Apple won’t intimidate Palm

Whether you agree with Apple’s not-so-subtle message to Palm and its Pre users or not, the battle lines have been drawn. I don’t, however, believe this is a slam dunk win for Apple–Palm is going to fight back hard.

On Tuesday Apple issued a support note warning customers who sync their third-party devices with iTunes that it might not work in the future. Apple never specifically mentioned Palm, but the warning comes just days after it was released and a few weeks after Palm demoed the Pre syncing with iTunes.

Apple’s support note reads:

“Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.”

To be clear, Apple has every right to change iTunes, effectively breaking the ability for third-party devices to sync with its applications. In the digital media market, iTunes is the center of the universe for Apple and its devices.

However, Palm is not going away that fast. Today’s Palm is not the same company we all watched in the late 90s and 2000s like spectators glued to on oncoming train wreck. Palm is different now.

With Jon Rubinstein at the helm, Palm feels like a scrappy upstart company that is more than willing to take on the Apple fight. Until recently, Palm was a train wreck of a company, but I don’t think they are anymore.

Rubinstein, who helped conceive the iPod and was part of Apple’s executive team for many years, knows the Apple game better than anyone. He knows how to play it and win–after all, he was on the other side of the fence for a long time fighting the game for Apple.

That’s obviously how Palm managed to get the Pre to sync with iTunes out of the box. Rubinstein is not the only former Apple employee currently working at Palm–there are more there than you may think.

I was glad to see Palm stand up and respond to Apple’s note with a statement the company sent to me yesterday.

Palms view of the situation is this:

“Palm’s media sync works with the current version of iTunes. If Apple chooses to disable media sync in a future version of iTunes, it will be a direct blow to their users who will be deprived of a seamless synchronization experience. However, people will have options. They can stay with the iTunes version that works to sync their music on their Pre, they can transfer the music via USB, and there are other third-party applications we could consider.”

That speaks volumes. If Apple does disable the syncing feature, we have other ways to make it work.

This is going to be an interesting battle and is sure to heat up over the next few months. Don’t expect Palm to fold quickly though.

Michael Adams

Seems like the standard Apple disclaimer to head off complaints if third party syncing breaks with a future iTunes update. How many times has an iTunes update broken functions on our Macs?
duke o’connor

I agree with Michael. This is standard procedure. Apple is acting responsibly by disclosing information that’s important to users or potential users of its software. Or do you think they should not advise users of unsupported devices that there might be issues when iTunes is upgraded?
Jeffsters

“Apple won’t intimidate Palm”? Do you think Apple cares? Apple spends a lot of money to develop iTunes, and on the Mac, Address Book, iCal, and Mail. Why should Palm, as a competitor, be able to freely use Apple’s software to synch with their device? What is OS X suddenly open source freeware? Why should Apple subsidize Palm and the Pre on the software side of the equation? Palm should shut up and write it’s own sync software and compete on a level playing field. Oh wait didn’t they tried that once! I think it was called Palm Desktop and something called Hot Sync? Be afraid Pre owners…be VERY afriad!
Sean

Palm can fight back all they want, but when Apple cuts their legs off we’ll see just how well they do.

Hacking into other company’s software is not the answer Palm. is this the best you can do?
slappy

Apple doesn’t care. No one cares. About Palm Pre that is. According to the report, the whole Pre launch and product has failed to attract new users. It’s all pretty much Palm users who bought into this piece of plastic screen.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a5k1RDLAr8cI
http://tewha.net Steven Fisher

I think you need to refocus on the big picture here. I doubt Apple cares if Palm pulls music from their library. Any app that runs on Mac OS X can pull that off, it isn’t even a challenge. What Apple probably cares about is that Palm is doing it in a fragile way, that Apple would have to put extra effort into with every release of iTunes. Only Apple’s not going to do that, and so Palm’s music sync might break.

The statement most likely means exactly what it says. The only reason for Apple to break the sync deliberately would be to make Palm ship that software so it wouldn’t break accidentally later.
Steven

I agree with most here. This is standard procedure, not any subtle attempt at intimidation.

Here’s my take: I believe Apple is rooting for Palm in a way. I think we can all agree that competition is a good thing for consumers. It’s good for the industry as well – Apple should welcome legitimate competitors to the market if it means the reduction of the influence of Microsoft and its monopolistic tendencies. A competitor which brings an innovative product to market vowing that it will sink or swim on its own merits only serves to validate Apple’s business approach. The public becomes conditioned to the idea of having choice and making informed decisions, not knee-jerk reactions based solely on price or on what happens to be the dominant platform.

A healthy rivalry with Palm only benefits Apple long term.