Apple is not the culprit here. Apple does not need to do anything. Palm is the one who needs Apple, not the other way around. Palm thought they could partner with the USB-IF and steal Apple's lunch money. Palm supporters think Apple has an obligation to allow others to take advantage of their premium solutions. That is the topic of this thread and the context of my previous rants.
The Mac platform is not an irrelevant market in the consumer desktop space.
In the case of the old PalmOS devices, for the most part, they really weren't considered consumer devices in the overall market. They were mostly business devices, that's their primary market. I willingly bought the Missing Sync software for my Tapwave because I understood that I represent a niche market.
Don't lose sight of my bigger point, though. My rant is about Palms recent actions regarding iTunes and the USB-IF.
Don't get me wrong on this, I agree that Palm should not have forged someone else's device identification codes.
In the case of the old PalmOS devices, for the most part, they really weren't considered consumer devices in the overall market. They were mostly business devices, that's their primary market. I willingly bought the Missing Sync software for my Tapwave because I understood that I represent a niche market....
Don't get me wrong on this, I agree that Palm should not have forged someone else's device identification codes.
I also had a Palm device back in the day as well as a WM device. I can tell you that those devices were no picnic on Windows either. A more relevant example is the iPod when it was initially released. Back then, I had a PC and used WMP. There was a community of people who owned iPods but wanted to use them on the Windows platform. iPods were Mac only at the time. I bought a solution to make that connection. As I recall, no one at the time was saying that MS had some sort of responsibility to make WMP compatible with the iPod and Apple wasn't interested in that market. Apple did not try to break into WMP through some sort of backdoor hack. They eventually wrote iTunes for Windows and the rest is history. Consider the sequence of events. The iPod only took off AFTER Apple wrote a world beating, multi-platform sync solution. Without that, the iPod would have never become the iPod. The Pre will never become the Pre as long as it is trying to be an iPod. The software is more than half the battle. If Palm does not learn that lesson soon, there will be no Palm left to learn it.
I also had a Palm device back in the day as well as a WM device. I can tell you that those devices were no picnic on Windows either. A more relevant example is the iPod when it was initially released. Back then, I had a PC and used WMP. There was a community of people who owned iPods but wanted to use them on the Windows platform. iPods were Mac only at the time. I bought a solution to make that connection. As I recall, no one at the time was saying that MS had some sort of responsibility to make WMP compatible with the iPod and Apple wasn't interested in that market. Apple did not try to break into WMP through some sort of backdoor hack.
I don't recall Windows Media Player having a device connection system at the time, I thought that came a few years after the first iPod. I never owned a Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Zune or Plays For Sure device, so I admit I can be wrong about that.
I did not have any problems with Palm Desktop for Windows.
I don't recall Windows Media Player having a device connection system at the time, I thought that came a few years after the first iPod.
I did not have any problems with Palm Desktop for Windows.
You might be right about that. It may have been the second gen iPod. I never found Palm desktop to be great on any platform. That is partly why iTunes took off the way it did. Until that time, no one had ever seen a device share data so seamlessly with a computer in the consumer space. People in threads like this who say that iTunes is no big deal should step into the way back machine.
Anyway, Jeff, I think we have entered the phase of competitive agreement.
They make nothing from iSync. Apple is not the culprit here. Apple does not need to do anything. Palm is the one who needs Apple, not the other way around. Palm thought they could partner with the USB-IF and steal Apple's lunch money. Palm supporters think Apple has an obligation to allow others to take advantage of their premium solutions. That is the topic of this thread and the context of my previous rants.
They make nothing from iSync? How about the money I paid for my Macs, or the copy of Tiger, or the family pack of Leopard, or the family pack of Snow Leopard I purchased, are you telling me they could allocate any of that money to iSync?
iPods were Mac only at the time. I bought a solution to make that connection. As I recall, no one at the time was saying that MS had some sort of responsibility to make WMP compatible with the iPod and Apple wasn't interested in that market. Apple did not try to break into WMP through some sort of backdoor hack. They eventually wrote iTunes for Windows and the rest is history. Consider the sequence of events. The iPod only took off AFTER Apple wrote a world beating, multi-platform sync solution. Without that, the iPod would have never become the iPod. The Pre will never become the Pre as long as it is trying to be an iPod. The software is more than half the battle. If Palm does not learn that lesson soon, there will be no Palm left to learn it.
Yes, but Windows has a 90% market, Apple has a 10%, so if Apple wants to sell it's iPods to Windows users they had to provide a solution, the incentive isn't as high the other way around.
I don't think you realise what a great tool Apple has provided in iSync, I can connect multiple phones, or devices from a number of manufactures through one utility, I don't have to install rubblish from them all. But I have a seperate Application to sync music from iTunes to my phone, or another one to sync music to my PSP, it would be nice if this could be done from iSync
Infact I believe Apple should be syncing the iPod from iSync as well.
You might be right about that. It may have been the second gen iPod. I never found Palm desktop to be great on any platform.
It didn't put on any theatrics, but it did the job for me, at least the Windows version. The Mac version was left behind, I don't remember them making an OS X version of it, hence the Missing Sync.
Anyway, Jeff, I think we have entered the phase of competitive agreement.
They're going to have to make their own syncing apps, like they should have done in the first place.
Yes, but Windows has a 90% market, Apple has a 10%, so if Apple wants to sell it's iPods to Windows users they had to provide a solution, the incentive isn't as high the other way around.
This time around, Palm did not write software for either the 10% or the 90%. That is what makes this situation unique. Palm tried to get away with doing nothing at all. I do not believe they were just buying time until they finished their software; I think this was their whole plan. I believe they are shocked at the results and are sitting around trying to figure out what to do next. Why else would they have released with no software for any platform? Personally, I believe their next move is to escalate the matter to the courts. I bet they have people on the ground in East Texas right now.