None other than "DVD" Jon Lech Johansen, most well known for defeating the CSS encryption used in commercial DVDs, has verified that Palm's Pre smartphone is indeed emulating an iPod to enable automatic syncing of music, photos, and videos.
As it turns out, Johansen knows quite a bit about how iPods and iTunes work together. In addition to reverse engineering CSS, he also developed software called QTFairUse that could strip the FairPlay DRM from iTunes tracks. And, his current company, doubleTwist, makes software that can sync a variety of content among several devices, including iPods.
Johansen dug into the information that the Palm Pre reports to a computer when connected via USB. He determined that when a Pre is connected in the "MediaSync" mode, the Mass Storage interface is configured to appear as an iPod, even reporting "Apple" as the vendor. Johasen notes that the main IOUSBDevice still reports as a Palm Pre, meaning Apple could update iTunes to block the Pre without breaking compatibility with the iPod that the Pre is masquerading as.
While it has been confirmed that the Pre will still sync with iTunes 8.2, it's still no guarantee that the next version of iTunes won't add code to check and make sure the connected device isn't a Pre before syncing. It's a clever hack, for sure, but advertising a hack as a feature probably isn't the wisest move from Palm.