Aah, the joys of government certification – while I am usually a fan of deregulation, companies like the FCC or the WiFI certification alliance frequently bring us pictures like the one below:
If we look back at the Treo Pro, we know that devices happen to have the following designations:
UNA = UMTS North America
UEU = UMTS, EU
Let’s see how much longer Sprint’s exclusivity really lasts…
People who have invested into Palm’s stock before the Pre announcement have netted a nice bit of extra cash over the last months – unfortunately, it looks like its time to take the revenue to the bank.
Barron’s quotes two analysts as follows:
Kumar says that despite being positioned as a flagship product at Sprint (S), Palm shipped under 300,000 units in May and June. He says the company ramped up production aggressively in July when shipments exceeded build levels in the previous two months, but that the “momentum appears to have already peaked.” And here’s the punch line: Kumar contends that “due to weakening demand,” Pre production levels for the remainder of the year have been chopped by 500,000 units.
Grozovsky writes in a research note that his checks find Pre sales in July were down to about 100,000 units, from 200,000 in June – and that August is tracking to be even lower than July.
Careful observers of TamsPalm will recall that our recent analysis of Pre sales led us to a generous estimate of 300kpcs sold by end of July – the numbers generally sound reasonable.
Palm most definitely has not passed the 1 million mark so far, as its marketing team would have gone bonkers the moment this happens. 500k (which is also an important milestone) is also unlikely – given the increasingly negative market sentiment, the company would have grabbed each and every straw in reach…
Palm’s Pre has recently been caught in the act of phoning home about user’s position and application usage habits. As usual, Palm’s first response was to stick the head in the sand.
Don’t ask me how the folks at PhoneScoop’s have managed to get the following statement from Palm’s:
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.
Even though I am happy to see Palm talk about the issue openly, I miss one key statement: how can we turn the damn thing off, especially when roaming?
PreThinking reports that Palm has just unleashed a second revision of the Pre’s hardware:
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I took 20 people that bought a Palm Pre in the last 15 days and found some interesting things. These Pres were manufactured between 7/1 and 7/29 and are in the “sunset” box.
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In specific, the following issues are said to be addressed:
As of now, no new information is available. However, Palm is known for changing its hardware platform silently during a model’s production run (the Treo 600 went through more than 5 revisions AFAIK) – and as long as it’s for the better, I don’t see anyone complaining 
All those of you who have had a Sprint contract for some time should be made aware of the current ETF settlement – all those of you who are member of the group of people described by the sentence below should hit this link ASAP:
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All Persons in the United States who are or were parties to a personal fixed-term subscriber agreement for a Sprint, Nextel and/or Sprint Nextel Wireless Service Account for personal or mixed business/personal use, whether on the Sprint CDMA network or Nextel iDEN network, or both, excluding accounts for which the responsible party for the Wireless Service Account is a business, corporation or a governmental entity, entered into between July 1, 1999 and December 31, 2008 and whose claims relate in any way to an Early Termination Fee or use of an Early Termination Fee in a fixed-term subscriber agreement, and/or use or propriety of a fixed-term subscriber agreement whether the term was for the initial fixed-term subscriber agreement or subsequent extensions or renewals to the fixed-term subscriber agreement for whatever reason and/or who were charged by or paid an Early Termination Fee to Sprint, Nextel and/or Sprint Nextel, excluding only the Ayyad Class Claims and Persons whose right to sue Sprint Nextel as a Settlement Class Member is otherwise barred by a prior settlement agreement and/or prior final adjudication on the merits. The Settlement Class includes Persons who were subject to an ETF, whether or not they paid any portion of the ETF either to Sprint, Nextel and/or Sprint Nextel or to any outside collection agency or at all, and includes persons who are prosecuting excluded claims to the extent such persons have claims other than those expressly excluded. Also excluded from the Class are members of the judiciary, Defendants, any entity in which they have a controlling interest, and their officers and directors, and the members of their immediate families are excluded.
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In most cases, you can get a few dollars or free minutes – as said, hit the link above…
Image of Kauri shells (used for payment in ancient times): Wikimedia Commons / G. U. Tolkiehn
So far, the habit of phoning home was most commonly associated with Windows Mobile and its error reporting feature – but it looks like the Palm Pre is no better (or, actually, even worse). A website dubbed kitenet claims that every Pre sends data similar to the one below to Palm at regular intervals:
{ “errorCode”: 0, “timestamp”: 1249855555954.000000, “latitude”: 36.594108, “longitude”: -82.183260, “horizAccuracy”: 2523, “heading”: 0, “velocity”: 0, “altitude”: 0, “vertAccuracy”: 0 }
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{ “appid”: “com.palm.app.phone”, “event”: “close”, “timestamp”: 1250006362 }
{ “appid”: “com.palm.app.messaging”, “event”: “launch”, “timestamp”: 1250006422 }
{ “appid”: “com.palm.app.messaging”, “event”: “close”, “timestamp”: 1250006446 }
Translating this to clear text means the following: the Pre does inform Palm about your location and application usage habits. These reports are not only used for detecting crashes (like on WM), but are also used to determine which apps get used the most (which could be used for the App catalog).
As of now, no further information is available – stay tuned for further info as we get it!
Ah, the glory – Palm has just sent the creator of a Pre theme for Android the following letter:
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While Palm appreciates that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, we are concerned that the use of the name “Palm Pre Android Theme” for your product is likely to cause people to erroneously assume that your application is sponsored, authorized or has been approved by Palm, or that you have, or your company has, a relationship with Palm. Creation of such consumer confusion would constitute an infringement of Palm’s well-established trademark rights.
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Further information can be had here…
Microsoft C# is a difficult language: its neither C, C++ nor Java, but looks similar to all three of them. It nevertheless provides an easier transitional path to .NET for people who know C or Java (for them, VB is completely new) – can APress’s Beginning C# 2008 show you the way?
The book starts out by looking at the basics of the .NET framework – what is CIL, why are things implemented the way they are and so on. The next two chapters look at variables and strings: this is not ideal for beginners, as it does not allow you to start coding immediately.
Want to find out more? Visit our sister site TamsPPC:
http://tamsppc.tamoggemon.com/2009/08/11/beginning-c-2008-the-review/
TreoCentral users report the following:
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Just received a letter from Palm/AT&T stating that I need to visit www.palm.com/680CriticalUpdate for a s/w update to work with a network change AT&T is making on Sep 15th, 2009. The page has a download link for 2.11-ATT, which was released December 11, 2007. They say it’s needed to “provide optimal call performance” after their Sep 15th network update. My 680 still works great and I’d hate an upgrade to hose anything (I’m still on 1.09-ATT… don’t use PTT, etc.). The page also notes “This software will not work on Unlocked GSM devices.”, which mine is. Anyone know if this firmware update is really needed? Thx.
Edit: I called Palm and AT&T, and their CS was useless, each said to call the other…
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As of now, nobody seems to know why AT&T is insisting on this update – let’s see what happens on Sept. the 15th…
I would file this thingy straight into the folder batshit insane:
The manufacturer charges 13$ a pop and describes the product as following:
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Some of my friends got the brand new Palm Pre and that has me intrigued since I have been reading and researching about this new phone in comparison to the new iPhone in the smart phone market. I have been playing with it so I love to hear pros and cons from fellow smart phone enthusiasts! Here is my very cool soap creation that models from the Palm Pre!
This soap is pretty close to the actual phone in size. It has the small black button at the bottom and the “screen icons” in its “flat screen”. The top layer of the soap is dark grayish black and the bottom layer is a slightly lighter shade of gray.
It weighs about 3 oz and I have one scented with a Bourbon & Coke fragrance. (I’m happy to provide a list of available fragrances to customize it.) Not only does it look cool, it is also infused with shea butter. It can also be made without fragrances or without shea butter.
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P.S. As of now, the boys seem to be out of stock…
Long-term followers of this blog probably know that many articles are written with an MSI Wind U100 notebook/netbook – this device sold like hotcakes and is still being milked by MSI wherever it can. Their latest attempt goes by the name U200, is 12.1 inches large and has just been leaked by a German notebook shop:
Looking at the specs, we see a new and unspecified Intel CULV CPU, a larger screen with a slightly higher resolution, 4GB of RAM and – other than that – mostly unchanged specs.
The asking price of 629 Euros and the shipment ETA of 3-4 weeks gives me food for thought though – let’s see how it all plays out…
A recently-released survey of US handset sales performed by IDG led to the following top-seller list:
1. BlackBerry Curve (83xx series and 8900)
2. Apple iPhone 3GS (both 16GB and 32GB versions)
3. BlackBerry Pearl (81xx series but not the Pearl Flip)
4. Apple iPhone 3G (8GB and 16GB versions)
5. BlackBerry Bold
6. BlackBerry Storm
7. T-Mobile G1
8. Palm Pre
9. HTC Touch Pro
10. HTC Touch Diamond
P.S. This data is focused solely on devices sold in the second quarter of 2009 in the USA…
via BerryReporter
Eyewitnesses have informed us that Palm’s Chuq van Rospach made the following statement at a developer meeting a few minutes ago:
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“we’re also trying to build some things into the catalog … and different ways to get your app into the catalog and get it noticed. … how can we help people with good apps get that kind of notice and marketing … [we want to make sure that] the really good apps get that notice, not the cheap apps, and fighting that whole race to the bottom is one of those things that we want to see if we can do a little differently.”
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Even though we have not been able to get this confirmed as of now (and probably won’t until Monday), this statement nevertheless makes good sense if you look at Palm’s current economy: on average, Palm OS applications sell for more than 10$/license.
The current Palm OS economy is neither set nor able to live in a world of 1$ applications – even “mundane” things like lite versions of applications are seen as unneeded or plain evil by many established Palm OS developers. For them, a model based on mass is plain evil: many current Palm OS developers are more willing to give up on their companies rather than change their ways of operation.
Palm is in an extremely difficult situation: it’s past, extremely spotty track record (Cobalt, Foleo) has diminished its existing developer base; creating a huge group of developers who currently earn good cash on other platforms. For them, going back to Palm is not an option. IMHO, the only plays where the orange boys can effectively recruit developers is among their current devs: which, as already said, struggle to exist in mass-driven rather than quality-driven markets.
Thus, Palm’s decision IMHO is not a decision of free will but rather one of force: if they do not adapt their marketing and distribution scheme, they could very well end up without any developers. Expect higher prices and possibly even the return of ESDs like Handango or MobiHand – the infrastructure for them is already well in place.
What do you think?
PreThinking have just gotten their hands on two extremely large batteries for the Pre – they describe them as following:
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We haven’t tested the super extended batteries yet, but based on our results from the 1400mAh battery, these will offer the extra juice like promised. I’ll recommend the 2800mAh over anything else currently on the market, because it offers a lot more battery life vs. Standard, plus it feels really good in the hand, especially while typing. But if you really need even more juice, go for the 3800mAh.
I’ll admit though that with the 3800mAh extended back cover, your Pre will look a little weird, but worth the juice.
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In case anyone of you feels like doubling the size of this Pre – hit the link below:
http://www.prethinking.com/home/2009/8/6/in-depth-look-at-palm-pre-super-extended-battery-2800mah-and.html
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