Hm. I guess that's one way to try to get rid of something you consider to be serious competition.

Apple's next update, iTunes 8.2.1 update, "addresses an issue with verifying Apple devices." In other words, Apple is making it so the Palm Pre can't sync directly with iTunes anymore. At all. Though the Palm Pre can be hooked up to a PC through the USB and files then copies over, that's a rather time consuming pain the ass, so people may not even bother.

So, unless it turns out that not supporting the third party media players hurts Apple, I doubt this will be reversed any time soon. But hey, at least there are ways around it.