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Palm Pre-Pares New iTunes Battle

Tuesday, Jul 28, 2009 | Updated 11:40 AM CST

Thanks to a software update, Palm Pre users can now use iTunes on their iPhone wannabes.

Palm Inc.'s Pre phone can again connect to Apple's iTunes software -- just a week after Apple Inc. shut it out.

A software update delivered automatically to the phones re-enables the transfer of music, photos and video from iTunes, according to a Palm blog post made late Thursday.

The $200 Pre launched in early June as a competitor to Apple Inc.'s iPhone, and became the first non-Apple device that could connect directly to iTunes. Apple crippled that function with an iTunes update last week, saying Pres were "falsely pretending to be iPods."

An Apple spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The iTunes battle is part of a larger rivarly developing between Apple and Palm, whose chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, once was an executive at Apple and oversaw the iPod. The Pre includes a "multi-touch" screen like Apple's iPhone, which lets users do things like pinch the display to zoom in and out.