Although Apple welcomes the competition, it aims to protect its intellectual property, something Cupertino implies Palm may be doing with the Pre's multitouch interface.

According to reports, in last week's earnings call Apple COO Tim Cook seemed perturbed when answering a reporter's question about new competition from Palm as that company prepares to launch its Pre smartphone.

Does Apple consider the Pre a rip-off of the iPhone? Although Cook welcomed some competition, he also said, "we will not stand for having our intellectual property ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal."

The Pre will feature multitouch gestures similar to that of the iPhone.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone a little over two years ago, he spoke of how Apple patented the smartphone’s multitouch user interface, along with over 200 other patents for technologies that went into making the iPhone.