Palm Pre now supports paid apps - iTunes sync still broken

With the UK launch of the Palm Pre now only a few weeks away, it’s time we started paying attention to what’s going on with its operating system. Palm released WebOS 1.2 yesterday and it’s notable for a couple of reasons.

First, WebOS adds support for paid apps from the App Catalog — Palm’s equivalent to the Apple App Store. The App Catalog is the only legitimate way you can install applications on the Pre, so support for paid software is seen as a step in the right direction (you can hack the Pre to install ‘ homebrew’ apps — something that Palm has yet to object to). Pre users are hardly spoilt for choice with the official App Catalog at the moment — we counted 47 available for download.

Although it features a whole host of other tweaks and changes, WebOS 1.2 does not restore sync functionality with iTunes. Palm has been playing a cat and mouse game with Apple over this feature and iTunes 9 blocked music synchronisation for Palm Pre users.

Palm has been lobbying a USB standards group about what it thinks is Apple’s unreasonable behaviour, but the fact that Palm had resorted to faking the Pre’s hardware ID to trick iTunes into syncing was not appreciated. So, with Apple apparently unprepared to let the Pre sync with iTunes by ordinary means and Palm prohibited from syncing the Pre via extraordinary means, it looks like no immediate solution is in sight.

[ Palm WebOS 1.2]