Jon Rubinstein takes over as Palm CEO

You sort of knew this was coming after he shepherded the Pre to launch, but Palm just announced that Jon Rubinstein is taking over as CEO, replacing Ed Colligan after sixteen years in the top spot. After a short break, Colligan will join the very vocal Roger McNamee at major Palm investor Elevation Partners, so he won't be totally out of the loop, but the shuffle is still somewhat unexpected -- and the Palm / Apple bloodlines just got even deeper with the Rubinstein, the ex-head of the iPod and Mac divisions, now totally in charge.

[Originally Posted at engadget.com]

Palm Pre Email and Contacts Tutorial Videos: Updated

This recently released “Palm Pre Podcast” explains how email works with the Palm Pre. Synergy which is the information management system developed for Pre allows you to seamlessly access all of your different email accounts simultaneously. When it comes to email it looks like the Pre can do everything the iPhone currently does, and then some. See the training video below:




Update: We have stumbled across another training video posted on YouTube by itechsgurl that explains how contact management works on the Pre.



[Originally posted at palmpreblog.com]

Palm Pre Launch on June 5th Confirmed?

It appears that we are getting close and closer to the launch of the Pre, considering the banners over at Best Buy and alleged Sprint employee training that has been going on for months now.



The latest development over at the rumor mill is this document, obtained by Boy Genius Report that appears to be an internal memo. The memo contains a schedule of Palm Pre events in early June leading up to what the document states as “Launch Launch” on June 5th.

Although we can’t confirm that this document is official - It’s important to note that Best Buy is more than likely to do a trial launch of the Pre on June 7th, so the dates on this internal memo seem to be inline with what we’ve been hearing elsewhere.

[Originally posted at palmpreblog.com]

Palm Pre headed to Canada's Bell Mobility

Oh, Canada, Palm delivered some pretty good news on Wednesday morning, announcing that it will bring the Palm Pre to the Great White North through Bell Mobility.

Bell Mobility, a CDMA carrier, will offer the Pre some time in the second half of 2009, so now, Canadians can also agonize over an exact release date just like us here in the States. You can sign up to be notified via e-mail of its availability here.

(Source: The Official Palm blog)

Palm's Pre to be shadowed by a Pixie named Eos

We're all still waiting for the Palm Pre to make its appearance, most likely this month. But Engadget has a peek at what it calls the second phone that will run Palm's new WebOS operating system. That phone, the Palm Eos, is reportedly headed to AT&T and will serve as a follow-up to Pre, just as the Palm Centro, a lighter, cheaper, smaller model, did to Palm's earlier flagship devices. Check out Engadget for a full list of specs.



Techcrunch, which broke the story Wednesday, said the Palm Eos' code name is Pixie and it will sell for $99. Like the Centro, it will have a fixed keyboard, but run on the new Palm operating system.

It's unclear when this baby would be available. Techcrunch said Palm could put it out in the fall but may be waiting to see how the Pre does first.

This will be a necessary component for Palm's success. It'll need to get its WebOS out to as many customers as possible if it really wants to build developer support for the platform. With the Pre starting on third-place Sprint, Palm will be under pressure to release it or other WebOS devices on other carriers as soon as possible.

Disney buys stake in video site Hulu

Walt Disney Co. is taking a 30 percent stake in Hulu and will bring many of its popular ABC and Disney shows and movies to the online video site.

Disney joins News Corp. and NBC Universal, which built the Hulu site with Fox and NBC programming. Hulu in March became the third-most-watched video site, according to comScore, with 380 million videos viewed.

The deal, which had been rumored for some time, bolsters Hulu's lineup. The site will now get ABC shows like "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" and ABC Family shows like "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." It appears that ESPN content and ABC News material, however, will not be part of the deal.

With the addition of ABC, Hulu now boasts content from three of the four major broadcasters. CBS is the only network that hasn't signed on.

For ABC, the deal brings a new avenue for distribution. The network was an early adopter in streaming shows on its ABC.com. But it said Hulu adds another audience that does not overlap with its own video site.

The added partner should push Hulu into the No. 2 online video spot soon. Fox Interactive Media is currently second after YouTube with 3 percent of the market, while Hulu is in third with 2.6 percent.

[Originally posted at businessweek.com]

Palm Pre's little bro to be launched later this year?

Palm Pre is coming. Soon. Really soon. They say it's about to show up on the shelves in May or June. Well, one thing is for sure: the closer it comes the more rumors surround it.



Like this one: according to BusinessWeek the manufacturing cost of a Pre is 138 US dollars which is way lower than iPhone's 174 US dollars or even BlackBerry Bold's 169 US dollars.

The next thing going on in Rumorlandia is that Pre's Mom and Dod are expecting its smaller brother later this year. We admit it does sound unsubstantial, as even the original Pre is still awaiting its release date.

It is supposed that the mini version of Pre (shall we say Mini-Pre?) will be targeted at other markets.

Supposedly, the Mini-Pre will also run the new WebOS but it's not clear whether there will be a hardware keypad.

Until then, we'll keep on waiting for the day the GSM-version of the Palm Pre becomes available.

By the way, you could be among the first to get one. All you need is a bit more luck and reviewers skills since Palm are looking for the Palm Real Reviewer (only US residents over 18 years of age may apply). Why not give it a shot?

[Posted at gsmarena.com]

Palm Pre May Sell for Only $150

Analysts at Credit Suisse are predicting that Sprint may sell the Palm Pre for $150 with contract in a move to undercut the $199 rival iPhone.



So far, Sprint has only claimed the Palm Pre would be competitively priced, leading most to believe it would hover around the $199 price mark. However, Credit Suisse believes that Sprint’s strategy could be to subsidize the hardware, and make up for it financially with new customers.

AT&T successfully did the same thing when they lowered the iPhone’s price from $500 to $199, ultimately attracting millions of new customers.

Credit Suisse also forecasts 4.3 million Palm Pre sales by 2010, keeping it well behind iPhone total sales, which Apple claims reached 17 million last month.

[Originally posted at i4u.com]

Palm's webOS Is The Bomb

Some developers who've gotten a head-start working on applications for Palm's webOS have indicated that they like what they see. A lot. Pandora's CTO noted, "Everything about the Pre feels like it's 'future-oriented,' not an iPhone-inspired knockoff."

After hearing that some developers aren't all that interested in creating apps for the Palm Pre and webOS, others are offering the opposite opinion. NetworkWorld interviewed a bunch of different developers, who all appear to be pretty bullish on the new mobile operating system from Palm.

webOS is Linux-based and has a number of Palm innovations and additions. The main ingredient, apparently, is the mixture of the Webkit engine to control some of the user interface, including HTML and Java support. NetworkWorld writes:

The potential power of webOS lies in three capabilities that Palm has brought together into a coherent whole. First, mobile applications are written entirely in JavaScript, HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, which are technologies that an army of Web developers has been using for years. Second, webOS was designed from the outset to run multiple applications at once and, these developers say, to minimize the well-known potential problems that arise when doing so. Third, the application model is designed in turn to fully exploit both these features, creating, these developers say, a simpler, far more intuitive user experience.

In the limited time I've spent with the Pre, I'd definitely agree that the user interface is intuitive and works amazingly fast. That's because much of the user interface is based on these Web technologies, which are lighter on their feet.

Tom Conrad, CTO for Pandora, seems particularly enthralled with webOS. He says, "Your application is running as though it were a kind of series of dynamic Web pages in an embedded browser. It's not compiled into 'non-Web code.' It executes within a true Web environment."

Christian Sepulveda, vice president of business development at Pivotal Labs, says, "It's a completely new way of thinking about an OS on mobile devices. webOS has fully embraced the notion of applications running at the same time, as PCs do. You can now write applications that are more complex."

These comments help to provide some contrast to those offered by other developers, who feel that webOS isn't worth developing for. SkyHook Wireless recently reported that just 8% of LBS developers are interested in porting their applications to webOS. Hopefully the excitement that these developers offer will spur others to take an interest in webOS.

From informationweek

Some developers are singing serenades for Palm Pre!

Sprint and Palm are surely very positive about the success of the Palm Pre, and their optimism certainly is not baseless. The Palm Pre is yet to be released, but some of the developers of applications for the phone have already started singing serenades for the Palm Pre.

NetworkWorld has interviewed several app developers working on the Palm Pre's operating system, called webOS and the companion software development kit, Mojo. NetworkWorld has found that some developers are really excited about the phone, but some iota of developers are not at all interested in developing for the Palm Pre and webOS.

According to the developers standing for the Palm Pre, there are three things that make the phone stand apart from the others; the three things are that the phone based on the well-known JavaScript language, it can run several applications at once, and thirdly, it is easier to use.

"It's a completely new way of thinking about an OS on mobile devices. webOS has fully embraced the notion of applications running at the same time, as PCs do. You can now write applications that are more complex," says Christian Sepulveda, vice president of business development at Pivotal Labs.

Tom Conrad, Pandora's CTO, says, "It's the combination of these kinds of capabilities that excites developers. Palm started with a clean sheet of paper. Everything about the Pre feels like it's 'future-oriented,' not an iPhone-inspired knockoff."

"Your application is running as though it were a kind of series of dynamic Web pages in an embedded browser. It's not compiled into 'non-Web code.' It executes within a true Web environment," Conrad adds.

"With Mojo, we were up to speed in weeks. The barriers for entry for developing on Mojo are very low," says Agile Commerce: Partner Eric Marthinsen.

Palm webOS is Linux-based operating system developed by Palm for the Pre smartphone. According to NetworkWorld, "The potential power of webOS lies in three capabilities that Palm has brought together into a coherent whole. First, mobile applications are written entirely in JavaScript, HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, which are technologies that an army of Web developers has been using for years. Second, webOS was designed from the outset to run multiple applications at once and, these developers say, to minimize the well-known potential problems that arise when doing so. Third, the application model is designed in turn to fully exploit both these features, creating, these developers say, a simpler, far more intuitive user experience."

From topnews.in

Palm takes next steps on webOS, Pre smartphone

Palm Inc. has revealed new details about its developer plans for the webOS operating system, the heart of the upcoming Palm Pre smartphone.

The company has extended its "early access" program for the Mojo software development kit, making it accessible to more developers, but still stopping short of general availability. Palm also announced plans to deploy the first of a series of branded "cloud" services, in this case a subscribe/publish messaging service. Finally, it unveiled an emulation program from MotionApps, that will let the Palm Pre load and run hundreds of applications written for the legacy PalmOS platform.

The announcements were made Wednesday night by Michael Abbott, Palm senior vice president of application software and services, during a speech and demonstration at the Web 2.0 Expo, in San Francisco.

Among other things, Abbott stressed that webOS applications run natively on the Palm Pre, so they"re available to users even without a network connection. But those applications are built with widely-used Web technologies such as HMTL, JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets. The new platform, which replaces the declining PalmOS, is critical to Palm"s future.

Since shortly after the sleek, multi-touch Pre smartphone was unveiled in January, the Mojo SDK has been available only to a select group of software application partners. Starting now, developers can apply for access to the toolkit at http://developer.palm.com. Not all applicants will be accepted at this point. Mojo will be generally released "later this year," according to Palm.

The smartphone, initially available only on the Sprint network, is due out by the end of June at the latest. You can check out a slideshow that compares Palm Pre with Apple iPhone, based on their specifications.

The new cloud service, dubbed Mojo Messaging Service (MMS), undoubtedly will find fast and broad adoption among webOS developers. According to a Palm statement, the service will enable the automated replication of new or changed data and content to users and applications.

MMS uses a subscribe/publish model: users and applications "sign up" for data or content. When changes are published on the cloud servers, they become available automatically via notification to the subscribers. MMS relies on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), a set of open, standards-based technologies that can be used in such applications as instant messaging, presence, multi-user chat, content syndication, and general routing of XML data. XMPP was originally developed in the Jabber open-source project as an alternative to proprietary messaging services.

The new emulator, dubbed "Classic," from San Francisco-based MotionApps, will let existing Palm users move many of the 30,000 or so legacy PalmOS applications to the Pre. The vendor"s Web site has little in the way of detail, but claims, "Compared to Treo 700p your PalmOS apps will run approximately twice as fast on Classic."

There is a drawback at least initially: the PalmOS applications will not be able to exploit core elements and features of the new webOS. In a statement, Palm says it is "working with partners to ensure that popular PalmOS applications ... are optimized to take advantage of everything [webOS] has to offer." But it gave no details about what that actually means or how or when it will be possible.

[Originally posted at computerworld.com]