Prē wants your iTunes and your iPhotos

Posted on 29 May 2009 at 09:41

Palm has confirmed reports that the its new Prē smartphone will sync music from iTunes.

Not only that. At the D7 conference in California, Palm demonstrated how the phone will also take pictures from iPhoto via iTunes, mimicking the behaviour of the iPhone and iPods.

iTunes syncing will work on both Macs and PCs, with one exception. DRM-encumbered tracks purchased before Apple dropped all usage restrictions will not play on a Prē.

The support for Apple software is hardly surprising. If the Prē is to be a success, Palm has to persuade people who already have thousand songs in iTunes, that it is a viable alternative to the iPhone.

That task has fallen to Palm chairman Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple VP.

Rubinstein said that experience has proved invaluable as he has led the push to reinvent and save Palm.

“I worked with Steve [Jobs, Apple chief executive] for many years and learned a tremendous amount from him, the value of user experience and design, taste,” he said. “I also learned the idea of great marketing…. On the engineering side, I helped created the engineering culture at Apple so obviously, the engineering culture at Palm bears some similarities to it.”

Rubinstein would not be drawn on the legality of the iTunes database.

Author: Simon Aughton

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