iTunes support confirmed for Palm Pre

We'd already heard through the gravevine that iTunes support would be baked into Palm's forthcoming Pre, but now it's official. During Palm's D7 keynote today in Carlsbad, Paul Cousino showed attendees that non-DRM music, photos and videos could be synced with the Pre via iTunes (on Mac and Windows, naturally). In his words: "It shows up in iTunes just like a regular device."

Update: So, Palm has issued an official press release detailing the new webOS features shown today at All Things Digital. The so-called media sync feature is straight up designed to "synchronize seamlessly with iTunes," giving users the ability to use Apple's media management software for transferring all non-DRM media. Furthermore, the Pre is engineered to act as a "mass storage drive," letting users side-load content on the fly. The full release also details the App Catalog and Twitter in Universal Search.

Gallery: iTunes support confirmed for Palm Pre

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[ZZMitch @ May 28th 2009 3:46PM]

Apple is gunna be Rotten about this (pun)

[The WC @ May 28th 2009 3:48PM]

Rotten about more iTunes revenue in their pocket? I'm not so sure...

[skv @ May 28th 2009 7:13PM]

What Revenue. Apple hardly makes any profit from itunes music sales as the studios and artists have the bigger cut. Then they have to support those huge servers which cost a lot of money. The only reason Apple is pushing iTunes,AppStore is to sell more hardware. It`s like sony/microsoft selling their game consoles cheaply in order to make profits on the games. Only it`s the other way round for apple as they sell media cheaply to make (huge) profits on their hardware.

[Mark @ May 28th 2009 9:11PM]

skv- Your reply is kinda like when people bullshit about shit they don't know half a fuck about. Cheers

[KC @ May 28th 2009 11:16PM]

Wait a minute. I thought a vast majority of people *hate* iTunes? This makes no sense to me.

[Brad Green @ May 28th 2009 3:46PM]

Yup, til Apple releases the next "fix" for iTunes...

[Brad Green @ May 28th 2009 3:46PM]

Oh, and first...

[Templarian @ May 28th 2009 3:52PM]

Shouldn't be too long, they will probably release it right before the Pre gets released.

+ to the comment
- to the reply.

Hmm... Evens out.

[Mike10010100 @ May 28th 2009 3:53PM]

Guess what? One less thing that Paul and other haters have to ask about. It will sync to iTunes! Ha!

This rocks.

[Look_Around_You @ May 28th 2009 4:06PM]

Oh they will come up with something new to get low-ranked over.

Just give them a moment to pick themselves off the floor.

[ETM2K7 @ May 28th 2009 4:16PM]

You bunch of idiots. If Palm is doing this officially is because they are doing legally. Morons!!

[nerdtalker @ May 28th 2009 4:17PM]

@Mike: I guess Paul A. Chapel is the new iEye...

[bob @ May 28th 2009 4:31PM]

if anything, this is an admition that they have no client software or resources to make any

[Zak @ May 28th 2009 4:33PM]

Do you chowderheads really, truly believe that Palm could get away with officially announcing iTunes support for the Pre without Apple's cooperation?

Seriously? I swear, some of you Apple hating sock puppets are just dumb beyond belief.

[Look_Around_You @ May 28th 2009 5:00PM]

@Zak

Hey dumbass. The only one's upset over this are your fellow Apple "chowderheads" who are Pre "haters".

[Mike10010100 @ May 28th 2009 5:06PM]

@Zak

Let me see if I can get this straight. You complain that the Pre won't sync to iTunes. Then they come out and say that it will. Then you get angry because they might (I say might because we have no idea how they did it) not have gotten permission from the mothership. Honestly. The only people unhappy here are people like you who defend Apple ceaselessly.

[James @ May 28th 2009 5:49PM]

It's not done 'til the Pre won't run.

[Jay @ May 28th 2009 6:24PM]

@ETM2K7
Just because Palm legally made it work, doesn't mean that Apple can't legally make it stop working.
And don't call people idiots, when you're not that smart yourself.

[ThreeDee912 @ May 28th 2009 6:24PM]

Imagine if Apple announces that the Palm Pre is actually their iPhone-like CDMA phone for Sprint and Verizon...

O_O

[Ben @ May 28th 2009 8:11PM]

And why the hell shouldnt they? Its their software palm can create their own fricken software.

[Lloyd @ May 28th 2009 11:36PM]

its just like Microsoft office on a Mac.
If Apple is going to profit from selling songs to the Pre, then wtf
is the problem with this?
I really don't get all the mac fans out there... in the end its just
business LOL

[Kelmon @ May 29th 2009 2:58AM]

@Look_Around_You

I'm sorry but I'm with Zak on this one - I've yet to see a comment from any Apple "chowderheads" who are upset about this news. Seriously, why would we? Our choice of devices just expanded and we don't have to change the platform or software that we use and love. For some odd reason there seems to be an impression that non-Apple devices syncing with iTunes (hey, why stop there, even connecting to a Mac) think that this is bad and that's simply not true.

Still, what you think doesn't really matter so feel free to continue writing nonsense.

[Carl @ May 29th 2009 8:12AM]

I imagine an update will probably fix that. Will other mass storage devices show up? I've never tried. I'm sure apple can get ahold of one and find out what is specific to the pre and disable it. and still allow other mass storage devices to connect.

But then again palm might be paying under the table to do this. If so then I guess they don't see that as infringing on their IP. Kinda like the MS Office comment. iTunes syncing is one thing that drew me to the iphone. I still won't give it up for sprint though.

[Puggs @ May 28th 2009 3:46PM]

Law suits? Patent crying? IP infractions?

BRING ON THE PAIN!

[gouken85 @ May 28th 2009 4:20PM]

Yeah. Apple won't allow this.
If they let them get away with this then pretty much everyone is going to follow RIM, nokia, lg, samsung, htc...
Besides Apple can do with their software whatever they want. If you don't like it, use winamp or any other alternative.

[barracuda @ May 28th 2009 4:24PM]

So much trouble this year.. not good for Steve Jobs's healt...

[eriden @ May 28th 2009 4:28PM]

Apple can certainly try bringing Palm to court, but Palm has a pretty impressive portfolio of IP itself, and Apple will probably be in for a massive countersuit which could invalidate some of Apple's existing patents.

My money is on Apple patching iTunes to detect something in the Pre firmware or software, and denying access. Not that they SHOULD do this, but they probably will.

[gouken85 @ May 28th 2009 4:43PM]

@eriden
Yeah, but then palm will find a way to do it again, kinda like the jailbrake community.
It's not like itunes is updated every month.

[GingerFox @ May 28th 2009 6:03PM]

I don't see why apple wouldn't like this, surely it would just encourouge people to use the Itunes store, making them more money.

[Todd @ May 28th 2009 7:26PM]

At this point, I don't think Apple can "block out" Palm. If they make changes to iTunes specifically to block Palm, I can see Anit-Trust lawsuits in Apple's future...

[mallet @ May 28th 2009 3:47PM]

How can Jobs not shed a tear after hearing this..

[pika2000 @ May 28th 2009 3:47PM]

Need a screenshot of the Device screen to see if it has all the tabs to sync content like iPods.

[inteller @ May 28th 2009 3:47PM]

"It shows up in iTunes just like a regular device."

Yeah, and Palm will soon be showing up in court, just like a regular defendant.

[Sam @ May 28th 2009 3:56PM]

So when do they take RIM to court? Dumbass.

[Kenny @ May 28th 2009 4:04PM]

apple and rim worked together for blackberries to play nice with itunes. here the palm just kinda got it to work on there own. ur a dumbass sam.

[Cris T @ May 28th 2009 4:06PM]

The Blackberrys don't use iTunes they use a different application to copy the iTunes music folder onto the phone. The Pre is using iTunes and that Apple CAN take them to court for.

[Look_Around_You @ May 28th 2009 4:10PM]

Let them take then to court.

Great PR for Palm. Apple looks like a bully control freak.

Hopefully Apple's sue-happy fanboys egg them on.

[ChillyCat @ May 28th 2009 4:11PM]

regular device !!! ???

And still, after all these years....still no "drag and drop" = tardness

regular device ??? = hardly

[nmmclean @ May 28th 2009 4:15PM]

pre was confirmed to have drag n drop quite a while back itunes is just a bonus for those that like to use it.

[Aaron @ May 28th 2009 3:49PM]

Yay, only 2+ years behind Nokia started providing Mac support via iTunes.

[Look_Around_You @ May 28th 2009 4:07PM]

There wasn't a Pre two years ago.

Wow...

[Mark Anderson @ May 28th 2009 4:09PM]

I think the point is "so what?"

Nokia phone shave been able to sync with iTunes for years. Why would the Pre be different?

[Jordan Biffle @ May 28th 2009 3:51PM]

Funny, Its sync icon is an iPod.

[eKalb @ May 28th 2009 4:06PM]

I think that is the point, iTunes thinks the Pre is an iPod, not just another portable device.

[matt @ May 28th 2009 3:52PM]

I predict a lot of updates to itunes to break this...

[q @ May 28th 2009 10:34PM]

This kind of stuff really bothers me about Apple and is the reason why I've started buying music form Amazon. On one of the itunes update, apple went through literally every song I bought from them and changed each song so they would no longer play on my centro. That and the $600 they offered to allow me to pay to change all of my DRM songs to DRM free was the end of the relationship between me and apple.

[Andrew @ May 28th 2009 3:53PM]

Didn't see that coming.

[Michael Scrip @ May 28th 2009 3:56PM]

It says non-DRM music... does that mean purchased songs in the iTunes Plus format? Or only songs you ripped yourself?

[Cris T @ May 28th 2009 4:07PM]

iTunes Plus and the ones you ripped.

[Ryan Karolak @ May 28th 2009 4:10PM]

As long as the Pre supports AAC (which I'm guessing it will) it should have no problems playing iTunes Plus songs, which are DRM-free AAC files.