Facebook did not have a native iPhone application until now for the webOS. This is great news for those who have a Palm Pre and for those who plan to get a Pixi. Facebook already has an app for Android and iPhone, but the primary developer of the Facebook app for the iPhone decided to quit the project and pass it to other engineers. The problem with the application is that you cannot search information or view events. WebOS 1.3.1 is required for the application.
Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) shares rose 8.30% in price due to a rumor that Nokia will be buying them out. This puts Palm’s market valuation at about $1.76 billion which was about the same price that Google bought YouTube. Another rumor floating around is that if Nokia does not buy Palm outright, they may license the webOS platform on their own mobile phones.
You may remember the creepy girl that Palm used as the face of the Pre. She probably haunted all of our nightmares to the point that video editors decided to have a ball by making parodies of the commercial. Below is a list of some of the parodies used for the Palm Pre girl:
- Palm Pre: Traumatizing Edition
- Palm Pre girl gets high
- Palm Pre naked juggler
The campaign for the Pixi will be much less creepy judging by the above video. There’s nothing creepy about a bunch of yuppies sharing a phone and smiling while an Alvin and the Chipmunks techno song plays in the background.
Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) had filed a complaint with The USB Implementers Forum because Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) blocked them from the Palm Pre being able to connect to iTunes. Rather than the USB-IF becoming sympathetic for Palm, the company has decided to scold them instead. According to the USB-IF Apple has the right to protect their software.
When the Palm Pre was first released, they claimed one of their features was the ability to sync with iTunes. The Palm Pre did this by tricking iTunes into thinking it was an iPod. In an update to iTunes, Apple blocked the Pre from having the ability to sync with the software. Palm found loopholes to the update and kept on tricking iTunes. Clearly this did not make the USB-IF was not too thrilled by this approach.
According to the Associated Press, the USB-IF sent a letter to both Palm and Apple. Palm was warned that if they update their software further to crack iTunes syncing abilities, it would be considered a USB-IF rules violation.
In late July Palm sent a complaint to the USB Implementers Forum over improper vendor IDs. When plugging a Palm Pre into a USB device, it acted as an iPod when syncing with iTunes. Apple and Palm got in a fight because of this. Apple disabled this from happening further, then Palm found another way to make it work. Now Apple has once again blocked the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes 9. Other iTunes 9 features are listed here.
It looks like Palm Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) did not put all their eggs in one basket when releasing the Pre because they have just launched a new mobile phone that is heading to Sprint called the Pixi. This is the thinnest mobile phone Palm has released thus far. The Pixi will be sold exclusively on Sprint. Pricing is uncertain as of right now, but we do know that the price of the Pre will drop to roughly $149.99 with a 2 year agreement ($150 instant rebate, $100 mail-in rebate).
The Pixi will have a major focus on social networking too. There are contact and messaging services built in through LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google. Like the Pre, the Pixi operating system is Palm’s WebOS. The Pixi also has multi-touch technology and a QWERTY keyboard. The phone also has a feature called Palm Synergy that allows you to integrate Facebook contacts with the contacts list in the mobile device. The phone also has WiFI (EV-DO Rev. A), 8GB storage, 2.63″ screen with 320×400 capacitive display.
Chatting within the Palm Pixi is thread-style. This way you can continue conversations where you left off and respond with text messages. The back cover of the phone is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant.
GPS is built in and the phone has a 2 megapixel fixed focus camera with LED flash. There is a 3.5mm headset jack. Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with A2DP is supported. The phone has mini-USB and USB support. There is a ringer switch to quickly switch from ringer mode to silent mode. The weight is 99.5 grams (3.51 oz.). Like the Pre, this phone also has an accelerometer.
Amit Chowdhry | September 5, 2009 | 385 views | Comments Categorized under Palm Inc.
Within the operating system for Palm mobile devices lies a feature that reports the location of the mobile phone owner back to Palm. The reason why Palm has this feature enabled may correlate with a patent that the mobile company filed for. The patent application was filed back in November with a description that states “provides a method and system therof that can be used to more effectively target advertisements and other services to users of wireless communication devices.”
What that means is that if you are near a Starbuck’s, an ad might appear on your phone that recommends you to get a macchiato. The patent concept also explains that Palm could technically use your calendar to find out what destination you plan to go to and serve up some contextual ads based on that information. Advertisements on the web already have this type of feature, but this is the first time I’ve heard that advertisers want to know where you and your mobile phone are going together.
I could see this type of feature being useful for AdMob, the advertising broker company that sets up ads on Apple iPhone and Google Android applications.
For those of you Canadians out there that want to get your hands on a Palm Pre, you have something to look forward to. The touchscreen mobile phone that is trying very hard to challenge the iPhone will be available on Bell Mobility. The phone starts shipping today at a price of $199.95.
About 3 years ago, Palm Inc. released the Treo 680 mobile phone. Many people are still the firmware that came with the phone even though Palm upgraded the software in 2007. Two years later, AT&T decided that all Treo 680 mobile phone users have to upgrade their software. The telecom company has been sending out text messages saying that the 680 users are required to apply the upgrade by September 15 if they want to keep using the phones on their network. What will AT&T do to those that don’t upgrade? I’m sure none of the 680 owners want to find out the hard way.
Bell Mobility in Canada announced that they will be getting the Palm Pre exclusively in the country. Bell Mobility is already starting to accept pre-orders through the website bell.ca/pre.
The phone will be available for purchase at a price of $199.95 with a 3 year contract. Without a contract, the phone costs $599.95 with a minimum 500 MB data plan.
“We’re very excited to bring the revolutionary Palm Pre and the Palm webOS mobile platform to Canadians exclusively on Bell’s national wireless network – the largest high-speed 3G network in Canada,” stated Bell Mobility President and Chief Brand Officer Wade Oosterman. “Considering the highly successful US introduction of the Palm Pre by Sprint in June and fast-growing Palm Pre buzz among Canadian mobile users, Bell and our retail partners are preparing for high demand for this breakthrough phone.”
There are several different plans available through Bell Mobility including voice and data. Unlimited Internet browsing, e-mail, text messaging, and Windows Live Messenger service plans have different prices.
Palm and Apple have become rivals in the mobile sector ever since the launch of the Pre device. The Pre was specifically targeting the market share of the Apple iPhone. Sure the iPhone has millions of more devices than the Pre, but that isn’t stopping Palm from poaching Apple’s top talent.
The CEO of Palm Jon Rubinstein was one of the early developers of the iPod when he worked at Apple. Now Palm has hired Jeff Zwerner as the company’s Senior Vice President of Brand Design. Before that Zwerner worked at Apple as the Creative Director for Packaging. After that, Zwerner chartered the San Francisco branch of Factor Design. Factor Design has done artwork for Apple, The Walt Disney Company, Coca-Cola, Gap, etc.
The Apple-Palm battle continues. Palm has sent a complaint to the USB Implementers Forum about an improper use of the Vendor ID number. When manufacturing devices that depend on USB, a form is signed that has the following line attached: “Unauthorized use of assigned or unassigned USB Vendor ID Numbers and associated Product ID Numbers are strictly prohibited.”
Palm’s complaint is that Apple is disallowing Palm’s Vendor ID from using iTunes. When connecting the Palm Pre to a USB connection, the Pre shows up as an iPod / mass storage device (ID 0×05ac) instead of the Palm (ID 0×083). Palm believes that this misrepresents their brand and I agree with them.
If I owned a Palm Pre and connected it to a computer, but it showed up as an Apple product name instead, I’d be fuming and confused.
Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder estimated that about 300,000 Palm Pre devices have been sold so far. Apparently these numbers are higher than Palm expected to sell because the company is still playing catch up. When the Palm Pre was released, there were about 120,000 units available for in their inventory. The whole inventory was sold within days of the phone’s launch.
Snyder estimates that the company is producing about 15,000 units per day as of right now. This means that the Pre will ship about one million units to Sprint within the first quarter of their launch. This is well “well above consensus.” In conjunction to the unit sales, there were about 666,000 applications downloaded in the first 12 days.
Since the Palm Pre has been released, they have sold over 100,000 devices. Many of the retail stores selling the Pre had sold out on the first day giving Sprint a sales record day. Over the first 12 days of the phone being on the market, about 666,000 applications were downloaded from the Palm App Catalog according to mobile analytics company Medialets.
These 666,000 downloads were made across about 30 applications available so far. When Palm first launched the catalog, they had about 18 applications available for download. No new applications were introduced in the last week. When Apple launched their store, they had over 500 applications for download and millions of iPhone and iPhone 3G phones on the market downloading them.
Palm doesn’t have many applications available because there is limited access to the webOS software development kit. And according to a TechCrunch commenter, the Palm OS doesn’t allow access to the 3D card which limits the number of entertainment applications.
Around the time that the Palm Pre launched, one of the features that was low key was the ability to sync with iTunes. This feature was major because the Palm Pre is supposed to be a major iPhone competitor. The fact that this feature did not appear in the limelight until close to the release date, it seems like Palm did not want Apple to prevent the feature from happening.
I can understand why because Tim Cook even indicated that they were willing to do anything in their power to prevent competitors from ripping off their intellectual property. ”We like competition–as long as our competitors don’t rip off our IP. And we’re going to go after anyone who does. I’m not talking about any particular company, but we are ready to suit up and go against anyone. We will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we will use every weapon at our disposal….” stated Cook.
In the support area of the Apple website, an entry appeared about unsupported third party digital media players. Below is the text of the article:
Apple designs the hardware and software to provide seamless integration of the iPhone and iPod with iTunes, the iTunes Store, and tens of thousands of apps on the App Store. Apple is aware that some third-parties claim that their digital media players are able to sync with Apple software. However, Apple does not provide support for, or test for compatibility with, non-Apple digital media players and, because software changes over time, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.
The Palm Pre may no longer have the ability to be synced with iTunes in the near future.
