Palm Pushing its Luck with iTunes Syncing

When Palm released their Pre smartphone, it brought forth many notable features. These included combined messaging, layered calendars, activity cards, a clean interface and more. One feature kind of stood out from the rest, though, and that was iTunes syncing capabilities. With the Pre’s launch, Palm became the first company to officially offer this ability. Why? Because syncing with iTunes isn’t exactly a simple task, and any mistake could result in lost data.

Plus, there’s also the fact that Apple simply doesn’t want anyone to include iTunes syncing, and they’re actually strongly against it. The company proved that this summer when an iTunes update officially broke support for the Pre, and it was no mistake. That particular release was the first of many to come where Apple would deliberately break support once again. It’s truly a cat and mouse game, and it’s probably annoying for both companies (and their customers) to deal with.

Does Palm have the right to offer iTunes syncing support without Apple’s permission? Is Apple creating a monopoly by barring support for non-Apple devices? It’s hard to say right now, but it should become a lot clearer in the months to come. Palm, just a few weeks ago, was slapped with a warning by the USB Implementers Forum to cut what they’re doing out. The problem isn’t that they are offering iTunes sync support, but the fact that they are mimicking Apple’s unique USB device ID.

Despite USB-IF’s warning, Palm released another update late last week that once again re-enabled support for the feature, so what happens from here on out is yet to be seen. To be a member of the USB-IF, you must abide by their rules, and using another vendor’s ID is strictly prohibited. The real question is what difference it would make for Palm if they weren’t part of the USB-IF, and also what difference it would make if they didn’t have their own unique ID. This should get interesting.

Now that Palm has “clarified its intent” with regard to this potential violation, I wonder how Apple and the USB-IF will respond. Do they have any recourse? The USB-IF could revoke Palm’s membership in the group, but what would that accomplish? Very little, as far as I can tell. Certainly, it wouldn’t prevent Palm from continuing to update its devices to synch with iTunes.