It appears as if Palm's upcoming smartphone, set to launch in just over a week, has built-in synching support for iTunes. The ability was inadvertantly mentioned by a Palm representative at Comdex in January, but the feature has been confirmed by Fortune.
Plugging a Pre into a Mac while iTunes is running will allow automatic syncing of your iTunes library. FairPlay encoded iTunes Store purchases will not sync but, from what we do know about the Pre, it should be able to play any DRM-free MP3 and AAC files.
The Mac version of iTunes has had third-party player support since it was introduced, as iTunes was based on the OS 9 MP3 player SoundJam MP. It was refactored and re-released as iTunes in January of 2001, nine months before the introduction of the first iPod. iTunes continued to support third-party devices until the iPod really took off. The Windows version of iTunes has never offered third-party device support, however.
Subsequent Mac versions of iTunes retained the legacy support for old music players, though it's not clear if current versions of iTunes still do. We could find no reference to such support on Apple's website, nor could we get confirmation of such support from Apple.
There is software designed to automatically copy DRM-free tracks form an iTunes library to other third-party devices, but the capability to connect and sync with iTunes appears to be built into the Pre. Since the team that designed the Pre includes the former head of Apple's iPod division, Jon Rubenstein, as well as a number of former iPhone engineers, it's possible that the team is exploiting knowledge of the legacy third-party devices support in the Mac version of iTunes.
Whether Apple will continue to allow the Pre to sync with iTunes, or perhaps kill compatibility with a future update, remains to be seen. For the time being, however, it looks like Mac users that pick up a Pre will have an easy way to get music on the device.
UPDATE: Palm demonstrated the music syncing feature of the Palm Pre, dubbed "MediaSync," earlier today at the D7 conference. "We give you the ability to sync your non-DRM music and videos to your Pre... via iTunes," said Palm's Paul Cousino. "It shows up in iTunes just like a regular device."
The demo was done on a Mac, and Cousino specifically mentioned syncing non-DRM music tracks as well as photos from his iPhoto library. No mention was made of video, but it seems non-DRM video should be able to sync as well—though obviously anything purchased from the iTunes Store would have DRM.
Jon Rubenstein also confirmed that it works the "same" on Windows, though I don't believe Apple Mobile Device Support works with anything other than iPods and iPhones. From the photos of the demo, it appears as though the Pre is somehow emulating an iPod, as an icon that looks like an iPod classic is used to represent the Pre in iTunes under the Devices list when connected.
Neither Rubenstein nor Cousino appeared to address questions about whether the Pre's method of connecting to iTunes was endorsed or supported by Apple.
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