TamsPalm – the Palm OS / web OS Blog

O’Reilly has just released what is likely going to be the last chapter of their webOS book – it is chockfull of sample code:

As usual – further information can be had here:
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780596802097

Rumors about Telefonica having an Europe-wide exclusivity have surfaced multiple times in the past – and it looks like they were spot-on at least for the UK.

The Guardian (a very popular UK magazine) reports the following on its web site:

…

O2 already has an exclusive deal with Apple to stock the iPhone and grabbing the Palm Pre is likely to further cement its position as the UK’s largest mobile phone network. Reports of a tie-up between Palm and O2 first appeared in May and Carphone Warehouse is also expected to stock the Pre.

O2 is believed to have seen off fierce competition for the device from Orange, which it also beat to the iPhone at the last minute.

…

As of now, the carrier has neither confirmed nor denied this – let’s see how it all plays out…

Tapwave’s long-deceased Zodiac handheld started the zodttd development group…which has since expanded to other platforms.

Palm’s Pre is the latest victim:

The Palm Pre uses some of the same hardware as the iPhone 3GS and Pandora gaming handheld and it is fast! In this short video below you can see Wipeout XL running on the Palm Pre. Download links will be provided shortly, see the notes below as to why. In the meantime, check out http://predev.wikidot.com/rooting and get a headstart on rooting (or as iPhone users say, jailbreaking), your Pre!

The video is below – get further info here:

The picture below hits us via a forum called tinhte:

Nothing to add

Krusell is a huge Swedish manufacturer of protective cases. Their top list tends to be somehwhat representative for “average users” – and saw some severe changes this month.

RIM fell out, Palm didn’t get in (no wonder due to European focus)….and Sony Ericsson has gone amiss too:

1. (3) Nokia 6300
2. (-) Apple iPhone 3G
3. (-) HTC Touch Diamond 2
4. (2) Nokia 3109
5. (-) Nokia E51
6. (1) Nokia 5800
7. (5) Nokia E71
8. (6) HTC Touch HD
9. (-) HTC Magic
10. (-)HTC Touch Pro2

11. (4) Samsung SGH-i900/i910 Omnia

() = Last month’s position.

Last month Nokia took a Grand Slam by taking all Top 3 positions at Krusell’s best seller list for May. The list in June also gives an impression something is happening in the market. Nokia takes 5 out of 10 positions, HTC takes 4 and Apple one. Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson are all out of the list.

To me it is surprising even the previous best seller Omnia had to leave the list this month, says Ulf Sandberg MD at Krusell. Yet another surprise is that everybody in the industry always talks about how short the lifecycles of mobile phones have become. This month’s No 1, Nokia 6300, was introduced in February 2007 in Krusell’s assortment and is now back on the No 1 position 28 months later, he ends.

MobileRead’s Bob Russell managed to undig these images some time ago – they show two Palm OS Cobalt smartphones which were developed by a Singapore-based company called Oswin:

Looking at the specifications, I really have to wonder why these two never hit the road – back when they were to be announced, they definitely would have been two of the hottest smartphones on the market (especially the QWERTY one). Unfortunately, it looks like the company behind these devices has long gone belly-up…which means that we couldn’t ask them even if we wanted to..,.

People who own more than one handset can tell a tale of the charger eekers – every manufacturer has at least one (usually two or more) incompatible charger types.

This is not only annoying (extra weight), but also bad for the environment. As such things tend to attract EU regulators attention, manufacturers had to act – Yahoo Tech reports the following:

…

The agreement by Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other industry majors will mean phones compatible with standard charging devices are available in Europe from next year, said the EU executive, which has pushed for such a deal.

…

The Commission said the agreement would involve the creation of an EU norm, and that the new generation of mobile phones would use a standard micro-USB socket to ensure compatibility.

…

According to them, the situation will go even further: chargers and handsets will be unbundled one day (which would lead to even lower handset prices).

Even though I personally prefer MiniUSB as I feel it handles better, MicroUSB nevertheless seems to be a pretty robust solution. My Nokia XPressMusic 5800 is still alive and kicking, and Nokia’s large-scale roll-out has started with the Nokia N85 (review here)…

Palm’s Pre recently had a pretty annoying security hole regarding the installation of applications via an email – while this was extremely helpful for homebrew heads, the security implications are pretty clear.

Palm thus was obliged to fix the little loophole – which is exactly what version 1.0.4 of the OS does:

New applications

No new applications in update 1.0.4
Feature changes to existing applications

This release addresses several security issues with Palm webOS software.

Note We’d like to thank Townsend Ladd Harris for his help in identifying some of the issues addressed in this release. Individuals interested in contacting Palm to report suspected security issues can find more information at palm.com/security.

P.S. According to various sources, the update does not affect already installed applications. So get them apps now, dudes

I have absolutely no idea why the folks at MotionApps chose to use a bluescreen rather than a fatal alert for program errors – but they did that for one reason or the other.

According to photoframed, fixing it is as easy as deleting two readme files – hit the URL below for the full scoop:
http://blog.photoframd.com/2009/06/28/solution-to-motionapps-blue-screen-of-death-on-the-palm-pre/

Ryan Kairer’s PalmInfoCenter quotes Palm’s CFO as follows:

…

… handhelds still contributed some “marginal revenue” however it was so low that he would not even break down the numbers. Mr. Jefferies went on to say that Palm is no longer manufacturing handhelds and is focusing all of its resources on smartphones. Last quarter, the company only sold about 100k units.

…

While this does not mean that no more Palm OS handhelds will be sold (Palm is likely to still have quite a few in stock), the writing on the wall is clear: merchants will eventually run out of stock when devices like the TX are concerned. PDA faithful have but two options: stock up or look at HP’s (excellent but very large and clunky) hp ipaq 210…

Palm itself has not stated anything regarding Pre sales so far – which means that we are dependent upon people with good industry connections. One of these just claimed the following according to AllThingsD:

…

In an investment note today, RBC analyst Mark Abramsky esimates that Palm has sold 150,000 Pre handsets to date and predicts it will sell 4.1 million in fiscal 2010 and 6.5 million in fiscal 2011.

Even though 150k units pale in comparison to the number of boxen Apple managed to move, it nevertheless is impressive. Now all we have to hope is that new apps are released shortly…

I personally think that the folks at MobiHand’s are one of the very few ESDs which will be able to survive on the long run – they consistently seek out loopholes and blank spots in the market which they then fill with usually great success. Their latest exploit is below:

Yes – you are correct. MobiHand has ganged up with MotionApps on the creation of a “certified” store which sells applications for the Palm Pre’s Classic environment. But let’s lewt them do the talking:

…

MobiHand has been working closely with MotionApps to develop a Classic catalog and we are now prepared to launch this new catalog. We have already enabled the Palm Pre in your co-branded store. To see the catalog of Palm apps that have been identified to operate in Classic, go to:

http://www.mobihand.com/tamspalm/platformMain.asp?deviceid=1055

Some of these apps have been certified (i.e. “signed”) by MotionApps while others have only been tested and are known to work properly in Classic. More apps will be added to the catalog every week as they are tested and/or certified. Here are two examples — note that a special message is displayed at the top of these product details pages to inform users about Classic.

Once again: the TamsShop now sells Classic-certified apps. Hit the link below for the list – and don’t forget to look at the image above for a nice discount:
http://www.mobihand.com/tamspalm/platformMain.asp?deviceid=1055

The New York Times has thoroughly proven its lack of understanding of the mobile market with its now famous misquoting of a Microsoft manager (uncovered by our sister site TamsPPC).

Nevertheless, the boys do get read – which means that their latest article could move some things at Palm’s. Here is a key quote:

…

So far, Palm is off to a slow start. Palm’s App Catalog has just a few dozen apps, even as Apple boasts that iPhone users can download 50,000 apps that do everything from receiving baseball videocasts to unlocking a rental car.

The payment system for the Palm app store — important if the company wants to charge for certain programs — is still under construction. And most crucially, Palm has yet to open its software development kit, the main set of tools needed to write apps, to most of the thousands of developers who have expressed an interest in creating programs for the Pre.

…

As of now, Palm has not responded – we will see how it all plays out…

O’Reilly has just updated its O’Reilly book – the latest chapter deals with the localization of applications:

The author describes it as following (get is capitalized by him, not me):

…
The Palm webOS platform was designed from the beginning to be a world-ready system from the choice of OS technologies through the UI design. While it may take some time to support all languages and regions, and to provide the application content to meet the needs of users in all locales, the framework has the basic support you need to build global applications.

In this chapter, you will GET an overview of the framework’s locale support and learn how to localize your application. We will localize the News application to Spanish and we will walk through each step of the localization process. In the last section, we’ll cover some of the Internationalization APIs available in Mojo.

Users are able to switch languages and regions at runtime using a Language preferences application, shown in Figure 11-1. You are able to select from any of the languages and any of the regions, enabling you to create any locale formed by those combinations.
…

As usual:
http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780596802097?tocview=true