Considering that Palm has recently been in hot water with the USB Implementers Forum for its vendor ID antics, no one was surprised when WebOS 1.2 came out a few days ago sans the ability to sync with iTunes. So now, in an update, Palm has launched WebOS 1.2.1, with the iTunes sync ability re-enabled.
Word has it that the second WebOS handset from Palm, the Palm Pixi is going to be in the spotlight come October 20th. Sprint is going to be the carrier doing all the showing off, of course the real question is, with the Palm Pre out and about, does anyone really want this tiny thing? We do have the iPhone 3GS already here and the Storm 2 on its way, so our attention is…diverted.
So Bell finally has the Palm Pre on board. Wohoo. Of course in continuation of the Palm tradition of making horrid commercials, the Pre is again promoted in a nauseating fashion. This time around, it isn’t some alien-looking woman talking about walking in the park with her Pre, this time the commercial does give the Pre to actually show up. The problem is, it’s a pathetic rip-off of the iPhone ad. Really! Was that necessary? Taking an awesome device like the Palm pre and degrading to the level of a rip-off commercial. Also, since the App Catalog currently features only 50 something apps, how is there ‘an app for everyone’? Sad, just sad. Here’s the Bell Pre commercial
Good news for both WebOS developers as well as Pre-owners; Palm is now accepting paid app submissions for the App Catalog. Finally developers will have rock solid chance of making money off of their creations and Pre-owners can get to know what it’s like to have an app store with more than 30 apps. So now Palm won’t be the only one trying to bring action to Pre users. Paid app submissions begin as of now.
The HTC Leo is without question one of the most lusted after handset at present, since everything else we were waiting impatiently for has panned out (Pre, iPhone 3GS, Tour, you get the picture). Anyway, the gorgeous handset that will bring a 5 megapixel camera with auto focus and dual-LED flash, Wi-Fi, GPS, 512MB ROM and a 1GHz Snapdragon processor has had a render of itself on every blog imaginable. Someone could actually just spend all day blogging about those blog-renders. But the latest of these images is one from the ai.rs blog. The folks swear it’s what the Leo will look like when we get it. All I can say is, please let this be true, because is possibly the best looking version of the Leo yet. HTC, we hope you’re watching.
Big Brother is dangerously spreading his influence in our world. It seems like everyone is pulling a Big Brother, every chance they get. Newest on aboard the Death Star is Palm. That’s right folks, developer Joey Hess performed a very public examination of WebOS and revealed to us all that your Pre is indeed giving Palm ‘intelligence’ such as;
That’s right, not in the least bit nice. And while questions are being raised about ethics, disclosure, privacy, Palm’s privacy policy, like others in its league is strangely broad enough to cover nuttiness like this. Hesse has suggested a way to disable this information sharing feature, but it requires the use of Linux. Let’s just hope an easier way of fixing the feature comes out soon.
Finally the App Catalog sees the face of new apps, and very popular ones at that. Most notable of these, one that many Pre users had undoubtedly been waiting for is the Open Tables reservations app. the Open Table service, it allows you to find restaurants in your area and reserve a table at a time of your choice all from within the app. You can even invite attendees with Open Table’s Pre app and it will add the reservation details to your calendar for you. What’s sweeter is that the app is free, Open Tables makes its profits from deals with restaurants, and it’s available in the App Catalog immediately. Other interesting new additions include; Fliq Bookmarks by Mark/Space, a bookmark sync utility that works alongside The Missing Sync to sync your Pre bookmarks with Safari. Now let’s hope the App Catalog keeps getting better at a faster pace.
While Pre sales have been all good in the United States, the Canadians haven’t had that big a chunk ‘o’ Pre to bite out of. All that changes now of course as Bell is finally offering the Palm Pre for $199.95 on a 3-year contract or $599.95 off contract “with a minimum 500 MB data plan.” Future Shop set up a pre-order teaser for the Pre too, smart move considering that everyone likes to be teased. In all seriousness, let’s hope the inventory plans to hold out and Bell is on better grounds than Sprint was.
If ever any child needed proof that the wheels on a bus go round and round, well here it is. Its Palm trying ever so hard to provide sync with iTunes on the Pre and Apple trying ever so harder to stop Pal from getting away with it. And that is just what’s been going on. Anyone expecting impressive new handsets and rocking OS from either of the manufactures should just get a large popcorn bowl and watch these two go at each other’s technicalities and loopholes. The latest in the iTune sync Olympics sees Palm coming out with the webOS1.1 which once again allows Pre owners to sync with iTunes. And Apple has said quote “%$###!!!” unquote. Everyone can now get their surprised faces ready for when Apple will once again come up with a new way to block aka sabotage the webOS1.1. but the webOS 1.1 isn’t just about pushing pineapples up Steve’s behind. It brings along with iTune sync many other features like Exchange support, remote wipe, PIN/PW security, timeout when inactive, better certificate handling. Additionally following were some other changes that came out, rather reluctantly at that. • Changed sound for notifications – You still can’t change them yourself, but the new sound is much richer, if a little quieter • Animated drop down menus – they look really slick and really change the experience. The Context menus also have some nice animation. • Lots of Photo app improvements. A more distinct bar between all photos and your albums in the photo app, plus they’re calling the Screenshot album “Screen Captures.” The preview thumbs also slide in from the right. Faster photo rendering. Overall the Photos app feels much more fully baked. • Emailing Memos – The memo app now has a menu option to email a memo. • A new font for the Browser – uses Palm’s system font and, truly, it looks fantastic. • Disabled the key combo in browser to open in a new card. Boo-urns. • Javascript interpreter Performance upgrades – this will speed up virtually everything and is great news • Better Gmail handling – not failing when you tap on a notification for an email you’d already archived on the desktop • A new icon for AIM • More auto-complete / auto correct entries in the dictionary. • With the slider open, the Center button now turns on the screen, where as before you had to hit a keyboard key or the power button. So Pre people will want to upgrade real soon, to enjoy both the new features and also savoring pleasure that you’re doing something that positively ticks off Apple.
Whenever something great happens, we are compelled to write about it. The same is true for when we something atrocious pops up and gives us nightmares. That’s where the new Palm Pre commercial steps in. I mean don’t get me wrong, the Pre is awesome, but the latest ad on the airwaves is a nightmare. Who exactly wants to buy a smartphone being promoted by a girl who seems a bit out of it, like she’s talking to ghosts over shoulders? WebOS is a great platform, but getting a spirit-talker to promote it is a major bad idea. To further boost the nonsense creativity of the ad, the Pre doesn’t exactly show up on screen till some 20 seconds of the 30 second ad have passed. Palm knows how to make a good phone, now they should learn how to fire a bad ad agency. Watch the video yourself and be honest, would you buy toilet paper of it was advertised like this
Recent Comments