iTunes talks to the Palm again


24 Jul 2009

If you’re the owner of a Palm Pre and have been lamenting the new iTunes update that disabled the ability for the Palm to sync all your media via the iTunes library you can rejoice once more: Palm has brought out a software update that re-enables this.

WebOS version 1.1 for the Pre brings with it plenty of new updates and interesting functionality but we will get to that in a minute.

First, a word straight from the official Palm blog courtesy of John Traynor, vice president of business products for Palm: “Oh, and one more thing: Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync.

“That’s right. You once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).”

Since when did software updates become a battle of the tech firms? Apple made no bones in stating that the main ‘bug fix’ that neceitated iTunes 8.2.1 was because “it also disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre.”

Well, the ball is now in Apple’s court but I think it will be at least a little while before we get yet another iTunes software update.

Meanwhile the webOS 1.1 update did not just re-sync the Palm Pre with iTunes, it also brings some new features including remote wipe, PIN/password requirements, inactivity timeout and improved certificate handling.

It also has some nice little additions in the form of support for emoticons in the messaging app, and the ability to set “person reminders” in the contacts app so that when someone emails or messages you, you can have a note pop up reminding you of unfinished business!

A full list of the new webOS 1.1 features is available here.