Happy New Year 2010! Another year is gone, and we find ourselves with new goals, more tech, and many more things to come. Here at MyPre.com, we are focused on anything that has to do with the first webOS device, but you already knew that, so let us begin with this year in review. Palm is a company that needed a homerun for 2009, and to the surprise of many, they gave the world the great news; the Palm Pre, their new flagship phone, packed with a new OS, which they called “webOS”. This gave so much needed relief to a company on the brink of extinction. In the eyes of many, Palm delivered and then some.
Palm’s Big Announcement
The Palm Pre is the first mobile phone to win “Best In Show” at CES. This is a great honor, such event houses numerous technology-oriented companies in one place to show off their consumer electronics as well as other gadgets. The Palm Pre announcement came with high expectations, and Palm’s stock jumped 35% right after the announcement, an indication that stockholders believe in the new device.
The Palm Pre and its first Accessories
The Palm Pre, a 3.1-inch 320 x 480 HVGA capacitive touchscreen smartphone, with EVDO Rev-A (at least at the beginning), WiFi b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 and 3G of course, together with GPS, and supports the A2DP wireless stereo profile. It has an extended gesture area underneath the touchscreen, but it also packs a full QWERTY keyboard when it’s opened. There’s a 3-megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field, the Palm Pre uses only the latest imaging correction software from DxO Labs, who actually is the leading competitor in the field of image analysis and correction and is used is all major camera brands including Nikon and Canon to name a few.
But most – if not all – of you already know about the hardware, so let’s talk about the most important accessory of the Pre; the TouchStone. The Touchstone charging Dock for the Palm Pre phone, which makes the Pre, one of the first smartphones to feature wireless charging using electromagnetic induction. Just place the Palm Pre on the Palm Touchstone accessory, and magnets quickly align the Pre phone (which needs a special back cover, sold separately), in the correct position for charging. There’s also a sleek car charger includes a removable 2.5 foot (76cm) microUSB cable for easy storage, and an official leather case that Palm calls a “simple leather pouch with a splash of color”. There were other accessories, you can read this post about them.
Pre Sightings, Rumors and More before the Big Day
Like any other gadget, the Pre had its fair share of sightings and rumors before it hit the shelves, so let’s talk about those things for a moment:
On the second week of March, the smartphone made an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night Show, Engadget’s Editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky brought along the little black pebble to demonstrate just what makes it so special. It was a bold move by Palm, and everyone thought the Pre was about to be released, unfortunately, it took 3 more months for that. A month after, in April, the Pre was spotted on the hands of a couple of “kids” on a San Francisco parade, at that time, many people thought the pictures were Photoshopped. Then came along Angelina Jolie, who allegedly tried to adopt more Pre phones; “She basically said she likes the software better than the iPhone, she likes the thumboard for texting (although the keys aren’t big enough), and thinks the screen is beautiful but can be too easily scratched.” After that, the Pre was found playing Youtube videos and also catching a ride on Caltrain, there were more sightings after that, but you get the picture.
The rumors were many and will never stop, but one of them tipped the price since January, the rest are history. We could also go on and on with the many ups and downs of Palm Stocks, or how many analysts tried to foresee the future of Palm. Others thought it would be a great idea to see bigger companies like Dell or even Microsoft to buy Palm.
Palm had a private pre-release of the webOS Mojo SDK in January, followed in April 1st by the announcement of the Early access to their Mojo SDK program and the support by a third party developer for Legacy PalmOS applications. We got our own video of a hands-on demonstration of the Classic application (for Legacy PalmOS apps) on the Palm Pre. Shortly after, Palm begun admitting developers into their early SDK.
The Advertising Begins and the Big Day Arrives
Sprint made many geeks very happy, and then unhappy in a matter of days when they announced on their website the phone as modem feature on the Palm Pre, just to take it off later. But most of us forgot about that, when USA Today had a full page ad featuring the Palm Pre, and the TV had the first Now Network Commercial featuring also the Pre. Even though there was no announcement on release date and price we felt the Pre was getting closer to be launched, again, we were wrong, also, Sprint subscribers received an email about the Pre. The price plans for the Pre were confirmed a few months before the Pre was released. By the way, Palm also had TV ads for the Pre, but we all know how that went. Also, Sprint employees begun training on the Palm Pre. In May, we found out about training sessions and the possible launch of the Pre during a June 5th Lunch.
And finally, the big day was getting close, MyPre had a chance to review the great webOS device. Saturday June 6th 2009 will be a day to remember, the Palm Pre smartphone begun its journey into our hands, I got to my local Sprint store at 4 am, and there were already 13 people in front of me, by 5 am, there were about 60 people.
Palm Pre Arrives to other Countries and More
After launching here in the US with Sprint, the Pre went on to Canada with Bell, and after that, it begun to swim across the pond, towards Europe. There, it was released via O2 and Telefonica in Germany, Spain, Ireland and the UK. We also had rumors that China Telecom was planning to offer the Palm to its subscribers, but so far that hasn’t happened. Mexico jumped into the Pre bandwagon too, and not only tELCEL, but apparently, IUSACELL also might carry the little bugger.
There are rumors saying the Pre will arrive to AT&T, not officially confirmed, but the rumors of the Pre going to Verizon appear to be true, and it might happen as early as January 2010, probably with a new name. There were other news too, like the cat & mouse games between Palm and Apple, also Jon Rubinstein is now Palm’s CEO, the former CEO, Ed Colligan went to Elevation Partners. Also, Palm decided to dump WinMo in favor of webOS.
Palm Pixi
Back at the end of April, the news was that Palm had a second webOS handset on the making, the code name for that device was; the Palm Eos/Pixie with a candy bar form factor. Many rumors came and went, but in September, Palm made the official announcement; the Palm Pixi was coming, the rumors of the Eos/Pixie were true. The Pixi has a 2.63-inch multi-touch screen with 18-bit color and 320×400 resolution TFT display, a 2MP fixed-focused camera with LED flash, and unfortunately, NO WiFi. Pixi is also the first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627 chipset. According to Palm, the Pixi is “Palm’s thinnest phone ever.” I bet it is, with dimensions of 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D), and the weight at 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces), the Pixi is thinner than the Pre by 6.1 mm and even the iPhone 3Gs by 1.45 mm.
The Palm Pixi, unlike the Pre, has new and eye-catching Artist Series customizable back covers designed by California artists. By the end of October, Palm and Sprint officially announced a price of $99.99 with a two year contract, and a release date of November 15th for the second webOS device. But if if you are on a budget, there are places where the Pixi is cheaper, like Walmart and Amazon. Apparently, the Pixi might be heading to Verizon, a WiFi Palm Pixi recently cleared the FCC, and Palm wants you to Give Fun and Get Fun with the Pixi, according to their TV advert.
What’s Next?
What will the future have in store for Palm, Sprint, Verizon and everyone else involved with webOS? Well, nobody knows for sure, unless you have a time machine, but we know that pretty soon, our webOS handsets might get Flash support. And remember that CES 2010 is just around the corner, let’s keep our fingers crossed, and hope Palm wow us again with something new.
We also know that all the Palm Pre users are very happy, after the limitation on the number of apps that could be installed on the Pre was eliminated with the latest update to webOS. That is very helpful, especially now that the App Catalog has almost 1000 apps.