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.
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.
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.
Earlier today, everyone was talking about about a possible Pre price drop. A picture surfaced of a $99 Palm Pre at Best Buy. It looked like an out the door price and did not involve any kind of rebate.
Best Buy had not releases a statement about the price drop so it was unknown whether the drop is simply a promotion or if it permanent.
John Bernier, Best Buy’s Marketing Manager cleared up the issue via Twitter. He said it was a human error and that the price is still $199.
If the price drop were real, this would be bad news for Palm. The Pre launched less than two months ago. A price drop this fast would mean that Palm sales are not strong at its current price point.
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.
Shan Sadiq | July 19, 2009 | 262 views | Comments Categorized under Palm Pre
Some guy got a Palm Pre tattoo on his arm to win a free Pre. He got the tattoo in Ann Arbor at this place. He is trying to win a “What Would You Do for a Palm Pre” Contest at PreCentral.net. Pulse2 is headquartered in Ann Arbor.
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.
Palm Inc. executive Jon Rubinstein is a former Apple executive. Earlier this week he had become the CEO of Palm from the Chairman position. The previous Palm CEO Ed Colligan will be moving to Elevation Partners. Elevation Partners is a major investor in Palm. Elevation invested $100 million into Palm this past December.
Rubinstein joined Palm around 2007 and helped the company develop the Pre phone. The Palm Pre had helped Sprint break a sales record and helped Texas Instruments boost their revenues. Rubinstein joined Apple around 1997 when Steve Jobs returned to the company. In 2001, Rubinstein was given credit for helping invent the iPod.
As the new CEO, Rubinstein will receive about $1.7 million per year. For leaving the company Colligan will receive $1.2 million payable in several chunks over the next year.
The Konami Code (up up down down left right left right B A ENTER) was often times used for cheats for games made by the company. Konami used this code for games such as Contra, Castlevania, TMNT, DDR etc. This code has been used in various pop culture forms.
Facebook used this same code to display a lens glare on the homepage. ESPN used it to have unicorns appear on their website. GameSpot.com uses the same code to redirect a user to the Contra for NES cheat codes page. And now it turns out that the Palm Pre is using it to enable Developer Mode on the phone.
Above is a demo video of the Konami Code being applied to the Pre. The device asks the user to Reset the Device to turn on Developer Mode Enabler. This is used to connect the Pre to a machine running the Mojo SDK for webOS.
This past week Texas Instruments raised the outlook for their sales for the second quarter. Demand for smartphones such as the Palm Pre along with analog chips helped drive up sales. TI said on Monday that they expect revenue to be between $2.30 and $2.5 billion. The previous estimate was between $1.95 and $2.40 billion.
The TI 600MHz OMAP 3430 processor is the core of the Palm Pre. TI also provides the power management supplies, audio equipment, and the USB silicon used in the Pre. Earlier this week, Sprint said that the Pre helped them break a sales record.
Texas Instruments competes against companies such as Qualcomm, Samsung, and Marvell. Intel has implied that they will be getting into the smartphone market by 2011 too. The Apple iPhone processor is supplied by Samsung but is branded by Apple.
According to CNET, the chip in the Pre is superscalar in design and is based on the Cortex-A8 core. ARM is the company behind the Cortex-A8. The 3430 processor has a dedicated level-2 cache that has the ability to execute twice as many instructions per clock cycle over chips in the past. The graphics accelerator in the Pre is a Powervr SGX 2D/3D.
