It’s pretty much obligatory at this point: someone announces a new piece of hardware, gets a lot of attention, and iSuppli tears it apart and prices the components. Whether they’ve managed to get ahold of a Pre and actually tear it apart or they just dug up a list of components, we’re not sure – but iSuppli has pinned the final bill of materials for the Palm Pre at $137.38. Thats 46% of the $300 iSuppli expects Palm to charge Sprint for each handset, and 68% of 200 bucks they expect Sprint to charge the customer after subsidies. Not too bad – but of course, it doesn’t include R&D costs, marketing costs, nor all of the talent Palm had to hire to dig them out of their grave. [Via TGDaily] → Read More
It’s now just about May and there’s still been no official word from Palm when it comes to an official launch date or pricing for the Pre. All we know is what we’ve known for a long time — it’ll launch the first half of 2009; a window that is quickly closing. But a few pieces of new evidence today point to an actual specific date. And it’s a very intriguing one — June 7: The day before a likely Apple keynote address at its WWDC conference.
That is of course interesting because Apple could very well use that keynote to unveil the next version of the iPhone, just as it did last year for the iPhone 3G. A public launch of the Pre the day before could suck some of the wind out of Apple’s sails. But it’s also pretty risky, as it means Palm only has one day to convince everyone that its product is better then the latest version of the iPhone which is likely to have some substantial improvements. And no one knows for sure what all those improvements are — it could very well blow the Pre right out of the water, one day into its young life. → Read More
So, Laurence Toney or @lo_toney as he likes to be called on Twitter decided to flaunt the Pre he presumably has in his possession on Twitpic. I don’t know who he is and why he has a Pre but he’s a “busy Internet exec” and is some VP of Product and Marketing at Cake Financial. Anyway, he took some craptacular photos on his iPhone of the YouTube client and what appears to be the e-mail composition screen. Both are too blurry to note any significant details, but it’s out there and it’s just a bunch of random folk with the device. [PSGallery=2142gpgh4j] via Everything Pre → Read More
It seems that AT&T is getting ready to poison the Pre well by providing its staff with a damning comparison between the upstart Pre and that phone of phones, the iPhone. When was the last time you saw such a preemptive strike against a phone? I don’t think even the G1 got this kind of consideration.
Let’s see what AT&T has to say about Sprint’s comeback kid. → Read More
It seems that AT&T is getting ready to poison the Pre well by providing its staff with a damning comparison between the upstart Pre and that phone of phones, the iPhone. When was the last time you saw such a preemptive strike against a phone? I don’t think even the G1 got this kind of consideration. Let’s see what AT&T has to say about Sprint’s comeback kid. → Read More
$70 is probably a little more than most people plan on spending on a charger. But if we’ve learned anything over the iPhone years, it’s that people will pay through the nose for must-have accessories, and this is certainly a must-have accessory. According to a leaked pricing sheet Engadget got their hands on, $70 will be the asking price for Palm’s hot little touch-charger. But if you think about it, there will almost certainly be package deals lowering the price — just like any other phone or accessory. So let’s not all freak out, here. And of course, it’s just part of a whole family of these things. It’s possible that there’s a stripped-down version for $20 less, and a cool super-enabled one that’s $20 more. → Read More
Call the president! A Palm marketing manager let slip that Touchstone is a full family of near-field induction products and that the little Touchstone charger for the Palm Pre – basically that magnetic charger thing that you stick the Pre to in order to grab some juice – is just one of many products. → Read More
Call the president! A Palm marketing manager let slip that Touchstone is a full family of near-field induction products and that the little Touchstone charger for the Palm Pre – basically that magnetic charger thing that you stick the Pre to in order to grab some juice – is just one of many products. → Read More
Palm’s third quarter earnings have been reported, and they’re as bad as anyone might have expected. But with the Pre just around the corner and everything on track, according to CEO Ed Collligan, nobody should be worrying about that. It’s a fair assessment, really: it’s like a boxing match where you know your fighter’s got a win in him. He’s battered and bloodied from being beaten and bullied, but suddenly his opponent is flat-footed, caught off guard, and your guy is winding up for what could be a knockout punch. Would you cut your losses and leave the arena? Hell no! I can’t wait to try the Pre, and I hope it brings Palm all the success they deserve. So buck up, Palm-lovers, and see if they can’t land that haymaker. → Read More
The numerous iPhone developer’s rag to riches stories are certainly a reason while many random apps appear on the App Store; peeps want money. With the Pre launching soon though, developers are finding that the webOS platform is much easier to work with meaning….even you can make some cash. → Read More
Palm’s upcoming Pre has me all hot and bothered, so this emulator from TealOS sure looks enticing. It’s basically a skin that overlays on PalmOS devices like the Centro and gives it the feel of webOS. It seems to do a good job of replicating the things we’ve all seen of webOS, but it’s still PalmOS.
Anyone up for trying it out? It costs about $15. I would but I don’t have any Palm devices around the office. → Read More
Sprint may have lost $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter, but things are looking up, if only briefly. CNBC is reporting that Sprint has the exclusive rights to the Pre in the US for all of 2009. → Read More
Perhaps we shouldn’t read too far into this, but here’s what happened. The technical specifications on Sprint.com for the Palm Pre used to list “Phone as modem” with Bluetooth and USB tethering as a feature. Now, however, that feature is gone. You’ll recall that earlier this week, Sprint announced its Simply Everything Plan + Mobile Broadband for $150 per month. → Read More
Remember Sprint? They’re supposed to come out with the Palm Pre shortly but they just lost $1.6 billion in Q4 and dropped 1.3 million customers, 1.1 million of those monthly customers.
It’s not quite the February 15th rumor from a couple weeks ago, but BGR is reporting that the Palm Pre might be launching around March 15th according to an end-of-life (EOL) list of Sprint handsets leaked from somewhere inside the company. → Read More
Palm and Sprint might have a pickle on their hands. Now that the Palm Pre is the hottest upcoming phone of 2009, how are they going to sell the Treo PRO when the Pre is rumored to launch next month? Sprint thankfully has priced the PRO well with to a $200 price cut and a $100 MIR which brings the MSRP down to a respectable $249. Still, Windows Mobile on the PRO or the sexy, new webOS powering the Pre? Eh? At least the Treo PRO’s aggressive pricing shows that Sprint is willing to cut Palm’s outrageous pricing down to a reasonable level cause the iPhone is $199 and the Pre/PRO are hardly iPhone’s; okay, the Pre is hot, but you get the point. → Read More
At the tail end of Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call today, COO Tim Cook (CEO Steve Jobs, who is taking a medical leave of absence, was not on the call) noted that 17 million iPhones have been sold to date. When he was asked about the rising competition from Android, Blackberry, and Palm, Cook made an oblique threat:
We approach this business as a software platform business. We are watching the landscape. We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP. And if they do, we will go after anyone who does.
