If you’re desperately jonesing for a webOS device but hate those pesky sliders, today is your day, folks. It is the Palm Pixi’s first day of availability on Sprint. Going for $99.99 on a 2-year contract after a $100 mail-in rebate, we have to be completely honest and admit that we would personally snatch the Pre over the Pixi, but you own a computer and have navigated to BGR all on your own, so we’re sure you can make a decision over what handset to buy. Let us know if you pick one up today okay?

Also, for those that don’t mind waiting, Wirefly is practically giving the Pixi away at $24.99.

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WebOS junkies on Bell and Sprint should set aside some time this morning for an OS update, as webOS 1.3.1 has gone live. Sitting pretty at 126MB, some very useful changes have been made apart from the usual bug fixes. iTunes is not supported, but Synergy now includes Yahoo! contact and calendar sync while Sprint users now have Yahoo! IM. Forwarding and copying of a single SMS/IM message is now a go as is the ability to set unique ringtones for new messages while videos shot in widescreen are no longer automatically panned and scanned  There’s a bunch more that we’re not even going to bother getting into, so for the few of you that get kicks out of reading change logs, there are some links you might want to check out after the jump.

Read – Sprint

Read – Bell

Oh, you don’t remember? Well we’re back at it again, this time with one of our connects doing the unboxing ritual for us. There’s not all that much exciting to report, you know, with the handset shipping with a USB cable, charging adapter, instruction manual and battery. But hey, an unboxing is an unboxing damn it, and we’ve got the goods. We promised ourselves we weren’t going to take any shots but, with the Palm Pre going for $99 in Canada and the awesome HTC DROID Eris selling for $99 on Verizon, is anyone really going to spring for a $99-priced Palm Pixi? Only time will tell.

Thanks, Ninja J!

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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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!

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Likely because a) sufficient funds have been obtained from early adopters, and b) the dirt cheap $99 iPhone 3G is making it hard for people to switch to something new, Best Buy has lowered the price of the Palm Pre to $99.99 for those who purchase it on contract, a savings of $100. What’s more is that that pesky $100 mail-in rebate won’t have to be dealt with as Best Buy already has you covered where that’s concerned. But back to that $99.99 price tag. So far there is nothing to indicate that this new price-point is going to remain permanent, but for the sake of everyone involved we certainly hope that a $99.99 Pre is the new norm.

UPDATE: Best Buy’s John Bernier has Tweeted that the $99.99 Pre is an error and is “being corrected.” Anyone out there manage to get a Pre on the cheap?

And so the cat and mouse game continues — Palm found a loop hole that would allow it to provide Pre iTunes syncing out of the box… Apple said it would plug the hole… Palm said go for it, big guy… Apple plugged the hole… Palm found a new hole and re-enabled iTunes syncing with last night’s webOS 1.1 release. Can anyone guess what will happen next? Now worries though, as webOS 1.1 brings with it plenty of new features and functionality beyond iTunes syncing, such as several additions to Exchange support including remote wipe, PIN/password requirements, inactivity timeout, improved certificate handling, and more. Beyond that, a bevy of undocumented changes were outed last night as well. Hit the jump for the full list.

• Changed sound for notifications – You still can’t change them yourself, but the new sound is much richer, if a little quieter
• Animated drop down menus – they look really slick and really change the experience. The Context menus also have some nice animation.
• Lots of Photo app improvements. A more distinct bar between all photos and your albums in the photo app, plus they’re calling the Screenshot album “Screen Captures.” The preview thumbs also slide in from the right.  Faster photo rendering. Overall the Photos app feels much more fully baked.
• Emailing Memos – The memo app now has a menu option to email a memo.
• A new font for the Browser – uses Palm’s system font and, truly, it looks fantastic.
• Disabled the key combo in browser to open in a new card.  Boo-urns.
• Javascript interpreter Performance upgrades – this will speed up virtually everything and is great news
• Better Gmail handling – not failing when you tap on a notification for an email you’d already archived on the desktop
• A new icon for AIM
• More auto-complete / auto correct entries in the dictionary.
• With the slider open, the Center button now turns on the screen, where as before you had to hit a keyboard key or the power button.

So, Pre fans, definitely hit the updater if you haven’t already and enjoy the new features above along with iTunes sync — at least until Apple kills it again.

[Via PreCentral]

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We imagine all the die hards and overly-excitable types have already gotten their Palm Pre fix, but those of you who haven’t yet should know that you’re running out of excuses. As of today, the Pre is finally up for grabs through Sprint’s website, meaning not only is it possible to get a cutting-edge smartphone without having to put on a pair of pants, but you’ll also have successfully avoided contact with a human being in doing so. That is, until it comes time to mail off that $100 MIR but it’s all about the short term, right?

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Developers, start your engines. It’s been a long time coming but Palm’s Mojo SDK — the Software Development Kit that facilitates application development on the webOS platform — is finally ready for prime time. Having previously been available only to a select group of partners, many have been openly disappointed with Palm for taking so long to allow open access to the SDK. From a consumer standpoint, that’s the reason Pre owners have all of 30 apps to choose from in the App Catalog right now. Skimpy selection is soon to be a thing of the past however, as we presume developers will hit this SDK faster than you can say, “please keep farting apps off my Pre.” The bad news: Palm still won’t be accepting developer submissions until the fall.

[Via The Official Palm Blog]

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The fantastically blurry video after the jump shows the fruits of PreCentral forum member Cleanser’s labor, and Verizon fans will definitely want to check it out. The intrepid techie apparently managed to hack a Palm Pre, still exclusive to Sprint of course, and get it working on Verizon’s network. So far Cleanser has managed to get voice and SMS working just fine but he’s having a bit of trouble with data:

Only problem is that I can’t get data to work. Apparently webOS is checking to see if the device is provisioned or not before allowing a data session to take place. So my next step would be to somehow bypass this provisioning check.

So close, and yet so far. Cleanser also reports that it took a bit of convincing to get Verizon, now ‘open to all compatible handsets’, to add the device to his account. A bit of sweet talking seems to have gotten the job done though, thankfully. Hit the jump to enjoy the quick vid and keep those fingers crossed that he can manage to get data rolling soon.

[Via PreCentral]

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Following some big announcements from Europe earlier this week, it looks like Palm Pre owners on this side of the pond have some good news to look forward to as well. Word on the street suggests that Palm is prepping to unwrap webOS 1.1 within a month or so and the focus will be better positioning in the enterprise market by way of Exchange Active Sync enhancements and improved security. Rumored updates include:

• IT-initiated remote wipe
• Required PIN
• PIN complexity (numeric or alphanumeric)
• Device wipe after a certain number of failed PIN attempts
• Auto-lock after X minutes of inactivity
• Improved digital certificates

The Pre may also receive a number of new applications to coincide with webOS 1.1 hitting the scene, though it is unclear whether these new apps will be Palm-built or third-party additions to the App Catalog. So what say you, Pre owners — looking forward to the update or are there other features Palm appears to be holding off on that you’re waiting for?

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It wasn’t exactly a surprise but it looks like there’s finally some good news to report for Pre hopefuls across the pond. That news: O2 and Movistar have been announced as the exclusive European carriers for the Palm Pre. To be available in the UK, Ireland, Germany and Spain before the year is through, pretty much no other specific information was given as to when or for how much the device would retail for in each market. Those of you who might be interested in importing a GSM Pre take note — the specific UMTS/HSDPA bands that it will be packing have not yet been listed so keep those fingers crossed.

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