Don’t tell Palm or WildCharge, but analysts Strategy Analytics reckon that right now wireless charging is “pointless”. In fact, according to the company’s latest report, manufacturers of wireless charging systems such as Palm’s Touchstone for the Pre or WildCharge’s eponymous system are currently falling way short of their potential.
Palm and Bell Mobility have announced that the Pre smartphone will be available in Canada on August 27th, priced at CA$199.95 (US$187) with a three year contract. The CDMA handset is the same model as is already on sale in the US through carrier Sprint, and includes EVDO Rev.A, Bluetooth and WiFi, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and multitouch-capable capacitive touchscreen.
Official support for tethering is still one feature conspicuous by its absence from the Palm Pre’s abilities, and the last we heard Palm were cautioning tweakers not to unofficially enable it lest Sprint get upset. If, though, the promise of sharing all that EVDO Rev.A goodness is just too good to miss, and you fancy some MiFi-style WiFi hotspot action, then homebrew app My Tether is the answer.
Video demo after the cut
We’ve seen the Palm Pre accidentally advertised for $99.99 before, but if you’d like a legitimate $99.99 deal then head over to LetsTalk. The company is offering the Palm smartphone for $99 after a combination of mail-in and instant discounts, though you’ll seemingly need to order before the end of today if you want to be eligible.
The Pre in question is new (rather than refurbished) and requires a two-year agreement with Sprint, but that’s no different to what the carrier themselves (or Amazon) expect of you.
After Sprint opened up the doors to online ordering of the Palm Pre through their webstore, Amazon have got in on the action. The webOS smartphone is now available to order there, too, priced at the same $199.99 as Sprint but with no mail-in rebate forms to deal with.
Along with the launch of the Mojo SDK for webOS also came a promise from Palm of a new wave of software hitting the Pre’s App Catalog. Today there’s news of two new titles available to download, and while that may not quite amount to a “wave” as yet – a trickle, perhaps? – it’s hopefully a sign of good things to come.
The titles themselves are OpenTable and Fliq Bookmarks. OpenTable offers not only restaurant bookings from the touchscreen of your Pre, but reviews, reservation management, GPS searches to call up places to eat nearby and integration with the handset’s calendar to automatically note down your eating arrangements.
Pegatron have been showing off their Freescale-powered netbook prototype again, and if you’re wondering why there’s a Palm Pre perched on the end then it’s because the two share the same basic ARM Cortex A8 core architecture. In the unnamed netbook’s case, though, the Freescale iMX515 runs at 1GHz, and is capable of playing 720p video and running 3D games.
Though it was initially reported that the Palm Pre had a return rate of a staggering 40%, it seems that number was based on bad data and now is more around the 2-3% area, which is a significant drop.
Palm have released their latest update for Pre, webOS 1.1.0, and along with increased speed and various UI tweaks they’ve also addressed one of the more contentious issues from the past month: iTunes synchronization. After Apple seemingly purposefully blocked the Pre from using iTunes in their 8.2.1 update midway through the month, webOS 1.1.0 “resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (8.2.1).”
The Palm Pre is now available to order via Sprint’s website, rather than requiring would-be buyers to visit their local store. Pricing for the smartphone – which we reviewed back in June – remains the same at $199.99.
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