Geek Factor

Now that the iTunes store is DRM free, any device vendor can dream about doing a “full sync” with iTunes on the Mac or the PC. Palm is the first to take the bold step of doing that. As we can see from the screenshots that were published by Palm, the Pre is getting detected as an iPod – which means it is fooling iTunes into believing that it is syncing with an iPod.

The Palm Pre

This may open a gamut of third party official and unofficial applications trying to do the same for other devices. Apple may not like this and chose to shut down the third party ‘fake iPods’ from syncing with iTunes in a future version. The cat and mouse game will start and it will be fun watching devices losing support and then gaining again after every iTunes update!

Instead of shutting down these ‘fake iPods/iPhones’ Apple can also chose to licence iTunes with something in the line of “Works with iTunes” certification, which can dramatically increase the iTunes music sales.

It is a bit unfortunate that everytime I write something about Windows Mobile in this blog, it is mostly about some bad news. The latest one comes in the form of the delay in the launch of the upcoming Windows Mobile 7 iteration. This is especially bad considering the flurry of new platforms and handsets that are coming from competitors.

The delay of WinMo 7 reminds us of the bad phase that Palm is going through. After hiving off the software division, Palm hasn’t been able to release a new operating system in almost 5 years now. To stay current, Palm started shipping Windows Mobile handsets. This strategy is not going to help any longer as the Windows Mobile operating system is also not seeing any upgrades in the near future, even evolutionary. With an antique browser and its poor internet capabilities, the current version of Windows Mobile can no way match the feature set, not to mention the fit, finesse and polish the competitors like the Android or the Mobile Mac OS X are offering.
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