[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Palm Calls Apple's Bluff on Media Syncing here

[1MacGeek]

There is no "bluff" here. Apple will do what it takes to keep the Pre from syncing to iTunes. I do not believe the best and brightest from Apple left to go to work for Palm. If that is a true statement, then Palm necessarily cannot win this skirmish on technological reasons alone.
Yet, they must try. The entire survival of Palm is on the line. The trouble is, desperate people usually do really stupid things because they have not thought out the consequences of their actions. I believe this will ultimately be the fate of Palm.

[jinx101]

The only reason I use iTunes is because I have to with my iPod Touch. It's slower than any other music program I have and it's still buggy (like, it's constantly trying to go through my whole catalog and find song volumnes no matter how many times I tell it not to).

Apple is so annoying to deal with, I can't wait until someone comes out with a device that functions as well as the iPod Touch, as soon as that happens I'm out the door, I'm tired of Apple.

[etshea]

iTunes on my mac runs fine. It is slow on my Vista computer at work.

[VitaminCM]

Apple always comes off like a bully. They are the biggest abusers of power in the tech industry. If they spent as much money on business as they do on lawyers, they might break the 10% market share.
Disclosure: I own a Macbook pro and 5 iPods. (Great products, horrible people.)

[smax013]

There are two ways to view Apple's stance...

1) You can take them at "face" value and believe that they are merely pointing out that they do not support other devices and that future updates to fix bugs, add features, etc could "break" syncing with other devices (i.e. the Pre) and if that happens, do not come running to Apple but talk to the device maker (aka Palm). In otherwords, Apple is not going to try to deliberately break it, but they make some changes that would break how Palm (or others) implemented the sync. Basically, in the end, the statement by Apple would just be a COA statement so that they can say "do not talk to us...we told you we did not support it...it is not our fault that Palm's implementation failed...talk to Palm".
2) You can assume that this is Apple's warning shot that basically says "we will reprogram iTunes to break your implementation of syncing".

Now, it seems that a lot of people at going with #2. Personally, I will go with #1 until I get something that comes something at least closely resembling "proof" of #2. If Apple is smart, they will try as hard as possible to NOT break the Pre syncing in the near future, even if they really do not want to support such syncing as if they do break it in the next couple of months with an update to iTunes, then it will certainly look like #2 to a LOT more people (potentially including me, depending on how soon it would happen).

The reality is that it is a perception issue and Apple is likely in a lose-lose scenario here even if they truly are only meaning it to be #1. The simple reality is that lot of people will go with #2 even if that is not what Apple is actually doing.

[1MacGeek]

smax013 said:

There are two ways to view Apple's stance...

snip

The reality is that it is a perception issue and Apple is likely in a lose-lose scenario here even if they truly are only meaning it to be #1. The simple reality is that lot of people will go with #2 even if that is not what Apple is actually doing.

Actually, there is only one way to view it - does it make Apple money, or extend Apple's market share? In other words, does the doing anything with the Pre add value to Apple? Clearly, the answer is no. The Pre owners will never be able to purchase from the Apple App Store, so there is no value to having them around. As you have mentioned, they will be a drain on support resources, and with no countering revenue - i.e. AppleCare - I would like you to point out to me why this would be a good business decision on Apple's part.

Also, the personal component cannot be overlooked. Quite simply put, nobody screws Steve Jobs - Steve Jobs does the screwing. I don't know if you happened to see Steve Jobs appearance before the Cupertino city council, but entire books on power theory in business could be written about that 15 minutes. He didn't appear there to seek permission to expand the Apple campus, he was there to inform them of what was going to happen, when, and how. It was pathetic, in a way, to see the council struggle for control they were never going to get. And quite hilarious to see them all transform into lapdogs by the time Jobs left.

No, Rubenstein will be the last CEO of Palm. Make no mistake - for this audacious move of synching to iTunes Jobs will crush Palm utterly.

[smax013]

1MacGeek said:

Actually, there is only one way to view it - does it make Apple money, or extend Apple's market share? In other words, does the doing anything with the Pre add value to Apple? Clearly, the answer is no. The Pre owners will never be able to purchase from the Apple App Store, so there is no value to having them around. As you have mentioned, they will be a drain on support resources, and with no countering revenue - i.e. AppleCare - I would like you to point out to me why this would be a good business decision on Apple's part.

There is only one way to look at it if you look from Apple's perspective. But, many people could care less what Apple's perspective is and only care what THEIR perspective is. And such people care more about their ability to do what they want to do (i.e. sync non-Apple products with iTunes) compare to what Apple's bottomline or motivation might be. But, that is what a "way of looking at something" is...a perspective. Thus, there is more than one way to look at it.

Now, even if you only look at it from the perspective of does Apple make more money or extend their market share (I will note that technically those are two different ways of looking at it...extending market share will not necessarily always make Apple more money...after all, Apple could still make more money by selling more iTunes Store songs because those Pre users can easily sync that content to their phone, but not extend their iPhone market share), it is not as clear cut as you claim it to be. Many times people focus too much on the "hard", clear bottomline numbers and ignore the more fuzzy, intangible bottomline numbers.

First, even if you just focus on those "hard", clear bottomline numbers, it is not clear that Apple might be passing up on some profit. Yes, they would likely spend more money on support resources if they supported the Pre syncing and they would likely lose some iPhone sales that they might have otherwise gotten (although not every person who could not sync with iTunes would automatically get an iPhone instead...many would still go with a Pre and just find another way to get their content onto the Pre). But, that is not the whole picture. Yes, they will not sell any Apps to Pre users or videos (whether TV shows or movies...they are both DRM'd and will not work on a Pre even if the Pre will sync with iTunes)...but they might sell more iTunes Store songs or albums...virtually all of which are now DRM free and would sync to the Pre with the iTunes syncing. After all, if a Pre user finds it much easier to buy songs from the iTunes Store and then sync with iTunes to the Pre than buying from the iTunes Store and syncing some other way, then they might be more inclined to buy songs from the iTunes Store rather than from Amazon or by buying CDs to rip them from.

But, beyond that is the more fuzzy, intangible numbers. In the end, this is more about PR than anything else. And more than likely Apple will take it on the chin in the PR realm on this issue. It is certainly possible that Apple could earn enough of a PR black eye to lose some sales of iPods, iPhones, Macs, etc. And it is possible that those lost sales could out weigh the cost of just supporting it. The problem is that this type of stuff is rather hard to put numbers to. How many sales might Apple lose? Will they really lose any? No one can really know with any certainty.

The point is that I do not disagree with you per se...Apple is likely better off from a business point of view with the router they are going. They certainly think so or they would not be doing it. But, it is not nearly as clear cut as you claim it to be. Apple will almost definitely end up on the losing side from a PR perspective...and that can effect their business bottomline.

Quote

Also, the personal component cannot be overlooked. Quite simply put, nobody screws Steve Jobs - Steve Jobs does the screwing. I don't know if you happened to see Steve Jobs appearance before the Cupertino city council, but entire books on power theory in business could be written about that 15 minutes. He didn't appear there to seek permission to expand the Apple campus, he was there to inform them of what was going to happen, when, and how. It was pathetic, in a way, to see the council struggle for control they were never going to get. And quite hilarious to see them all transform into lapdogs by the time Jobs left.

No, Rubenstein will be the last CEO of Palm. Make no mistake - for this audacious move of synching to iTunes Jobs will crush Palm utterly.

I do not doubt that Jobs is formidable and likely gets his way. But, dealing with a City Council and dealing with the purchasing public (which who he will be "dealing" with in this situation) are two entirely different things. A City Council will tend to worry more about pissing off some rich person living in the city who could cause major headaches for them from a PR and even a tax revenue point of view. Why piss off someone who might donate money to local projects and likely would be paying significant taxes and such? This is why most City Councils, zoning boards, planning commissions, etc will tend to cave to business interests...one decent size company will bring in more tax revenue and other general money to the area in general than a bunch of pissed off residents. The public is generally more concerned with what they might see as some "big company" stepping on their right to do what they want than worry about how powerful some rich CEO of that company might be. After all, if Jobs is unhappy with me for being pissed at Apple because I might have a Pre and cannot sync it with iTunes, what is he going to do to me even assuming he even knows about me and cares what I think? And I would just be one in many...even assuming he can crush me, is he going to go around crushing every consumer he is unhappy with. Even if you assume that he would do that, it would only end being worse for Apple...just ask the RIAA about how the whole idea of "attacking" your customers was.

I seriously doubt that Jobs will crush Palm. That is not to say that he may or may not be able to. I am saying it more from the point of view that it would not be smart. Unless he could do it without his finger prints or the perception of his finger prints on it, then it might be OK. But, if he is viewed, whether because he really did it or just because people believe he did whether he did it or not, as crushing Palm, then Apple would likely face a serious PR backlash. Even without actually crushing Palm, just the breaking of the syncing with iTunes for the Pre (whether Apple does it intentionally or unintentionally) will likely have some PR backlash implications for Apple. Apple is kind of in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation here. Their only saving grace is if time goes by with no breaking of the syncing to the Pre. The longer this has time to sit and move to the background, the more likely Apple can escape with minimal PR damage.