last100 » Palm Pre

I’ve published my full UK Palm Pre review over at Mobile Industry Review

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:42:43 +0000

I’ve posted part two of my Palm Pre UK (GSM) review over at Mobile Industry Review. Here’s the intro:

It’s been just over a week since I took loan of a Palm Pre, a device that bears the weight of Palm’s future success on its shoulders. Or so the story goes.

And it’s far too good a story for most pundits not to have written, me included. The truth, of course, is a little less dramatic but significant nonetheless.

While the Palm Pre is undoubtedly the company’s comeback device, the big bet is the accompanying webOS that powers the Pre along with the subsequently released Palm Pixi. In fact since the second device running webOS was unveiled, Palm have announced that, moving forward, they’re dumping Windows Mobile to pursue a single OS strategy. Thanks Redmond for easing the transition away from the dying PalmOS to the newly born webOS. But make no mistake, that’s all you were good for.

It’s in this context that when reviewing the Palm Pre it’s more tempting than usual to consider the phone’s hardware as separate from the operating system it runs on. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

(Spoiler: The hardware is OK but webOS is where things get really exciting.)

Click over to Mobile Industry Review to read the full post, and if you have any further questions, leave a comment here or on MIR and I’ll try to answer them before I return the device.

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Gadgets and canapés: PR, Paranoia and the Palm Pre [review]

Steve O'Hear — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:32:17 +0000

I finally have a Palm Pre in my hands. Well not literally as it would be kind of difficult to type this post, unless I did it on the phone of course, which I’m not. Have you tried the keyboard? It’s pretty good but it’s not that good.

But a working UK GSM version of the Pre is sat next to me and I have the device on loan for the next 10 days or so. Remember, I’ve been chasing down the Pre for almost nine months, ever since it was first announced at January’s CES. So this feels like a big deal (the device went on sale today here in the UK, exclusively on O2).

And, frankly, I’m not used to waiting this side of the pond while my US brethren get to fondle a phone first.

It sucks.

Anyway, back to the Pre. I’ve written up my Day One impressions of the UK version of the Palm Pre, along with a tongue-in-cheek description of the PR back-story, in my debut column — working title: Gadgets and canapés — for Ewan MacLeod’s Mobile Industry Review (MIR). I hope to make a regular contribution to MIR and I’ll definitely be revisiting the Pre after a full week in.

Here’s a quote from the piece where I talk about the Pre’s Google and Facebook integration.

[Yes, I am quoting myself. Oh and it is #FollowFriday on Twitter. Just sayin'.]

After entering my Google credentials into the Pre, the phone’s email client sprang to life, as did calendar and contacts. In some ways the webOS-powered Pre is the Google phone I was always hoped Android would be. Google integration is on a par with stock Android but has a far superior UI. The Pre’s calendar is one example, with multi-calendar support and a nifty accordion metaphor to utilise screen real estate when part of the day is empty.

Importing Facebook contacts, avatars included, also worked as expected, and merging any duplicate contacts between Google and Facebook, for the most part, happened automatically. Manually linking contacts that Synergy had missed was also trivial.

Head over to MIR to read the full post ‘First impressions of the UK Palm Pre: We like it!‘

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iPhone UK exclusivity to end, the future’s Orange but is it any brighter?

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:50:12 +0000

Exclusive handset offerings are certainly good for carriers and are probably good for handset makers too as they help drive up the price during negotiations – presuming there is a demand for said device in the first place. But it’s hard to see how they are ever in the interest of consumers who end up paying more through higher tariffs via the subsidy merry-go-round.

That’s because exclusives create a monopoly by any other name. In the case of the iPhone, if you want Apple’s iconic device here in the UK, you have no real choice but to become a customer of O2. Thankfully, that’s set to change with rival carrier Orange announcing that they have partnered with Apple to officially offer the iPhone.

Logically, based on my reasoning above, this added competition — the newly formed duopoly – should lead to greater competition and therefore lower prices for consumers. However, where Apple is concerned, I wouldn’t count on it. My bet is that the iPhone tariffs and up-front pricing will remain fairly close to where they are today, for the time being at least, and that Orange’s offering will be similar to O2’s. Such is demand for the iPhone, Apple is unlikely to have had to reduce what it charges either carrier in concession to ending exclusivity.

Instead, Orange will have paid ‘whatever it takes’ to secure the device as a strategy to acquire and retain high end customers who are crying out for the iPhone.

O2 the same.

(I’m basing this, in part, on reports that T-Mobile UK have been unofficially offering Apple’s device to its most profitable customers as a last ditch attempt at stopping them from leaving.)

So what will UK consumers get from the end of O2’s exclusivity? Better 3G coverage might well be the answer. Or at least a genuine choice of 3G networks.

As a side note, I was a customer of Orange UK for my first ten years of mobile. I left the carrier a few years ago not because they were a little more expensive than their cheapest rival but because they didn’t offer the handset I wanted at the time (the Nokia E61). Ironically, I could be about to leave my current carrier — 3 UK — in favor of O2 as they have the exclusive on the Palm Pre.

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Palm Pre UK release date confirmed, prices on par with older iPhone 3G

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:43:51 +0000

We knew the carrier: Telfonica-owned O2. We knew the time frame: before Christmas. Now we have the actual date and pricing for the UK release of Palm’s Pre smartphone, the company’s comeback device.

Set to go on sale on the 16th of October, the Pre will be “free” to customers signing up to a £34.26 per month, 24 month contract, or for those willing to move to the higher tariff of £44.05 or more on an 18 month contract. Otherwise the device will have an additional up front cost of £96.89. All of the tariffs feature varying inclusive minutes and texts, along with ‘unlimited’ data and WiFi hotspot access through The Cloud and BT Openzone.

If the O2’s Pre offering sounds familiar that’s because it’s priced exactly the same as the original iPhone 3G, as apposed to the newer and more expensive iPhone 3GS. While the Pre has a beefier processor than the original 3G, it shares the same amount of non-expandable storage – 8GB – which presumably helped to dictate O2’s pricing. The early adopter and techie in me says that the Pre offers the better of the two deals, although neither is cheap. Just sayin’ :-)

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PlayBite: Hands-on with the UK/GSM Palm Pre

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:11:45 +0000

I’ve just got back from PlayBite in London, a press event organized by PR agency Bite. The mini press-only expo showcased products from a number of consumer tech brands, including Palm. In fact, the event was in part billed as the first chance for UK journalists to get a hands-on with the Palm Pre, and I got to do just that.

Despite my positive coverage of Palm’s ‘come back’ smartphone, today was the first time I actually got to see the device in person, a whole nine months after it was first announced and three months after it went on sale in the US.

The good news: from my brief hands-on, my initial enthusiasm hasn’t been dampened. This thing is by far the closest to iPhone in terms of user experience – the UI lives to up all the preview videos I’ve watched – and trumps Apple’s iconic device on a number of fronts. Multi-tasking being the most obvious — the card analogy works really well. It’s like Palm has out “Apple’d” Apple. Palm’s Web OS has more than a little Mac OSX to it, which isn’t surprising considering the number of ex-Apple employees who head up the team at Palm.

Update (following questions via Twitter): I tried opening several apps at once (calendar, video player, contacts, music player and dialer) and switching between them. I also tested out ‘Universal Search’ to bring up all mentions of last100 on Twitter. Encouragingly, web browsing and app switching seemed pretty snappy.

On the hardware front, the Palm Pre is a lot more slender and better looking in real life and feels really comfortable in the hand. And, thankfully, the slide out portrait QWERTY keyboard, though small and fairly cramped, was really quite usable. As readers will know, I’m quite fussy about my QWERTY keyboards.

The bad news: still no confirmed UK release date. Just sometime before Christmas.

Interestingly, Palm’s PR firm wouldn’t let me shoot any video of the device. Either way I’m working my socks off trying to secure a review loan so watch this space for a full review of the GSM version of the Palm Pre.

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Palm invites developers to begin submitting their paid-for WebOS apps

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:22:14 +0000

I’m finding it increasingly hard to comment on the Palm Pre and supporting WebOS, since I’ve yet to get my hands on the company’s ‘second coming‘ smartphone. The device is due to launch here in the UK exclusively on carrier 02 (strangely sharing the limelight with Apple’s iPhone) sometime in Q4.

Nonetheless, news comes today that Palm is to begin accepting applications from developers who want to charge for their Palm Pre WebOS apps, with the pending launch of the company’s Palm App Catalog e-commerce beta program in mid-September. Attracting developers to Palm’s new platform will be key to the Pre’s success and future handsets released by the company running on its shiny new WebOS.

On that note, on par with Apple and Google (Android), developers who charge for their apps will get the better part of a 70/30 split with Palm. More information about the developer program can be found here.

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Palm Pre to launch on O2 in the UK, just don’t mention the competition

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:45:34 +0000

It’s now official: The Palm Pre will launch exclusively on Telefonica-owned O2 here in the UK.

When?

“In time for the holidays”, say Palm and O2, with no word yet on pricing. My guess is that we’re talking early October, enough time to ramp up for Christmas spending.

Either way, it’s a pretty long time to wait, especially since O2 will have been busy pimping its other flagship exclusive. Apple’s newly launched iPhone 3GS.

And then there’s the rest of the competition.

Handsets already on the market in the UK that will/are to varying degrees going head-to-head with the Pre and iPhone include Nokia’s N97 (see my review), which is already getting its own TV and other advertising blitz, Vodafone’s Android debut, the HTC Magic (reviewed here), and Samsung’s HD video capable touch screen monster, the i8910 HD.

But perhaps more significant are the growing number of handsets, announced or known to exist, that will debut closer to the Palm Pre’s UK release.

First out of the gate is HTC’s newest Android phone, the Hero, with its Palm Pre-esque custom User Interface. We also know of Samsung’s Android-powered I7500 (another O2 offering), Sony Ericsson’s Satio (previously known as Idou), another touch screen device but one with a headline grabbing 12 megapixel camera. There’s also the expected BlackBerry Storm 2, Sony Ericsson’s own Android debut, and likely another flagship from Nokia.

That’s one crowded smartphone market, and knowing the competitive nature of the mobile phone space here in the UK, most, if not all of these Palm Pre competitors will come highly subsidized (or made to look that way), with pricing closer to “free” with a 18-24 month contract.

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Official: Palm Pre to go on sale June 6th, just two days before Apple’s WWDC – $200 with 2 year contract

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:59:00 +0000

Palm Pre to go on sale June 6

After weeks and weeks of speculation, the cat is finally — and I mean finally — out of the bag. The Palm Pre will go on sale in the US on June the 6th, with the Sprint exclusive, for now at least, costing $200 after a $100 mail in rebate with a 2 year contract. If you’re lucky enough to be based in the states, you’ll be able to purchase a Pre at Sprint stores, Best Buy, Radioshack, select Wal-Mart stores and through Sprint’s own website. That’s a pretty decent lineup of distributors and should give the device plenty of shopping mall exposure, presuming of course that Palm can meet the initial demand. And then there’s iPhone.

Palm Pre

Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference kicks off just two days after the Pre will go on sale, in which the Cupertino-based company is expected to announcement at least one new model of iPhone running the newly updated iPhone 3.0 OS. That would give Palm just 48 hours without Apple completely hogging the limelight, a strategy that many of my colleagues in the tech media have called out as madness. The argument being that an announcement of a new iPhone will all but knock the Pre completely off the news agenda and make consumers think twice about purchasing Palm’s new device. However, I’m still inclined to think the opposite.

Unannounced Apple products tend to receive so much media and blogosphere hype that they rarely meet expectations and more than often disappoint. Managing expectations is something that Apple has had to become expert at. Under promise and over deliver is one of the company’s core narratives. Unless the next iPhone blows away expectations – it won’t – then it runs a high chance of being compared unfavorably or at least on a par with the Palm Pre, a device that consumers can get their hands on immediately.

The media loves an underdog or at least some kind of competition – conflict is an essential component of any story - and Apple vs Palm fits that need perfectly, guaranteeing that in the days and weeks post-WWDC, Palm will remain part of any iPhone coverage and vice versa.

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Palm Pre aiming to be THE Facebook phone – social networking still mobile’s killer app

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:47:31 +0000

(Credit: Jamie Gonzalez via twitpic)

I’ve written many times before that social networking, and Facebook in particular, is the killer application for mobile phones. It’s what’s driving take up of mobile data and the adoption of higher end so-called smartphones. The mobile networks have taken notice and jumped on the social networking bandwagon, heavily promoting access to Facebook as a key feature, and handset makers are doing the same.

RIM has been targeting consumers with an ad campaign that features the Blackberry’s Facebook application.

Ditto Apple with the iPhone.

And there’s INQ, a new entrant whose first device, the INQ1, has been dubbed ‘the Facebook phone‘ based on its deep integration with the social networking site.

Heck, even Nokia, despite creating its own competing social networking offerings, is starting to embrace Facebook through a prominent widget on the home screen of its upcoming flagship device, the N97.

The Palm Pre, however, looks to have taken Facebook support to the next level with its ‘Synergy’ feature, which builds the phone’s address book and messaging functionality, in part, around the social networking site (along with other third-party web services).

On that note, a leaked photo taken of the set for an upcoming Facebook television ad campaign puts Facebook at center stage – literally – signaling that the handset maker is going to market the Pre as the Facebook phone, perhaps by claiming that it has out innovated its rivals in terms of support for the near-ubiquitous SNS.

(via CNet)

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PR wars: Palm Pre could go on sale 24 hours before next gen iPhone unveiled

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:48:08 +0000

The latest rumored release date for Palm’s comeback device, the Palm Pre, is June 7th, one day before Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC). If true, this would be an audacious move from the handset maker, and one that, at first glance, carries a lot of risk. WWDC is thought to be the venue at which Apple will announce the next generation iPhone – and possibly a new category of mobile device – therefore completely overshadowing the Palm Pre’s one day old availability.

Or would it?

The assumption is that Apple’s next gen iPhone will up the stakes – on a technology and user experience front – against the Palm Pre and all other competitors. While it looks like the Pre has borrowed from and leap frogged the iPhone on a number of fronts, Apple has done the same with the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 software update. Instead, perhaps Palm should be more worried about new hardware, but then again, the Pre versus iPhone battle is primarily about software, as is the smartphone wars overall.

For the sake of argument let’s presume Apple does announce a new device at WWDC that does meet or exceed expectations. Where would that leave Palm if the Pre has gone on sale just 24 hours before? It’s easy to see how Apple’s hype machine could completely blow Palm off the news agenda, but I think that the opposite would in fact happen. With the story of the Pre’s general release being just one day old, it will inevitably become part of any iPhone story. Palm and Apple have plenty of history too – good and bad – providing the perfect back story. By going on sale one day before WWDC, Palm is hoping that the Pre will pre-empt the next gen iPhone and ride on the coat tails of all of Apple’s inevitable publicity.

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BlackBerry address book integrates Facebook, apes Palm Pre’s “Synergy” and INQ1

Steve O'Hear — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:01:11 +0000

A new version of the Facebook for BlackBerry application has been released that offers better integration with the social networking site. Two standout features: a user’s friends list is kept in sync with the handset’s built-in address book – Facebook avatars show up as called ID, for example – and notifications from the social networking site are “pushed” to the phone’s home screen. Other features offered, not all of which are new, include:

Send/receive message or wall posts, pokes and friend requests.
Update your status, view and comment on your friends’ status.
Share photos from your BlackBerry smartphone with tags/comments and post to Facebook with just one click.

It’s not surprising to see BlackBerry (RIM) continue to improve their Facebook application by offering better integration with the social networking site: I’ve long suggested that social networking, and Facebook in particular, is the killer app for mobile, and RIM were one of the first to recognize this when they begun featuring Facebook in their ad campaigns as the company strove to break into the consumer smartphone market.

Having said that, BlackBerry isn’t the first to link the phone’s address book/calendar with the social networking site or to “push” Facebook notifications directly to the handset. INQ are selling their low-cost ’smartphone for the masses’, the INQ1 (see review), based on similar functionality, and Palm’s upcoming Pre running webOS also offers deep Facebook integration as part of a feature called “Synergy”.

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Fandango and Pandora apps show off Palm Pre’s Mojo [video]

Steve O'Hear — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:35:09 +0000

At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco this week, Palm announced that third-party developers can now apply for access to the company’s “Mojo” Software Development Kit (SDK) for the upcoming Palm Pre and webOS. Not all developers will be let in at first however – word on the street is that priority will be given to apps that take advantage of the hooks provided by webOS into the Pre’s address book, GPS and calendar – but as the SDK becomes more robust and Palm is able to scale support, access will be made more widely available.

Meanwhile, five hundred odd miles away in Las Vegas at CTIA 2009, Palm was busy demoing a number of third-party apps from developers who’ve been given extra early access, including Fandango, Pandora, Nascar and Sprint. The Fandango and Pandora apps are particularly impressive (see video below courtesy of CrunchGear), and are a good example of how Palm hopes to compete with the likes of iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia and Android.

Fandango

Fandango is exactly the kind of thing that Palm is hoping third-party developers will deliver. The movie booking app takes advantage of GPS to narrow down search results to movie theaters and times that are relevant, and then after booking a ticket, ‘pre’-empts the user by adding an entry to the phone’s calendar and offering to invite friends.

Pandora

Multi-tasking is one of the key selling points of webOS, particularly when compared to the iPhone, and the app for Internet radio service Pandora is a great example of how it works in practice. Not only does Pandora continue to stream audio when in the background but it also utilizes the webOSes non-intrusive notification bar to deliver one-click access to Pandora’s media controls (play, pause, skip etc.) when outside of the app.

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