MicroSoft Austria has just informed me that the release candidate of Windows 7 has just been uploaded to MSDN/TechNet. This means that all who are subscribed to either of the two services can now download it.
According to Microsoft, this release candidate has already reached a stability level where companies can start evaluating it – whatever that may mean…
P.S. Just in case anyone cares: Release Candidate is Microsoft-Speak for feature complete and decently stable..
Rumors about the Pre being cheaper than the iPhone 3G have popped up frequently in the last months – and could actually be true if iSupply’s preliminary analysis turns out to be correct.
According to them, the hardware of the Pre will cost about 140USD to build. Add in about 25 bucks for software, and we end up at about 170…which means that Palm earns over 100 dollars per piece if Sprint ends up paying 300 USD a box.
Of course, the teardown was not conducted with an actual unit – but they will IMHO only get lower over time…
O’Reilly has just released the fifth chapter of its WebOS book – it looks at advanced widgets:
The author describes them as following:
This chapter completes the review of the Mojo widgets with a look at Indicators, Pickers
and Viewers, the Filter List and the Scroller. Not all applications will use these widgets
because they are each designed for specific use cases…
As usual, further information can be had here:
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780596802097?tocview=true
The folks at Prethinking will probably get a call from somebody high up the Palm food chain quickly – the image on the left is part of a screenshot gallery which they just posted to their web site!
This leak can be interpreted in two ways:
Palm’s early developer program starts off for good
Early hands-on programs usually remain silent – until they open up to developers who were not “hand-picked” initially. The recent leaks could indicate that just this has begun to take place.
Palm pulls a Siemens Mobile
Of course, this can also mean something entirely else: some analysts (me NOT included) have recently started to claim that the Pre could be vaporware. Such carefully timed leaks could keep the buzz alive for some more time…
Further information can be had here:
http://www.prethinking.com/webos-early-sdk/webos-early-sdk
What do you think?
Week 2 of our Crazy Sunday raffle is over: this means that one price must be given away, and another one must be announced. Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, please allow me to thank you all for talking back!
Your comments are what keeps a news service like this one running. Tell us that you love us, or tell that you hate us (and why)…but show us that you are there! We love you all…seriously!
This week, you guys are entitled to a free pop at SplashData’s SplashMoney! SplashMoney is a really cool budgeting app – and is darn easy to use!
Last week’s price (a license of 4cast, a weather program) goes to Eli Greenfeld. In case anyone else wants a pop at the program, knock 20% off the product’s retail price in the TamsShop with the discount code CRAZYSUNDAY.
With that, this post ends – just talk back and leave behind an email address in order to participate!
Quite a bit of time has passed since we last heard from Krusell – but the boys just sent me their latest top-seller list:
1. (2) Nokia 3109
2. (1) Samsung SGH-i900/i910 Omnia
3. (8) Nokia 5800
4. (5) Nokia E71
5. (4) HTC Touch HD
6. (7) Nokia 3120
7. (3) Nokia 6300
8. (6) Nokia E51
9. (-) Sony Ericsson C702
10. (-) Sony Ericsson X1 Xperia
() = Last month’s position.On Krusell’s Top 10 list for April, six out of ten phones are Nokia. At the moment Nokia is a very strong brand in many markets, says Ulf Sandberg MD at Krusell. Though it is rather surprising a pretty simple handset as the Nokia 3109 takes the no. 1 position this month. We all know that most people who buy a smart phone or a more expensive device prefer to protect it with a case. Now also phones in the lower price range frequently shows up on our list. This is encouraging for us, but I am still a bit surprised, Mr Sandberg ends.
As usual: keep in mind that Krusell has a very strong high-street presence and thus has more “down-to-earth” figures compared to metering companies which focus solely on smartphones…
We have seen almost every aspect of the Pre in the last few months – the only open question revolves about pricing.
Credit Suisse, a famous analyst house, has just published their take on the topic:
…Credit Suisse analysts have taken another look at what’s in store.
The analysts estimate that the subsidized price, widely expected to be $199, may be as low as $150 if exclusive partner Sprint (S Quote) decides to make Pre a priority and sweeten the offer.
…
Credit Suisse also estimates that Palm will sell 1.3 million Pre phones this year, and 3 million next year. By comparison, Apple sold 4 million iPhones the first year and about 13 million the second year.
From my personal point of view, selling the Pre for 150$ would be a very smart decision: it would make the device a more palatable upgrade for all these who currently use a Centro.
Unfortunately, I am not too bullish on this actually happening: the past has shown us that the folks at Palm’s love to have sky-high MSRP’s to keep high-street retailers happy…
This one should definitely be taken with a large grain of salt – an individual which goes by the name Inside.Sprint.Now has posted a very detailed blog post containing all kinds of interesting, Pre-related things.
For me, the most crucial bit of info is that Palm left out Flash support:
Does Flash work in the Web application?
* No, as we learned earlier, the Web browser supports JavaScript, Secure Socket Layer (SSL), and cookies, but does not support plug-ins (Flash, Shockwave, VBScript, WML script, and so on) or Java applets.
Further information can be had at the URL below – enjoy:
http://insidesprintnow.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/sprint-palm-pre-release-date-soon/
P.S. Just in case anyone of you has the release date and wants to leak it: don’t. It is very well possible that multiple versions of the date circulate around as to make it easier to track down who leaked it. Palm’s director of loss prevention is a critically-acclaimed expert on canary traps…
The plethora of chargers used by different manufacturers has attracted EU regulation for quite some time – it looks like the US CTIA will now follow suite:
…
The CTIA wireless association endorsed a plan to create a common format for all cellular phone chargers.The plan, known as Universal Charging Solution, aims to have the majority of all new mobile phones use MicroUSB as a common charging interface. This would potentially lower the costs for end users because they could use the same charger for future handsets.
…
Even though I prefer the handling of MiniUSB to the somewhat difficult-to-unplug MicroUSB port, standardization definitely is helpful – imagine being able to travel with but one charger…
The images below are sure to ring a bell in the mind of quite a few of you. Long gone are the days…:
(post ends here)
P.S. Stories from the inside of MetroWerks are always gladly accepted.
The quote below is part of a recent press release from Deutsche Telekom, which is the mother company of the infamous carrier known as T-Mobile:
…The sale of more than 1 million G1 handsets since the market launch in October 2008 alone, and a total of over 1.5 million 3G-capable handsets sold in the United States, clearly shows, however, that customers are demanding products and ser-vices based on these increased bandwidths and that the provision of these products and services is an important selling point in competition.
…
From my personal point of view, this shows but one thing: the recession has not killed the US cell phone market (as of this writing). New players like Palm can still sell quite a few boxen if marketed right…
Feedback, anyone?
The folks at O”Reilly’s have just released yet another chapter of their WebOS book – the full table of contents is below:
In case anyone of you feels like taking a pop – the URL to the book is below:
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780596802097?tocview=true
Common sense tells us that carriers are opposed to all kinds of EU legislation which forces them to lower their prices – but this is not true in the case of the Austrian branch of Hutchison Whampoa.
Their never-lazy press team just sent out an email celebrating the change – the most interesting quotes have been translated below for your enjoyment:
…the average Three customer has voice-roamed 32 percent more since the last regulation…
…in the Past, Three has seen insane effects of affordable roaming. The ThreeLikeHome service boosted roaming use in participating networks insanely: in the first year, voice roaming increased by 427 percent, data roaming rose by 8900 percent (8900, no typo).
Of course, the latter figures can not be extrapolated directly due to the especially good conditions of the ThreeLikeHome bundle – but the basic message is clear: Customers want cheap roaming, and tend to roam a lot more as prices fall.
This one comes hot on the heels of Nintendo announcing the sale of half a million DSi’s in the first week after their US launch:
Apple sold 3.79 million iPhones during the quarter, and 11.01 million iPods – a figure that includes iPod touch devices, although also iPod Shuffles. Apple’s revenues for the quarter from iPhone handset sales, accessory sales and carrier payments topped $1.52 billion.
…
“The sum of iPhone plus iPod touch is now about 37 million units… The iPod touch is the runaway hit and it’s clearly being driven by the App Store.”
Just to keep the numbers in scale…
