Palm released a webOS update Thursday that effectively counters Apple’s move last week to prevent Palm Pre smartphones from accessing its iTunes Store.
Palm Vice President John Traynor noted that the webOS 1.1 release brings several valuable additions to the Palm Pre. But for many Pre owners, the biggest improvement is the work-around that circumvents Apple’s iTunes blockade.
“Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync,” Traynor said. “That’s right — you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes.”
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Apple’s release last week of iTunes 8.2.1 software initially blocked Palm Pres from direct access to its online music store. “iTunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices,” Apple said.
Though Apple may continue to target Palm Pre handsets with later software updates, Palm’s release of webOS 1.1 effectively demonstrates that Apple’s rival is ready and willing to respond. “Palm believes that openness and interoperability offer better experiences for users by allowing them the freedom to use the content they own without interference across devices and services,” the company said.
Palm also pointed out that webOS 1.1 makes the Palm Pre more business-friendly. For example, Palm webOS 1.1 “brings several additions to our support for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), including remote wipe, PIN/password requirements, inactivity timeout, improved certificate handling, and more,” Traynor said.
With webOS 1.1, IT administrators will be able to ensure that a password with a required minimum length has been assigned to each mobile enterprise phone. Moreover, inactive phones will be automatically placed in a locked state after an IT-specified timeout interval.
Additionally, IT administrators can now remotely erase all the data on any Palm Pre handset right from their Exchange consoles, as well as program the devices to automatically wipe their…