Apple’s banning Palm Pre from iTunes…

In the war between the new Palm Pre and the iPhone/iPod Touch, Apple is taking no prisoners.  The latest software upgrade for iTunes banned non-Apple players from syncing with the software.

Honestly, what was Palm thinking?  It was actually promoting the fact that the Pre synced up with iTunes, thus giving Apple the push to stop it from happening.  And of course, some hackers have already figured out a way to do it anyway, but the average user is probably not going to go through the trouble of hacking their iTunes to do it.

It seems that this approach is simply built into the Apple culture.  Apple didn’t ignore Psystar either and that litigation is still going on.

I think its really more a question of whether Apple should open up their software systems rather than of legality.  Apple is well within its rights to protect its copyright and the exclusivity of its product line.  While it would be nice for the user to have every operating system and program interact with each other, it’s just not practical or fair from a competitive standpoint.

On the other hand, nothing is keeping the makers of the Palm Pre from opening their own iTunes Store and selling music.  Yeah, good luck with that.

Apple has taken a small bite out of the Pre, and obviously its an indication that Apple considered the Pre a threat.  If Palm were smart, maybe they can use this to further claim that Apple holds a monopoly in online music and therefore has an unfair advantage (I’m sure that the music executives would love that).  Good luck with that too.