In a minefield of failed "iPhone killers" one is making some headway on fulfilling that murderous promise: the Palm Pre.

Perhaps it's no surprise: the Palm Pre was conceived by a team that includes plenty of Apple alumni, including Jon Rubenstein, who was made Palm's CEO yesterday to replace Ed Colligan. (John Gruber reminds us of one of Colligan's more famous quotes.) Rubenstein used to be the general manager of Apple's iPod division.

Not only that, but Fred Anderson, Lynn Fox, and Mike Bell are all connected (if not employed by) the re-energized Palm. Valleywag's Ryan Tate says it's no wonder, then, that the Pre syncs with iTunes right out of the box.

Competition is good, though, right? We'll see improvements to both the iPhone and the Pre because of the products' competitive relationship with each other. Look at the rivalry between Canon and Nikon: The result? Awesome cameras both. In the end, the customer wins.

This is true with carriers, too, as exclusivity agreements begin to expire. There were rumblings that the Pre would be released on the Verizon network around Christmas, but blowback from Sprint CEO Dan Hesse pushed the rumor mill's schedule back a month to January 2010, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Watercooler talk suggests that the iPhone's exclusivity agreement with AT&T expires around the same time for U.S. customers, but the Magic 8 Ball says that we might not see an iPhone for Verizon until both they and AT&T finish their LTE networks.

If you're using a Pre with your Mac, especially if you're taking advantage of the iTunes sync capability, let us know in the comments how it's going.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Adobe has confirmed that it's developing a version of Flash for the iPhone, and it's "a certainty" that it will be included in MobileSafari, according to Paul Boutin of Valleywag. Color me skeptical.

Paul Betlem (this story is replete with Pauls, it appears) from Adobe stopped short of saying it will be included on the iPhone, but instead said the ball was in Apple's court. If Apple approves, Adobe will have the player available shortly.

We knew Adobe was working hard on a version of Flash Player for the iPhone and iPod touch. The "closed system" of MobileSafari was making it difficult for them to build a plug-in for a browser that doesn't officially support plug-ins. Having Apple's buy-in on the project is an absolute requirement.

It remains to be seen how lean Flash Player will get in order to provide good video playback (for example) without draining the battery in 30 seconds flat. Will Adobe favor performance over economy? Or vice versa?

[Via Valleywag.]

The other day, I posted a little summary of the latest attempts to discover the identity of anonyblogger Fake Steve Jobs. At the time, I thought finding FSJ's identity out would be a good time, a fun mystery to solve. Many of you (most of you, I'd say) disagreed, saying that it didn't matter who FSJ was-- as long as he wrote strong, insightful (and often hilarious) pieces about what Apple was up to, you were willing to let him have his anonymity. And after hearing your good points, I have to tell you (because this doesn't happen very often): I changed my mind, and decided to agree with those who wanted FSJ to stay FSJ.

Then, today, FSJ decided to post this, his first thoughts on people trying to discover his identity. With FSJ, you can never tell when he's joking, but he makes it pretty clear that he's had an experience he doesn't want to have. And the finger is pointed directly at Valleywag, who respond as you'd expect them to, calling the post a set of "rambling accusations."

So here's what we're going to do at TUAW. We've heard your opinions. We've talked it over as a staff, and we've agreed: FSJ is much more fun as FSJ himself, not some writer pretending to be him. And so we're pledging, to you, not to write any more speculation, ever, about FSJ's identity. You're exactly right-- it's much more fun having him anonymous, for both him and us. He's a great insight on Apple's comings and goings, and if he doesn't want us to know who he is, we don't want to either. Here at TUAW, we're going to leave Fake Steve Jobs fake.

Wow, more Google and Apple rumors! Valleywag, a Silicon Valley gossip blog, is suggesting that Apple will soon be running Google ads on many of its properties, most notably the iTunes Store. As with most of Valleywag's scoops this is unsubstantiated, but many people have been betting that Apple would put ads in the iTunes Store sooner or later.

Will it come to pass? Who knows. What I want to know is, how would you feel about ads in the iTunes Store?