The HP Pre3 launched in Europe today, and oddly enough, HP had very little to say about it. With the TouchPad price falling like a rock, you’d expect that its intended complementary device — and HP’s flagship phone — would launch with more fanfare. But instead HP let the device land in its EuroStore and gave a short response to PreCentral, the first publication to notice its availability. Either way, the most important thing is that the carrier-free smartphone is ready to roll.

For US$490, the Pre3 can be all yours sans contract, which is a beautiful thing. Specs on this beast include a single-core 1.4GHz processor from Qualcomm, a 5-megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash capable of video capture in 720p, and a forward-facing VGA camera for video chat. It comes with either 8GB or 16GB of storage and sports a 3.58-inch 480×800 capacitive touchscreen along with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

Speaking of keyboards, HP says this is the largest QWERTY keyboard on any Palm phone to date, so if messaging is your thing then this may be what you’re looking for. The Palm EuroStore listing doesn’t clarify whether the GSM Pre3 will run webOS 2.2 or 2.3, but if you’d rather hold out to make sure you get the latest and greatest, the FCC filing for the device promises webOS 2.3 upon the U.S. launch.

Industry sources at Foxconn Technology and Compal Communications are stating that they are currently manufacturing multiple WebOS devices including the so-called PalmPad.

Accordingly, Palm`s new smartphones manufactured by Foxconn and Compal Communications will all adopt the brand`s Linux-based mobile operating system, WebOS, which will more or less allow the two suppliers to gain manufacturing familiarity with Palm`s Pre Plus and Pixi Plus phones.

In related news, it’s cute to watch how the guys at PreCentral treat the information that this will be a Palm branded phone rather than an HP one with relief (“It’s a comforting notion that these would be Palm handsets (or tablets (or toasters) and not HP branded, calming our fears of the Palm brand fading away anytime soon.”) They’re like the kids in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome waiting for Walker to come back.

via CENS via Precentral

Fixes:
* Time Zone bug fixed
* Network time sync bug fixed to reflect accurate Network time
* Bluetooth car-kit transition to device corrected
* No EV icon bug fixed (random)
* Random browser formatting bugs fixed
* Fixed bug that incorrectly displayed Sprint when actually was Digital Roaming
* Missing Contact issue specifically with swap down to 1.2.9.1 or less
Feature Updates:
* Phonebook Transfer (import & export)
* Adds Video Capture capability & edit
* Calendar Enhancements
* Messaging Enhancements
* Improved Performance (Phone & CAL)
* Email Enhancements
* Notification Enhancements
* Adds Adobe Flash 10.0 (Pre Only)
* NOTE: The 1.4 software adds the ability to use the Flash 10.0 Adobe plug-in which will be available shortly from the Palm Appl Catalogue.

Sprint via BGR via Giz

If you’re in the market for a WebOS Plus device then they’ll cost you $150 for the Pre and $100 for the Pixi whenever Verizon launches them.

We’re pretty bullish on these updates but obviously you’re your own person now and can make your own decisions.

via PhoneArena via Giz

We just did some live video from the Palm lounge where we saw the Pixi and Pre Plus, two improvements to the current WebOS line-up. Notable points? The 3D gaming was quite impressive and the design has been considerably improved in this iteration.


For one, there is no button on either device. Instead, you get a visual cue when in multi-tasking mode that allows you to tap to enter the home screen and slide to move back and forth. The devices have 16GB of memory and are Touchstone inductive charger plates built-in, which means you can use the Touchstone charger without changing the plates.

This model also includes WiFi built-in for both models.

We can expect these to drop on January 25th on Verizon, an interesting development.

The rumor on the street is that Verizon just ordered 400,000 handsets from Palm. Since Palm has a keynote scheduled for the 7th at CES, perhaps Verizon knows something that the rest of us don’t. Analysts are predicting upgraded handsets and an update to the webOS, but Palm is pretty good at keeping leaks to a minimum, so we’ll probably have to wait until they or Verizon make it official.

Amazon is running a deal on the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, selling the new-ish Sprint smartphones for $80 and $25, respectively, with a two-year contract and free activation.

The Pre runs for $150 directly from Sprint, while the Pixi normally sells for $100. You have to deal with $100 mail-in rebates on both phones, too, whereas the Amazon deal includes an instant discount. The free activation deal lasts until November 23rd.

Palm Pre Phone (Sprint) [Amazon.com]

Palm Pixi Phone (Sprint) [Amazon.com]

[via Barron’s]

When your smartphone drops from $299 ($199 with contract) to $79 over a summer, you have to wonder what’s going on. Two rumors are circulating this AM, one that Palm is laying off folks, perhaps in the Windows Mobile team.

UPDATE from Palm: “We are not laying people off. As we continue our transformation we are better aligning our staff with our business objectives.”

The estimated sales for the Pre topped out at somewhere under the 810,000 range (Palm reports it sold 810K units last quarter and states at least half of those where Pres) at the end of August and they went from $299 ($199 with contract) to about $79 in about eleven weeks. While this might be normal for a feature phone – the subsidy kicks in once they’re sure that the early adopters who simply must have the LG Chocolate have had their fix – this isn’t good for a smartphone that was supposed to be the lead invasion force for a new WebOS smartphone renaissance.

Finally, Palm has backed off over iTunes Syncing. The latest WebOS update doesn’t sync with iTunes and won’t be syncing with iTunes any time soon. After using brute force and then running to the USB standards body, the company may have finally given up.

The end of Palm will come quickly this time. They’ve been idling for too long – since about 2004, in fact – and if they can’t push through their first year with at least some modicum of success it’s over.

For more info about Palm’s numbers check out Jason’s post about the 810K figure.

As far as updates go, this one isn’t terribly exciting. Palm added support to phone downloads from the Amazon music store (you used to have to use WiFi), backed up your bookmarks to your profile (so you won’t lose them if something bad happens), added a location feature to the calendar function, and added the ability to search to your emails based on the folder.

There have been some major updates to the App Catalog, including the ability to store payment information (pay apps anyone? this is pretty huge for both users and developers), and the ability to require a password any time that payment method is used. You will be able to reinstall previously purchased applications without having to pay for them again, by locating the application, and tapping “Download for free”. Obviously Palm is moving toward a model that will (hopefully) liven up their catalog.

You can download the update and get more specific details from here, but the one thing that is noticeably missing is iTunes support. Apple is still waging war with Palm over that one, and we’ll probably have to wait for the next update before we see the next salvo.

This deal is of course for new subscribers that sign a 2-year agreement, but the end price is the cheapest we’ve seen yet. With prices this low, it kind of makes you wonder how much the Pre’s little brother, the upcoming Pixi, will be when it’s finally available. [Walmart via everythingpre]

This deal is of course for new subscribers that sign a 2-year agreement, but the end price is the cheapest we’ve seen yet. With prices this low, it kind of makes you wonder how much the Pre’s little brother, the upcoming Pixi, will be when it’s finally available. [Walmart via everythingpre]

The Pixi is a non-slider with touchscreen and full keyboard. It will cost about $149 with two year contract and rebates on Sprint. You have 8GB of on board storage and it takes 2-megapixel pictures – down from the Pre’s 3-megapixels.

There is no Wi-Fi, a dealbreaker for many. The Pixi will be available in multiple “Artist Series” styles and will be available around the holidays.

The Pre costs about $199 – cut to $99 for a bit and then raised back up – so a $50 savings isn’t much when it comes to a device without Wi-Fi. I think the average smartphone buyer is looking for a few things in a device – a touchscreen, 3G networking, and, ideally, some alternative form of transfer. This doesn’t have it.

That said, it’s a fascinating move by Palm. Either they wanted to bury this news in the Apple event today or they foolishly thought this would overshadow the event. I’m betting on the former.

WebOS is a contender but with phones like the Hero and the Tattoo appearing on the horizon and HTC really taking a a hard look at its competitors – and eating them – Palm may be barking up the wrong tree.

We’ll have hands on later today.

Thin Palm Pixi Phone Puts

Fast, Intuitive Communication at Fingertips

Palm’s Thinnest Phone Yet Expands Palm webOS Line with Customizable Style

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 9, 2009 – Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today introduced the Palm® Pixi™ phone for faster, more intuitive and personal communication in a compact and customizable design.(1) With the instinctively useable Palm webOS™ platform, strikingly thin design, a visible full keyboard and fashionable personalization options, Palm Pixi lets you express yourself in amazingly useful ways. It’s scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays.

“With Palm webOS, we’re creating a new, more intuitive smartphone experience defined by unmatched simplicity and usefulness,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style.”

In addition to linking your information from Google™, Facebook and Exchange ActiveSync, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration to Palm Synergy™ and assembles it all in a single view.(2) You can get your Yahoo! contacts, calendar and IM, and access to your LinkedIn contacts, including job titles. Synergy on Palm Pixi makes messaging easier by showing you all your conversations with the same person in one chat-style thread, so you can start a conversation on AIM Instant Messenger, Google Talk™ or Yahoo! Messenger and continue it by text message later.(3)

Complementing the phone’s already rich Facebook integration with the contacts, phone, calendar and photo applications, a new Facebook application will be available with Palm Pixi so you can see and comment on all the latest news from your friends, as well as easily update your status. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures.(4) The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.

Personalization with Style

For those who want to express themselves with some extra style, Palm is introducing the Palm Pixi Artist Series. Designed by some of today’s most unique and compelling artists, these numbered, limited-edition back covers let you change designs to suit your mood. You can see the first collection in the series, as well as information about the artists, at www.palm.com/artistseries. Palm will be showcasing the fashionable new Palm Pixi with the Artist Series covers this week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York (Sept. 10-17).

You can also tailor Palm Pixi to your interests with downloadable applications from the Palm Beta App Catalog, including the latest entertainment and social networking applications such as Local Concerts by iLike, and Yelp™.(5) You can use Palm media sync to customize your phone with music, photos and videos from iTunes (Versions 8.1.1-8.2.1)(6), or use the on-device Amazon MP3 store to purchase individual songs or full albums over-the-air.(3)

“Palm Pixi continues Sprint’s leadership in providing useful and innovative devices on America’s most dependable 3G network,”(7) said Dan Hesse, chief executive officer at Sprint. “We are pleased to be the first carrier to bring this device to market and offer both devices in the growing Palm webOS family. Sprint’s Everything Data plans, which provide unrestricted access to the Internet, mobile content and applications, and our Ready Now retail experience make for a perfect combination with these new Palm products.”

The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network reaches more than 271 million people, 18,652 cities and 1,838 airports, and Sprint’s networks are now performing at best-ever levels.

Customers who purchase Palm Pixi will benefit from Sprint’s Ready Now, which the company pioneered to help customers leave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phones they’re taking home. It is like having a free personal trainer that educates you on all your phone can do by setting up all the applications you want to use on the device.

Palm Pixi is also the perfect complement to Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan, which provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, social networking, web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. It’s a savings of $1,200 over two years versus some comparable competitor plans.

Palm Pixi Features

High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A)
2.63-inch multi-touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 resolution TFT display
Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
Exposed QWERTY keyboard for fast messaging
Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities), including Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM
High-performance, desktop-class web browser
Integrated GPS(8)
Multimedia options, including pictures, video playback and music, and featuring a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
Email, including Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (Google push, Yahoo! push, POP3, IMAP)(9)
Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
8GB of internal user storage (~7GB user available)(10)
USB mass storage mode
MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
The first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627™ chipset
Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAh battery
Dimensions: 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D)]
Weight: 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces)
Sprint services, including Sprint TV® and Sprint Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint’s exclusive NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live

Availability and Pricing

The Palm Pixi phone is scheduled to be available from Sprint in time for the holidays. Pricing for the phone, as well as the limited-edition Palm Pixi Artist Series covers, will be announced closer to availability. Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pixi and be notified when it’s available can register at www.palm.com/pixi.

In addition, effective today the Palm Pre™ phone from Sprint is available for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $150 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate. You can find this great pricing at Sprint stores, on the web (www.sprint.com) and by calling Sprint’s telesales group (1-800-SPRINT1). With the new Palm Pixi phone, and Palm Pre at a lower price, Palm and Sprint are bringing greater choice of Palm webOS phones to a larger audience.

Pre-thinking brings us the latest Tamara Hope Pre Ad with young Tamara talking more to her Pre than directly at us.

Interestingly, Tamara looks much better when she isn’t Palm’s ghoulish Pre homunculus. Click through for a pleasant surprise.

When it comes to keyboards, you just can’t make everyone happy. Provide a virtual keyboard, and people complain of inaccuracy and difficult of use. Provide a physical keyboard, and people complain because their dainty hands only have enough strength to slide out the keyboard three times a day. You’ve gotta provide both, or you’ve just given the Internet something to rant about.

Such is the case with the Palm Pre. Almost immediately after launch, the fan forums were filled with flames regarding the handsets lack of an onscreen keyboard.

Well, the Palm Pre does have a virtual keyboard; it’s just limited to a handful of fairly rare characters. The guys over at WebOS Internals have figured out a way to patch into this to add the standard QWERTY keys and make it pop up and stay open at the appropriate times, thus saving dozens of seconds per year that would otherwise be spent sliding the actual keyboard open. The patch is in a shaky state (pre-alpha) as of now, but it mostly works as intended in both portrait and landscape modes.

If you’re up for a bit of hackery for the sake of some onscreen tippity-tappin’, read this and then this for details on how to make it happen.

[Via PreCentral]

This is going to end well, and no one will be upset about this. Also, everything I said in that last sentence is probably wrong.

When Debian developer Joey Hess started tinkering with webOS, he noticed that it was sending something to Palm once a day. Surely, Palm wasn’t sending anything too potentially incriminating without making it blatantly obvious to the user, right? Wrong.

Joey tore apart the data the Pre was transmitting, and there it was, smack dab at the top of the page:

{ “errorCode”: 0, “timestamp”: 1249855555954.000000, “latitude”: 36.594108, “longitude”: -82.183260, “horizAccuracy”: 2523, “heading”: 0, “velocity”: 0, “altitude”: 0, “vertAccuracy”: 0 }

That was Joey’s position at the time the data was sent, accurate to the same degree that the Google Maps application was.

Also included was a list of every application Joey used, along with how long they were used for (as measured by “launch” and “close” parameters), along with crashlogs. Last but very much not least, it also sent a manifest file of all applications installed on the phone – including third-party applications not authorized by Palm. All of this data is sent to ps.palmws.com.

For some crazy reason, people don’t really like having this sort of information sent back to the mothership without their explicit consent. Palm knows this, of course, and has their bases covered in their privacy policy:

Location Based Services. When you use location based services, we will collect, transmit, maintain, process, and use your location and usage data (including both real time geographic information and information that can be used to approximate location) in order to provide location based and related services, and to enhance your device experience.

The latter part of that sentence, “in order to provide location based and related services”, makes perfect sense – you open Google Maps, and it needs to find your location. Sure. Then they tack “enhance your device experience” onto the end, essentially giving them full reign to send your data wherever the hell they want as long as it potentially makes the experience better.

Of course, Palm’s privacy policy could say that they have the right to punch you in the face and light your shoes on fire, and no one would notice. Even the most anal of gadget users don’t tear through EULAs and privacy policies before booting up their device. When it comes to location tracking and device activity, you must alert the user and specifically request permission. If you don’t, you are spying, plain and simple. Regardless of what Palm is doing with this data, the user needs to be completely aware that it is being sent.

Furthermore, why would Palm need this data? It’s not for marketing reasons; you know where I bought my phone. It’s not for technical reasons on the carrier’s end, such as network load balancing – the towers are already fully aware of who’s in each cell.

Palm, your privacy policy opens by stating “Our goal is to help you make informed decisions about the personal information you share with us.” If thats the case, you’re doing a pretty terrible job.

You can see a full list of what is being transmitted here.

Update:

Palm has since issued a statement on the matter:

Palm takes privacy very seriously, and offers users ways to turn data collecting services on and off. Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience. For instance, when location based services are used, we collect their information to give them relevant local results in Google Maps. We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust.

We’re not sure what method of toggling data collection they’re talking about, unless we’re missing something tucked deep away. In the end, however, they still fall back on their privacy policy.

[Via IntoMobile]

Lets say you just finished hacking and cracking your myTouch 3G through the just unveiled rooting process. With the myTouch lagging behind some other in the looks department, your first quest is to retheme it. You’d heard about a Palm Pre skin, which decks Android out with Pre-esque visuals from top to bottom. Partly out of spite and partly out of genuine curiosity, you set out to find it.

Sorry Charlie, it’s too late.

Earlier this week, the developer of the Palm Pre skin, L3wish, received a letter from the Sunnyvale mothership. “You should probably take this stuff down, or we’ll stop pretending you’re not infringing all sorts of copyrights,” it read – except spread out across 714 words.

Citing the potential for “widespread consumer confusion” and the usage of Palm’s trademarks (the skin was outright called “Palm Pre theme”), Palm demanded that all materials be taken down. The developer has since pulled the download, and any instances of it we knew of have disappeared. You can probably find them in a few minutes with Google – but then again, so can Palm’s lawyers.

[Via EngadgetMobile]

Didja hear that RadioShack is rebranding? The hoopla will of course include some sales to drive traffic. Apparently the Pre will be part of this upcoming sale and will be only $150 for new customers. Nice.

We’ve seen it lower thanks to a Best Buy snafu and one website offering a one day rebate, but this might be the first legitimate price cut on the Pre. Now just to be clear, this is for new Sprint customers. Current subscibers eligable for equipment upgrades will still have to pay $219 for the handset, which is $20 more than what you’ll pay at a Sprint store, natch.

[...] his significant expertise in strategic brand design and management to Palm’s global advertising, marketing communications, PR, events and web design.

Good enough. Palm doesn’t have to do much on its packaging – the Pre package is really cool – but Zwerner was once the Senior Art Director for Apple and Director of Packaging for the company in 2003.

I think the goal here is to create a unified brand design for the next Palm devices. My hope is that he puts that demonic spirit of a girl killed by an exploding Palm Treo back into its soul catcher.

Advertising and branding are very complicated and very unpredictable fields, and success can be measured according to any number of metrics. Modernista, the ad agency behind the soft-talking-lady ads that only occasionally seem to be talking about phones, seem to be measuring success based on attention. Of course, the attention is almost entirely negative, but that doesn’t faze them.

In an article in Ad Age, Executive Creative Director at Modernista, Gary Koepke, discusses the oft-maligned “Ms. Hope” spots.

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.

“Polarizing” is industry-standard code for “universally mocked,” in case you’re confused.

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?

Yes, what about those people? I would submit that the first step towards good advertising is knowing your audience. An advertiser must ask first of all, who is the product for and who is the ad for. Is this an ad for women, for men, is it for experts, for novices? In this case, it’s for experts, since he says it’s about people who want a great smartphone. They’re not aiming at the feature-phone set, they’re aiming at established users of smartphones.

Now that that’s established, what is the strategy of the ad? Are you trying to explain? Convert? Attack? Do you want to be direct or indirect? Sell it whole or piecemeal? For Palm, it has to be conversion, because as they’ve always said, this is about taking smartphone users from other platforms (they’ll likely target Eos ads at newer and upgrading users). Let’s see what they came up with.

Okay… so the target is expert smartphone users and the object is conversion, that much was evident from Palm’s strategy and Koepke’s statement. Then why the devil is their ad a soft-spoken lady telling parables about jugglers in the park?

I can only imagine that Modernista felt that Palm’s whole new approach to the smartphone OS required a more meta approach to advertising. But meta-advertising and oblique advertising have a bad reputation for a reason (Welcome to the social, anyone?) — if your meta-idea is difficult to process, your supposedly insidious advertisement gets knocked out of the target brain by the next shiny object that appears on screen.

I’m not a director of creative whatever, but as a consumer and writer I’m a special kind of expert on advertising: I know when it’s working on me. And simple observation of the internets after each ad hits reveals that it’s not working on anybody who sees one and can write about it. This wouldn’t be a problem (dumb, weird ads have succeeded before) — except I and people like me, the ones most impervious to this kind of advertisement, are the target audience.

The ads may have been effective if they were promoting something else, I can’t think of what — lotion, maybe, or a really nice oven. Actually, anything with a signal feature that makes it okay to have the majority of a 30-second spot be some lady’s opium-addled face, and only a tiny bit be the product itself (“Woah! Did you see that crazy oven?”). That’s cognitive contrast, and that’s okay if the essence of your product can be gotten across in a moment. Car companies get away with nonsense ads because they show a car. Fragrance ads get away with them because one ad is as good as another when you can’t smell the product. But in Palm’s case, nothing is shown that leads to any comprehension. Just bafflement — and not the kind of bafflement that makes you google things.

This discussion could go on and on, of course, into different theories of this and that, but I think that the smartphone-using set has definitively rejected these ads. They simply don’t work, because the most compelling aspect of Palm’s proposition (the damn phone) is de-emphasized almost to non-existence. And despite the smooth nature of the spots, they don’t fail gracefully.

[via Giz and BGR]