To quote the often lamented Lucas Buck, “Why can’t we all just get along?”

Remember when I said the the USB-IF’s ruling in support of Apple meant that Palm would need to drop it’s battle to preserve the ability to sync the Palm Pre’s media mode via iTunes? Well, I was wrong.

In the recent WebOS 1.2.1 update, not only has Palm restored the ability to sync your music on the Pre using iTunes, but you can ALSO now sync pictures using Cupertino’s little cash cow. How does the Pre do it? Well by spitting directly in the giant glowing eye of the USB-IF of course. The Palm Pre, when in Media Sync mode, tells iTunes not only that it is actually an iPod, it also now carries apples Manufacturer codes as well…ignoring the USB-IF’s ruling not once, but TWICE. Mui Macho!

No word yet on how Apple or the USB-IF will respond to this newest outrage. Likely the next iTunes update will break the sync ability yet again (which Palm will then certainly restore) and the USB-IF will start making sanctions noises, which despite my original impression, are unlikely to be more dire then removing the USB logo from Pre boxes. Pfft. Bring it.

Of course, when you consider that besides iTunes, the Palm Pre can sync music using Windows Media Player, DoubleTwist, MediaMonkey, good old fashioned “drag and drop” and likely many other apps…is any of this REALLY necessary? Why not just let the whole matter go?

Personally, I think that Palm CEO and former iPod honcho Jon Rubinstein is viewing this as a grudge match directly against  his former boss Steve Jobs, and the Jobso views it that way too. The whole thing has come down to pride and bragging rights, and I doubt either one of them are going to concede this fight considering their personalities. Hubris much, guys?

Zealot (468 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).