TamsPalm - the Palm OS Blog

Update: the green version of the box is dubbed lime! A big thank-you goes out to Oliver W for the tip!

Austrians will probably know Karel Gott’s famous song about the red door…at least after it was used as a political parody about two years ago. Palm’s Centro is now said to be coming to Sprint’s in two new colors…and one of them looks like a pink Centro after having taken a walk through Karel’s back yard…

SprintUser’s usually reliable r0fl has uploaded the two renderings shown below. The color shades are dubbed “Lime” and “Rose”:

As of now, nobody knows when the boxen will actually hit the road. I am pretty sure that the images are authentic, as similar renderings have been circulated of the Pink Centro before it dropped:

What do you think?

I consider Resco News the best news reader for mobile devices and have used the Palm and S60 versions ever since they were released internally at Resco’s.

Jan Slodicka has just informed us that the program has been updated to v2.40, which is a free upgrade for everybody owning v2 of the program.

Version 2.40 has received the following upgrades:
Offline article download

• Articles have new download icon - an arrow oriented downwards. (Shortcut ‘d’ works as well.) By pressing this icon the full article is downloaded into the cache and the icon color changes.
• Next press of the download icon opens the local copy of the article.
• To download multiple articles press their download icons. (Even if the download is in progress.)
• Offline articles are downloaded into the image cache. (Note that once the cache gets filled, the oldest items - images or full articles - will be discarded.)
• Use Cache Options to suppress or allow the download of images belonging to the article.
• If you want to open original web article, use the classic way - the application menu.
• The download always uses the skweezer compression: This compression is efficient - substantially reduces the download size.
• The results are mostly satisfactory - usually better than the display of the original article.
• Google compression could not be used as it subdivides the page download into multiple sub-pages.

Other news

• Centro compatibility
• Possibility to schedule with 1 minute resolution.
• Web compression: Skweezer stopped working because of the URL change. v2.40 uses the new URL.

A free 14-day trial can be downloaded at Resco’s web site!

The TamsPalm team was proud to bring the PalmGear resurrection story to you as the first news service world-wide - and we now have the first real statements from developers:

“I very well remember my first steps through the Palm OS world and how easy it was to get to the PalmGear. I never understood the idea behind giving up such a popular trademark. Welcome back, PalmGear - even if Kenny West is not with you anymore.” - Resco, Jan Slodicka

“It’s great to see Palm Gear back–the closing gave such a negative impression of Palm’s future at a critical juncture. We are glad to see the storefront back and hope it proves successful.” - Justine Pratt, Creative Algorithms

Further statements are currently on the way - stay tuned to the fastest Palm OS news service for more as we get it!

PocketGear’s Matt Stein has just informed us that his company has just resurrected its once market-leading PalmGear franchise, after having merged it into its main and name-giving franchise PocketGear a few months ago.

Matt’s official message is as follows:

We’re excited to announce that the team at PocketGear has relaunched PalmGear.com, the original App Store for Palm OS devices. PalmGear.com originally launched in 1997 providing software downloads for the original Palm Pilots and is a PC Magazine Top 100 Classic Site. PalmGear.com is now back online with over 30,000 software titles available for download to enhance your Palm OS device, including support for the new Palm Centro! Visit PalmGear.com today to browse and download games, multimedia software, business software and utilities. Trial versions are available for download so you can “try before you buy”. The website is under new management and to celebrate the launch we are offering 20% off your next purchase! http://www.palmgear.com

Developers have been extremely unhappy about the merger - many of them reported loosing over 50% of their sales through the channel. Furthermore, the distribution system used as back-end software recently started to fail in a spectacular fashion (TamsPalm reports here), causing further grief (and cost due to botched advertising campaigns) for developers.

PocketGear representatives have informed us that the back-end system has now been replaced and that issues like the ones outlined in the post above are a matter of the past.

We are currently pursuing comments and quotes from key people in the industry - however, the initial tenor in the heavily-struck Palm OS developer community can be described as jubilant.

Jan Slodicka, the CEO of Resco’s Palm division, has provided us with the following preliminary statement (more to come soon):

Great, Tam. Finally a positive message.

I personally think that the PalmGear/PocketGear franchises have shown significant signs of neglect(especially compared to MobiHand’s offerings) over the last two years. This is not surprising, as their former owner Motricity had other, better-paying issues to care about (stuff like ring tones). The new management, on the other hand, is focused solely on the core ESD business…which may have positive impact on the mobile computing economy.

PalmGear/PocketGear is under immense pressure from two ends: as developers migrate(flee) to technically superior MobiHand-powered offers; device and OS vendors are said to start deploying their own software stores soon. Their main venue of growth IMHO is the vast field of developers dissatisfied after Handango’s recent contract and rate borkups.

Fast action is needed from the PocketGear management if the company wants to remain a key player in the ESD business - stay tuned to TamsPalm for further info on what happens!

So far, developers of mobile devices have not felt the need to especially advertise the third-party extendability of their products in their Point-of-Sales demos. However, Apple’s iPhone 3G demo explicitly features third-party apps in Austria - read on for a few images and a Tam-Hanna-made translation:

	“Web applications directly on your Phone”
(this now shows a few applications in the iTunes app store. Note that all of them are free)
	(Now, Super Monkey Ball is selected)
(The icon now shows up in the launcher’s screen. Amusingly, the payment process and the application’s price have not been shown)
	(The game starts up and the screen begins to tilt)
(The device is shown toppling around as the game runs)

AFAIK, this is the first time ever that a mobile phone manufacturer explicitly advertises the expandability and third-party application availability of its platform. Palm once planned something similar, but never aired the TV spots…looks like another first for Apple!

P.S. Want to know more about Apple? Visit our sister site TamsIJungle!

People wanting to get their hands onto a Treo 680 can now do so for cheap if they feel like using it on AT&T - the carrier currently offers a web-only special that includes a free refurbished Treo 680:

I personally consider AT&T the best US carrier for the Treo 680 (and other GSM PalmOS devices), as it’s EDGE network is by far the strongest. AT&T was the initial launch customer for the iPhone; which was an EDGE-only device…

Google’s mobile OS has just lost a few features due to security and/or time concerns. The latest beta of the SDK misses two notable pieces of API:

Bluetooth
The Bluetooth API will also be missing from the initial release of Android. While this doesn’t mean that handsfree devices can’t be used (this will work), developers will not be able to access the transmitter.

The omission is due to lack of time - Bluetooth will be supported fully in the future:

The reason is that we plain ran out of time. The Android Bluetooth API was pretty far along, but needs some clean-up before we can commit to it for the SDK. Keep in mind that putting it in the 1.0 SDK would have locked us into that API for years to come.

Here’s an example of the problems in the API. Client code is required to pass around IBluetoothDeviceCallback objects in order to receive asynchronous callbacks, but IBluetoothDeviceCallback is meant to be an internal interface. That client code would break the moment we added new callbacks to IBluetoothDeviceCallback.aidl. This is not a recipe for future-proof apps.

To make things even more tricky, the recent introduction of the bluez 4.x series brings its own new API. The Android Bluetooth stack uses bluez for GAP and SDP so you’ll see more than a passing resemblance to bluez’s interfaces in Android. The bluez 4.x change requires us to carefully consider how to structure our API for the future. Again, remember that once we settle on an interface we need to support it for years going forward.

Google Talk
The Google Talk API has also been removed for a variety of security issues which would have allowed the device to be remote-controlled:

Although we would have loved to ship this service, in the end, the Android team decided to pull the API instead of exposing users to risk and breaking compatibility with a future, more secure version of the feature. We think it’s obvious that this kind of functionality would be incredibly useful, and would open lots of new doors for developers. One of our top priorities after the first devices ship is to develop a device-to-device (and possibly device-to-server) RPC mechanism that is fast, reliable, and protective of developers and users alike.

As a final note, I want to point out that since the GTalkService was always a Google “value-added” service anyway, it was never guaranteed that it would be present on every Android device. That is, GTalkService was never part of core Android. As a result this change actually allows us the potential to build a new system that is part of the core of a future version of Android.

More info can be found on the Android Developer blog!

Palm’s relationship with its manufacturers has given us quite a few interesting bits of news over the years - apparently, the company has managed to get its guaranteed shipments high enough to make HTC interested once again after having ditched them last year.

DigiTimes’s well-informed analysts have received confirmation that the Treo Pro is indeed being produced at HTC’s. As all other product lines remain at Inventec’s, this can be considered a very good sign for Palm…

What do you think?

Palm’s recently-announced Treo Pro wis scheduled to hit our desk on September the 15th - a full review will then come up in the next days. Until then, feast your eyes on the specs and pictures below:

Specs

Get the rest of the scoop at our sister site TamsPPC!

The last few weeks have been full of reports about the Best Buy sale - according to Ryan Kairer’s usually well-informed boys, the party will soon be over. Until then, however, Centro prices are as low as they have never been before.

AT&T’s Centro can now be had for free with a new 2yr contract; people updating/renewing have to pay 60$ and get the device immediately.

The Sprint version of the box costs 20$ for new subscribers, upgraders have to pay 100$.

As usual, these prices are OTC - there are no mail-in rebates, etc involved in the process. The prices are valid until the 23rd of August and should be valid in almost all Best Buy stores.

According to the PalmInfoCenter, a Palm OS developer called Jason Robitaille has received insider information regarding the recent C&D letters sent out to Palm OS developers.

Jason claims that …Palm is trying to reclaim their name and will apparently be sending out more legal notices to software containing their trademarked name brands of Palm, Treo, Centro, as they believe customers may confuse those applications for applications developed by Palm Inc. themselves…

So far, Dmitry Grinberg, 3GX and ZZTechs have received C&D letters. Each one of the three companies produces applications which are considered crucial parts of the Palm OS experience by many users - the big developer scare-off apparently has begun for good…

Our original post on the MyTreo.net issue ended with a statement claiming that the distributor is unlikely to respond. This has turned out to be wrong, as the folks responded two weeks after being informed about the issues.

Find the conversation below:

Hi Tam,

Thanks for contacting me about this.

I learned from my team that we recently transferred to the developer > $3,500. Apparently there’s a small additional amount owed but that largely resolved the obligation to him.

Although I appreciate that you e-mailed me and updated the thread to reflect the payment, I’d like you to please remove the thread entirely.

I find objectionable a comparison of MTDN to a now defunct business
(Palmgear) and the stated expectation you wouldn’t receive a response from us. Nobody will win from your leaving those comments on your site.

If you have any questions, let me know.

Regards.

> —–Original Message—–
> Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 12:28 PM
> Subject: Request for comment
>
>
> Dear Tadd,
> could you maybe explain to me what is happening here:
>
> tamspalm.tamoggemon.com/2008/08/02/mytreonet-esd-non-payment-alert/
>
> I would be very happy to post a correction/amendment and fix the
> issues for you!
>
> All the best from Vienna
> Tam Hanna

As the issues with the developers have now been settled AFAIK, the non-payment alert is hereas revoked. The store has recently been taken over my MobiHand anyways…a company with a flawless track record…

No idea how Ryan Kairer’s folks always get their hands onto Best Buy’s promotional schedule - but our US readers with a craving for a Centro will probably benefit from their latest scoop:

AT&T Centro - free
Should you feel like the GSM version of the Centro(no PocketTunes deluxe), you can get it for free with a 2yr contract from AT&Ts. By the way: all colors including Electric Blue are offered…

Sprint Centro - 50$
Sprint’s Centro can be had for 50$ with a 2yr contract: the pink version is available, too…

All of the prices quoted above are immediate and OTC; there are no mail-in rebate games hidden in the woodpile. As usual, no warranties on anything - some sick BestBuy shop can always decide to stick to the list prices…

Literally months have passed since the great Treo 700p wars - funny events like our Paul Loeffler masquerade contest have led to the release of a somewhat useable ROM update approximately one year after the device hit the road.

Palm has now released another small update - the official changelog is as follows:

This software update is for a phone reset issue that occurs under certain specific and rare conditions

Getting the thing onto your Treo 700p is a nice bit of work (especially if you didn’t install the 1.10 update) - click the link below to get started:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/radiopatch/700p_verizon.html