Everyone’s pretty familiar with the Palm Pre and its fabled iTunes support (unless you’ve been on Mars, in a cave, with your eyes shut, and your fingers in your ears). The release of the new Palm Pre saw native iTunes connectivity. Its users rejoiced. Apple (obviously) didn’t like Palm piggybacking off its baby (hey, Apple fanboy or no, they did put a ton of money and man-hours into their flagship program; you know the one that blew open online music sales?), so they released a new version blocking the Pre. Apple 1, Palm 0. A few days later, a new firmware update for the Pre was loosed on the disgruntled phone owners returning iTunes connectivity. Apple 1, Palm 1.

So now we wait. We wait for Apple to inevitably block the Pre with a probably much more advanced method. You see, the Pre used a hack the first time around. Apple blocked it by requiring that all devices present their God-given USB vendor ID. Palm fired back by spoofing the vendor ID to look just like an iPod. Clever? No, not really. And Nilay Patel (of Engadget fame) writes why, in an elegant and truly sound rundown of Palm’s “tactics.” You can hit up his post here.

I was going to write a lengthy discussion about the debacle, but I think Patel has already said it all. Just a fantastic piece of journalism, from a very astute and down to earth reporter. I’m sure Pre owners aren’t going to line up to return their Pres over this situation any time soon, but I hope they remove themselves from the heat of the moment and see just what’s really is going on, and why companies shouldn’t conduct business in this way. That’s a two minute time-out for you Palm. And I want you to write a 500 word essay on why you think this is not how to conduct business.