Alright, here goes...
First of all, I'm going to start off by saying that I am not going to be discussing the legal issues behind the whole Palm-Apple war. I'm just going to discuss why Apple should allow other devices to sync with iTunes.
People argue that iTunes is a selling point of iPods and iPhones - by making it non-exclusive to their product lines, it would be cutting sales of their iPhone and iPod lines. I, and many others, don't agree. iTunes is not a selling point on a Windows machine - if a user inexperienced with using Mac OS in their lifetime came across iTunes on a Windows computer, the user would assume that Apple is incapable of writing good software. It's just that bad. It bogs down the computer, it's not as snappy as the Mac version (which is at most marginally more responsive) and is a negative aspect of buying an iPod as a Windows user. Considering that Windows is a huge part of the computer marketplace - well, you get the idea.
iTunes comes preloaded with every mac, and with some PC vendors, it's preinstalled on a PC as well. That means regardless of someone using an iPod or not, the iTunes software comes free of charge, with minimal hassle to get it up and running. If they choose to buy another music player or phone knowing very well that their new computer has iTunes on it, Apple isn't getting any of that money anyway. So regardless of it syncing with iTunes or not, if someone prefers another media player, Apple isn't losing significant sales of their iPhone and iPod lines because those people don't buy into the Apple brand of PMPs. So Apple isn't losing any money by allowing other devices to sync with iTunes - if anything, it would be a major selling point to get more people to purchase DRM-free music from iTunes and DRMed content such as movies from iTunes as well - getting more money than they would have "lost" from non-iPod purchases, regardless of how little their margin is - because, again, they don't lose money from a non-iPod purchase.
So then comes the question of unsupported hardware. Easy, the answer is, Apple doesn't have to support it. Since it's clear that a device *can* work with iTunes without full consent and approval by Apple, why not just have the hardware manufacturer of the 3rd party PMP take care of the support? Put a noticeable disclaimer on wherever they advertise iTunes syncing, that Apple does not support the feature and they should contact the 3rd party hardware manufacturer instead, and Apple wouldn't be liable for any complaints. It doesn't hurt apple as stated by my last paragraph, and would actually make iTunes a *much* more useful application on a new Mac if a user already has an existing PMP that supports iTunes sync - they already have a PMP, they don't plan on making another purchase for the sole purpose of iTunes compatibility.
And to the people who are claiming that Palm is piggybacking on the many years of development going into iTunes - tough luck. iTunes is free software in which you have the option of paying for content, and since Apple wouldn't particularly lose sales from interoperability with other devices, it would actually help Apple more than harm them. Apple is only retaliating because Palm has a product that is a direct competitor with the iPhone - and since that competitor happens to be on a different network, with different pricing plans, a different coverage area, yet competitive hardware pricing with the iPhone, I'm pretty damn sure that people who buy a Pre instead of an iPhone are very confident that they prefer the Palm product, on Sprint, over the Apple product, on AT&T, and Apple is not seeing any damn hardware profits coming from them anytime soon, regardless of whether they allow Pre media sync or not. And if someone finds out that they don't really like their newly purchased Pre because of various issues they may come across, Pre media sync is not the reason why they're going to switch to an iPhone, so whether or not Apple enables Pre sync, the profits from the iPhones they sell are dependent on the success or failures of others, not the interoperability of their product and the competitor's. iTunes sync does not a product make.
Rant over.
