Tag: palm (Page 4 of 8)

Sprint Offers Pre Converts $100 Credit

The Palm Pre.Just three months after launching the Palm Pre, Sprint is offering a $100 service credit to new Pre customers on its network. The credit essentially cuts the price of the phone in half, which isn’t a bad deal. It’s not the first time the Pre has come down to the $100 price point, but it does show just how badly Sprint wants new customers to get the phone in their hands.

I think it’s a decent strat, too. The Pre isn’t my phone of choice, mostly because the differentiators don’t really matter to me. The keyboard, though physical, is way too small for my hands, and I don’t really need multitasking, especially for a phone that doesn’t have many apps. For a first time smartphone owner, though, the Pre is really a great choice. The OS is quick and easy to navigate, includes a decent camera, and has all the basic smartphone functions you need. You can also get a full data plan cheaper than with most Blackberry devices or the iPhone.

It’s no secret that Sprint needs customers, and it needs to retain those customers. Offering solid deals in the midst of a recession is an almost sure-fire way to get a few converts. You can get the deal by signing a two-year contract with Sprint before October 31st. The credit will be spread across three months.

Palm Still Lagging Miserably Behind

Palm Pre fail.So the Mojo SDK is out, meaning Palm should be ramping up to start some serious competition with the iPhone, right? Wrong. In fact, they’re just starting an ecommerce program that will allow developers to charge consumers for the applications they (the consumers) download. The program will launch in beta in mid-September.

I tried to be skeptical when I heard critics heralding the death of Palm. I knew things weren’t great for the company, and I’ve written a few posts expressing my general discontent with how they’ve handled the launch of what could be a really great phone. With every new decision/announcement I think, “now they’ll get it right,” or, “they must have learned by now,” but they clearly haven’t. I realize the infrastructure to support a phone on the scale of the Pre costs a lot of money and takes a lot of people. But Palm could have thrown a lot more effort into understanding the post-iPhone market and positioning their device accordingly. Hell, just getting people an early SDK would have been nice. Embracing the homebrew scene would have been nice. All of the things consumers did to try to make the phone a success would have been nice.

Instead, Palm remained tight-lipped on progress regarding the SDK release and slowly leaked out details and new features to try to excite developers. It was a promising phone at launch, but assuming developers would wait for months to get a chance to enter a fresh app ecosystem was just crazy. Now we’re 3 months past launch, the phone isn’t selling particularly well (not well enough to save the company for certain) and Palm is starting a beta ecommerce program.

The only good news in this little mess is that they’ve decided to get the program to the public while it’s still in beta instead of waiting until December or so for a full release. It’s still too little, way too late, but at least we can look at the glass 1/8 full instead of 7/8 empty.

WebOS Gets One Good App, One Boring App

Palm's App Catalog Beta.At least they’re new, right? Right. I’ve been waiting to see Palm’s App Catalog update for some time and now it has finally happened. Today Palm announced two new apps on their official blog. The updates come several weeks after the release of the WebOS SDK, and no doubt has Pre users salivating for more.

The first app, OpenTable, is what I consider the boring app. It provides you with real-time integration with the website, giving the user access to reservation data near your location and calendar integration. A whole lot of meh if you ask me.

The other, called Fliq Bookmarks, is an application that works with The Missing Sync to provide sync capabilities from your Mac’s Safari bookmarks to your Pre. For now it is Mac only, though PC should be coming soon. Maybe they’ll toss the Firefox users a bone, too? We can always hope.

Pre Homebrew Gets A GUI

The new homebrew installation methods.While Apple and Palm battle back and forth for iTunes connectivity with the Palm Pre, the homebrew community is finding easier ways to put their apps onto Palm’s new phone. They’ve released two new methods that make adding applications as easy as a drag and drop.

WebOS Quick Install is a java-based desktop app that works for Mac, Windows, and Linux, and allows dragging and dropping for application installation. Just download the 1.1 SDK update, drop your phone into developer mode and drag and drop. Hit the “install” button and you’re all set.

The other installation method is actually on-device, allowing you to download and install ipk files straight from the phone. The on-device system is called fileCoaster, and it works by using the text strings associated with apps in the Precentral forums. Browse to an app, copy the associated string, and paste into fileCoaster. The app then downloads and installs automatically.

Looks like developers are making excellent use of the Pre’s new OS. I just wish Palm would wake the hell up and let these brilliant folks make some money. Sure, turning your phone into the device you want it to be is cool, but these guys should be making a little coin for their efforts.

Source: Precentral

WebOS SDK has its Limitations

Palm Pre running an OpenGL-less DOOMPalm has finally released their WebOS SDK, giving developers a chance to enter a totally virgin app market. You can bet there are droves of programmers hoping to port their popular iPhone or Blackberry apps to Palm’s web-based OS and maybe make a quick buck. A few of them are already expressing some distaste with the SDK. Some of those developers may even be abandoning the platform before it gets started.

Why you ask? There are two glaring problems. The first is no OpenGL support. Palm was clear that the Pre was not going to be a gaming device. They plainly stated gaming would not be a focus for the phone any time in the near future, in fact, so this isn’t a huge surprise. It still sucks though, in that it limits games to some seriously ugly graphics.

The bigger problem, at least in terms of the number of applications affected, has to do with the phone’s accelerometer. For now, the SDK only allows accelerometer polling at 4Hz. What that means to the layman is the phone only checks its orientation 4 times per second. For smooth graphical transitions you need something on the order of 20Hz, bare minimum. For more advanced applications, like the kind that can measure velocity, you need 50-100Hz. An iPhone application called gMeter currently provides this function, and its actually the gMeter developer, Craig Hunter, who’s pointing this stuff out.

Both of these issues could be updated at some point down the line, but the future may be too late. Limiting a developer’s options doesn’t mean they’re going to find creative workarounds. For a lot of programmers, it means they won’t bother. And that sucks, because Palm has the first truly fresh app store in a couple years, something they could easily use to woo hungry developers.

The silver lining here may be that the App Catalog won’t even release new material until fall at the earliest. Maybe by then Palm will be ready to make some changes. From what they’ve done so far, though, you won’t find me holding my breath.

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