Tag Archives: Palm

[Pre] Palm Developer Early Access Program

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Selected developers who recently downloaded the Palm Mojo SDK now received mail that Palm has some open positions for their Early Access Program.

Developers need to apply with their app. If being accepted they will be provided an assigned Palm account manager for technical and review questions.

As early birds devs will get the developer registration almost for free – only a $5 fee will be required for PayPal verification.

Palm seems to be in the final preparations with their Developer Program and App Catalog. They explicitly write they want developers to help with “final scalability testing”.

Palm will officially open the doors for the Developer Program in december. So if you’re a developer the Early Access Program seems to be the last chance to get into the developer program early and rebated.

[Pre] Palm Pixi Running webOS 1.3.1 in the Wild

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On November 15th, 2009 it is rumored the new webOS 1.3.1 will be made available to worldwide Palm Pre users. On Monday a video on YouTube appeared that already shows a Palm Pixi running the new webOS 1.3.1.

Besides some boost in speed, the web browser in the 1.3.1 update obviously is able to recognize Adobe Flash already, though it does not run it (screenshot below captured at 0:24).

Links

» Precentral: Pixi running webOS 1.3.1 captured on video…
» Precentral: Adobe Flash Placeholder spotted in 1.3.1…

flashprepped

[Pre] Rumors about SIM Unlock for EU GSM Version

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As of now the only factory unlocked Palm Pre’s are being sold here in Germany. German Palm Pre’s are of course being sold with a germany QWERTZ keyboard. Anyway some international customers prefer the international QWERTY keyboard.

Now rumors in spanish forums have surfaced that the spanish GSM based Palm Pre sold by and locked to the MoviStar carrier have been unlocked. As of now we have no confirmation, if that is true or a hoax.

[Pre] Palm Allows Distribution of WebOS Apps outside App Catalog

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In contrast to Apple’ AppStore, Palm today announced, they will also allow distribution of Palm Pre applications outside of Palm’s App Catalog.

The WebOS developer program will officially start in december 2009 for an annual fee of 100US$. The annual fee does not apply for open source applications, as they will be taken into the App Catalog and distributed for free.

For commercial apps aswell as Apple with their AppStore, Palm with their App Catalog will charge 30%, while 70% will go back to the developer.

[Pre] Palm Pre to Ship with Adobe Flash Soon (Upd.)

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Adobe released a video yesterday featuring the Palm Pre running Adobe Flash. Adrian Ludwig from Adobe Labs shows websites running with Flash Player 10.1 beta on the semi-official iPhone challenger Palm Pre.

In their official press statement Adobe say

“A public developer beta of the browser-based runtime is expected to be available for Windows® Mobile, Palm® webOS and desktop operating systems including Windows, Macintosh and Linux later this year.”

Developers may sign up for notification about the Adobe Flash beta for the Palm Pre.

Interestingly neither this statement nor the statement on Adobe Labs include a single word about Apple’s iPhone or the iPhone OS X. Could this mean Flash will not come anytime soon to the iPhone?

While letting those rumors dwell, enjoy the Palm Pre video featuring Adobe Flash…


The Video is courtesy by Adobe 2009.

» Adobe’s press statement on BusinessWire.com…
» Adobe’s statement on Adobe Labs…
» Adobe Flash for Palm Pre notification registration…
» Adobe TV featuring the Palm Pre (currently unavailable)…

[Pre] Marry me again: WebOS 1.2.1 syncs to iTunes 9.01

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A couple of days after their latest release of WebOS 1.2 Palm released WebOS 1.2.1. Now the Palm Pre is again synchronizing with Apple’s iTunes 9.0.1. Since iTunes version 8.2.1 with every update Apple is trying to stop Palm from syncing their Pre with iTunes. As we’ve seen in the past, all those attempts by Apple don’t last long. According to Precentral.net the Palm Pre uses Apple’s USB idVendor string to fool iTunes into thinking the Palm Pre is an iPod.

The WebOS 1.2.1 update features:

  • sync photo albums with iTunes
  • reducing size of photos on the Pre
  • bugfix for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 sync

The update is 38MBybte in size and will be transmitted automatically on the Pre – at least in the USA.

[Pre] Palm Pre Hacked to Support Video Recording

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PreCentral reports that some devs managed to run a video recording software on Palm’s new flagship Pre. The software currently only supports 320 x 480 as resolution with 30fps.

But as the Pre supports up to 720×480 there is hope that we will soon seen DVD like recordings just from the Pre. The video format seems currently only badly formatted, that is why people recommend using VLC to play it.

[Pre] Merry Me again: Update Reunites Palm Pre with iTunes

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The “little Palm Apple battle” goes into its next round. A week ago Apple released iTunes 8.2.1. This update blocked Palm Pre users from synchronizing music and movies with iTunes. We reported about this update and the technical implications of the sync feature here.

Palm has now released a firmware update (webOS 1.1.0) for the Palm Pre. According to Palm’s blog entry this update contains the following features:

  • Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (including remote wipe, PIN/password requirements, inactivity timeout, improved certificate handling and more)
  • support for emoticons in the messaging app
  • person reminders (“Next time you get a message or phone call from that person, a message pops up showing you a reminder to ask them about their vacation in Maui” ct. Palmblog)
  • and Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync with music, photos and videos with the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).

Got issues with the Update?

Our fellow Heise.de News (german only) recommend not to update your Palm Pre while it is connected to iTunes. In case you did that and your Palm Pre does not interact on USB anymore, do a hard reset with unplugging the battery.

[News] Apple Bar Palm Pre from Syncing with iTunes

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With the latest update of iTunes 8.2.1 Apple eventually blocks Palm Pre users from syncing with iTunes. It seems Palm knew very carefully how to emulate the iPod verification protocol of iTunes. How comes?

Some major Palm Guys are former major Apple Guys

One could ask Palm’s CEO Jon Rubinstein, or Palm’s SVP of Product Development Mike Bell, or Palm’s spokeswoman Lynn Fox. As all of these three guys are former Apple guys. Rubinstein was Apple’s architect of the iTunes-iPod concept, Mike Bell was the Vice President of the Mac Hardware Division, and Lynn Fox was Head of PR at Apple.

Anyway Apple now decided to fix this issue and bar Palm Pre users from using iTunes for syncing. But what looks like a simple update in the first place may be viewed as a strategic answer to Palm’s boldness to make the Pre pretend being an iPod for iTunes.

Some Technical Aspects

According to DVD Jon the iPod emulation was not too complicated. Palm needed to emulate

  • the USB interface so that it responds with Apple’s Vendor ID and an iPod Product ID
  • the structure of an iPod filesystem
  • some XML info about the iPod device using a custom Apple USB command

But the the root USB node (IOUSBDevice) still identified the emulated iPod as a Palm Pre (find more details here).

David vs. Goliath

Does Apple fear Palm here? It seems like Palm is putting Apple under some pressure here. The Palm Pre is widely considered as the only real iPhone competitor and allowing it to sync with iTunes would make it more favourable for users who don’t like the proprietory iPhone concept. On the other hand Apple’s step to block it from iTunes again makes the iPhone and iPods the only choice for iTunes users. Anyway it shows obviously that a little fight is going on between Apple and Palm. This topic is under hot discussion on the PreCentral site.

Palm’s spokeswoman Lynn Fox just responded to Apple’s step “Palm’s media sync works with iTunes 8.2. If Apple chooses to disable media sync in iTunes, it will be a direct blow to their users who will be deprived of a seamless synchronization experience. However, people will have options. They can stay with the iTunes version that works to sync their music on their Pre, they can transfer the music via USB, and there are other third-party applications we can consider.”

[News] Steve Jobs back in Business

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We’re almost sure, you read it already all over the net: Steve Jobs is back in his office. Rumors say he was transplanted a liver about two months ago and he is in good health condition.

Our comment

Does all these news affect anything? Currently it seems no.

Apple’s presentations can also be run by Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, Bertrand Serlet, and Scott Forstall as we’ve seen on the last WWDC. But what about the future? What about the products?

This year’s WWDC

This year’s WWDC did not have new big products. It was all about the operating system update to 10.6. (called Snow Leopard) and iPhone 3GS that mainly has been speed improved and now got features that many people said to be overdue.

The future?

What will be the next WWDC presentation about? Yet another Mac Book Super Pro? Or another iPhone 3Gs2?

Who will be the wholistic spin doctor who feeds the company with ideas and innovations? This is the main question. And we’re gonna find out within the next few years.

Competition

We suppose competition will become harder at least in the field of cell phones. As Palm hired Apple’s iPod architect Jon Rubinstein three years ago it seems Apple has lost someone knowing how to design user interfaces for digital media.

What leads us to the bold question: why not buying Palm to stop those “separatistic” tendencies and make Jon Rubinstein Steve Job’s successor?