Apple's update of iTunes to Version 8.2.1 on Wednesday has broken the Palm Pre's 'sync' with iTunes, which allowed its users to pull down music, podcasts, and videos to their smartphones - essentially because the earlier Apple iTunes software identified the Pre as an iPod!

Talking about the iTunes' update, Apple said that the iTunes Version 8.2.1 "provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses an issue with verification of Apple devices." In other words, the Apple statement implies that owners of non-Apple devices - chiefly the Pre - can no longer use the iTunes software to sync their smartphones to Macs or PCs.

With Apple drawing up a list of devices that would be able to sync with iTunes, most Pre owners opine that the onus of the blame falls on Palm, not Apple! When Palm unveiled the Pre, it had hyped the iTunes sync feature as a fairly "easy and elegant" method.

When Apple warned of a turn killing the Pre syncing last month, Palm talked about the choices that the Pre users would be left with.

A Palm spokesman had said: "Pre users can always stay with the current version of iTunes and continue to sync their music. The Pre also ships with a second option for transferring music and other media content to the device & and there are third-party applications we could consider, too."