Woof. Analysts have placed a sell rating on Palm and are now valuing their stock, at least in hyperbolic terms, at $0. Quoth CNN:
Shares of Palm (PALM) plunged 19% to $4.59 a share early Friday, a new 52-week low. Investors are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the company’s future and several analysts downgraded their positions on the stock to “sell.” Two analysts even lowered their price targets to $0.
See that image above? It’s notable for two reasons:
Update: We’ve now got a more legible picture and a full transcription after the jump.
In the fine tradition of lazily naming any sort of controversy after Watergate, I hereby present AppGate. It seems that certain iPhone App developers are paying low-rent “review” sites for favorable reviews, thereby creating the false impression that their App is cool and everything.
You hear that sound? That’s the sound of my mind being blown.
When the folks over in Cupertino strapped a little speaker to the bottom of the iPhone and released an SDK, do you think that any of them thought “Oh, people are totally going to use this to make apps that can push little Styrofoam balls around a fake soccer field.” Yeah, probably not. But sure enough, people have.
Earlier this morning, the Windows Phone 7 emulator was “unlocked” (so to speak), granting anyone with a few spare minutes and basic tinkering abilities an opportunity to get a look at a bunch of stuff Microsoft didn’t originally include.
Not everyone is prepped and ready to get their hack on, though. Maybe you’re on a Mac. Maybe it’s Friday and you just don’t feel like doing anything. Understandable. Fortunately for you, a couple of videos demonstrating all the hacked ROM have been flying around the Intertubes, and we’ve embedded a couple for your viewing pleasure after the jump.
As anyone in the history of ever who has ever written a single line of code that might be subject to hacking knows, the only way to keep something “hidden” in an application is to just not include it at all. Sure, you can obfuscate the hell out of it out in the source code, or add some crazy configuration value that enables it; just don’t expect either of those to work for much longer than 5 minutes.
Either the WP7 team didn’t get that memo, or they’re perfectly comfortable with people unlocking a bunch of features in the emulator that didn’t come enabled by default.
Here it is, folks! Its been a few long months for Sprint fans toting Touch Pro2’s, given that the same device on all of the other carriers saw upgrades to Windows Mobile 6.5 months ago while their own Pro2s stayed back at WinMo 6.1. We knew the update was coming sometime in March, and then we pinned the date down to some more specific: today.
In Greek tragedy, the flaw of hubris was the decisive plot point that brought down many great men. Palm, then, is the Oedipus of a modern tragedy, their efforts to rebuild hampered by a failure to see past their own greatness and a refusal to enter the market on the market’s terms.
To be honest, I was a Palm fan, then I wasn’t a Palm fan, and now am part of the chorus of voices bemoaning the lowly state to which the company has been thrust. Palm recently reported $349 million in revenue with a third quarter loss of $102.8 million. Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein said:
“If we could have launched at Verizon prior to the Droid, I think we would have gotten the attention the Droid got. And since I believe we have a better product, I think we could have even done better.”
We’ve had a few interesting reports of folks having huge problems with the AT&T Nexus Ones. Here we see a lad tap-tap-tapping away, unable to get anything pressed.
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I’m calling BS on these but it looks like these are screenshots for BlackBerry OS 6.0 complete with widgets out the wazoo. Clearly the thought here is to bring BB into the 21st century, a move that’s sorely needed by BlackBerry’s current sad sack OS. The fact that there are no other specs point to some kind of leaked app and little more.
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The stars are all starting to align around the launch of the HTC Supersonic happening at CTIA. If yesterday’s report from the Wall Street Journal wasn’t enough for you, check out this line pulled directly from CTIA press materials:
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Bad news, everyone!
Remember that Droid update that was supposed to hit today? The one that was supposed to bring Android 2.1 and all of its wonderful features? Yeah, erm, about that..
It’s been delayed.
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Microsoft has taken a very Apple-esque approach to the development and launch of Windows Phone 7. Now, before anyone tears into me in the comments with some crazy knee-jerk response, think about it for a second. Developed in the utmost of secrecy? Check. Closed-wall app store? Check. Minimalist user interface? Check. Apple also has a tendency to speak out against things that their product doesn’t do (Steve Jobs, January 16th 2008: “People don’t read anymore!” Steve Jobs, January 27th 2010: “Hey guys! Check out the iPad!”), all whilst secretly working on it behind closed doors.
If the latest rumor to come out of Internetsville rings true, it looks like Microsoft is taking the same approach with Copy and Paste in Windows Phone 7.
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Oh, HTC Incredible, you just can’t stay off the Internet, can you? We’ve seen you in not one, but two series of spy shots, we’ve seen you leak out in alternative color schemes — hell, we’ve even spotted you roaming around Verizon’s inventory system. We sure are seeing a lot of you — and you know what? We don’t mind one bit.
According to the latest leak, we should be seeing a lot more of the HTC Incredible — as in, in the hands of the general public — within two weeks.
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Oh man, strap yourself in for a complete mind-freak. THQ Wireless will release next month Star Wars: Light Saber Duel, an iPhone App that works with Bluetooth. You can see where this is going. Since it works with Bluetooth, you’ll be able to duel your other iPhone-owning friends. Adios, productivity.
Not an easy thing to conceptualize indeed, but according to eMarketer there will be more mobile Internet users in China than the entire population of the US by the end of this year.
For your reference, the 2010 estimate of the size of the United States population stands at roughly 310 million people according to Wikipedia, so that’s a shitload of people browsing the Web from their phones right there.
The report, which you can purchase here, also says the number of mobile Internet users in China will grow fast to reach a staggering 957 million by 2014.
From: The Windows Phone 7 Team
To: The Windows Phone 7 Advertising Gnomes
After months of deliberation, we hereby present the master plan for all modern mobile commercials.
To acquire:
Rights to Feist instrumental break
Cute woman with curly hair (personable)
Handsome, rugged man in vaguely military but alternative shirt
Record shop (build)
Shot-for-shot outdoor location list for all McDonald’s commercials
Still having a hard time believing that the Sprint Touch Pro2 will finally be getting the Windows Mobile 6.5 update treatment Friday, March 19th? Believe it, dear reader.
Our boy 99accordv6 just sent over a stack of documents all positively pinning the update on 3/19/10, the most clear of which is pictured up above. While the details are mostly the same as the ones we saw in the last leak, the two download links down at the bottom do positively confirm that the update won’t require a trip to the Sprint store. It won’t be too much longer now, Touch Pro2 owners!
Thanks, 99accordv6!
So in 2008, a company called Integra Communications filed for a “Nexus” trademark having something to do with voice and data telecommunications. Along comes Google a year later and files for “Nexus One.” Trademark office says no go. I’m not really surprised at this; it’s not really their job to determine which is the better or more popular product, but rather whether it is possible for the two trademarks to be mistaken for one another. Oh god! Will you have to scribble out the name of your phone now and write something else?
Nah. I mean, Cisco had a legitimate product out there called the iPhone for years, which was actually in use and still being sold when Apple dropped the iBombshell. They buried the hatchet, probably for an undisclosed sum, but nominally so they could “explore interoperability.” Whatever that means. So I think it likely that Google will call up Integra, say “name the next one something else and there’s a hundred thou in it for you” and in the meantime they’ll just leave the ™ off the Nexus One name.
Brands are increasingly prominent on the App Store and Apple tends to love featuring folks like Britney Spears and Coca-Cola on the App Store’s front page. But who’s actually succeeding and which brands have managed to maintain high download numbers?
PositionApp, the app that lets you track how iPhone apps are doing on the App Store rankings, might have the answer. They track and record the top 300 apps across all demographics and have provided us with details on the top 15 apps in the US App Store. Hit the jump for the list.
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