Palm Pre on Amazon for $99.99, Paid App Catalog Delayed Until Next Week
Humberto Saabedra
Following Sprint’s recent Palm Pre price reduction to $149.99, Amazon is now undercutting Sprint by a further $50, with the device selling for $99.99 after new agreement.
In related news, the expected Thursday launch of the paid App Catalog has been delayed by Palm following a dispute with the USB Implementers Forum this week over its native iTunes sync workaround and Apple’s claim to rightfully disallow the device from native sync with iTunes.
At issue is the Pre’s spoofing of recognized Apple Vendor IDs which are required for full iTunes sync functionality. As the Pre is not officially recognized as an authorized device by iTunes or Apple, the USB IF has determined that Apple has not violated any regulations regarding device sync.
Informed speculation suggests that Palm is waiting to issue webOS update 1.2.1 following the recent 1.2 leak to enable the paid App Catalog and re-enable iTunes sync, as Palm engineers have admitted that very little effort is required to re-enable iTunes sync everytime Apple issues an update to iTunes in order to block the device.
