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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AdMob, a leading mobile ad service provider, issues mobile metrics and analysis each month and today it has released April data. Key points from AdMob’s press release:

• While Gartner estimated global smartphone sales represented 12 percent of total device sales in 2008, 35 percent of AdMob’s worldwide ad requests in April 2009 came from smartphones. This means that smartphones accounted for nearly 3 times more usage than their relative market share.
• The iPhone OS had 8 percent of the smartphone market, but generated 43 percent of mobile Web requests and 65 percent of HTML usage.
• The Android OS share of the smartphone market was less than 1 percent, but generated 3 percent of mobile Web requests and 9 percent of HTML usage.
• The Symbian OS had 52 percent of the smartphone market, but generated only 36 percent of mobile Web usage and 7 percent of HTML usage.
• Usage of mobile Web sites greatly out paces usage of HTML sites on smartphones running the Symbian and RIM Operating System (OS).
• 24 percent of US requests were made over a Wi-Fi network. The top five Wi-Fi devices in terms of usage were the iPhone, iPod touch, Sony PSP, HTC Dream (G1), and HTC Dash.

There are definitely some interesting takeaways here — the most interesting to us is actually the Symbian stat. Symbian has 52 percent of the market but generated only 7 percent of HTML usage. 7 percent! Conversely, the iPhone holds about 8 percent of the smartphone market but accounts for 65 percent of mobile HTML usage. Even Android, which accounts for 1 percent of smartphones worldwide, topped Symbian with 9 percent of HTML traffic.

The Webkit-based S60 browser is certainly capable of displaying HTML but as we’ve commented on numerous occasions, it’s clunky and slow. We really (REALLY) hope this will be a particular area of focus as the Symbian Foundation continues work on Symbian^2 because S60 5th Edition hardly addresses the issue. Oh and RIM, your browser is even worse… But you know this.

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It goes without saying that amongst the earliest of early adopters to the Palm Pre will be Palm loyalists whose migration from PalmOS to WebOS will surely leave them missing some of the apps that they have grown to love and live by for the past 13 years. To help make the transition easier and allow the fanatics live in the past, MotionApp has obtained special rights to code the only Palm approved PalmOS simulator for WebOS entitled Classic. While it will not be able to access the heart of WebOS, Classic be able to run over 30,000 PalmOS applications at speeds nearly twice as fast as they would run on a Treo 700p meaning that the odds are the crème de la crème of PalmOS apps won’t be left behind. At this time neither the pricing nor availability of Classic has been announced, something we’re not too surprised about given that Palm has yet to tip the world off as to the pricing structure of App Catalog or a release date for the Pre itself.

[Via Engadget]

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A little blue bird landed on our window sill this morning to let us in on a little secret – Alltel is all set to launch the Palm Treo Pro this Thursday March 5th. After a $125 rebate, the Treo Pro will set Alltel subscribers back $199 on a 2-year contract. The price isn’t all that bad for a new smartphone, especially considering it has the golden trifecta known as 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS, but when we see an American carrier charge more than a Canadian carrier we do start to panic just a little. Just one word of caution before anyone gets too excited — this might just be for divested customers only. C’est la vie, no?

Thanks, R!

What we have here, folks, is a classic case of a blessing in disguise. After a bit of a false start, Sprint seems to have semi-officially pulled the Treo Pro launch until late February. Bad news, right? Well, sort of. First off, the company is attempting to appease anyone that ordered the device early with a $25 account credit. More importantly, however, it sounds like the Treo Pro could be the first Sprint device to allow for simultaneous voice and data usage. Granted, the news comes from a bit of a dubious source, but if it turns out to be true it could mark a bit of a milestone for the carrier. The EV-DO Rev. A band is technically capable of allowing this work, but the CDMA world has yet to enjoy the pleasure of surfing the mobile web while attempting to pay attention to a rambling family member on the other end of the line. Such luxury has been afforded to the GSM world since the early days of 3G, so we can only hope that Sprint makes this move official. In the mean time, we’re looking into starting a support group for the 12-13 folks out there that are actually eagerly awaiting the Treo Pro, especially with the impending arrival of the Palm Pre. Way to cannibalize your own sales by pushing the introduction of the last of your previous generation devices closer and closer to the introduction of your next gen. flagship device. Seriously, Sprint/Palm…we’re impressed.

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After seeing the massive amount of buzz Palm generated surrounding the announcement of its Pre and new mobile operating system WebOS, mobile developers are undoubtedly just as excited as everyone else to get in on the action. Good news, mobile coders; an anonymous developer who has spent some time with Palm’s new Mojo SDK has shared some insight as far as when you can expect. Just like WebOS and the Pre itself, it appears as though Palm’s new SDK is a breath of fresh air as well. The shrouded dev essentially called the WebOS development experience the antithesis of iPhone development on several levels. From SDK usability and incorporated technologies to OS integration and even developer relations – it seems as though Palm covered all of its bases when building its savior. Palm has already made it known that it will launch its own on-device App Store, dubbed App Catalog, and this gushing account of the developer experience is yet another check mark in the Palm column. Throw a few more handsets and a few more big carrier deals into the mix and Palm might have to wear shades…

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Nope, it’s not over yet. More Pre news is coming down the pipes and this time it comes from rumorsville. The two biggest pieces of the puzzle omitted from the Palm hoopla yesterday were pricing info and timing for the GSM version. Many have speculated that Pre pricing would fall in line with the iPhone 3G to create the best fighting chance Palm and Sprint have of competing. If Eldar Murtazin of Mobile-review is to be believed however, that sentiment is out the door. How does double sound? According to Murtazin’s sources, the Pre will launch with a steep price tag of $399. Wow. Of course the original price of Apple’s base iPhone was $399 but plenty has changed since then and the Pre isn’t quite the jaw-dropper Apple’s handset was when it first saw daylight. We have no reason to doubt Murtazin but we do hope his sources are wrong about this one, especially considering the fact that we will almost certainly see a new iPhone released before Sprint can drop the Pre price down to mass-attainability level.

As far as the GSM version of the Pre is concerned, Murtazin’s sources state an early 2H release in Europe with pricing in the neighborhood of $500 – $550 USD. While carriers are still unknown at this point, the pricing certainly sounds about right if we’re looking at $400 from Sprint. Of course the release of a GSM / WCDMA-compatible Pre was never really a question but it’s nice to have a possible time frame, for Europe at least. Looks like it’s time to dust off the phone number of your favorite mobile importer.

[Via Unwired View]

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You most certainly already knew that Palm’s newly announced OS, WebOS, was codenamed Nova prior to launch. If you didn’t then we invite you to stop by slightly more often and up your gadget cred a bit. What you probably didn’t know however, was that Palm’s knight in shining armor was codenamed Castle. How apropos. The fellas at Palm must have been so exhausted from making sure everything Pre-related happened on time that they forgot to update the copy in an automatically generated confirmation email. You know, kind of like how the BlackBerry Storm is still referred to as the BlackBerry Thunder in some OS files to this day. It’s okay Palm, you did a hell of a job keeping the wraps on your recent announcements and it’s safe to say both the Pre and WebOS are pretty widely acclaimed at this point. Get some rest and then see if you can’t get around to cleaning that up.

Thanks, Rob!

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There you have it folks, the mystery Palm phone and OS are no longer a mystery and the world has now received its first glimpse at Palm’s hopeful savior. First impressions mean everything and for the time being it’s safe to say we were supremely wowed. Seriously, did you ever imagine you’d see the day when Palm would release a handset and OS combo so perfectly evolutionary and well designed? Once the initial high wears off however, we’re all brought back down to reality – a reality where Palm is a company on the verge of falling apart and the Pre represents what is likely the first in a series of handsets that will make or break it, literally. Is this sharp little piece of kit up to the task?

In another world, the Pre might very well devastate competitive offerings. Without having held the device of course, the hardware looks gorgeous and the new OS looks like it could just be the closest thing to a masterpiece we’ll see in 2009. What’s more, any web developer with a few 101 classes under his/her belt will be able to develop apps for Palm’s new OS with little or nothing new to be learned. The biggest wild card now however, might just be Sprint. By tying itself to a struggling carrier, Palm placed all of its eggs into a very, very fragile basket. Sure, there are pros and cons; an obvious pro is that the Pre will become a huge tool for Sprint. Sprint will invest tons of time, money and other resources into launching and marketing the Pre because, well, what else does it have going on? A WiMAX launch in Podunk, Iowa (calm down, that was a joke)? The Pre will be Sprint’s golden boy and it will get all of the love and attention Palm could ever imagine. Ok, so what’s the problem?

The major con, which is equally as obvious as the benefits mentioned above, is that Sprint is hemorrhaging subscribers and struggling more than any other US carrier to stay afloat. It is losing money like a Lions fan who can’t stop betting on the home team and short of recent layoffs, it is showing no signs of turning the ship around. By partnering with Sprint on this launch, Palm has basically created a relationship where each major player is standing on shaky ground. Does Sprint have a good network? Of course it does – blazing data speeds are nothing new to Sprint subscribers. There are tons of other factors however, such as customer service woes, spotty coverage and a Vista-like stigma that will prevent many from even considering the Pre when it is launched later this year. No, the Pre will certainly not result in a tremendous surge of business funneling through from competing carriers as the iPhone did for AT&T. Last time we checked, Palm fans are hardly as cult-like and fanatical as Apple fans and Joe the Plumber simply doesn’t care that much – that’s why he carries a RAZR.

We want the Pre to be a success, there’s no question. In fact, you can be sure you’ll find a few of these bad boys roaming the halls of BGR HQ. We also want Sprint to figure out how to plug all of the cracks in its dam. The issue here is that there may just be too many hurdles blocking Palm’s path to success and in its current state, Palm is most definitely no Dayron Robles. We can only hope that Palm managed to ink a good deal with Sprint that will allow them to bring its new handset to other carriers before it’s too late and upcoming competitive handsets make Joe the Plumber forget all about the Pre.

Things are happening for Palm with news of its upcoming OS and the first of a family of new devices. Of course, how could its compete with the iPhone and BlackBerry without its very own mobile app store? After partnering with PocketGear, Palm now has an app store with over 5,000 apps, 1,000 of which are free, for its own OS (Palm devices with Windows Mobile has its own thing, of course). The variety of apps doesn’t look too shabby as Palm tries to keep up with the big boys and we’re hoping that the app store integration into the upcoming Nova OS will be seamless. Give us a killer device, an intuitive and attractive OS, top it off with the app store and tons of apps and you just might be a keeper, Palm. Don’t let us down!

Thanks Jimmie!

[Via GadgetsOnTheGo]

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There’s a lot of hype stirring in the rumor mill for Palm – this time it has been confirmed and comes in the form of a new OS and a device on which it will be featured (based on the rumors, it will be the first of a family of devices). With all the hype and secrecy surrounding the new products, one can only hope that it lives up to the mania and saves Palm from hurtling into oblivion. The name of the OS will be “Nova” and the project is spearheaded by Jon Rubenstein, current executive chairman for Palm and former SVP at Apple. The team under Rubenstein seems to be a formidable and ambitious bunch that hopes to give Apple and RIM a run for their money. Filling the space between the iPhone and BlackBerry is going to be a momentous task, so we’re keeping our reservations about the new OS and device until we see it for ourselves at CES. Palm isn’t suffering from any delusions when it comes to performance over the next few months after massive layoffs and a withering economy. Whatever it is Palm is unveiling, it’s going to have to be very big.

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The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal… well, not really, but we might see some Harrison Bergeron-ing of smartphones in the AT&T lineup. How awful would that be? The boys in blue are anticipating that by 2014, a very large portion of sales will be comprised of smartphones. In an effort to simplify things and make it easier to get mobile applications onto all its handsets, AT&T is strongly considering a single operating system for all smartphones. Roger Smith, director of next generation services, spoke at the Symbian Partner Event in San Francisco and stated that Symbian is “a very credible and likely candidate” to be that singular OS. While Symbian is the largest OS in the world today, a move like this would surely frustrate Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry and Mac OS X mobile fans, to say the least.

While this idea has its pros, it certainly has a number of cons. Developing a universal OS means pleasing the business and power users while catering to entry-level users all with one OS – not an easy task. AT&T will also complicate things for developers unless it creates a simple, standard environment in which developers can create and test apps. Another problem is that an operating system and software can often be very specific to the hardware. Can you imagine an HTC Fuze, BlackBerry Bold and an iPhone 3G performing the same exact tasks and using the same features on a single operating system? We don’t know about you guys, but we feel that variety and options are far more desirable than being forced to use a single system – hence our hatred for carrier crippling on handsets. Considering AT&T’s best selling handset is the iPhone, and the odds of Apple ever producing a Symbian handset are about as good as the odds of the Lions winning the Super Bowl this year, this just isn’t going to happen. Apple will continue to be one of AT&T’s biggest money-makers for many years to come – well beyond 2014. Beyond that, bailing on BlackBerry would result in a huge loss of AT&T’s enterprise customers as they would instantly head for the hills. If AT&T did somehow manage to pull off Symbian as a universal OS though, would you jump ship for another carrier?

Update: It looks like there are some misinterpretations in this post so we’re back to clear the air before anyone else freaks out about AT&T slapping the same OS on every smartphone it carries. First, that is definitely not going to be the case. Phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry handsets wouldn’t be affected because of how specific those operating systems are to the function and feature sets of the devices themselves. The last thing AT&T would want to do is annoy customers who have grown to depend on those features (such as visual voicemail and BlackBerry Messenger). Our good friend Marin Perez from InformationWeek has this to say, and we couldn’t have stated our clarification any better: “Of course the company would have a lot less headaches only supporting one OS, but Roger Smith said realistically that’s not going to happen. The company plans to offer the high-end experience on phones like the iPhone and BlackBerry, but Smith said there’s a large chunk in the middle that may not want that. And as the line between feature phones and entry-level smartphones blur, he thinks the new Symbian could be a good candidate for AT&T to address that chunk of the subscriber base.”

We hope that clarifies things a little bit and apologize for getting y’all riled up so early on a Friday!

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It isn’t new news that the worsening economy has resulted in layoffs and it now looks like Palm will be falling victim to the increasingly declining consumer product environment. In an effort to keep afloat, Palm Infocenter says the the giant smartphone and software company will be letting go of a chunk of its workforce. While the number of employees it intends to let go has yet to be disclosed, it would appear that it would have to be a substantial number in order to make an impact. The cuts won’t be limited to the US either, as there are plans to do the same internationally. This isn’t good news as Palm puts it:

“The global economic downturn continues to dampen demand for consumer goods around the world, and the impact on the economic environment is worsened by our maturing Centro line and the length of time it is taking to ramp our new Windows Mobile products.”

It would appear as though Palm has adopted a “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve” mentality in terms of getting new products out and revamping some of its smartphones. In addition, the much-hyped Treo Pro has done little to save Palm. Things aren’t looking good for the telecommunications and electronics industries as Palm joins a long line of companies who have been letting go of employees.

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Access has been working on v3.0 of its Linux Platform and it’s turning out to be pretty sweet. Taking a look at that shot there, and going off the buzz about the new OS, the UI will be more robust and the animations are going to be smooth. This is a very nice way to pull the Palm OS out of the dark ages and into the 21st century. In addition to ALP v3.0, Access is releasing ALP mini which is a similar OS for low-end smartphones or non-phone devices like PMPs, MIDs, UMPCs, Internet tablets, and the like. NTT DoCoMo of Japan has already taken interest in ALP and will be using the new platform as early as the latter half of 2009. There aren’t too many technical details but there is a very rich list of features for you as well as more screen shots after the jump!

Telephony and Communications

• Full-featured telephone application with speed dial,
  call forward/wait/hold/bar, & multi-party conferencing
• OMA Device Management v1.2
• Multihoming on GPRS and 3G networks
• IMPS, SMS, MMS, Cell Broadcast, IMAP4, POP3

Input and Navigation

• 12-key keypad with 5 way input and navigation support
• Stylus based touch screen input and navigation support
• Finger touch input and navigation
• Accelerometer support

Desktop Software and HotSync Software

• Manage personal information on a Windows XP or Vista desktop computer with the ACCESS™ Desktop or Microsoft Outlook to add, edit or delete contact records, calendar events, memos and tasks and synchronize using HotSync software, which now supports OMA DS v1.2 (SyncML)
• Backup and restore information between the device and desktop as well as install native, Palm OS, Java applications and media files with HotSync
• PIM synchronization over the air directly with operator synchronization services

Tools

• A complete and integrated suite of free application development tools are available to ACCESS Linux Platform application developers through the SDK provided as part of the ACCESS Developer Network program.

Wireless and Connectivity Protocols

• Telephony radios (including 3G) are easily integrated
  with the ACCESS Linux Platform telephony framework
• TCP/IP
• WiFi (802.11g)
• Bluetooth® Technology 2.0 + EDR Technology
• USB
• IrDA
• Serial

Application Environments

• Native application development for the ACCESS Linux Platform includes GTK+ and the Hiker Application Framework™
• Garnet™ VM allows properly written Garnet OS (formerly Palm OS) applications to run unaltered on an ACCESS Linux Platform mobile device
• Java VM, JV-Lite™2 Wireless Edition software, including popular JSR modules including JSR 179 (location), JSR 135 (mobile media), and JSR 185 (wireless profile)

Language Support

• English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese
  Additional locales and languages can be added

Security

• OMTP compliant security policy framework
• VPN framework

Media Framework Components

• Media selector
• RTP/RTSP streaming
• MP3, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AAC, MIDI, MPEG4-SP, H.263, H.264, WMA/WMV v9
• OMA DRM v1.0 Forward lock, Combined and Separate Delivery

Hardware Requirements

Performance

• 400 MHz ARM 9 or greater

Display

• 240 X 320 display QVGA (optimized for the platform)
• 320 X 480 display HVGA
• 800 X 480 display Widescreen (maximum)
• 65k color support (minimum)
• 256k color support (maximum)

Memory

• 128MB RAM (minimum)
• 128MB Flash EFIGS (minimum); two-byte localization
  or a 3G application suite may require more memory

Native Applications

• NetFront™ Phone
• NetFront™ Contacts
• NetFront™ Calendar
• NetFront™ Memos
• NetFront™ Tasks
• NetFront™ HotSync™ Manager
• NetFront Browser
• NetFront™ HandMail™
• NetFront™ SMS+
• NetFront™ iMessenger™
• NetFront™ Music
• NetFront™ Videos
• NetFront™ Photos
• NetFront™ Camera
• NetFront™ Document Viewer
• Utilities
  – NetFront™ Clock
  – NetFront™ Calculator
  – NetFront™ Recorder
  – NetFront™ Home Screen
  – NetFront™ File Manager

[Via Access]

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Let’s start this one off by saying this promotion is only for indirect Verizon Wireless dealers at the moment and does not apply to corporate stores. With that said, the big bad VZW and Palm are slippin’ you a $25 Visa gift card to purchase a new Palm Centro. That’s obviously with a 2-year agreement, and it’s not an instant gratification purchase — you still have to fill out the rebate sheet and wait around 6 weeks for your gift card to make it to you, but at the end of day, this is a pretty fantastic promotion for anyone that’s been eyeing the Centro for a bit. If you do want to take advantage of the offer, you should head down to your local dealer pretty quickly as this runs out on October 31st. Larger shot along with the letter to indirect retailers after the jump!

Thanks, Harris!

We’re not really sure where to begin…It’s the Palm Centro on AT&T. You know the Centro, right? Outdated OS, tiny, miniscule puke-lime-green keyboard, EDGE, camera, and phone. We didn’t get a solid feel for pricing when it launches on February 19th, but we’ve heard $99 and $149 for a 2-year agreement. We’d wager it being $99 (how could it be more than Sprint’s?). If you want more Garnet madness, we suggest you don your favorite sunglasses and grab one of those airline-style puke bags. You’re going to need it!

Click on over to our AT&T Palm Centro gallery!

As if anyone actually cares…Nevertheless, we’re here to bring everything we know to you, and what we do know, is that the Treo 755p will be making the rounds to Verizon Wireless on December, 17th. That’s going to be an online and telesales only affair, with the full release for brick-and-mortar stores happening on January, 7th. Doesn’t it feel like yesterday when we were eagerly awaiting the Treo 700w on Verizon? You ready for the price? I said, are you ready for the price? A whopping $449.99 with a 2-year agreement! Wowbawuah! The 1-year price is $519.99, and retail pricing is $569.99. For that kind of pricing you’re better off buying some plane tickets to the VZW headquarters and slapping them upside they heads. At least you’ll actually be satisfied. Click on for the SKUs and pricing for all the accessories, if you dare!

Thanks, Omie!

 
Standard Battery- $49.99 PALM755BAT
Leather Fitted- $24.99 PALM755CAS
Holster- $9.97 TREHOL-2
Stylus-$9.99 PALM755STY
Car Charger-$29.99 TRE650VPC
Rapid Charger-$29.99 TRTTVL-1
SYNC cable- $29.99 TRE650CBL
Desktop Kit-$49.99 TRE650DTC

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Anyone still rocking an AT&T-branded Treo 680? Oh, hi. You’re going to be quite thankful today, as AT&T and Palm have just dropped a rather sizeable update to the aging handset. There’s quite a collection of changes and enhancements here, so if you do own a Treo 680, you’ll probably want to hook this up with the quickness. Among the most significant changes include Push-To-Talk support, Microsoft Direct Push, native IM client, support for SD cards up to 4GB, and much more. Oh, and every Cingular badge will finally be replaced with the new AT&T branding. It’s about damn time! The bad news, however, is that this update appears to disable support for BlackBerry Connect, so if you’re dependent on that feature, this is probably not the right move at this time. The update is available right now from Palm’s site. It’s currently only offered for AT&T-branded devices, but expect a version for unlocked / unbranded handsets in the near future.

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Google’s recent introduction of its "My Location" non-GPS geo-locater system was a fantastic development for anyone sporting a handset not equipped with a GPS chip. One glaring omission from the announcement, however, was the lack of support for Palm OS-based devices. While this could have stood a yet another reason not to purchase a Garnet-based device, it seems that there may be some relief in sight for the Palm faithful. Apparently, the API needed to identify cell towers (a necessary component of the My Location service) does exist, it just simply hasn’t been made public. Realizing the error of their ways, Palm is planning on releasing that API to developers sometime next month, which should clear the way for My Location support in future revisions of Google Maps for Palm. Phew.

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Yeah, you read that correctly. It is now possible to run a version of Palm’s Garnet operating system on your favorite N-Series internet tablet device. We have no idea why anyone would want to go and ruin a perfectly good OS by slapping the Palm software on top of it, but hey, different strokes, right? To be fair, this is only possible by way of a clever bit of coding that allows for a virtual system to be installed on top of your N770, N800, or N810. This is an offical Access release, though. Making it even more appealing is the fact that it is completely free. Currently available as a beta product, the software should hit a full-scale release by the end of the year. With the impending release of the oh-so-nice N810, we could really see this this turning into a viable alternative to anyone that relies on the Palm OS but can’t take another Treo. Enjoy!

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Whoa, whoa, whoa! What is going on here? Sprint’s holiday phone guide online lists the usual phones we know about like the Palm Centro, BlackBerry 8130, and all that jazz, but what in the hell is a picture of the Motorola Q2 running Palm OS doing in there? Anyone up for a Palm-powered Moto, ’cause we’re not…Would you actually buy this?

Thanks, Marc!

UPDATE: As our sneaky readers pointed out, the full specs on the Sprint page for the Motorola Q2 list Windows Mobile. Looks like one of their web guys got extra excited with the screen shot!

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While Digital Life is set up to celebrate lifestyle technology from all walks of life, you know we had to hit up the cell phones and mobile handsets first! There’s not a whole lot of breaking stuff here, but it’s always nice to see hotly anticipated handsets in the same place. Nokia was out in full force, demoing the N81 8GB, N95, E65, E90, and the N95 8GB. They also had a ton of N800 tablets on hand, which seems strange given the device’s relative age, but who are we to judge them? Palm brought the heat with their Centro handheld. That phone has been reviewed to death, but we’d like to point out that the keyboard is absolutely terrible. It feels like it was designed for 6 year olds (which might not be so off base, given the youth-centric appearence of Palm’s expo booth). Microsoft had a number of handsets on display, most notably the HTC TyTN II aka Tilt/Kaiser. All we say about this one, is that AT&T better get their act together. It’s that good. Hit the jump for more hands-on pics!

Yeah! We finally got a model number to go with Palm’s upcoming device. The one that will be the nail in their coffin. It’s called the Palm 690, but since it’s rumored to be a part of the Treo line, we’ll call it the Palm Treo 690. This one supposedly has keys the size of Tobiko. Again, Sprint Palm Treo 690 debuting on their "target" launch date of October 14th. Oh, and Sprint? Try not to get conned into accepting crappy devices anymore, mmmkay? Full shot after the jumpage!

• Naming convention will be Treo 5XX
• One version with Windows Mobile 6 Standard, the other is a new non-touchscreen edition of the Palm OS
• Multiple colors
• 135 grams; 117 x 65 x 13.8 mm
• 2.4 inch QVGA screen with 65k colors
• 2 megapixel camera
• Bluetooth 2.0 w/ A2DP support
• 3G + HSDPA
• 256 MB on board memory with 64 MB of RAM

Design foibles aside, these aren’t too shabby. The inclusion of 3G is a huge step in the right direction, and everything else seems to be about on par with their current Treos, with the exception of a marginally improved camera. One thing worth noting is that while Windows Mobile has proven itself useful without touchscreen support, the Palm OS has no such track record. It will be interesting to see how well they’re able to tweak the existing (and aging) platform to do away with touchscreen input. Only time will tell, we suppose.

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Ok, so we’re live on the Palm Foleo Webinar getting a detailed overview of how Palm is "advancing mobile computing". Am I the only one that just doesn’t think so? After all, you have to have your Treo paired to the Foleo to use the internet while on the move. It does have WiFi built in but come on! It’s small, light, based on Linux, but I personally just don’t see how this is going to sell. It is basically an extension of your device, and for all intents and purposes you’d be better off with a full laptop, let alone a fake UMPC. The one advantage Palm has going for their new Foleo is the pricing. It starts at around $499 and will launch this summer in Palm’s retail stores. After all the hype, the crippling — not to mention what, 5 years too late? Palm is going to have to try another way to scam me; I’m done falling for their mind tricks. Anyone agree that this won’t be the device to save Palm?

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If you live in the UK, that is. Some countries get all the luck. Regardless, if you happen to be a resident of the United Kingdom, this deal is too good to pass up. Palm is offering a free TomTom GPS to anyone who purchases a Treo 680, or Treo 750 between now and the 30th of June. The deal includes a Plug-and-Go GPS expansion card, preloaded with TomTom Navigator 6 and region specific maps of the United Kingdom. You’ll also get a Bluetooth GPS receiver, car power adapter, and vehicle "device cradle." All told, this offer should save you something in the neighborhood of 150 pounds. Not too shabby. If you’ve been considering a new Treo, now might just be the time to jump into Palm’s twisted world. I guess they are trying to move as many units as possible to compensate for the forseeable lack of sales with their Sprint Treo 755p model. Cheap shot, I know.

Sprint has finally taken the veil off of the worst kept secret in the industry, officially launching the Treo 755p. The specs have been out in the wild for a while, and as such aren’t anything too surprising. The 755p is a souped up Treo 700p with an internal antenna. The feature set is relatively unchanged, sporting a 312 MHz XScale processor, EV-DO Rev. 0 (no Rev. A), miniSD slot, 320×320 display, and 128MB of RAM. Still, the lack of an external antenna certainly makes it a bit more appealing than its predecessor, and if you’re looking for a high speed wireless Treo running the Palm OS, this is pretty much the only game in town. It will be available in two colors, burgundy and blue, and retail for $279.99 with a 2-year contract. The Treo 755p should be available withing the next week or two. on Sprint

[Via Engadget]

For smartphone users, your choice of handset becomes a point of pride and personal identity. Whatever your mobile OS pleasure may be, the handset you choose often dictates the type of third-party software you’ll have access to. Handango, one of the wireless industry’s biggest software retailers, recently released its 1st quarter reports for application sales. The numbers of newly added apps are broken down by platform for easy digestion.

1. Windows Mobile Pocket PC – 843 adds
2. Symbian – 825 adds
3. Windows Mobile Smartphone – 273 adds
4. Palm OS – 253 adds
5. RIM – 203 adds

This list, in many ways, confirms what we already know: The Palm OS is dying out and Windows Mobile/Symbian users like to play with new applications. The top Windows Mobile application: MobiTV.

[Via Gearlog]

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