Palm Pixi » palm pre

FlightTrack App Now Available on Palm Pixi (and Palm Pre)

Matt — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:19:21 +0000

FlightTrack, one of the best mobile flight tracking applications earlier available on Android, iPhone and Blackberry phones, is now available as a webOS app. The app is now available for Palm Pixi and Palm Pre users. The application is developed by Mobiata, a company which specializes in developing some of the most popular mobile travel applications available in the market today.

The app is available for download through Palm webChannel store for $2.50 (50% discount on the original price of $4.99) and runs on any Palm device running webOS 1.0.0 or higher. The application tracks nearly 1,400 airlines at 4,000 airports across the globe. The app offers the following features

Check Gate numbers, cancellations & delays
A beautiful, interactive map integrated within the app to track flights in real-time
Easily search by flight number or by route based on departure or arrival date
Quick access to real-time information on flight departure and arrival times
Complete terminal, gate and baggage claim information
Ability to save flights for future reference
Automatically updates your flight info

It is rated as a 4-star app on Palm webChannel store. Mobiata gave a lot of importance to the design principles & user interface of webOS platform in order to develop this app for Palm Pixi and Palm Pre phones. If you are a frequent traveler looking for a decent flight management app at a great price, the FlightTrack webOS app is a must for you!

Palm Offering 50% Discount For Nearly All Apps in webOS App Catalog

Matt — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:49:06 +0000

There's good news for all Palm Pre and Palm Pixi owners - Palm has halved the prices of nearly all the apps in the US Palm App Catalog and Palm web channel. The promotion runs from June 18th through July 9th, 2010. As a Palm customer, you are entitled to a cool subsidy of 50% on your favorite webOS applications. If you were thinking of the buying any of the following bestseller apps from Palm - Need for Speed Undercover, Jump O'Clock, or James Cameron's Avatar, the time is now!

If you are a developer, you need not worry. Palm will subsidize the cost of the discounted price for developers; payments to developers and revenue tracking for the Hot Apps contest will continue to reflect the full price of all eligible applications throughout the promotion. The promotion is a win-win situation for both developers and customers - the former still get their full revenue share from Palm and the latter enjoy a cool savings of 50%. To know more details, check the Palm Developer FAQ.

Palm has often been criticized by the developer community for not doing enough to promote their cause. Apple and Google have developer-friendly programs and leave no stone unturned in order to spread the word so it's hardly surprising that Palm is trying to catch up with the biggies. The move is also aimed at boosting the sagging App Catalog revenues and injecting new life into the carrier's online app store ambitions.

Go ahead and enjoy the 50% discount!

Ping.fm for webOS: Update all your Social Networks from your Palm Phone

Matt — Thu, 06 May 2010 11:45:00 +0000

Fed up of having to update each of your social networks one-by-one? Too many passwords to remember? Ping.fm is a cool application which can update all your social networks in one go. All you need to do is configure your social networks with ping.fm and it takes care of syncing all your social networks. The good news is that Ping.fm is now available as a free webOS app in the Palm App Catalog. The app has been developed by Erik C. Thauvin.

The app allows you to post from anywhere, to anywhere. So, you can update your Facebook account, your twitter feed and your blog all at the same time. From what I've seen of the app so far, it works like a charm on Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. However, if you are not an existing Ping.fm user, I'd strongly advice that you sign-up and configure your social networks through the ping.fm website. Attempting to do so through the app is not exactly a pleasing experience. Once your social networks are configured, the app allows you to use your Palm Pre or Palm Pixi phone as the gateway to all social networks.

What's more, ping.fm also supports email mode so I can send my update as an email to a pre-defined email address and it gets reflected on all my social network profiles. If you are a social media addict (like me), I'll strongly recommend that you try out the Ping.fm webOS app. I simply loved it and I'm sure you'll do so as well.

Latest AdMob Report: webOS holds fort

Matt — Tue, 04 May 2010 10:31:42 +0000

AdMob, a popular Mobile advertising specialist firm has recently released its March, 2010 report on leading mobile operating systems accounting for its advertising traffic. The latest report suggest that despite the dwindling fortunes of Palm (now a part of HP), webOS has managed to hold its fort as a popular mobile operating system. The report paints a steady picture for Palm webOS and projects Android as the leading mobile operating system for the future.

[Click to image to enlarge...]

Interestingly, Google had made an announcement to acquire AdMob last year but the deal is yet to get a clearance by FTC. Given the Google influence in AdMob, it's hardly surprising that the report is strongly biased towards Android. The report even suggests that Android smartphones have overtaken the iPhone in terms of number of AdMob requests served.

As per the report, the Palm Pre accounted for nearly 2.4% of AdMob's ad requests in United States last month. While Palm's share can hardly be compared against that of iPhone and Android, all's not lost for the struggling phone maker. With Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus prices plunging at Verizon and Sprint, it would be interesting to see if webOS share does increase in the coming months. Further, it is widely believed that the Palm-HP deal would help improve Palm's overall positioning. Let's wait and watch!

Palm Warns Users Against Overclocking Patches

Matt — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:14:54 +0000

Palm has officially warned users to stay away from the overclocking patches that promise to spur Palm Pre's performance. It is interesting to note that one of the overclocking patch boosts the Palm Pre's clock speed from 500 MHz to a whopping 800 MHz. There's another patch which overclocks the Palm Pre to 720 MHz. Two hackers code named 'unixpshycho' and 'caj2008' are the authors of these overclocking patches. The patches are believed to work on Palm Pre phones running on webOS 1.4.

On Sunday, Palm issued an official warning regarding these patches on the Palm Developer Center Blog. Palm's 'statement on the overclocking patches' mentions

"Palm is working hard to improve the speed and performance of webOS, as shown in our recent 1.4 update. While we appreciate the effort the webOS community has put forth to try and help us along that path, the use of this application is neither endorsed nor recommended by Palm and will likely result in a voided warranty. Palm encourages webOS users to let Palm release official updates that provide safe, reliable, over-the-air features that improve their device in a number of areas, as we have in the past at a rate of approximately once per month."

Many users who applied the patch have reported a substantial speed boost on their Palm Pre. Some users have reported that their Palm Pre randomly shuts down after applying the patch. All in all, the patch has evoked mixed reactions from Palm Pre enthusiasts.

Have these overclocking patches exposed Palm's lackluster performance tests? What do you think?

webOS 1.4 Coming This Thursday?

Matt — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:59:11 +0000

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.

Palm Pre’s Award Winning 2009

brian — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:48:06 +0000

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.

Palm Pre earns Popular Mechanics’ Top 10 Most Brilliant Products of 2009

brian — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:12:31 +0000

While it's not exactly Palm Pixi news, Popular Mechanics has named Palm Pre top it's Most Brilliant Products of 2009. That accomplishment speaks for itself. However, there's more to it than that. Only three consumer electronic products made the top ten. So one could say that Popular Mechanics put the Palm Pre in the top 3 products.

My favorite quote from the article would be:

Instead, it sets a new standard by putting all the best available technologies together... Sometimes more is more.

Palm Pre #2 Smartphone in User Survey

brian — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:16:44 +0000

Palm Pre Rocks!

Research firm Interpret released a study recently that gives the Palm Pre a #2 ranking, when compared with Apple iPhone 3G, Apple iPhone 3GS, Google Android G1, Blackberry Storm, Blackberry Curve.

The study found that people cared about phones measuring well in three areas: Smart, Hip/Cool, and Productive. The Palm Pre was the most well-rounded as 44% of people or more attributed each of those factors to the Pre. The iPhone 3GS, which had a great Hip/Cool score, only had was deemed Productive by 39%. The Blackbery Curve each his 50% in Smart and Productive, but got crushed with only 35% saying that it's Hip/Cool. The Blackberry Storm was almost as Productive, but fell a few points shy at 42%.

The study concluded that being the showcased phone on a carrier really helped it's cause. Palm not only had the power of it's own ads, but also the ones from Sprint. If it had tried to open up on AT&T, it may have been completely overshadowed by the iPhone. The study also suggests that as the phone expands to other carriers it will receive even more success from this publicity.

I know this site is supposed to follow the Palm Pixi and not the Pre, but we recognize there are a lot of similarities between the two devices - beginning with the multitasking WebOS. We expect that the Pixi is going to turn a few heads between being thin, a candy bar form-factor, and priced right. And if the Pixi gets on other carriers as well... Palm could find itself with some major market share.