2010 February » TamsPalm - the Palm OS / web OS Blog

Palm: webOS device production has NOT been halted

Feb 132010

chinese new years eve Palm: webOS device production has NOT been halted Well-reputed analyst houses think before giving out releases. OTR Global apparently forgot to check the calendar when declaring that webOS device production was halted – but forgot to look at the calendar.

The real reason for the delay is the Chinese new year – Palm’s plant is in China, and Chinese celebrate the Chinese new year just like Europeans or Americans celebrate new year’s eve. This means state-wide vacations…

Palm’s Derick Mains furthermore stated the following:

Palm regularly adjusts its product manufacturing levels to manage inventory. In anticipation of the Verizon Wireless launch and Chinese New Year, we increased production levels prior to February, and anticipate ramping production back up after the Chinese New Year ends.

Not much to add here…

Image: Wikimedia Commons / Bob Jagendorf

Why styli are a good thing

Editorials 4 Responses »

Feb 122010

In the mobile industry, all things go in waves: things are cool, get forgotten about and come back again. Apple’s iPhone made stylusless touchscreens cool – come the winter, the coolness stops.

The image below hits us via kottke.org:
sausage stylus Why styli are a good thing

According to him, more and more South Koreans now use sausages to allow them to tap on their iPhone’s screen without undressing their gloves. Insane, but true…

The point is this: a stylus is better in various usage scenarios ranging from hitting small targets to on-screen writing and note taking. After all, humans don’t dip their fingers into ink when it comes to writing…

O8F-CASG hits FCC – could be AT&T’s Pre

Palm News No Responses »

Feb 122010

AT&T has stated intentions to release webOS devices some time ago – and it looks like the process is getting started slowly but surely.

The reason for this suspicion is short and sweet: the FCC has just released the following confidentiality request from Palm:
palm fcc letter O8F CASG hits FCC could be AT&Ts Pre

Looking at the ID’s, we see that we are looking at a GSM box – which means that some kind of GSM Pre is likely to hit the road soon…

Emblaze Else shown at MWC

Hardware News 2 Responses »

Feb 112010

We’ve heard quite a bit about Emblaze’s Else in the past – and it looks like we might get loads of hands-on opportunities in the near future.

Their PR agency has just sent me the image below:
emblaze else invite Emblaze Else shown at MWC

GPS vs Sun – disturbances upcoming

Miscellaneous 3 Responses »

Feb 102010

For most of us, GPS is a no-brainer – if we need to know where we are, we fire up that transmitter and are good to go. Unfortunately, this could change in the not-so-far future.

The British BBC reports the following:

The Sun’s irregular activity can wreak havoc with the weak sat-nav signals we use.

The last time the Sun reached a peak in activity, satellite navigation was barely a consumer product.

But the Sun is on its way to another solar maximum, which could generate large and unpredictable sat-nav errors.

…

Even though many of us distrust large media services when it comes to tech, their story looks very ok to me. The image below is from the NASA, and shows the earth’s magnetic field.
sun gps disturbance GPS vs Sun disturbances upcoming

If the sun now emits a magnetic cloud of its own, the fields get distorted – which confuses the system. Of course, we don’t quite know how strong this will really become…

webOS 1.4 drops on the 15th of February – Sprint-only, for now

Palm News No Responses »

Feb 102010

Palm originally planned to achieve “parity” across all devices – whenever an OS update was to be released, all devices were to get the update at the same time.

This, however, robs Palm of an important “pressure tool” against operators, and seems to have dropped. Instead, webOS 1.4 will likely be Sprint-only for now:
webos 1.4 release webOS 1.4 drops on the 15th of February Sprint only, for now

While we could of course also be looking at an incomplete picture (aka 1.4 is ready for other boxen, toov – but has not been leaked so far), I personally think that Palm’s strategy is excellent. Palm needs Sprint, and Sprint needs Palm – whatever can be done to reinforce this partnership is good…

Image: Engadget

Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology could be unveiled at the MWC

Hardware News No Responses »

Feb 102010

OLED screens were introduced to the mobile market by Sony – ever since, the folks at Samsung’s have paved the road. Their latest exploit could drop at the MWC.

GSMArena shares the shot below – it shows an unknown Samsung device next to an iPhone 3G:
samsung super amoled Samsungs Super AMOLED technology could be unveiled at the MWC

Korean news service jknews chimes in claiming that the technology will first be shown at MWC, and will deliver up to 20% more outdoor readability (a classic OLED weakness).

As of this writing, nobody knows how this advantage is achieved and whether these panels will also be sold to other manufacturers – stay tuned for further info as we get it!

US Dept. of Transportation plans crackdown on batteries

Miscellaneous No Responses »

Feb 092010

Coming from Austria, yours truly has a healthy dislike of government agencies – wherever the government gets involved, idiocy and bloat usually follow suite.

Travelers and gadget heads in the USA will soon enjoy even more of the above-mentioned. PCWorld reports the following:

Buying your next laptop computer or smartphone online could suddenly get a lot more expensive if a little-known U.S. Department of Transportation proposal to tighten rules around the shipment of small, battery-powered devices by air goes through, says an industry group opposing the move.

Airline passengers would be affected too, as rules banning spare lithium-ion batteries in checked-in luggage would also be extended to alkaline and nickel metal-hydride batteries, argues George Kerchner, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Portable Rechargeable Battery Association.

…

For air travelers, this means that you are no longer allowed to put batteries or accumulators into checked luggage – which is just insane. More on that can be had at the URL above.

P.S. This is a non-political blog. However, I think that the Terrorists have already won their “war” with us – air travel is such a hassle nowadays that many evaluate taking the train more and more. One can always circumvent security measures if one really wants to.

Who pays for WebKit development

Palm News No Responses »

Feb 082010

WebKit is the browser engine used by almost every mobile device – except for Microsoft and RIM’s current devices. It thus is interesting to see which mobile company does all the work…

neugierig.org performed an analysis and ended up with the chart below:
webkit who pays Who pays for WebKit development

Not much to add here…

Kindle apps: use J2ME for development

Development No Responses »

Feb 072010

Amazon has just sent out a few invites to developers who indicated “interest” in the Kindle – it offered a further form, offering you to “apply for a place” in the Kindle developer test program.

Amazon has now posted an FAQ for Kindle developers – the most relevant questions are below:

# What APIs are available to me in the KDK?
The KDK is comprised of two sets of APIs:

* Java version 1.4 Personal Basis Profile (PBP) APIs for mobile devices.
PBP JavaDocs can be found at http://java.sun.com/javame/reference/apis/jsr217/.
* Kindle custom APIs which complement the PBP APIs and provide UI components, JSON and XML parsers, HTTP and HTTPS networking, secure storage, and other features. Other APIs like audio and dictionary access will be available in a future release of the KDK.
KDK JavaDocs can be found at http://kdk-javadocs.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html.

# I’ve already built a Java Micro Edition (J2ME) application. Can I port it to Kindle?
Yes. You should be able to modify existing Java applets and J2ME software to run on Kindle.

…

As of now, Tamoggemon has not been accepted – stay tuned!

webOS starts to show up in AdMob reports

Palm News 2 Responses »

Feb 062010

This one is great news for Palm – their webOS has just begun to show up in the AdMob traffic reports. All the figures below are from the December edition, which can be had in PDF form here…

First of all, webOs is starting to show up in charts – it has amazing 2% of the world-wide OS share, and is distributed across countries as follows:
1 webOS starts to show up in AdMob reports

It has furthermore managed to surpass the Centro’s late popularity marks in the USA:
2 webOS starts to show up in AdMob reports

And even makes it onto the list in Western Europe:
3 webOS starts to show up in AdMob reports

O2: Pre sells “good” in Great Britain

Palm News No Responses »

Feb 052010

0b O2: Pre sells good in Great Britain The UK was one of the first countries in Europe to get the Pre – O2 interduced it a few months ago, and was not heard from since.

A recent Reuters report now revealed the following:

“It will take a long time before that goes away,” Dunne said. O2, which started selling the iPhone in November 2007, is the leading mobile operator in Britain ahead of Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile (DTEGn.DE) and 3 (0013.HK).

Dunne said sales of the iPhone and good sales for the Palm Pre had helped the operator to finish the year well in Britain, and said he expected the next set of trading results to show that O2 was the only operator to grow in the period.

Looks like things aren’t as bad as some of us expected. Tune in in a few hours for even more good news…

Verizon: Pre Plus ads target females

Palm News No Responses »

Feb 052010

Traditionally, Palm devices were rather gender-neutral – there was a time when both yours truly and his wife used Palm devices for their daily chores.

However, things tend to move on – and Verizon feels that the Pre plus is a device aimed at females:

While this could of course be a tie-in for the upcoming Valentine’s day, it could also turn out to become a lasting negative asset for Pre brand – let’s see how this one evolves…