Palm have announced that they will be dropping Windows Mobile for future devices and instead focussing on their own platform, webOS. The news was an unsurprising addition to the company’s latest financial results, which also revealed that while Pre sales were strong – Palm saw a 134-percent increase in Q1 FY2010 smartphone sales from Q4 2009 – they still saw GAAP losses of $164.5m.
Full specifications for Palm’s second webOS smartphone, the Palm Pixi, have emerged, this time courtesy of Qualcomm. The Pixi is based on Qualcomm’s MSM7627 chipset, and there are more than a few interesting details among the new chip’s capabilities, not least its dual ARM cores and ability to deliver both CDMA and GSM connectivity.
We’ll never argue with more apps showing up for the Palm Pre – after all, they just pave the way for a software download frenzy on the Palm Pixi when that arrives later in 2009 – so we’re glad to hear of another two webOS titles fresh to the Palm Beta App Catalog. First up is gDial Pro, an app which can be used to access and manage your Google Voice account; second comes iLike Concerts, a tool which looks out for your preferred artists and flags up nearby performances.
In case you didn’t spot it among all the live shots of the Palm Pixi and our hands-on video, Sprint have dropped the price of the Palm Pre from $199.99 to $149.99, presuming you’re willing to sign up to a two-year contract. The first sticker cut the webOS smartphone has seen since its launch several months ago, the reduction suggests that Sprint are aiming for a roughly $99.99 tag for the Pixi when it launches later in the year.
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It's about time the Pre got a hearty leak of its own. And this is a doozy, for all the Pre owners out there aching for an update of some kind. It looks like a lucky member of PreCentral's forums caught a lucky break, when it came to rebooting his phone to a factory standard setting. When the device turned on, he immediately found something pretty strange. The phone had automatically installed webOS 1.2 for him.
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Everyone involved with the Pre, from analysts, to consumers, to even employees of Palm who aren't exactly in the know, have been anxiously waiting to see the results from the Pre's launch back in June. Was it a success? A failure? Did it make a splash at all? And, perhaps most importantly, how did it stack up to the competition? It looks like we might actually have a real shot at finding out, coming up in about two weeks.
Palm and Bell Mobility have been teasing our Canadian cousins for weeks now, but the webOS smartphone has finally arrived. The Bell Palm Pre is priced at CA$199.95 with a new three-year contract, and delivers the same EVDO Rev.A connectivity, slide-out QWERTY keyboard and capacitive touchscreen as the Sprint US model.
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So back when the Pre was launching on the Sprint Network here in the states, one of the biggest gripes regarding that launch was the fact that neither Sprint nor Palm was doing one of the major things in business: advertising. Sure, the Pre did healthy numbers in its launch, but with a little bit more advertising they could have been great. And it looks like Bell Mobility is thinking the same way. We've already seen some of the commercials that Bell is releasing regarding Palm's baby, but now it's getting some physical goodness as well, and that's never too good to pass up.
Here we go again with another week in review for your perusal. A mystery Android-powered MID tipped up this week looking very much like those renderings of the Apple tablet to my eyes. It’s cool to see android showing up on so many devices. Logitech unveiled an update to the coolest racing wheel ever, the G25, called simply enough the G27. The new wheel promises more accurate force feedback effects and keeps with the slick clutch and gated shifter we loved from the G25.
Since the release of the Palm Pre, analysts have been all over it. For the better and the worse, as it turns out no one can figure out whether or not the Pre is making any kind of headway in the market, if its being returned at alarming rates or not, or if people are even happy with their devices. Either way, the Pre isn’t the only device coming down the pipeline wielding the webOS, but according to those pesky analysts, it’s looking like the Eos might not be showing itself until 2010.
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