webOS 1.2 Does Not Fix iTunes Sync

Right. USB vendor and product codes are meant to avoid compatibility problems. You don't want the driver for your mouse to fire off when your thumb drive is plugged in, or your Nikon camera's tethering software to take over when you plug in a Canon camera. This is why the vendor/product IDs exist in the first place.

To claim that one company's drivers must support another, that's like saying 'Nvidia has to make their PhysX software run on ATI cards! If they're making it run only on Nvidia cards, that's unfair!' (And yes, people /have/ actually said this. Unconnected to, but partially inspired by, the fact that someone modified the PhysX drivers to work on an ATI GPU instead of an Nvidia one.)

Apple might be acting kind of lame in blocking the Pre, but I can also see why. If the Pre's sync was broken in some other way, average people wouldn't go to Palm and go 'why can't I sync?' They'd go to Apple and go 'Why didn't this work?' So everything else aside, saying 'Third-party devices will not work natively in iTunes' is actually a fairly normal management-type reaction to this sort of thing.

This would be anti-competitive if they completely locked everyone else out of iTunes. But they /do/ provide a standard API to read the music out of your iTunes library and sync that or use it elsewhere, which they commit to keeping current and workable. They just don't want to be responsible for synching other people's devices /in iTunes itself/.

They also have a plugin method for defining third-party devices in iTunes (though this is admittedly very outdated at this point, since I don't think they've really kept maintaining it); my old Windows Mobile phone used to appear as a device in iTunes for OS X -- through a third-party plugin -- for synching. Not as an iPod; the device sync page for that device looked very different, to make it clear that 'Apple is not responsible for this, you'll need to contact someone else if it breaks.'

With the Pre, Palm decided to take a shortcut. Rather than writing a plugin for the Windows and Mac versions of iTunes, or (even better) writing desktop sync software that reads from iTunes, they decided to just implement the AFC (Apple File Connection) sync protocol (note: not a USB standard) and make the Pre pretend to be an iPod. That's clever, but was legally questionable. Apple should perhaps have turned a blind eye, but Palm were the ones taking shortcuts.

In short, Apple's not violating any of the USB rules or regulations here. Palm's been /faking/ their own vendor and product codes to pretend to be an iPod, which actually /is/ against the USB regulations. Apple are acting like jerks here, but Palm are the ones who are actually contractually in the wrong.

They could've written a plugin for iTunes, or -- even better -- written desktop synching software. That's what I'd prefer; I'd love to be able to back up messages, contacts, calendars and suchnot to desktop easily /and/ have it sync music (out of iTunes, Windows Music Player, whatever). That would've been the best solution, out of all worlds. Sync your existing music library (without being tied to iTunes specifically), and all by using official and approved APIs in both iTunes and Windows Music Player.

Hopefully that's what they'll do going forward.

Sorry, wrong answer. The USB standard is a "standard" because it specifies how a devices physically connect. Microsoft doesn't supply drivers for every device type - it's left up to the USB device maker to provide USB drivers.

Have you actually used Windows in the past, oh, say, 10 years or so? When you plug in a USB peripheral, the OS (Windows, in this case), queries the device to find out what it is (which is where the Vendor and Product ID come in). It uses these to install the proper driver from its database (the database in Windows). The vendor sometimes provides these drivers separately, but sometimes not. Many a mouse has been installed as a "Microsoft mouse", when it was in reality created by another company. (This is one of the myths being propogated by Apple fanboys: The USB spec specifically allows vendors to spoof other IDs in some cases. It's not universally forbidden.) And again, Microsoft, being the OS maker (in the case of Windows), would -- if Apple's model of USB operability was taken to its logical conclusion -- be perfectly within its rights to block all Apple products from connecting to Windows.

The Vendor and Product IDs together are supposed to tell the OS which device is being installed, and then the OS goes and installs the proper drivers. The OS could just as easily be designed to see a certain Vendor ID and Product ID and tell the offending peripheral, in effect, "Go chase yourself."

In the case of iTunes, it's fundamentally the "driver" for the device. You don't see Logitech supplying drivers for Kensington mice do you?

In what possible way is iTunes a "driver"? iTunes is application software, not a driver. The OS (which is what drivers actually deal with) sees an iPod or iPhone as a USB device, the same as any other USB device of its class. That's the whole point. There's nothing special about the iPhone/iPod and how it works in respect to iTunes. The only thing preventing every other USB music device from behaving in precisely the same way is the lockout with the VID.

Syncing is not built in to any USB spec - go do some research and come back with valid arguments.

How much research have you put into it? Again, the iTunes software would work precisely the same with any other device, if Apple hadn't sabotaged it. When I said that syncing was part of the spec, I was referring to the interoperability -- the ability to sync in the first place. Apple isn't required to "design" their software to sync with everything because all Apple has to do is sync with USB music devices. Hell, the USB device in question doesn't even have to be capable of actually playing music. It just has to be able to store it. And that's the point. Syncing isn't some kind of magic voodoo that is unique to iPods/iPhones.

Correct. Neither is a requirement by the USB spec - Apple allows access to the library by 3rd parties. iTunes, however, is proprietary with no documented way of adding device support - Palm is just attempting to capitalize on someone else's work.

The only thing "proprietary" about iTunes is that VID check. That's it. There's no magical connection between iPhones and iPods. It doesn't exist. There's no secret sauce. If there was some proprietary functions being done (e.g., an encrypted bit of data exchanged by iTunes and iPhones/iPods), we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's the impact on the USB model that makes a difference, not the fact that Apple wants to play the proprietary games (which a lot of vendors play in different ways).

One more time: this discussion has nothing to do with the USB spec except that Palm was illegally using Apple's USB vendor ID. Get your facts straight.

Let me see if I understand this: You call spoofing a vendor ID "illegal", and it's me who has to get his facts straight? Are you serious?? There is nothing "illegal" about spoofing a vendor ID. At most, it's a violation of USB-IF rules, which the USB-IF has set sanctions for. It's no more "illegal" than calling in sick when you just want to stay home and goof off. It might get you in trouble with some authority in some sense, but you're not going away in handcuffs.

This is really no different than if Microsoft used the spec to keep people from typing in Word with non-Microsoft keyboards, and only a little less egregious (if only in principle) than locking out all non-Zune media devices from Windows.

People really need to think about what they're advocating for here. I don't think you'd like where this would go, and how quickly it would get there.

I think you've missed the point. I don't think the USB specification requires that devices work with any particular application, such as iTunes or the Zune marketplace. Rather, it requires that the OS recognizes that something is there and show it as a generic device.

The idea behind USB was supposed to be that you could plug your device in, it would get recognized by the OS, and it would work with the application you wanted it to work with. There wouldn't be much point in having the spec if it didn't mean that applications identified your devices. What good is the OS recognizing your keyboard, if you can't type in Word with it?

Now, obviously, the device has to be the right class of device for the application. No one would expect to have iTunes sync to a USB mouse. And if the software was doing something unusual, that only an iPod/iPhone could do, it would be prudent to protect other devices from trying it. But other than that, the VID has no place in blocking hardware that way. That's not what it's for.

As to the Zune: I don't know what way the Zune software uses to prevent non-Zunes from syncing with it. If it uses the USB metadata the same way iTunes does, then a pox on them, as well. I'm not playing favorites here. All I'm saying is that if Apple wants to create a walled garden, they should use some other identifier (preferably one that's encrypted, so that other companies can't get in.)

If you don't own an Apple iPod or iPhone, Apple doesn't prevent you from using your non DRM content on other devices. You just can't use iTunes with those devices. Nothing illegal or unfair about that is there?

You're talking about a different kind of fairness here. Is it just as fair to the users? That's a debatable point. iTunes is free software, so technically Apple doesn't owe you anything when you use it, but the normal expectation with media library software (WMP, MediaMonkey, and basically any software other than iTunes and Zune Marketplace) is that it doesn't matter what USB media player you hook up to it. The normal expectation is that the company that makes the software doesn't care what hardware you use with it. In that sense, it's giving the user a bit less than what they've come to expect.

Again, I don't use iTunes and don't really care whether it works with the Pre. The thing I'm concerned with is why it doesn't work with the Pre, because I think that's a dark road to travel down. Some of you might not be old enough to remember when you had to install proprietary software to have peripherals work (e.g., WordPerfect and all the printer drivers that came with it), but trust me on this, it wasn't pretty. Turning USB on its head, and allowing software to exclude devices, rather than simply identify them, puts us back on that path.