The Inquisitr » palm pre

Palm Pre Now Only $79.99, But Only At WalMart

James Allen Johnson — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:02:49 +0000

We thought the $99.99 price tag on the Palm Pre at Amazon was a great deal, until we got a look at the newest WalMart offering, $79.99 with a two year contact and mail in rebate.

The move comes at a time when the new Palm Pixi has been announced and will more than likely be offered for free with certain contract plans.

The Palm Pre is now available at most WalMart locations in the U.S. and at this pricing they’ll probably move fast. [via EverythingFree]

OMG! Apple just killed Palm, those…..

Duncan Riley — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:06:56 +0000

As the various announcements at today’s keynote at Apple’s WWDC are analyzed, considered, and gushed over, there was one announcement that has huge ramifications for another company: Palm.

The touchscreen Palm Pre mobile went on sale at the weekend with moderate sales figures, but that was before Apple changed the game: the current 3G iPhone is now available for $99.

The apples and apples comparison (no pun intended) isn’t perfect, but the memory and price points are: $99 upfront for an 8gb 3G iPhone, or $299 ($199 after a $100 rebate) for a 8gb Palm Pre. Even ignoring the recession, and the huge advantage Apple has with applications (50,000 iPhone apps vs 18 for the Pre), the iPhone wins hands down on cost. That could mean that any hype around the Palm Pre could be near worthless when it comes to a final buying decision. Palm could respond with a price cut, but given the phone has only just gone on sale, that’s highly unlikely.

Of most mobile companies, Palm has long been the company most likely to fold. The Pre, according to analysts was Palm’s last serious play to turn the company around; if it fails, Palm as a company could fail as well. With Apple now offering a $99 iPhone, the chances of the Pre being a flop at least double…but maybe even more so. The new iPhones, which offer superior features to the Pre at similar price points don’t go on sale until July, so mobile phone buyers might sit back and wait to consider a new iPhone 3G-S, deferring buying decisions in the short term.

The market would appear to be concerned as well: Palm stock (NASDAQ:PALM) dropped 6.46% today, and a further 0.49% in after hours trading to close at $12.10.

(img: Engaget)

Mobile computing has nothing to do with users – everything to do with money

Steven Hodson — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:01:58 +0000

There’s a lot of hot air being blasted into the tech blogosphere bubble trying to make it seem that the future of computing is mobile and how important this shift is to the user.

Bullshit.

Mobile computing is only about one thing – making bucket loads of money before the users get fed up with having to carry multiple devices and pay outrageous fees in order to keep up with where they are being told their wired lives are headed. If it truly was about making our digital lives easier the iPhone would be available for any network you wanted to connect to in any country you were in. The Palm Pre wouldn’t be making deals to have single providers in the US and Canada.

The problem is that we – as users – haven’t wrapped our heads around the fact that mobile computing, if it is to become ubiquitous, has to start being looked at as a single communication pipeline. This isn’t a matter of what operating systems are powering these computing handsets. It is a matter the networks that tie them all together and who controls them. It is a matter of the manufacturers of the devices that tie us increasingly to our digital world and them making deals with network providers that don’t benefit the users.

When Apple released the iPhone on the world there was a lot of press being written about the deal that they cut with AT&T being their sole supplier. This wasn’t to benefit the users, it was to benefit Apple with a single profitable delivery channel and it was a benefit to AT&T because they got to make a shitload of money. What did the users get out of the deal? they got an expensive first generation phone, that dropped in price not long after hitting the market, on a network that still to this day provides questionable service.

Now we have the Palm Pre going the same route. Just as Apple cut a deal with Rogers in Canada, Palm is making Bell Canada their exclusive provider for the Pre (get the Vaseline ready folks). Where are the users in all this deal making? getting shafted at one point or another.

Back when rail was king there was a period when it was a confusing mess of different types of rail for the trains to run on being used. This created inconsistencies in service with different companies providing service to different areas. It caused incredible expense because of duplication of everything from the rail being laid to the engines and train cars being built. Once they were forced to consolidate onto one size of track everything changed. Rail travel exploded and as a result businesses exploded.

Now fast forward to the day when mobile networks are the new tracks and the device manufacturers are the new train car builders. Except now there is no ideal of making the users world better by creating a level playing field that benefits them. Instead we have device manufacturers colluding with the transporters of our mobile communications and digital lives to keep the tracks a different size.

Just as we saw a boom when the railways had to all use the same size track I believe we would see one of the most incredible booms if instead of mobile computing being geared to benefit the providers it benefitted the users. To do this our mobile devices need to be available at a cost everyone could afford and with access that is equitable worldwide. These devices would need to be able to be used anywhere in the world and on any network and with a quality of service that isn’t controlled by corporate boardrooms and shareholder greed.

Then we would see a different world.

Did Adobe snub Apple with Flash 10, Palm Pre, and Dev Fund announcements?

Robert Scoble — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:07:29 +0000

Just now Adobe announced lots of mobile phone news. More on that in a second. But what wasn’t announced?
No iPhone support for Flash yet.

What else was announced? FlashPlayer 10 will ship on the Palm Pre. I was briefed on the rest of this stuff last week and they were holding out on this news.

Now THAT is the way to poke Steve Jobs and crew in the eye. Apple has famously not put Flash on the iPhone, which keeps a lot of Web experiences from working.

Flash Player 10 for Smartphones
• Browser plug-in for smartphone-class devices with full desktop web compatibility and access to rich applications, interactive content and web videos.
• First operating systems expected to be supported: Android, Windows Mobile, and Nokia S60/Symbian.

Palm Pre Aims to take on the iPhone

Duncan Riley — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:50:06 +0000

Palm has launched the Palm Pre, a touch screen mobile phone that takes it for the first time into iPhone territory.

Usability is the big push with the phone, with the official pitch starting with a reference to pulling data from online calendars. Supported calendars include Outlook, Google, and Facebook. Contacts can also be imported from the same services.

One strong feature pitched is the ability to run multiple applications at a single time, something the iPhone lacks (well, music aside).

Other features include WiFi and GPS.

Without being able to touch it, it’s difficult to pass judgement on yet another iPhone competitor, but there’s one thing we can say: it wins on looks. Nice looking phone, nice looking OS, and you get a proper keyboard as well.