Two days ago we told you that Angry Birds Rio is available in Apple’s and Amazon’s app stores, and now it’s announced that the game is to land on two more platforms – Symbian^3 via the Ovi Store and webOS via the Palm App Catalog on April 8.
As we informed you, the [...]

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In the very near future game creator Rovio will be releasing an update to the Angry Birds Seasons game with special levels designed for St. Patrick’s Day that includes the pigs wearing green Irish hats.
This edition of the game is called “Go Green, Get Lucky.” In the preview trailer posted at [...]

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Nielsen has released their latest survey numbers on the smartphone market, and it seems that the pace of smartphone adoption is quickly accelerating, with 29.7% of US mobile phone owners having a small computer in their pockets. That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Also not a surprise: the iPhone, BlackBerry devices, and Android phones are dominating the smartphone space, snagging 27.9%, 27.4%, and 22.7%, respectively. Even Windows Mobile devices (yes, we’re talking old school Start menu Windows Mobile) stand at 14% in the survey, while Symbian accounts for 3.4%, generic “Linux” for 3.3%, and bringing up the rear is Palm (webOS and old school Palm OS) with a paltry 1.3%.

To put that into perspective, for every one Palm owner there are 21 iPhone users, 21 BlackBerry addicts, 17 Android owners, and even 11 Windows Mobile users. Heck, there are 2.5 times as many Symbian users in the US than there are Palm, and Nokia has notoriously struggled in North America.

All this begs the question: what is HP going to do to turn this around? CES is around the corner, and we’re hoping that Palm manages to pull out all the stops with the new hardware releases really needed to prop up the awesomeness that is webOS 2.0 (and maybe some wishful thinking, but we’d like to see a big splash with a feature-packed webOS 2.1 too). At this point HP and Palm are going to need a big splash, essentially rebooting the consumer mindset as it pertains to webOS and Palm. It’s becoming clear that Palm isn’t even in the conversation for most people.

Source: Nielsen; Via: Android Central, Engadget

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If the question “What platform do you see yourself developing for in 12 months?” had been posed a few months ago, the responses for webOS would have plummeted through the floor. But with the power, scale, and enormous bags of cash of HP at Palm’s back, it turns out that developer interest has turned around. In fact, it’s a doubling of interest, though that’s not saying a lot when you were standing at 3% current interest (dead last).

The doubling to 6% ties webOS with Symbian for one-year-out developer intent, but it pales in comparison to Android (up 56% to 61-out-of-100) and of course iOS (still leading with a resounding 82%. Interestingly, it appears that developers are looking to expand their reach across multiple platforms, with interest in HTML5, Windows Phone, BlackBerry OS, and even Symbian up. The only platforms that are staring down the tunnel of declining developer intent are Java and Flash, which comes as little surprise to us. Now all we need is some kick-ass hardware from Palm and some gangbusters sales to get devices in hands and developer interest up.

Source: GigaOM; Thanks to Jimmy for the tip!

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There are two things that Palm owns that are of true value: webOS and a giant bucket full of patents. Either would be good reason for a larger competitor to purchase Palm, and according to some analysts, either is good reason to declare Palm to be undervalued (Palm stock plus Elevation Partner’s 1/3 share equals approximately one billion dollars).

That Montana-sized basket full of patents is good for several things. Especially when that basket of patents contain things like "Integrated Handheld Computing and Telephony System and Services," i.e. smartphone. For one, Palm can claim royalties when other companies use that patent. It also, at least to this point, has served as a barrier against most serious patent infringement cases (Hello, Cupertino). Having a lot of patents is also good for something else: when those patents are licensed by many companies, it gives the holder significant value. Palm’s veritable trove of patents has lead PatentVest CEO Anthony Mazzarella to declare to Investors Business Daily that, “Based on our metrics, the value of Palm’s intellectual property is along the same order of magnitude as Apple. The market is overlooking the IP value in Palm, which has great value.”

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Obviously we’re going to be the types to tell you that the Palm Pre is one of – if not the – best smartphones of 2009. This is PreCentral, after all. But we’re not alone in out praise of the first webOS phone, as it has landed on several of those year-end “best of” lists that every website is obligated to put out. Since we only have two phones to choose from, our best webOS smartphones of 2009 list would be awfully short, so instead we’re going to give you an overview of how the Pre has landed on best of lists elsewhere on the web. We’ve got the round-up, waiting for you after the break.

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It’s been a little while since we’ve seen an analyst comment on the nonexistent acquision of Palm by Nokia, but Brian Blair of Wedge Partners has come to our rescue with a piece on why Nokia should buy Palm. His points mirror our own thoughts on the front of where it would make sense: Palm needs money, Nokia has money; Nokia needs a good OS, Palm has a good OS.

In an ideal world it could very well be a match made in heaven, but there are still some things to consider. Namely, those things are the hundreds of millions of dollars that Nokia has invested in Symbian S60 and Maemo. Clearly, Nokia has settled on Maemo as their operating system of choice for the future, even if it lacks some of the polish and functionality of webOS. It’s also worth noting that while Nokia may be a small player in the US smartphone market, they’re still the dominant force in the global smartphone market.

Nokia and Palm do need each other, but both companies are committed to doing things their way and alone at that. Thus far, every acquisition Nokia has made was not to either enhance their current strategy, or to expand into a new market. Purchasing Palm would do neither – it would replace or compete with their current strategy. Nokia has enough problems competing with their own products, that’s why they’re cutting their 2010 product line in half, adding Palm to the fold would only compound the inter-company competition. Let’s as General Motors how well that works, shall we?

For as much sense as a Nokia to buy Palm, there are just too many complications for it to actually happen.

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Wall Street is at it again, with the rumor again circulating that Finnish smartphone maker Nokia is interested in buying Palm. The news, as well as Sunday’s impending launch of the Palm Pixi, drove up shares of PALM $0.95 (8.30%) in the day’s trading, closing at $12.40. The jump ended a less than stellar week, with Palm stock up 9.54% from Monday. During the same one-week period the NASDAQ technology exchange was up 2.62%.

Analysts have been generally positive on the Pixi and believe that it will sell well like the Centro before it. Unlike the $150-$200 range in which the Pre competes; there are few true contenders in the $100 bracket in which the Pixi will launch.

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While Palm may not be putting up the same kind of sales numbers as Apple and Research in Motion, the release of the Pre has at least managed to reverse the trend of declining market share for the smartphone maker. In a survey conducted last month by ChangeWave Research, Palm posted its first non-dropping market share numbers in two years, holding steady at 7% of surveyed smartphone owners. The last survey, conducted in June, also showed Palm at 7%, though Apple logged a five percent jump to September (to 30%) and RIM’s BlackBerry line dropped one point to 40%.

In total, ChangeWave surveyed 4255 consumers, with 39% of those surveyed owning a smartphone. That’s an increase of 2% from June, even in the face of tightening purse strings and a severe economic recession. Even more impressive, that is a doubling of ownership numbers from two years ago. Not mentioned in the survey: Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian. Given US market trends, it might be safe to assume that Windows Mobile holds the #3 slot (for now), followed by Android, webOS, and then Symbian. But hey, at least one out of every fourteen American smartphone owners has a Palm device.

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A study recently completed by Gartner, Inc. predicts that in 2012 Palm’s webOS platform will have grabbed a mere 1.4% of the smartphone market with sales of 7.6 million. Gartner’s study holds that in three years annual global smartphone sales will top 525 million units (projected sales for 2009 are around 131 million smartphones). King of Gartner’s projected hill: Symbian, with 37.4% of the market, driven by 196.5 million devices shipped – though that is a drop from Symbian’s expected ~50% marketshare for 2009 (but still 20 million more units than 2009). The by-OS breakdown for 2012:

We aren’t too keen on these numbers. We can’t quite put our finger on why, but we have a feeling that the numbers for Android, iPhone, and webOS are too low, and that Symbian is frankly too high. And Maemo, which is currently only available on the N900 and will likely only be on N and E-series Nokia devices, garnering 23.5 million in sales in three years? We’re not analysts of any variety, but we really have to question the picture that Gartner is trying to paint of the future of the smartphone market – it just doesn’t mesh with the emerging trends that we are seeing.

Gartner also takes a bold stand on the growth of smartphones, which is generally agreed to be explosive in nature. While most research firms are predicting that sales in the 2012 timeframe will be up around 300-400 million, Gartner is predicting over 500 million. As with the opinions of stock analysts, the “research studies” of firms like Gartner should be taken with a few grains of salt. If you don’t believe me, consider that in 2006 alone Gartner predicted that Vista would be the last Windows OS release, proclaimed that Apple should quit making hardware and license Mac OS X, and determined that 2007 would mark the zenith of blogging.

Then again, the world is going to end in 2012, so what does it matter?

Thanks to Mike for the tip!

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