Apple puts kibosh on Palm Pre's romance with iTunes

By Bonnie Cha on 16 July 2009, 10:48am

Apple has made good on its earlier warning and put an end to the Palm Pre's iTunes-synchronisation capability, with the release of iTunes 8.2.1.

In the release notes, Apple states: "iTunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes, and addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices." As the Pre isn't due to reach these shores until Christmas, we couldn't test the lack of compatibility for ourselves. Our US cousins, however, not wanting to believe the news, bit the bullet and downloaded the latest version of Apple's music software. Sure enough, they found that the Pre's romance with iTunes is over.

Just as before, they connected the smart phone to a laptop and selected the 'media sync' option on their Pre, but, this time, it didn't automatically launch iTunes. Instead, it was only recognised as a mass-storage device. Manually launching iTunes didn't make a difference either.

When asked for comment, Palm replied with the same response it gave when Apple first issued its warning: "Palm's media sync works with iTunes 8.2. If Apple chooses to disable media sync in iTunes, it will be a direct blow to their users, who will be deprived of a seamless synchronisation experience. However, people will have options. They can stay with the iTunes version that works to sync their music on their Pre, they can transfer the music via USB, and there are other third-party applications we can consider."

Third-party solutions such as doubleTwist and The Missing Sync for Palm Pre will allow the smart phone to sync with iTunes.