Palm Pre iTunes sync confirmed as USB hack
By Will Park on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 11:32 AM PST In Palm, Palm Pre, Web OS
Just how did Palm (NSDQ: PALM) manage to get their Palm Pre to connect to Apple’s iTunes software and synchronize your media libraries? Thanks to a little snooping around in iTunes, the infamous encryption-breaking “DVD Jon” (Jon Lech Johansen) has confirmed that the Palm Pre’s iTunes compatibility is indeed a hack. The Palm Pre’s “MediaSync” tricks iTunes into thinking that an iPod is connected, allowing it to sync media to the Pre’s on-board storage.
DVD Jon reports that while the Pre’s Mass Storage interface masquerades as an iPod, the main IOUSBDevice still shows up as a Palm Pre. That little fact alone could make it very easy for Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to block the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes in the future. But, rest easy in knowing that the latest iTunes 8.2 update works with the Palm Pre.
Palm Pre customers will probably want to hold off on updating their iTunes installations indefinitely. “Security updates” be damned.
[Via: nanocr]
