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As far as updates go, this one isn’t terribly exciting. Palm added support to phone downloads from the Amazon music store (you used to have to use WiFi), backed up your bookmarks to your profile (so you won’t lose them if something bad happens), added a location feature to the calendar function, and added the ability to search to your emails based on the folder.

There have been some major updates to the App Catalog, including the ability to store payment information (pay apps anyone? this is pretty huge for both users and developers), and the ability to require a password any time that payment method is used. You will be able to reinstall previously purchased applications without having to pay for them again, by locating the application, and tapping “Download for free”. Obviously Palm is moving toward a model that will (hopefully) liven up their catalog.

You can download the update and get more specific details from here, but the one thing that is noticeably missing is iTunes support. Apple is still waging war with Palm over that one, and we’ll probably have to wait for the next update before we see the next salvo.

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This deal is of course for new subscribers that sign a 2-year agreement, but the end price is the cheapest we’ve seen yet. With prices this low, it kind of makes you wonder how much the Pre’s little brother, the upcoming Pixi, will be when it’s finally available. [Walmart via everythingpre]

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When it comes to keyboards, you just can’t make everyone happy. Provide a virtual keyboard, and people complain of inaccuracy and difficult of use. Provide a physical keyboard, and people complain because their dainty hands only have enough strength to slide out the keyboard three times a day. You’ve gotta provide both, or you’ve just given the Internet something to rant about.

Such is the case with the Palm Pre. Almost immediately after launch, the fan forums were filled with flames regarding the handsets lack of an onscreen keyboard.

Well, the Palm Pre does have a virtual keyboard; it’s just limited to a handful of fairly rare characters. The guys over at WebOS Internals have figured out a way to patch into this to add the standard QWERTY keys and make it pop up and stay open at the appropriate times, thus saving dozens of seconds per year that would otherwise be spent sliding the actual keyboard open. The patch is in a shaky state (pre-alpha) as of now, but it mostly works as intended in both portrait and landscape modes.

If you’re up for a bit of hackery for the sake of some onscreen tippity-tappin’, read this and then this for details on how to make it happen.

[Via PreCentral]

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This is going to end well, and no one will be upset about this. Also, everything I said in that last sentence is probably wrong.

When Debian developer Joey Hess started tinkering with webOS, he noticed that it was sending something to Palm once a day. Surely, Palm wasn’t sending anything too potentially incriminating without making it blatantly obvious to the user, right? Wrong.

Joey tore apart the data the Pre was transmitting, and there it was, smack dab at the top of the page:

{ “errorCode”: 0, “timestamp”: 1249855555954.000000, “latitude”: 36.594108, “longitude”: -82.183260, “horizAccuracy”: 2523, “heading”: 0, “velocity”: 0, “altitude”: 0, “vertAccuracy”: 0 }

That was Joey’s position at the time the data was sent, accurate to the same degree that the Google Maps application was.

Also included was a list of every application Joey used, along with how long they were used for (as measured by “launch” and “close” parameters), along with crashlogs. Last but very much not least, it also sent a manifest file of all applications installed on the phone – including third-party applications not authorized by Palm. All of this data is sent to ps.palmws.com.

For some crazy reason, people don’t really like having this sort of information sent back to the mothership without their explicit consent. Palm knows this, of course, and has their bases covered in their privacy policy:

Location Based Services. When you use location based services, we will collect, transmit, maintain, process, and use your location and usage data (including both real time geographic information and information that can be used to approximate location) in order to provide location based and related services, and to enhance your device experience.

The latter part of that sentence, “in order to provide location based and related services”, makes perfect sense – you open Google Maps, and it needs to find your location. Sure. Then they tack “enhance your device experience” onto the end, essentially giving them full reign to send your data wherever the hell they want as long as it potentially makes the experience better.

Of course, Palm’s privacy policy could say that they have the right to punch you in the face and light your shoes on fire, and no one would notice. Even the most anal of gadget users don’t tear through EULAs and privacy policies before booting up their device. When it comes to location tracking and device activity, you must alert the user and specifically request permission. If you don’t, you are spying, plain and simple. Regardless of what Palm is doing with this data, the user needs to be completely aware that it is being sent.

Furthermore, why would Palm need this data? It’s not for marketing reasons; you know where I bought my phone. It’s not for technical reasons on the carrier’s end, such as network load balancing – the towers are already fully aware of who’s in each cell.

Palm, your privacy policy opens by stating “Our goal is to help you make informed decisions about the personal information you share with us.” If thats the case, you’re doing a pretty terrible job.

You can see a full list of what is being transmitted here.

Update:

Palm has since issued a statement on the matter:

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.

We’re not sure what method of toggling data collection they’re talking about, unless we’re missing something tucked deep away. In the end, however, they still fall back on their privacy policy.

[Via IntoMobile]

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Lets say you just finished hacking and cracking your myTouch 3G through the just unveiled rooting process. With the myTouch lagging behind some other in the looks department, your first quest is to retheme it. You’d heard about a Palm Pre skin, which decks Android out with Pre-esque visuals from top to bottom. Partly out of spite and partly out of genuine curiosity, you set out to find it.

Sorry Charlie, it’s too late.

Earlier this week, the developer of the Palm Pre skin, L3wish, received a letter from the Sunnyvale mothership. “You should probably take this stuff down, or we’ll stop pretending you’re not infringing all sorts of copyrights,” it read – except spread out across 714 words.

Citing the potential for “widespread consumer confusion” and the usage of Palm’s trademarks (the skin was outright called “Palm Pre theme”), Palm demanded that all materials be taken down. The developer has since pulled the download, and any instances of it we knew of have disappeared. You can probably find them in a few minutes with Google – but then again, so can Palm’s lawyers.

[Via EngadgetMobile]

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It seems like this deal is exclusive to this retailer as the site is issuing the mail-in rebate itself and not Sprint. You better hurry up and decide if the Pre is right for you though. The deal is only good for today, August 3, 2009.

LetsTalk.com via SlashGear

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According to a recent release, the Pre will be able to support user-generated videos and “HD quality movies”, but Kazaa’s PR team is being keeping mum about everything else. As it stands, it looks like over-the-air downloads are out of the question, but there’s no word on release date or partnerships with film distributors. In short, aside from the fact that Kazaa intends to use it to buck up the social media aspect of their service, we’ll have to wait and see what they have in store for the Pre faithful among us.

To be completely honest though, there’s something fishy about this release, lack of detail notwithstanding. It’s rare to come across a press release where they manage to spell the service’s name wrong, and they blithely throw in what you could only loosely call a testimonial by a “web hacker” who may or may not have died last year. Hopefully Kazaa came make good on their plans and bring a much-needed service to the Pre, but honestly – don’t hold your breath.

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Oh, Palm Pre. You’ve got style. You’ve got grace. You’ve even got a PlayStation emulator! But what you don’t have, young one, is a SIM card slot that makes you friendly with the vast majority of popular carriers around the world.

That won’t be a problem much longer, or so say the rumor mill. Now, we’ve known a GSM Pre has existed for months now, but Palm has stayed mum on the topic. According to T3, Palm will make an announcement next week regarding everything you need to know about the UK release of the Pre.

If these things are released in the UK before the US, we fully expect the eBay grey market to be jam-packed within the week. Unless, of course, they’re locked down to specific carriers – in which case we fully expect them to be hacked and up on eBay within a week and a day.

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Of course, the TechCrunch network is a treasure trove (a rat’s nest, some would say) of opinions, and we have been known to attack the Pre (savagely and repeatedly) despite our interest in it. The app sales numbers for the Pre need more context than a direct comparison to the iPhone App Store, but that is an important data point, so let’s do it thoroughly.

The Palm Pre launched strongly with at least 50,000 sales in its first weekend, and as many as 100,000. If we assume a steady pickup rate (supported by the unchanging slope of the Medialet downloads chart), we’re probably looking at almost the rumored maximum of 150,000 units sold. It’s a liberal estimate, but let’s just use it.

Now let’s look at the iPhone’s sales. On March 6, when the App Store was announced, there were over 5,500,000 iPhones out there, and by the time the App Store launched in June, I’m estimating there were an additional 2,000,000 sold at the very least.

So the user base of the App Store was ~7,500,000 phones when it launched. The launch user base of the Palm store was zero — same as the Android Marketplace, which is doing just fine, thank you. This isn’t a throwaway statistic, it’s the main problem with the comparison. An established user base approaching 10 million people and growing the way a hit year-old phone should is more than a slight advantage, it’s a game-changer. So let’s get proportionate.

By the end of the month, the iPhone App Store had 60 million downloads from 7-8 million users; by the end of this month, Pre users will have downloaded around a million apps, from a total user base of less than 150,000. I really don’t think that’s quite so bad as it’s been made out to be. If you look at the number of apps downloaded per phone, you get about 6 or 7 per Pre and about 7 or 8 per iPhone.

One might even say (if one were so inclined) that considering the number of apps available and the number actually downloaded for both, the Pre is doing better. I’m not saying it, but I am saying that one could say it if one wanted to.

The limitations on the Palm App Catalog are significant — but limiting who has access to the SDK is both a design and a business decision that Palm was prepared for. The number of apps will grow, and the quality will be high because of the bar Palm is setting. The “real” App Catalog will be launching in a few months, so there’s that to look forward to as well. Of course, it’ll open up the App Catalog to the kind of trash apps that make up the majority of the App Store and Android Marketplace, but that’s what people are demanding.

If I’m honest, what we’re really looking at here is a bunch of fantasy numbers, Photoshop math, and estimated statistics that can be interpreted in several different ways. But not all of us are looking for ways to show the Pre is failing; a contentious issue like this needs to be looked at from both sides. How do you see it?

[image from here]

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But what if you could order one now?

That’s the dilemma a certain Mr. Celltasticprices818 has introduced into the mix. You see, he apparently got his hands on 5 new-in-box CDMA Palm Pres, and he’s willing to sell one to you (yes, you!) for the scant price of $899.99. Sounds like a great deal… until you realize that in under 24 hours, you can (theoretically) get your hands on one for several hundred dollars less. Sure, there exists a distinct possibility that stock will run out, and you won’t be able to find one for the next few months. And look, they’re right there, just begging for you to take one of them home. It’s tempting, I know, but please: don’t cross the line from Pre fan to Pre-tard. Trust me, your wallet and your dignity will thank you.

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So, Palm Pre hopefuls and fanboys, is this news a deal-breaker or will you be able to get passed the notion of not actually seeing the messages before listening to them?

[Pre Central via IntoMobile]

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Honestly, there is no way to confirm whether this is the phone that Michael Arrington’s source was talking about, but at least the form factor seems about right for a Pre-Mini and follows the company’s low-cost Centro styling. But then again, that pic could be the Lock Ness Monster herself, and we wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

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It’s pretty much obligatory at this point: someone announces a new piece of hardware, gets a lot of attention, and iSuppli tears it apart and prices the components.

Whether they’ve managed to get ahold of a Pre and actually tear it apart or they just dug up a list of components, we’re not sure – but iSuppli has pinned the final bill of materials for the Palm Pre at $137.38. Thats 46% of the $300 iSuppli expects Palm to charge Sprint for each handset, and 68% of 200 bucks they expect Sprint to charge the customer after subsidies. Not too bad – but of course, it doesn’t include R&D costs, marketing costs, nor all of the talent Palm had to hire to dig them out of their grave.

[Via TGDaily]

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That is of course interesting because Apple could very well use that keynote to unveil the next version of the iPhone, just as it did last year for the iPhone 3G. A public launch of the Pre the day before could suck some of the wind out of Apple’s sails. But it’s also pretty risky, as it means Palm only has one day to convince everyone that its product is better then the latest version of the iPhone which is likely to have some substantial improvements. And no one knows for sure what all those improvements are — it could very well blow the Pre right out of the water, one day into its young life.

The June 7 date for the Pre comes from some supposed internal Sprint documents that name that date as one of two possible launch windows. Earlier rumors had the device appearing in May, but as I said, it’s a bit odd that we’re just about into May and have yet to hear a date or a price. A few people in the know that I’ve spoken to will only say that they’re sure it’s coming “very soon,” but don’t seem to know the exact date either. There are also rumors about the device getting ready to ship, and talk about a casting call for a Palm viral video set to air in June.

Apple and Palm have had an interesting relationship of late, to say the least. Obviously, there are the several former Apple employees who now work for Palm, including some former key Apple execs. Then, there was that whole thinly veiled threat Apple made to defend its IP, if pushed. Something which Palm responded to. And more recently, a partner at Elevation, which owns around 40% of Palm, said more or less that the Pre would kick the iPhone’s ass. If Palm really does release the Pre on June 7, expect tensions to rise even further.

WWDC is running June 8 – 12 and sold out today — in record time.

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So, Laurence Toney or @lo_toney as he likes to be called on Twitter decided to flaunt the Pre he presumably has in his possession on Twitpic. I don’t know who he is and why he has a Pre but he’s a “busy Internet exec” and is some VP of Product and Marketing at Cake Financial. Anyway, he took some craptacular photos on his iPhone of the YouTube client and what appears to be the e-mail composition screen. Both are too blurry to note any significant details, but it’s out there and it’s just a bunch of random folk with the device.

[PSGallery=2142gpgh4j]

via Everything Pre

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On the whole, though, I will say it’s a kind of a low and misguided blow. AT&T might end up highlighting the useless or expensive parts of the iPhone (”Oh so I can use it in Spain? How much does that cost?” or “Doesn’t the glass screen make it more likely to crack?”) at the same time as they give the Pre a lot of cred just by protesting too much against it.

[via Electronista]

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And of course, it’s just part of a whole family of these things. It’s possible that there’s a stripped-down version for $20 less, and a cool super-enabled one that’s $20 more.

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Call the president! A Palm marketing manager let slip that Touchstone is a full family of near-field induction products and that the little Touchstone charger for the Palm Pre – basically that magnetic charger thing that you stick the Pre to in order to grab some juice – is just one of many products.

PreThinking posits that the Touchstone line could allow for inductive charging, data transfer, reasoning, and, in the future, pregnancy. They write:

Here’re a few accessories/things I can think of right now:

1) You know those stereo speakers where you plug the iPod/iPhone in and leave it there? For the Pre, you just leave it on top of these made for pre stereo speakers.

2) Touchstone USB dock, where you have this Touchstone charging dock lookalike. And basically have it plugged into your computer’s usb hub which acts as the connection between the Pre and your PC.

3) Have your Pre touch back to back with another pre, where it will transfer contact info and other data.

4) Walk into a Sprint store and place your Pre on this table, where it will give the Sprint reps some useful info to help better serve you.

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Would you cut your losses and leave the arena? Hell no! I can’t wait to try the Pre, and I hope it brings Palm all the success they deserve. So buck up, Palm-lovers, and see if they can’t land that haymaker.

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It’s not quite the February 15th rumor from a couple weeks ago, but BGR is reporting that the Palm Pre might be launching around March 15th according to an end-of-life (EOL) list of Sprint handsets leaked from somewhere inside the company.

Read the rest of this entry >>

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At the tail end of Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call today, COO Tim Cook (CEO Steve Jobs, who is taking a medical leave of absence, was not on the call) noted that 17 million iPhones have been sold to date. When he was asked about the rising competition from Android, Blackberry, and Palm, Cook made an oblique threat:

We approach this business as a software platform business. We are watching the landscape. We like competition as long as they don’t rip off our IP. And if they do, we will go after anyone who does.

This threat seems directed squarely at Palm, which recently launched it’s own answer to the iPhone: the Palm Pre. The Pre has a multi-touch interface, something which Apple holds patents on, and from which other competitors have steered clear.

Read the rest of this entry >>

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Just can’t get enough Pre? Want to experience the magic of being at the presentation from the comforts of your arm chair? You’re in luck. Palm captured the presentation in its entirety, and it’s now available online.

With the Apple MacWorld keynote being relatively lackluster (and, perhaps most importantly, Jobs-less), Palm’s timing and execution of this press event really couldn’t have been better. Palm has swooped in and nailed it out in a very Apple-esque fashion, and it’s paying off. They kept it just secret enough to build the hype, launched a good product, had it presented by someone who is genuinely passionate about it, and then put the whole thing online for the intensely interested.

Watch the whole thing here.

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