No Palm Pre Amazon MP3 Downloads over 3G

That leaked Palm Pre manual keeps on yielding new info, some of it good, some of it not-so-good. In the category of not-so-good is some news regarding the Pre’s primary music store, Amazon MP3. While Amazon MP3 is a fantastic service and up to this moment it seemed to be have been implemented quite well. But now we know it’s going to come with a limitation that the iTunes Store on the iPhone launched with: no music downloads over 3G.

The application will queue your purchases when on 3G and download them when you get your Pre onto a Wi-Fi network, which for a device that’s supposed to be so mobility-oriented, this is frankly a disappointing development. There is some hope, however. The iPhone’s limitation was imposed by AT&T, though the network eventually relented and iPhone users can suck down as many iTunes purchases over 3G as their battery can handle. Hopefully maybe eventually Sprint and Palm will be convinced that true wireless mobility is the way to go.

Here’s what the manual has to say about this (page 122).

Before you can download items using the Amazon MP3 application on your phone, you must have an Amazon account, and you must read and agree to the MP3 Music service terms and conditions.

You can preview music files and queue them up for download over the Sprint network or a Wi-Fi network. However, you must be connected to a Wi-Fi network to download music files. After you purchase and download items from Amazon MP3, listen to them with your phone’s Music application (see “Listen to Music” on page 118).

Thanks to jayzun and AlwayzRight in our forums for the tip!