Palm Pre Will Work with iTunes: Report

As one of my friends eyes the Palm Pre, his only lament has been that Apple has iTunes and the App Store as the 800-pound gorilla in the corner with the iPhone. According to a report Thursday from CNNMoney.com, that's not going to be an issue, after all.

Or perhaps I should say half of that lament won't be an issue. For while Palm will need to build up its own App Catalog to compete with the App Store, which has a huge application base already built up, CNNMoney.com says that for iTunes, at least, the Palm Pre will appear the same as an iPhone.

It first leaked at Comdex in January, but it was never confirmed after the initial (and probably premature) statement. Plug a Palm Pre into a computer and iTunes will happily recognize it and sync. DRM-laden tunes won't work, of course, with Apple's proprietary DRM in place, but that's no longer an issue, is it?

Third party software to allow this "sort of" functionality have been available for some time, but by building the code directly into the ROM of the Palm Pre, Palm has made it all easy, and something available right out of the box. And it does it by IDing the device as an iPod, something bound to raise Apple's hackles.

Of course, anyone remember what Tim Cook said during a conference call with analysts in January?

We like competition. As long as they don't rip off our IP and if they do we're going to go after anybody that does.

While Apple has not pursued legal action against these third parties mentioned earlier, what about Palm and its nascent Pre? Will Apple attempt to place a roadblock in the way of Palm's new device?