Palm Pre gets Verizon deal; presses iTunes issue
Verizon is to carry the Palm Pre from early next year, contradicting Sprint’s implications that it had a long-term exclusive carrier deal. The new comes as Palm tries to use a technicality in the USB system to stop Apple blocking the device from hooking up to iTunes.
Denny Strigl, chief operating officer of Verizon, announced the Pre deal during a conference call with investors. The news doesn’t technically mean Sprint has given out false information, but many would-be buyers will have got a misleading impression.
When the Pre launched as a Sprint exclusive last month, Verizon claimed it would carry the handset within six months; Sprint shot down the claim and said its exclusive deal lasted longer than that. It now appears that while Verizon was wrong and Sprint was right in its claims, whatever deal Sprint signed is not significantly longer than the six month point.
With Verizon a significantly stronger network, the deal should be good news for Palm’s sales. The shorter than expected Sprint exclusive is particularly ironic given that Verizon itself has recently announced its own exclusive carrier agreements will be limited to six months in future.
One question remaining unanswered is whether the Pre will be able to sync with iTunes come its Verizon launch. Apple’s last iTunes update blocked the phone from doing so, but Palm has now issued its own update to restore access.
With Palm clearly willing to press the issue, all appears set for a cat-and-mouse style battle similar to that between Apple and jailbreakers who want to run their own applications on the iPhone. However, Palm is trying a creative legal route to permanently remove the blocking attempts.
The firm is making a case to the organization behind the USB standard. It says Apple’s blocking technique breaks the standard’s rules by using its vendor ID (which identifies the device to a computer) for digital rights management. It’s uncertain how successful the technique will be: BetaNews points out that Palm’s workaround (disguising the Pre as an Apple storage device) may break the same rules.
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November 16th, 2009
[...] Pre posing as an iPhone when “announcing” itself via USB – breached those regulations, while Palm argued that Apple shouldn’t be allowed to use the USB identification system for software protection. The [...]
November 16th, 2009
[...] Pre posing as an iPhone when “announcing” itself via USB – breached those regulations, while Palm argued that Apple shouldn’t be allowed to use the USB identification system for software protection. The [...]