DVD Jon: Palm Pre emulating iPod to ‘fool’ iTunes
By Ronald O Carlson
The company headed by Apple’s former iPod chief is using a rather straightforward method to sync their smartphone with Apple’s software. Likewise, Cupertino will likely find it just as easy to block this approach. Is this the beginning of an iTunes sync arms race?
Yesterday, Blorge brought you news that Palm’s upcoming Pre smartphone can sync with Apple’s iTunes, which appears to be a major feature advantage for the device. However, in a blog post, Jon Lech Johansen (aka DVD Jon) sets us all straight on just how easy Palm’s strategy is and how easily Apple will be to defeat it.
So how has Palm most likely enabled the Pre to sync directly with iTunes?
• When you select “Media Sync” on the Pre, it will switch its USB interface to use Apple’s Vendor Id and the Product Id for a specific iPod model
• The Pre exposes a filesystem through Mass Storage Class that mimics the structure of an iPod
• The Pre responds to Apple’s custom USB command and returns XML info about the device
Further, according to DVD Jon, Apple simply needs to teach iTunes how to recognize the difference between a real iPod and a “PrePod,” whereupon the famed hacker then pitches his own iTunes syncing software, called “doubletwist.”
A headline or three, then what?
Is it just that simple? Aside from some cheap publicity, what do Palm and Rubenstein hope to gain by this? Anyone buying a Pre because it’s “iTunes compatible” will be sorely disappointed later when Apple disables or otherwise cripples this functionality as Cupertino is sure to do.
So, is there a more intelligent long-term strategy here for Palm or is the company purposely trying to piss off its customers? Perhaps Palm’s perspective it that this click-bait move will benefit it little and cost it even less…
What’s your take?
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May 30th, 2009
Palm’s strategy of claiming iTunes compatibility is bound to harm it as it starts pissing customers off when they find out it won’t work.
Palm’s emulation of an iPod is a security risk in iTunes that Palm has exposed and used. It means a foreign device can link up with a Mac to obtain personal information such as address and calendar data and email information, documents, etc.
Of course, Apple will see that this is a security risk. Apple will simply adjust the security of iTunes and the iPod to avoid this risk in the future.
This obviously would block Palm’s claimed iTunes compatibility.
Palm’s customers would then be livid.
Since Palm is already using Linux as a base operating system, it should simply modify the open source application, Songbird (an iTunes clone), to give it a desktop application which it can synchronize with rather than going with the very iffy, lazy, and customer pissing hack of using iTunes. This would be cleaner and more dignified.