At CES 2010, Palm had offered a sneak peek of what webOS 1.4 would have in store for users - Video Recording, Flash 10 Compatibility, Performance Improvements and some other minor upgrades. Though Palm set the clock ticking for the webOS 1.4 launch, it kept mum on when it would be available to users.
It was rumored that webOS 1.4 would make its debut on February 15th, a day after Valentine's day. That day came and went... and nothing happened. Now, the folks at Electronista have reported that webOS 1.4 may be coming to 100,000 Verizon subscribers as early as Thursday February 25th. It would be interesting to see whether Palm does go ahead and provide the free OTA update for webOS 1.4 to all Palm Pre and Palm Pixi subscribers on Thursday.
There's little doubt that video recording is one of the biggest pitfalls of webOS. The good news is that Palm realizes this as seriously as I do and webOS 1.4 will fix this limitation.
With webOS 1.4, I hope that the mobile OS space would be a level playing field between the likes of Android and iPhone.
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Posted by Matt on February 23, 2010 in
Commentary, News
The Palm Pixi has now been on the market for a couple of months. It has drawn some comparisons with it's competitors. Many comparisons are drawn upon the price, the features and a bunch of other critiera. Form Factor a.k.a size has gradually become a very important factor in deciding the popularity and public acceptance of a smartphone. Clearly, Palm has put in a lot of serious thinking into this aspect of the Palm Pixi and the form factor of the Pixi is a "Wow!"
Pixi is a lot thinner as compared to the Palm Pre. The Pixi is so slim that it easily slips into your jeans pockets. Comparing the Palm Pixi to the Treo 750 is rather unfair and the Treo 750 - Pixi when put together look like the "Fat Boy - Thin Boy" duo.
It's interesting to compare the thickness of Pixi with the iPhone, it's nearly the same thickness as the iPhone at it's thickest point. The iPhone is taller and wider than the Palm Pixi, so it's much easier and comforting to hold a Pixi than an iPhone in your hands. As far as the Centro is concerned, Pixi is by all means a spiritual successor to the Centro. It's a lot thinner and a lot more stylish than the Centro. Putting it against the Treo Pro, the Pixi comes out a winner again as far as thickness is concerned, it's thinner than the Treo Pro.
Comparing it to the Motorola RAZR, the Pixi is a bit taller but almost the same width. All said and done, Palm Pixi may not be the most powerful phone out there but it surely is a contender for the top spot as far as the form factor and overall styling is concerned.
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Posted by Matt on January 22, 2010 in
Commentary
It was a great CES for Palm. Instead of the major splash that they made last year with the Palm Pre, they've shown numerous incremental improvements. We guessed a lot of them earlier today, but this was still more than we expected. Here's a recap
Countries
Palm started off by announcing that they were going to France. Specifically the alliance with be with SFR who is hoping to get half of it's customers (a total of 10 million) on smartphones. The target for that is the 2nd quarter.
New Carrier
Palm also announced that they'll be on Verizon Jan. 26th with two exclusive new phones.
- Pre Plus - A regular Pre with 16GB of memory, a touchstone back cover included, and Tethering enabled. The tethering also works as a mobile hotspot for up to 5 people!
- Pixi Plus - Looks like the same as the Pixi, but with wifi. Same tethering and mobile hotspot capability. It will be available in 5 colors: green, blue, black, orange, and pink. Finally a beefed up Pixi!
Software
There were a lot of software improvements announced
- 3D Games - There is now lower-level access to develop games in C and C++ via their webOS Plug-in Development Kit. Palm showed off some off Need for Speed which seemed to wow the crowd. You should be able to get it from the catalog today. Other games announced include: The Sims 3, Monopoly, Asphalt 5: Elite Racing, Let's Golf!, Glyder 2, and X-Plane. Personally seeing Electronic Arts involved is huge.
- Video Recording and Editing - It took Apple a long time for video recording and editing. Well it's coming soon. It was also impressive.
- Flash 10 - They showed it working (again), and said to expect it soon.
Most of these improvements come in WebOS 1.4 due in February.
Open Development
Palm announced today that they'll support open development. What this means is that anyone can develop for the device and Palm will give them access through a URL. This is for applications that may not be appropriate for the app catalog itself or just an easy way for someone to promote the product. In theory, I could buy an ad on Google and use that to get people to install my app directly by passing the Palm catalog completely. A big advantage with this is that you won't have the Apple-Google Voice wars that were big in the news last year.
So other than all that, Palm doesn't look like it's up to much 
. It seems like it's getting closer and closer to the iPhone just having more applications and Palm having multitasking as the key difference between the two. I would love to get my hands on an Android phone to do more comparisons.
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Posted by brian on January 7, 2010 in
News
While we prepare for the big CES Announcements today from Palm, we'll cover some of the older news that you might have missed. Of course the big news that people expect is an announcement about the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on Verizon. For the Pre, the plus is rumored to mean 8GM more internal storage (not that much of a plus, eh?) while the Pixi gets it's much needed Wifi. This intelligence comes courtesy of Phone Arena.
Beyond the Verizon announcement, we had the CEO of AT&T say that they'll have two WebOS phones on the network in the first half of this year. All those people who have problems with Sprint in local area, all have a choice now. Those people who like GSM technology for traveling will have a choice as well. We may be finding that the multiple devices in multiple countries and multiple characters is going to help Palm quite a bit.
We are expecting bigger improvements in WebOS to be announced as well. Adobe is already late in delivering a beta version of Flash 10 to the WebOS. However, the thing that most people are talking about is access to the special graphic chips which will allow for better games to be developed. There's also some rumor that video recording might be around the corner, which would make sense with Precorder project already showing good success in this area.
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Posted by brian on January 7, 2010 in
News
Wow, I never thought I'd be typing that title. It's huge news on two fronts, Verizon and WiFi. In the United States, Palm WebOS phones have only been on Sprint. It's good for Sprint customers, but the majority of the US population seems to prefer AT&T and Verizon. So this means that Verizon customers can look to get their hands on a Palm Pixi and it's WebOS.
Of course the other surprise is that the Palm Pixi on Verizon will include WiFi. Until now, we've just assumed that Palm Pixi branded devices won't have WiFi. WiFi brings the Pixi very close to being an equal with the Palm Pre... not the bargain-level device that we've come accustomed to on Sprint. It may have worse camera than the Pre (or maybe not). Aside from that, the Verizon Palm Pixi looks to be the thinnest and lightest smartphone out there and it brings a great keyboard to the table. For fans the candy bar form-factor popularized by the Palm Treo line and RIM's Blackberries it should be hugely popular.
This might be exactly what Palm needs to battle back some of the gains that Android has made in the last few months.
Looking for the source of this information? Check out PreCentral's coverage of the FCC data.
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Posted by brian on December 14, 2009 in
News
Ever since Palm announced that it would launch "Palm Ares", a project devoted to simplify and streamline much of WebOS application development, most mobile application developers have been eagerly waiting for it to be launched. After a long wait, Palm has now launched the Palm Ares Beta.
What's special about Palm Ares? Well, it's amongst the first few mobile development environments which are hosted within the browser. Since there are no external components and everything is loaded within the browser itself, it is much faster to create Palm webOS applications with the drag and drop approach.
As a developer, you just need to register at the Palm Developer Community, login to Palm Ares website and you are all set to start developing webOS applications. The Ares site offers plenty of easy to understand documentation and tutorials in order to help you accelerate the webOS learning curve.
Palm Ares View
Palm Ares support the following browsers:
- Firefox 3.5 or higher
- Chrome 3 or higher
- Safari 4 or higher
On first looks, the drag and drop interface builder seems to work like a charm and is undoubtedly the USP of Palm Ares. The debugging functionality looks handy and well designed. Clearly, the folks at Palm have spent a lot of thought and effort into how Palm Ares would work.
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Posted by Matt on December 12, 2009 in
Commentary
If you put off your plans to buy the Palm Pixi because of it's black color (and don't want to pay to upgrade to the artist series), there's good news for you. Rumors on the Internet suggest that a Pink Palm Pixi is on it's way to be released on the Sprint network pretty soon.
Whether the rumors are true or baseless is difficult to judge, but a pink Palm Pixi (too many Ps in there 
) sounds cool, especially for teenagers and young women - the demographic we think Palm is going after with the Pixi. The color pink is a favorite with most women (including my wife) so it should be a big hit if the rumors are true.
If the rumors are true, Palm would be wise to get the pink Palm Pixi out as soon. It may have already missed most of the holiday shopping season, which would have been huge, especially since Bloomberg gave it the thumbs up as a frugal gift. There are no signs of the availability of Palm Pixi on Amazon, Walmart or even the Sprint website as of now, just make sure to watch this space over the next few days as we bring you the latest on the availability of the pink Palm Pixi.
No more covering up your black Palm Pixi with a pink case.
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Posted by Matt on December 11, 2009 in
News
While Amazon has had the best deal on a Palm Pixi from some time ($25), Bing.com and Wirefly.com just passed it. If you use Bing's Cash Back program to buy the phone at Wirefly, you actually make $5. I thought that the Palm Pixi would be free with contract someday, I just didn't think it would less than free. How does it work?
Go to this Bing search for Wirefly and click on the ad at the top that says "Bing Cashback". It will take you to the Wirefly website and you can purchase the Palm Pixi for $44.99. You should see in the write up that you'll get $50 cash back from Bing. I have yet to use Bing Cashback, but it's highly reputable and comes from Microsoft (as owner of Bing, naturally). So there you go, spend $45 to get $50 back. Of course there's that pesky 2yr subscription, but that's standard with almost any phone purchase nowadays.
Side note: You can use this deal to get a Palm Pre for some $49... another great bargain.
This deal may go quick, so don't waste time.
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Posted by brian on December 11, 2009 in
News
I wrote earlier that the Palm Pixi is a great teen gift, well it's a great phone for anyone young at heart. Now, you can find love on your very own Palm Pixi. That too is free .
Dating and Finding a match on your Palm Pixi is now easier than ever, courtesy a free application from Match.com. The company is already a world leader in online dating and it's no surprise that the Match.com application has already done pretty well for Palm Pre users. The Palm Pixi application is available as part of the Palm Beta App Catalog and can be downloaded for free.
With this application, you can view and contact singles in your area in a matter of seconds. I personally find the following features of the Match.com application really cool and worth exploring:-
- The Location Based capabilities of the Palm Pixi are awesome and the match.com application reports accurate results for all singles in proximity of your location.
- You can wink, you can email and you can fall in love on your Palm Pixi !
If you are sixteen or sixty, it doesn't matter - finding love has never been easier courtesy Palm Pixi and this free application. Applications such as this one truly justify the Palm Pixi tag line - "Give Fun, Get Fun". More details on the match.com application here.
Let's Play Cupid!
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Posted by Matt on December 10, 2009 in
Commentary, News
While we like to focus on the Palm Pixi here, it shouldn't go unnoticed that it's big brother the Palm Pre is winning all sorts of awards. Let's review a few of the most notable over the last year.
- Best of CES 2009 and People's Voice Award - The year started off with a bang when CNET gave it's two biggest CES awards to the Pre. The money quote of the article, "... it looks like Palm stepped up to the plate and hit one out of the park."
- Popular Mechanics' 10 Most Brilliant Products of 2009 - That title kind of says it all, doesn't it? It was one of only three computer tech gadgets to make the top 10.
- PCWorld's #14 best product of 2009 - While it's a small step down from the Popular Mechanic's top 10 ranking, #14 of the top 100 is not too shabby. The money quote here also applies to the Pixi, "The Pre wowed us with its engaging (and fun to use) WebOS software and eye-catching hardware."
- Popular Science's Best of What's New 2009 - It was one of 13 products here. The interesting thing to me is that each of these awards praise a different aspect of the phone. Some mention the multitasking, but Popular Science is smitten with Synergy.
- PC Magazine's Best Cell Phones - It was one of only 4 phones they listed. They have some of the best things to say about it though: "Palm has returned with the coolest handheld device we've seen in a long time... The Pre is the start of something genuinely new..."
It definitely seems like Palm and WebOS are moving in the right direction. There's still some time to win some more awards in 2009, but I'm looking forward to 2010. While on the topic of 2010, Flash should be three weeks or less away.
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Posted by brian on December 10, 2009 in
Commentary
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