Who’s ready for some statistics? This September ChangeWave Research conducted a poll of smartphone users in an attempt to gauge the market share impact (if any) of new and announced devices from Apple, Palm, and RIM. We’ve combed over the article and picked out some juicy tidbits for your reading pleasure. According to ChangeWave, 39% of people polled currently own a smartphone. Of that sample, 77% own either an Apple, Palm, or RIM branded device (I know, we’re curious about the other 23% as well). RIM polled the largest portion of U.S. market share with 40% followed by Apple at 30% and Palm with a measly 7%. Apple did top the customer satisfaction poll as 74% of iPhone users described themselves as “very satisfied” with their purchase; compare that with RIM at 48% and Palm at 33%. The iPhone also ranked first in future purchases plans of those polled who did not currently own a smartphone, but plan to purchase one in the next 90 days. Also 36% indicated a preference towards the iPhone, 27% towards the BlackBerry, and 8% towards Palm. Any BGR peeps out there with plans to upgrade to a smartphone in the near future? What are you leaning towards? D-D-D-DROID?

[Via The iPhone Blog]

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On the same morning that Verizon announced the availability of Wi-Fi packing BlackBerry Storm2, Sprint has come out and announced that the Wi-Fi lacking Palm Pixi will go on sale in just under three weeks time. Available from November 15th and onwards in stores, online, over the phone and through retailers like Best Buy, RadioShack and select Wal-Marts, the Palm Pixi will set early adopters back $99.99 on contract after factoring in $150 worth of instant and mail-in rebates. If you ask us, it’s a lot of money to ask for what it offers considering the iPhone 3G can be for the same price (oh, boo and hiss all you like) and the flaghship Pre is only $50 more. And did we mention no Wi-Fi?

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Oh the soap opera between the Palm Pre and Verizon Wireless — it’s denied, it’s confirmed, it’s tweeted. VZWOffers has reiterated announced that Verizon will indeed have the Pre “early” next year. America’s largest carrier will seemingly have the BlackBerry Storm 2, Motorola Droid, Tour, and Pre in their lineup at the same time — Big Red is starting to show some love for the hardware!

Thanks, Matt!

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Looks like the Palm Pre will be making another GSM appearance this month, this time in Spain on Telefonica’s HSDPA network starting October 14th. O2 has already announced a release around the same time in Germany, Ireland, and the UK.  The Official Palm blog announcement:

“Telefonica today announced the availability of Palm Pre on its HSDPA mobile network in Spain on 14 October. New Telefonica customers can receive the phone at no cost, depending on their service plan commitment. Telefonica is also the exclusive initial carrier for Palm Pre in United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany. The phone can be purchased at Telefonica outlets in Spain and online at www.telefonica.es. More information about Palm Pre is available at http://www.palm.com/es-pre-notify.”

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Yes, webOS junkies, you did indeed read the headline right — paid apps have finally started to go live in the App Catalog after many months of anticipation. The last time we looked we only saw Air Hockey which costs $1.99, but we’re pretty sure that Palm is going to do its best to rapidly accelerate the roll-out.

Thanks to everyone that sent this in!

We were lucky enough to get our hands on Best Buy Mobile’s entire Holiday Playbook and after combing through it, there’s a couple little nice nuggets of information. Really more confirmations than anything else, but hey, we aren’t ones to turn down info. Before we get to handsets specifically, it seems Best Buy has some pretty hard statistics on sales opportunities — check this out:

• The average store sees over 64,000 customers during October and November
• Out of those customers, only 1% receive an upgrade eligibility check on their accounts
• Of the 1% who get upgrade checks, around 30% are actually eligible for upgrades
• If stores increase the amount of customers checked to 2% from 1%, Best Buy Mobile would see an increase in revenue of around $20,000 for those two months, just off upgrading individuals
• After customers upgrade their handsets at Best Buy Mobile, around 16% of them come back and make other purchases later

They’ve really got it locked down, huh? Smart, smart, smart. Hit the break for some other juicy information we gathered!

In terms of hot upcoming products from now until the end of the year, here’s what Best Buy Mobile is pitching their sales staff to be ready for:

• Nokia Booklet netbook — October 25th launch, and can be activated on AT&T
• Sprint HTC Hero — launching October 11th with a presale going on now
• Sprint Palm Pixi — launch date TBD
• Verizon Storm II — launch date TBD
• Verizon Android device — launch date TBD
• T-Mobile CLIQ — launch date TBD (but we obviously know it’s shipping after October 19th up until general release November 2nd)
• “New BlackBerry devices across multiple carriers” — launch date TBD
• There will be a “host of devices launch in late October and November for all carriers.” Multiple Android launches across multiple carriers and “new technology which doesn’t exist today.”

The rest of the playbook just outlines what stores should do for key dates and Holiday sales planning, other merchandising information and what not.

Truth be told, we weren’t really at all surprised five days ago to find that webOS 1.2 lacked the ability to sync with iTunes, you know, considering that Palm had just been reprimanded by the USB Implementers Forum for its vendor ID shenanigans. Late last night/early this morning Palm pushed out webOS 1.2.1, though, and guess whaaaaat? iTunes syncing is back. Palm is quite coy to downplay the significance of the move by saying that webOS 1.2.1 “resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (9.0.1)” but the reality of the situation is that Palm has firmly cemented its position as Chief Crap Disturber of the smartphone world. After all, there really isn’t a need to put up such a stink about iTunes syncing seeing as practically any phone can sync with iTunes, but we do concede there is nothing quite like out of the box support. We could go on and on for ages about this, but we’ll spare you the lecture because its the weekend. Corporate users will be pleased to note that the new software fixes that major bug that stopped Exchange 2007 from, well, Exchanging and everyone will be happy that Palm finally realized that optimizing photos for ones device is a good thing. So, Pre users, what’s the verdict on 1.2.1?

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We just got word that Palm’s second webOS device, the Pixi, is set to launch on October 20th. This includes Sprint corporate stores as well as Best Buy locations presumably.

This intel is from new source but it sounds right. The question is, with the original Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS already out and the Motorola CLIQ, BlackBerry Storm 2 and Bold 9700 coming soon, does anyone care?

Just a quick heads up to those of you that are running with the Palm Pre — webOS 1.2 has been officially released and is now available for download. Bug fixes make up the majority of the changes, but new features include the ability to purchase apps (which has yet to go live) and the ability to download tracks from Amazon over Sprint’s EV-DO network as opposed to nothing but Wi-Fi. Has iTunes syncing returned? We doubt it, but we’re still waiting for our army of Pres to boot up. Until then…

UPDATE: Just like we thought, iTunes syncing is not working.

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Following news that Amazon chopped pricing on the Palm Pre to an attractive $99.99, Walmart has swooped in to undercut the massive online retailer — albeit just for the long weekend. Truth be told however, we’re not sure what an extra $20 is going to do if the jump from $200 to $100 wasn’t enough incentive for those debating whether or not to take the leap. What’s more, the deal involves a $100 mail-in rebate whereas Amazon’s $100 price is out the door. Whatever the case, if you’re okay with a smartphone that will cost you $80-$100+ per month, that extra $20 entry fee should hardly be keeping you from snagging a Pre. Walmart’s deal is good through tomorrow so if the hassle of a rebate is worth saving $20 to you, better act fast.

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With all of the money RIM is dumping into its U2 sponsorship, a bit of irony shined through earlier this week when Palm announced its secondary stock offering. The big news that came alongside Palm’s offering was that Elevation Partners, already Palm’s largest investor, gobbled up another 2.2 million shares of Palm for a cool $35 million. The private equity firm now owns a total of 67.8 million common shares of Palm stock in addition to its 376,000 preferred shares, totaling about 42 percent of the company. The irony in all this of course, is that Elevation Partners’ Managing Director and Co-Founder just so happens to be one Paul David Hewson… Better known as Bono. Yep, the leader of the band currently pulling down huge bucks from RIM is busy buying up Palm. One can’t help but wonder which company’s handsets the U2 front man prefers.

[Via Mobility Site]

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We’ve just confirmed this with one of our ninjas: the rumor of Verizon Wireless passing on adding the Palm Pre to its line-up is totally and 100% bogus. We don’t have any other information to share at this time but hopefully those analysts stay where they belong — regurgitating the information we exclusively break.

Palm’s had a pretty rough go over the last week or so — what with its earnings in the last quarter having been pretty dismal and the report that Verizon has possibly decided against carrying its flagship device leaking out. That doesn’t mean Palm is done putting up a fight in the weeks and months ahead, however. For now, the name of the game seems to be price drops as Amazon has lowered the price of the Pre to a very attractive $99.99, no rebates needed. Of course to get the Pre for a Franklin you’re going to have enlist for a 2-year stint on the S.S. Hesse, but at least you’ll be able to circumnavigate the globe. Oh wait, you’re actually pretty confined since Sprint’s Pre isn’t a world phone, but at least you won’t see any combat beyond Carrier Wars.

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If this latest Verizon/Palm Pre rumor pans out, there are going to be a whole lot of angry VZW subscribers and likely just as many chuckling Sprint fans. According to The Street, Verizon has decided to change its plans and skip the highly anticipated Palm handset. Specifically, “[The Palm Pre] had been scheduled to arrive at Verizon in January. But people close to the discussions say Verizon has decided not to support the Pre.” Palm’s first webOS-powered phone had been long-rumored to hit Verizon’s shelves some time in early 2010 and its arrival would have been a massive coup for Palm. The handset is still a Sprint exclusive here in the US and as far as we can tell, sales have been anything but stellar so far. Verizon, with the largest subscriber base in the US, stood to drastically improve Pre penetration but it looks like an insurmountable roadblock of some sort may have squashed those dreams. AT&T on the other hand, is still expected to carry the Palm Pre once Sprint’s exclusivity ends.

Thanks, E!

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As if Vodafone’s 360 H1 and 360 M1 announcement (which we’ve now dubbed the H1M1 LiMo flu) wasn’t enough smartphone excitement for a nation in a single day, Palm and O2 UK have finally gotten around to revealing that the Palm Pre will launch next month in three markets — specifically, on October 13th in Germany and October 16th in the UK and Ireland. Of course we have been expecting the Pre to drop on O2 for a very long time and for the wait, neither company seems apologetic. Perhaps the pricing structure will be enough to smooth things over: The Pre from O2 UK starts at £0 with a 24-month contract or an 18-month contract with tariffs starting at £44.05 ($71.45 USD). As happy as we are to see that our friends across the pond will be finally be able to get the Pre, we can’t help but feel frustrated that there’s been nary a peep from Palm about a North American UMTS/HSPA webOS handset. Alas — importers, start your engines.

UPDATE: It looks like the GSM Pre will support UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100 MHz. Pending a more local announcement, Pre hopefuls will indeed be able to rock the handset on AT&T or Rogers 3G should they choose to pay big bucks for an imported, unlocked version. Begin the celebration… Now.

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Palm today announced its Q1 results for the fiscal year 2010. The struggling handset maker moved 823,000 devices in Q1, the bulk of which Palm claims to have been Pre handsets. Unbelievably, the company still managed to avoid giving any firm numbers with regards to Pre sales, meaning it’s now extremely safe to say they fell well short of meeting expectations. Total revenue was $68mm compared to $368mm in Q1 2009, and gross profit was $2.8mm in the red. It gets worse, unfortunately. You see, accountants have this thing called GAAP, and it does a much better job of showing the financial health of a company compared to other methods. When you apply GAAP to Palm’s Q1, you’re left with a net loss of $164.5mm compared to the $41.9mm loss posted in Q1 of 2009. Long story short: we’re not out of the woods just yet, Palm fans.

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After yesterday’s shenanigans we’re not sure how long this offer will stand. Apropos, Pre hopefuls might want to jump on this new price point as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. Palm made its second webOS-powered handset official this morning and we suppose there is no better way to celebrate than by buying the compay’s first webOS-powered handset — you know, just to ensure you aren’t eligible for 2-year contract pricing once the Pixi launches. Sprint has just cut the price of a shiny new Pre from $299.99 to $249.99 before the $100 mail-in rebate, meaning when all is said and done you’ll be out $149.99. Retail partners such as Best Buy and Amazon are still pricing the handset at $199.99 so for the time being, the new price is Sprint-only. Bottom line: if you were waiting to see how Palm’s first candy bar webOS phone would shape up before committing to a new contract and the Pixi doesn’t float your boat, Sprint just saved you $50.

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Hot off the heels of its last webOS phone, Palm has just announced the Pixi, or what was formerly referred to by us (apparently not as cool as Palm staffers) as the Eos, and it will be cozying up to its big brother, the Pre, on Sprint’s shores. It’s a tad bit smaller all around, but that’s to be expected since the device has its keyboard and a 2.63″ touchscreen on the face. The Pixi sports dual-band CDMA and EV-DO Rev A for some speedy Sprint goodness but there’s unfortunately no Wi-Fi. It also has everything you’ve come to expect from a modern-day phone: 3.5mm headset jack, 2 megapixel camera with flash, email/IM support, GPS and 8GB of internal memory. And last but not least, there’s no need to worry — the Pixi also gets some wireless charging love with support for Palm’s Touchstone charging dock. Are you holding your breath or passing on this one?

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Have you been watching all the Palm Pre coverage in recent months with jealousy, just waiting for the right time to strike? Well boys and girls, that time may be now. From now until October 10th, Sprint has effectively knocked $100 off the price of a shiny new Palm Pre for customers coming over from another carrier. Here’s how it works: Purchase a Palm Pre on a 2-year contract before October 10th and port a number in from your old carrier. That’s it. Within your first three months of service, Sprint will issue a $100 service credit to your account. Call it a welcome present, call it an attempt to boost sales or call it whatever else you want — the bottom line is that you can now effectively score a new Pre for $99 after MIR and a service credit. Any takers?

UPDATE: Consider us amazed. As quickly as Sprint’s offer appeared, it’s now off the table. Sprint’s official comment: “After further internal review today, the offer of a port-in service credit of $100 to new customers who buy the Palm Pre has been pulled, because it was put into the system in error.” Umm, ok. Sprint says it will honor the promo for anyone who managed to snag a Pre during the brief period of time before the promo was pulled.

Thanks, E!

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It’s been nary a day since webOS 1.2 leaked and new features are being uncovered left and right. Yesterday, we saw a bunch of minor updates including a new “select all” option in the edit menu, support for paid applications, find-as-you-type support in email and improved browser functionality. Further dissection of the underlying webOS code reveals two new features, the first being the incorporation of LED notifications. The securityconfig-scene.html file contains the string, “The gesture area blinks when new notifications arrive.” Though commented out in the code and effectively disabled in 1.2, the feature can be activated by simply removing the commenting surrounding the line. The second interesting (though potentially troubling) discovery is the line, “Palm had to delete this application from the App Catalog and your device. If you paid for this app, your money will be refunded,” which was discovered in the apprevokedalert_scene.html file. From the looks of it, Palm is including remote application removal as one of the features of its upcoming paid application store debut. Before you get in a tirade and ruin an otherwise delightful Labor day weekend however, relax as a group of savvy webOS users should be able to figure out how to disable this feature pretty quickly.

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Remember last month when a developer revealed some hidden functionality in webOS that periodically reports a user’s location back to Palm? Well as it turns out, the reasoning behind the Big Brother-esque move may be even worse than you think. Drum roll please… Location-based advertising. We’ve uncovered a patent application filed by Palm in November of last year that could end up being one of the worst things to happen to webOS since its birth. As described within the application itself, the patent “provides a method and system thereof that can be used to more effectively target advertisements and other services to users of wireless communication devices.” More from the patent description:

Based upon the location data from the appointment and the location of device 310 (or other alternative location provided by the user), processor 340 may then provide advertisement data (step 386), for example, along the driving route between the location of the appointment and the current location of device 310 within a predetermined distance of the location of the appointment and/or the current location of device 310, and so on.

In other words, the system will keep tabs on your location in order to serve ads that will theoretically get you to spend money on the spot. Why not stop off for a coffee in this Starbucks? How about a tasty Angus Third Pounder from the McDonald’s down the block? But wait, it gets worse. Palm’s concept goes even further to pull appointment information out of your calendar in order to serve contextual ads based on your destination location in addition to your current location. While this concept is pretty brilliant, it’s also remarkably invasive and frankly, a bit frightening. Is the future of mobile advertising a gross invasion of our privacy?

Thanks, Darnell!

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As the title might suggest, a flurry of screenshots hit the Web this morning, allegedly depicting Verizon’s inventory system and the bevy of unreleased smartphones found within. While we definitely can’t vouch for the authenticity of these screenshots, they could certainly be the real deal as we know that each of the handsets mentioned is due to hit Big Red in the near future. The source also claims these screen shots come from a “most loyal tipster” so we’ll assume that means he or she has provided good info before. Covered below are the Palm Pre (P101), Palm Eos (P121), BlackBerry Storm 2, HTC Touch Pro2 (XV6875), Samsung Omnia II, and the Samsung Convoy U640. Sheesh, when did VZW become the king of smartphones? Hit the jump for the shots, including a larger version of the cap above.

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You’ve waited long enough Canada, and now your time in the sun has finally arrived — the Palm Pre is now available in Canada from Bell. Palm’s first webOS-powered handset is now on sale for $199.95 on a 3-year contact (seriously, Bell, what the hell is the deal with this nickel fetish?). Bell is also willing to sell the Pre to those who fear contracts for $599.95, although contract-free purchasers will still be forced to subscribe to a data plan that has a minimum data bucket of 500MB. So what are you waiting for? Head on over to your nearest Bell dealership, Future Shop, Best Buy, WIRELESS etc., T Booth, Wireless Wave or just hit the read link and get your webOS freak on. You know you wanna.

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Behold, ladies and gentlemen: Bell’s new iPhone! No wait, it’s a pPhone. No… The Palm PrePhone? At this point, we’re wondering if there’s a worldwide (or at least North America-wide) conspiracy amongst creative agencies to ensure that each and every Palm Pre commercial to hit the airwaves is absolute garbage. The good news is that Bell’s commercial at least shows off the phone and its features rather than a painfully odd woman mumbling about walking in the park. The bad news is that it shamelessly and blatantly rips off iPhone commercials. In fact, it rips them off to the point where the agency that put this ad together simply shouldn’t be allowed to work anymore. Ever. The bottom line is that the Palm Pre is a great little phone and it deserves better than this. A little side note: Palm, Bell, buddies… When you’re rocking an App Catalog that currently offers less than 50 apps, you might not want to rip off Apple’s “there’s an app for that” run. Yeah, right now on the Pre there really isn’t an app for anything. Hit the jump for the commercial.

[Via PreThinking]

We’re not sure who should be more excited about this news, to be honest. On one hand, developers can finally take a major step toward actually making money from webOS. On the other hand, Pre owners are now a giant leap closer to having more than 30-something apps. It really could be a toss up. The bottom line is the slow and painful ordeal that is Palm’s handling of all things app-related took a step forward today as Palm announced to developers that paid app submissions to the App Catalog are now being accepted. While paid apps aren’t slated to hit the App Catalog for a while yet, any news is good news at this point. So, Pre fans, what are some apps you’re desperately hoping to see pop up in the App Catalog once the faucet is finally turned on?

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Ever since it was first announced at CES, people have been clamoring for a GSM version of the Palm Pre. About a month back we got our wish, but unfortunately the GSM Pre as we knew it did not include US 3G. We say ‘knew’ because the Wi-Fi Alliance recently certified a new variant of the Palm Pre, the P100UNA, complete with 850/1900MHz UMTS/HSPA. Wooo. Ordinarily we would assume this is a good indication that the Pre will be hitting up AT&T or Rogers after Sprint and Bell’s respective exclusivity periods are over, but considering that TELUS is about to make the move to HSPA we can’t help but wonder if perhaps the Pre will be one of its first smartphones.

[Via PreCentral]

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Ruh roh. It looks like Palm may be pulling a Big Brother on Pre owners without their knowledge — until now, anyway. This morning, developer Joey Hess publicly examined a portion of webOS code that reports information back to Palm in order to determine exactly what info the manufacturer is retrieving behind the scenes. What he uncovered, loosely put, is pretty uncool. Pre handsets report at least the following info back to Palm daily:

• Your location
• Which apps you’ve used and for how long
• Your app crash logs
• Which apps you have installed

Now, this discovery raises all kinds of issues surrounding ethics, disclosure, privacy and a host of other touchy subjects. As with all privacy policies, Palm’s is BS sketchy shady unclear vague broad enough to likely cover such invasions of privacy. Hess does detail a relatively easy way to disable the transfer of personal data back to Palm’s servers but it requires Linux. More convenient methods of disabling this “feature” will likely surface in the coming days but the question as to why Palm needs this personal data remains. So, Pre users, are you guys cool with this?

[Via PreCentral]

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We were pretty clear in sharing our feelings where Palm’s Pre commercials are concerned but just in case our headline wasn’t clear enough for you, we don’t like them. In a nutshell, they make us want to curl up in a corner and cry, not run out and buy a Pre. Gary Koepke is the co-founder of Modernista, the agency behind the ads, and he recently defended his work in an interview with AdAge:

We weren’t trying to creep people out, but one thing I have learned now in this digital age is people can be as rude as they want as long as they don’t have to look you in the face. The Pre is probably being talked about more than other phones right now because of the marketing and advertising, and that’s a good thing. Could the ads work harder to show exactly how the phone works? Yes, but we knew it would be polarizing people to have a woman not shout at them and tell an interesting story.

It’s a very different look and feel for this sector. There’s nobody involved in an iPhone ad, and ‘Your life is on BlackBerry’ — isn’t that great? Instead of having a life? We wanted a middle ground between those two places — what about the people who want a really great smartphone?

Fair enough, sir, but allow us to reiterate our stance in the context of the second portion of the quote above. Putting our “Joe Consumer” hat on for a moment, when we see an iPhone ad on TV, we walk away thinking ‘cool, the iPhone can do tons of great stuff because it has so many sweet apps’. When we see a BlackBerry commercial (aside from the horrible U2 spot), we walk away thinking ‘ok, BlackBerry rocks the business world but it can hang in the consumer market, too. It does it all’. When we see a Pre commercial, we walk away thinking ‘crack’.

But let’s face it — money talks. Television advertising exists to drive sales and if Pre sales to date were anything to write home about, Sprint and Palm would have thrown out some numbers by now. With the top two smartphone brands in the US doing gangbusters — BlackBerrys are still burning up the market and Apple hawked over 5 million iPhones last quarter — it’s no wonder they’re keeping quiet.

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We love you Palm, we really do. WebOS is in a small club of mobile platforms that is as versatile and visually pleasing as it is powerful and it has all the potential in the world… If Palm can manage to sell the handsets that it powers. We still don’t know how many Pres have been sold and analyst guesses range from 200,000 to 500,000 and beyond. What we do know however, is that Palm isn’t doing itself any favors with its faux esoteric, new age TV ads starring a mescaline-addicted albino woman. Love the Pre or hate it, do these commercials really want to make anyone run out and buy a Pre? Palm’s latest ad has this creepy lady babbling over an Ulrich Schnauss track about how her phone can read her mind and how people think she’s crazy. The Palm Pre — you know, the phone they’re trying to sell here — doesn’t even make an appearance until 22 seconds into this 30 second spot. Right. We get the point you’re trying to make, Palm, but we don’t walk away from this ad thinking, “Wow, I really want to buy a Pre because it’s remarkably intuitive and I don’t follow the herd!” No, we walk away thinking, “Wow, this chick needs an intervention.” Hit the jump to check out the commercial and hit Palm execs in the head for letting an ad agency convince them that this run was a good idea.

We hope you’re sitting down, Pre people… Believe it or not, there’s a new app in the App Catalog this morning! More than one even! First up, the star of the show, Open Table has released its ever-popular reservations app for the Palm Pre. For those who aren’t familiar with the Open Table service, it allows you to find restaurants in your area and reserve a table at a time of your choosing all from within the app. You can even invite attendees with Open Table’s Pre app and it will add the reservation details to your calendar for you. Sweet. The app is free of course, since Open Table makes its money through deals with restaurants, and it’s available in the App Catalog immediately. Joining it is Fliq Bookmarks by Mark/Space, a bookmark sync utility that works alongside The Missing Sync to sync your Pre bookmarks with Safari. Not quite exciting but hey, at least it’s something. Let us know what you think if you’ve checked out either of these new apps.

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