Facepalm moment
California based Palm faces dire straits. Financial trouble looms as the company cut its forecast revenues and the share price slumped. Generally smartphone sales are riding a wave but demand for Palm’s new Pre, Pixie and their ‘Plus’ siblings has been low. It’s unfortunate as Palm’s webOS has some great features, including the best implementation of multitasking I’ve seen. So why the problems? Well, partly webOS is being squeezed out by established operating systems, the rise of Android and new entrants with more clout like Samsung’s Bada. Without the support structures and developer community, there can be no clamour generated for all important app consumption. Second, the advertising and branding has been dreadfully dull and even worse.
CEO Jon Rubinstein has sent a letter to all Palm employees, reassuring them that Palm has £500 million in the bank to carry it through the choppy waters, but that figure only just covers the amount that backer Elevation Partners has already stumped up to keep the firm running.
Independent app vendor jumps to number three spot
Until now, independent app vendors have often lost out to the big names, a major and obvious criticism being lack of content. PocketGear are seeking to change that perception, and by acquiring Handango now have the ability to field a cross-platform marketplace with more than 140,000 titles, spread across Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm. The increase in scale for the two firms potentially makes them world number three, behind Apple and Google. PocketGear already provide the backbone for 40 storefronts, including those of Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile and AT&T.
Like to know more? press release here
Stylish business organiser
Sturdy black plastic, styled with exaggerated curves give the Pre the look and feel of a glossy, river washed stone. It slides open easily revealing a portrait QWERTY keypad and powers up displaying a 3.1 inch vibrant capacitive touchscreen at 320 x 480 res. Initially fiddly to type on, the keys are carefully spaced and have a pleasing, raised gel-feel. Having no touchscreen keypad is limiting to use in landscape mode.
WebOS features multitasking and multi-touch support. Apps run within a unique activity card, managed via a ripple-effect toolbar. They can be flipped around, rearranged, and shut down by fingertip flicks. Universal search makes a fab addition to usability, and discreet, self-sizing alerts don’t annoy like pop-ups can.
Palm Synergy allows combined and logical access to Yahoo!, Gmail, Exchange and facebook inboxes, plus the calendar functions synch and colour code appointments, allowing one page daily viewing by compacting free time.
The 3MP camera has a basic flash but the OS makes a real improvement, back loading image processing to allow shots at a faster rate than rivals. It doesn’t take video though, D’oh! A 3.5mm jack, Wi-Fi, GPS and stereo Bluetooth all complement the Pre’s functionality and Palm’s App Catalog is available for a small, but growing range of downloads. 8GB storage is healthy, but can’t be expanded.
A dismal battery life of less than a day is almost negated by the bundled Touchstone conductive charger. Magnetically stick the phone to the mount and it charges automatically. Coolest charger ever.
So new Palm Pre. Want to be a contender?
I was interested to watch some commentary about how the Palm Pre compares with the newest Apple iPhone 3Gs. Video is from CNET TV, the technology web channel from American broadcaster CBS. The presentation is a bit contrived, but we’re all geeks here right? Let me know what you think and if you want more grapple fans.
Another point to consider is the Pre is currently an O2 exclusive in the UK, but much cheaper than the latest iPhone. Check out the video with that in mind.
Get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone
Now the Pre is available in the UK with O2 I’ll get my paws on one and post a review shortly. In the meantime I bring you a preview from the Palm website (it’s easier to embed it here via YouTube).
It’s hard for every ad campaign to spark interest but you’d think I was one of the market this was shooting for. I like gadgets, I like mobiles, I want to integrate my work and diary. I don’t ever want to see this advert again. See if you can last the full 1:58 with the sound on.
Forced myself to watch it twice more with their audio muted. First I used ‘O Fortuna’ (Carl Orff) and then ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ (Richard Wagner). Thankfully I’m awake again and my interest in the Pre has been resurrected.
The meeting mentioned in the original? Matt isn’t going to be there.
California based Palm faces dire straits. Financial trouble looms as the company cut its forecast revenues and the share price slumped. Generally smartphone sales are riding a wave but demand for Palm’s new Pre, Pixie and their ‘Plus’ siblings has been low. It’s unfortunate as Palm’s webOS has some great features, including the best implementation of multitasking I’ve seen. So why the problems? Well, partly webOS is being squeezed out by established operating systems, the rise of Android and new entrants with more clout like Samsung’s Bada. Without the support structures and developer community, there can be no clamour generated for all important app consumption. Second, the advertising and branding has been dreadfully dull and even worse.