Palm Restores iTunes Sync Despite Warnings
The war between Apple and Palm continues to escalate, despite the recent intervention of the USB Implementers Forum. Even though they were told, explicitly, that such action would be a violation, Palm released webOS 1.2.1 this past weekend, restoring iTunes sync capability to the Pre.
This latest act of Vendor ID defiance ups the ante considerably, and webOS 1.2.1 extends syncing capability to photos, too. The move seems like a direct response to last weeks letter from the USB-IF, which asked the makers of the Pre to "clarify Palm's intent" regarding webOS "and respond to this potential violation within seven days."
Things are definitely heating up, and it seems as though the ball is back in Apple's court. Company spokesman, Tom Neumayr, said: "As we've said before, newer versions of Apple's iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players." Presumably, iTunes 9.0.2 will - again - undo the latest restore, but now that Palm has clarified its intent, it will be interesting to see how the USB-IF responds.
