Update: Today, July 24t4, Palm struck back – releasing a fix that reenables Pre use on iTunes. But just how this did it is interesting – and the war of word between Apple and Palm has stepped up to a new level. Read this to learn more.
I think this is another in a line of mistakes that Apple has made regarding the iPod and iPhone. Apple today released a new version of iTunes which now prevents the Palm Pre from syncing as it does with an iPod or iPhone.
I understand that Apple has to control its ecosystem – but every Palm Pre user is ostensibly also a user of iTunes and has purchased music from the iTunes Music Store. Apple, remember when you only made iTunes and iPods for Mac users? Why should this be much different? The marketing effect of enabling this will generate more demand for iPhone as the Pre really hasn't hurt your iPhone marketshare at all.
On a similar point, why has Apple made it impossible to recover your own music library when your computer crashes? I recently lost my entire hard drive on my MacBook Pro and had to rebuild it from scratch. I had my entire music library on my iPhone, but I could not simply rebuild it from that backup. While I eventually found a 3rd party solution, why can't Apple do this for us? It definitely gives the user another reason to trust Apple as music provider and would encourage more sales from the Music Store.
Finally, why give Microsoft any reason to crow about it's "It's a PC" ads. This seems like a gross miscalculation and just empowers a competitor, if in fact it is true. Anyone care to comment?
Steve
You didn’t have a backup of your MacBook’s hard drive! Or at least a backup of your iTunes library, if it fits on your iPhone, it would only take a few DVDs to back it up. ITunes periodically prompts you to back up purchased music, get a an external hard drive and use Time Machine to back up the MacBook.
As to letting Palm use iTunes. No, let them write their own software, this is business not a commune.
Yup, I hate I can’t update my iTunes library from my iPod. (or don’t I know something?)
I think, it’s not the case about backups actually, it’s about comfort. Why should I do backups somewhere else while I ‘backup’ my favourite music on my iPod?..
I love to have as few things as I can because I have two ‘home’ places in different countries (and travelling is far more joyful without big bags) so I’d prefer to have only my iPod than iPod + external hdd 😉 Every little counts.
” Why should I do backups somewhere else while I ‘backup’ my favourite music on my iPod?..”
Because you could lose your iPod and your Mac! Back your Mac’s hard drive, back up your PC’s hard drive, because sooner or later you you are going to have a failure or a theft. You don’t need to drag your external hard drive across the borders, leave one here and maybe leave one there.
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Yes, but the floor in this argument is that the iPod or iPhone is a mass storage device anyways, especially for example the 120Gb classic iPod which has enough space to have a full backup of most people iTunes collections stored on it. Why cant that copy on the iPod also be my backup? Sure i could and probably should have another harddrive but what if my mac and harddrive are destroyed in a fire at my house and my iPod is ok because i had it with me. Not allowing it to be a backup is a absolute pain that i have suffered multiple times when my music collection has been lost for various reasons but I still have it on my iPod. Sure 3rd party software comes in to save the day, but apple should be the ones providing this not 3rd party developers.
I agree with you Steve. Allowing Palm-pre users to sync would be good for Apple. It’s not like Palm-pre users are going to switch over to an iPhone because they can’t sync their Palm-pre. To have competing phone customers who are happy to be interacting with the Apple brand drums up business for Apple. As you said in your ebook, Apples edge is style and the Palm-pre still doesn’t come close to that of the iPhone. Apple should focus on its edge and stay ahead of Palm and not get distracted by trying to block them.
I agree with you Steve. Allowing Palm-pre users to sync would be good for Apple. It’s not like Palm-pre users are going to switch over to an iPhone because they can’t sync their Palm-pre. To have competing phone customers who are happy to be interacting with the Apple brand drums up business for Apple. As you said in your ebook, Apples edge is style and the Palm-pre still doesn’t come close to that of the iPhone in my opinion. Apple should focus on its edge and stay ahead of Palm and not get distracted by trying to block them.