Topic: The Palm Pre: One smartphone stands out
Surprisingly, smartphones in general do not appear to be all the rage at CES this year. It's as though no one has been ready to step up to the challenge of besting that principal champion of coolness and mobility, that emblem of style and sophistication, and the very model of proper presentation.
What, you thought I was talking about Apple?
Posted March 5, 2009, 2:17 PM ET
Posted March 4, 2009, 12:22 PM ET
Posted March 3, 2009, 7:55 PM ET
The giddiness continues over Palm's upcoming Pre handset, as attendees at a Mobile World Congress demo this week saw the much-anticipated handset running a version of Google Maps and an offline-ready Gmail entirely coded in HTML 5. And running them well, apparently.
Posted February 19, 2009, 6:10 PM ET
Sightings of both the Sidekick 2009 and the Palm Pre -- both wildly anticipated smartphones not yet available to the masses -- have been inflaming the gear-gossip blogs for days in the wake of the the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.
Posted February 18, 2009, 4:45 AM ET
Timed with the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Monday, Palm announced it is joining the Open Screen Project spearheaded by Adobe, which aims to bring applications and web experiences to TVs, PCs and mobile devices using Flash. Specifically, Palm plans to integrate Flash into its upcoming Pre smartphone and future devices running webOS -- something Apple has yet to do with the iPhone.
"We're excited that our customers will benefit from the creativity and broad range of Flash content and applications created by the millions of designers and developers using Adobe's popular tools and technologies," remarked Pam Deziel, vice president of software product management at Palm. Whether it will be as simple as downloading a Flash app onto the Pre is not yet known.
Apple still has plenty of time to make some decisions regarding Flash, as the mobile Flash Player isn't scheduled to arrive until the end of 2009.
Posted February 16, 2009, 12:38 PM ET
The addition of technical specifications to Sprint's Web site for its upcoming Palm Pre confirms a few features we didn't even see demonstrated at CES last month. One very important feature is support for Microsoft Exchange direct push e-mail, enabling businesses with Exchange Server 2003 or XS 2007 to make their investments in Pre right away.
The other -- which will delight many and maybe even wrinkle some iPhone fans' noses -- is native support for Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). Sure, iPhone users have told us, you can send and receive MMS messages...through an almost Clintonian definition of "can." Almost every time you see a headline proclaiming the iPhone now has MMS, the story boils down to "Kind of..." which assumes you download someone else's app, that your recipient downloads the same app, and that Apple doesn't make you jump through hoops to do it. No hoops from Palm or Sprint, apparently, if these technical specifications just published are accurate.
Posted February 12, 2009, 11:10 AM ET
The Palm Pre may not be in users' hands yet, but the demand for information doesn't seem to let up. Ever. At a Palm event today, CEO Ed Colligan threw the crowd a few bones... and threw the bones crowd some good news.
Posted February 11, 2009, 5:00 PM ET
Online music streaming leader Pandora is indeed "putting a bid" on Palm's Pre, but the company's founder, Tim Westergen, doesn't exactly see the Pre as the only game in town. Westergren spoke with Betanews last night.
Posted February 6, 2009, 11:53 AM ET
The smartphone that was supposed to save Palm last year has actually sold very well. The problem up to now has been pitifully low margins -- Palm can certainly sell Centros, but not enough to substantially profit from them.
While the world awaits the Pre -- a phone whose margins will hopefully be higher for Palm -- the Centro has finally made its way to one more Canadian carrier today: Bell. This will apparently end the phone's exclusivity with Rogers in the region, which has been selling the phone for $299 (with a three-year contract) since its introduction there last June. Bell's price has yet to be announced.
Posted February 2, 2009, 11:51 AM ET
That didn't take long: After Apple's cranky comments concerning multitouch and intellectual-property rights on Wednesday, Palm has responded with a tone that suggests that Apple execs might want to invest in asbestos undies if they insist on proceeding along their apparent current path.
Posted January 23, 2009, 6:35 PM ET
For the first time in history, Apple surpassed $10 billion in quarterly revenue during its previous quarter. But a question late in Wednesday's earnings call raised interesting questions about IP and the company's multitouch interface.
Posted January 21, 2009, 5:16 PM ET
Neither confirming nor denying bloggers' accounts of a supposed deal with Best Buy around the Palm Pre, Palm today essentially issued a "no comment" to Betanews.
Posted January 15, 2009, 5:57 PM ET
The WebOSArena blog is reporting that, for the first 60 days of the Palm Pre's availability, Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer for the new device, launched by Palm at CES last week.
Citing an unnamed "credible source" for its information, the blog notes that the Palm Pre will also be sold directly by Sprint.
Posted January 15, 2009, 2:27 PM ET
It could be here in five months; it could be here sooner. But even before the Palm Pre has a firm release date, there are a few datapoints and checkpoints you need to keep an eye on.
Posted January 12, 2009, 10:01 PM ET
It's a question worth asking: With the Pre looming upon the horizon, is this the same Palm we were talking about only 48 hours ago -- the Palm that was very near to being buried in the desert and fed upon by vultures?
Posted January 10, 2009, 1:51 PM ET
A little quality time with the Palm Pre (and some very happy, very tired Palm folk) reveals more of the details...but one crucial one goes unanswered.
Posted January 10, 2009, 6:52 AM ET
It is probably the story of this year's CES: A team that's down by several points, with time ticking away, coming back to within striking distance of winning the whole ball game.
Posted January 9, 2009, 5:19 PM ET
It's a phone. It's a phone that didn't even arrive on Earth shooting out of Steve Jobs'...shirt pocket. So what about the reveal of the Palm Pre proved so intoxicating on Thursday to CES attendees and press?
Posted January 9, 2009, 1:45 AM ET
In building its Pre, Palm seems to have learned a thing or two from Apple's iPhone. Check out our slideshow of the device and tell us what you think: Is Palm back in the game?
Posted January 8, 2009, 6:00 PM ET
With perhaps the entire company on the line, Palm has one more shot at glory with the likely introduction of an entirely new smartphone line.
Posted January 8, 2009, 2:19 PM ET
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