Please note "
especially on user-facing interfaces" above. The Pre identifying itself as an iPod in a protocol is not an issue. The problem is that doing so ultimately advertises to the user that the Pre
is an iPod via dialogs, icons, and other interface verbiage.
If for Internet Explorer to ape Mozilla/4.0 compatibility, it had to momentarily change its name, icon, and all user-facing interfaces to match Firefox so that one could not distinguish between an actual instance of Firefox and the "IE-in-fox's-clothing", you can bet that the Mozilla foundation would be peeved. Aside from legal considerations, what if IE-with-firefox-dress crashed all the time and people wrongfully blamed Firefox for this sorry state of affairs?