One thing I've noticed about Jobs is that he has a long memory. After Michael Dell said if he owned Apple he'd shut it down and give the money back to the investors, Jobs was fairly quiet until Apple passed Dell. That was something like five years later, and Jobs issued a press release noting the fact.
Michael Eisner was slamming Apple for "piracy" by not preventing their computers from ripping CDs. Jobs waited until Eisner was fighting for his job as Disney CEO, and on the date of one of the most important meetings, released a statement saying Pixar would no longer negotiate with Disney when their contract ran out.
The Pre is a blatant rip off of the iPhone, with the only distinction being the slide out keyboard. As iTunes is provided at no charge, it's Apple's business if they want it to synch with 3rd party products or not.
I think part of Apple's problem was that Palm apparently has the Pre ID itself as an iPod, and never tried to negotiate with Apple on synching with iTunes.
I’ve seen posts on some Mac forums where they say that Palm’s ID that shows up as an iPod violates their contract with the USB Consortium. Since Apple pays to have this unique ID, Palm could very well have their USB license pulled.
What are y’all hearing?
Thank you for your interesting post.
One thing I’d want to add in response: anyone who pwns Eisner gets a nod of approval from me! Artful, say I. Steve has style.
As to the Pre, I don’t fault Apple for slamming the door on syncing it. Relying on someone else’s product to provide a significant functionality your customers expect is parasitism. I’m not a huge fan of iTunes, though I use it daily for podcast downloads, but it’s a free product and Palm has not exactly shrunk from needling Apple, down to faking an iPod “birth certificate”. Fine. Out it goes.
Palm was syncing PDAs when the iPod was but a gleam in Steve Jobs’ eye. I’m embarrassed for them that they tried this trick.