Palm Pre & iTunes Tussle

Hot on the heels of the new iPhone 3GS, Palm released the Pre, another intensely anticipated phone. Within hours of it being released, the usual community of developers had already flashed the firmware and created another homebrew application scene for the Pre. Eagerly anticipating the potential growth in the applications but more importantly media support with iTunes, the Pre managed to access iTunes in a manner that Apple calls illegal, developers call questionable and consumers call “unique”. Resultantly, a slew of corporate press releases and open threats ensued between Apple and Palm.

The core issue that Apple is contesting with Palm is that the Pre accesses iTunes by mimicking the software identity of a standard iPod. Apple has openly claimed that this means is illegal. Palm’s response is that Apple’s rather draconian actions will hurt consumers overall as they will be denied a “seamless synchronization experience”. After trading many barbs and considering that former Apple employee, Jon Rubinstein, is now currently the CEO of Palm; tensions are running high. Apple’s response has been to immediately block the Pre from syncing with iTunes, while the Pre development community has refused to update iTunes and resultantly began looking for hacks to bypass the new update. (continue reading…)

Zune HD vs iPod Touch: Showdown

Currently, the world has eagerly sat in anticipation of Microsoft’s second attempt at the music player market with the newly launched Zune HD. Interestingly enough; the Zune was shipped software-wise dead to customers before Zune Marketplace went online. Customers were enticed by the overall ability to see what they had purchased and left with a further eagerness to see how Marketplace would perform with their new Zunes.

The traditional competitor to the Zune had been the iPod touch. With the launch of the new Zune HD and new generations of iPod Touches, Apple and Microsoft started a new round of battling amongst media players.

The Zune was considered an outlier in the general portable music player market with its software, hardware and marketing concept. Generally speaking, if you wanted reliability, style and ease of function, people just automatically clicked with Apple products, namely the iPod Touch. The Zune was not immune to the problems people faced with weak video support coupled with the lacking Wi-Fi capabilities.

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