The announcement of native iTunes support for the Palm Pre was by far one of the biggest shockers to come from Palm land way back when the Pre was but a mere want. Now that it has transgressed into a have, many users have been quite happy with the native iTunes integration. Naturally Apple isn’t as it is an “outside” in their not so perfect world. A few weeks back, the two exchanged messages via press releases, twitter accounts, and public announcements centering around the doomed from the beginning union. And doomed it is as a new iTunes 8.2.1 released today may just does in fact break the Pre’s iTunes loving fun. Per Apple update:
“iTunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses and issue with verification of Apple devices.”
**The emphasis on the end is self added.
What does it mean? Only that Apple went above and beyond to purposefully block the Palm Pre form syncing with iTunes — a bastardly move to say the least, though not unexpected. Still, such moves by Apple make it hard to love them outright as you’re always worried about your own rights. Can anyone confirm if this is in fact true or is your Pre still happily walking down the isle with iTunes?
UpdateA posting on PreCentral confirms that the dirty deed has been done by Apple. iTunes 8.2.1 does in fact stop the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes. So, Pre users who enjoy the forbidden fruits, DO NOT UPGRADE!
Update 2Apple wasn’t just content with cleverly wording their reasons for disabling the Pre’s syncing ability and actually came flat out and admitted their real intentions to Business Week when Apple spokeswoman, Natalie Kerris said:
It also disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre. As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players.
And the ball is back in the mouse’s court…
Update 3The 1.1 webOS update has put the ball back in to Apple’s court as 1.1 re-enables the Pre/iTunes relationship via a new loophole. So….anyone willing to wager bets on how long it will take Apple to patch the new hole? Heck, how long do you think the Palm and Apple will play this cat and mouse game?
Source: TUAW, Mac Rumors
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