Is Palm Pre iTunes syncing too good to last?

One of the selling points of the Palm Pre is that it can sync with iTunes just like an iPhone can, minus the ability to play old DRM-protected purchases from the Apple store. The thing is, that amazing iTunes support comes from a hacky workaround where the Pre passes itself off as Apple hardware when it's connected. It won't show up in iTunes as a "Palm Pre," it'll show up as an iPod.

What can Apple do about it, though? An escalating battle to break the hack could require Apple to release firmware updates, which is always annoying for users, or could be fixed on the software side with an iTunes update. The newest release of iTunes, 8.2, reportedly doesn't break Pre's syncing support.

What will the outcome be? Do you think we'll see a lawsuit, a firmware or iTunes-side fix from Apple, or something completely different?

Tags: apple, hardware, itunes, palm, palm-pre, sync