Annoyed that Apple had blocked the Palm Pre’s ability to sync seamlessly with iTunes, Palm looked to the USB Implementers Forum—the industry group that oversees the USB standard—for help. But instead of sympathy, Palm might actually end up getting a rebuke from the forum.
First, the background: Palm and Apple have been playing cat-and-mouse for months over the ability of the Pre—Palm’s sleek iPhone competitor, which hit the market in June—to sync with Apple’s iTunes software. Basically, Palm’s WebOS firmware fools iTunes into thinking the Pre is an iPod.

Or at least it did initially, until Apple issued a software update in July that blocked the Pre from syncing with iTunes. Palm countered a few weeks later with a new Pre firmware update that re-enabled iTunes syncing, and then Apple blocked it again with the iTunes 9 update, which arrived earlier this month.

In the meantime, Palm had hoped to get backing from the USB Implementers Forum, the group that oversees all things USB—the ubiquitous standard that lets everything from PCs and Macs to mice, keyboards, iPhones, and Pres connect and communicate with each other.

But as AllThingsDigital reports, Palm didn’t get the help it was expecting from the USB-IF. Instead, the group issued a letter saying that Palm—which had accused Apple of “misusing the [USB] standards put in place” by blocking the Pre from iTunes—had failed to prove that Apple had done anything “contrary to the USB-IF’s policies.”

Even worse, the letter adds that it may be Palm, not Apple, that’s run afoul of the USB-IF—specifically, by using Apple’s “vendor ID” number to trick iTunes into syncing with the Pre in the first place. “Use of any other company’s Vendor ID is specifically precluded,” the USB-IF letter reads (as reported by AllThingsDigital). “Please clarify Palm’s intent and respond to this potential violation within seven days.”

Well … that probably wasn’t the response Palm was looking for. For its part, Palm told AllThingsDigital that it is “reviewing the letter from the USB-IF and will respond as appropriate.”

In any case, it looks like Palm will have to look elsewhere for help in its tit-for-tat with Apple—which, by the way, continues apace, with word from PreCentral.net that next week’s WebOS 1.2.1 will re-enabled (again) iTunes syncing for the Pre. And back and forth we go!

So, who do you side with in the Pre-iTunes syncing skirmish: Palm or Apple? Should Palm just build its own music software for the Pre and be done with it?