Apps are what drive modern smartphone platforms, so it’s a good thing we’re getting more of them. Included in yesterday’s app drop:
That’s not all – the rest is listed in its usual location after the break.
As reported by All Things D, one of the men who proved crucial to the development of webOS UI is leaving Palm: Matías Duarte is headed over to Mountain View and taking up an office at Google. As Palm’s Vice President of Human Interface and User Experience, Duarte and his team were responsible by-and-large for making webOS look and behave the way it looks and behave. Presumably, Duarte will be taking a similar role at Google and be working on Android – in fact he held a like position when he worked at Helio and Danger (makers of the Sidekick, since gobbled-up by Microsoft) prior to coming to Palm.
This leaves a big gaping hole at the top of level of Palm’s webOS development team. No matter how fast or multi-tasking an operating system is, it needs to look good and be easy to use to truly succeed (see how fast Android has taken off with newer revisions). With Palm headed into the land of HP this summer, the opportunities for somebody looking to fill that vacancy could be quite tempting. Perhaps Mr. J Allard, formerly of Microsoft, could be talked into being interested?
Either way, we’re sad to see Duarte leaving Palm, especially with such a game-changing move happening with the purchase by HP, and wish him best of luck wherever he lands.
Update: Engadget has confirmed that Duarte will become Google’s "User Experience Director for Android."
Another day, another batch of new apps. Cool how that works, eh?
Of course, that’s not all. There’s plenty more that’s new and it’s all listed after the break. But you knew that already, didn’t you?
Hey all, it’s time for another dash of App Catalog newness. Here’s what’s looking cool:
Obviously, that’s not all. If we spotlighted everything, then it wouldn’t be a spotlight. Or would it? Either way, the rest is after the break.
Pardon us while we offer up our calm and practiced reaction to the "better hardware" chant: duh. The next flagship webOS device is looming large in the minds of all geek-oriented webOS users (after all, it’s been over a year since the Pre was unveiled), and up there with the calls for a larger screen and better battery life is the hope for a beefier processor. Perhaps something like Nvidia’s Tegra or Tegra 2 chip?
Asked about webOS, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told Laptop Magazine that he thinks “the world will want webOS” to be supported in the next iteration of his company’s processor technology, much like they first wanted Windows Mobile and then Android.
And when prompted about the mythical webOS tablet that we all want to believe HP is working on (despite the fact that they have yet to officially absorb Palm), Huang dropped the usual “I can’t comment on that line.” Except that he really wanted to comment on it, “But it sure would be an honor to work on webOS. It’s a great operating system. If you look at the first generation of webOS phones, the Palm Pre, the UI is just brilliant. It’s just too slow. So it needs a faster processor. Otherwise, it’s a great operating system.”
We’re not going to try and read between the lines here, except that Mr. Huang is clearly a man with discerning tastes when it comes to mobile operating systems. Could an Nvidia chip power the next webOS device, be it a new phone or a tablet or a toaster? Sure, there’s the possibility. And yes, HP has worked with Nvidia in the past, but there isn’t a single major computer builder that hasn’t put Nvidia graphics chips in their machines at some point in the last decade.
Thanks to everybody who sent this in!
So, the App Catalog is still trucking along, right? Right. As such, there’s some new apps in there. Like these:
That’s not all that’s going on. For the rest, you’re going to have to mosey on past the break.
With HP poised to bring Palm into their corporate fold, we find ourselves tempering our enthusiasm for the rescue of Palm and webOS with the fear of what corporate culture may entail for the plucky Sunnyvale-based smartphone maker. Specifically, fear that the corporate culture will not just shun, but shut down, the brilliant and creative efforts of the webOS homebrew community that helped prop up Palm to this point.
So HP, while we have faith that you know what you’re doing, we still feel like we need to take a trip down memory lane to make it clear just how much we think homebrew should be important to you. And the story we’re going to tell is yours.
With all the hubbub going on at Palm HQ right now, we don’t exactly blame the Palm team for having a light day in the App Catalog. After all, they’re getting bought out, and that tends to cause some trepidation. So we’ll give the extra-light nature of yesterday’s app drop a pass. For now.
Updated apps:
Going to the chapel, and we’re gonna get pur-ur-ur-chased…
Welcome to Round Table, which is in fact not a table at all. Round Table is a continuing series on PreCentral where we pose a question to the staff and they provide their thoughts and insights. The question could be something simple like “what’s your favorite webOS app?” or something a bit more complicated, like “why did Palm choose the creepy lady?” Or maybe we’ll just end up chatting about our favorite episode of Alf, you never know. Today, however, we’re going to take a crack at the big news of the week: HP is buying Palm, and what does that mean?
If you weren’t able to make it to the Palm Developer Day(s), or just want to recap what happened while you were there, Palm’s here to hook you up. They’ve posted 14 sets of slides from the various development-related presentations at the two days of the Palm Developer Day weekend, ranging from Intro to webOS to debugging to working with the SDL and PDK. If you weren’t there, soon enough Palm will be posting the videos of the presentations so you can follow along just like you were in Sunnyvale.
While Palm is getting access to a big pile of cash courtesy of HP, their webOS launch partner is continuing to lose money and subscribers hand over fist, but at least Sprint’s now looking at smaller hands over fists. As of the end of the last quarter Sprint had lost another 578,000 postpaid (contract) subscribers, but picked up enough prepaid (i.e. Boost Mobile) subscribers to bump their net customer loss down to 75,000.
That’s better than the loss of 148,000 from the preceding quarter, but with more and more of Sprint’s subscribers becoming the prepaid variety, you’d think that Sprint’s revenue would be taking a hit as well. It’s not so, as Sprint saw its first rise in revenue in more than three years, bringing in $8.1 billion compared to $7.8 billion the earlier quarter. The bump in revenue corresponds to a drop in the net loss (or a rise in profit, albeit still negative, if you prefer). Sprint lost $865 million in the quarter, compared to $980 million the quarter before. It’s better, but not great, but Sprint’s still working off the bad mojo from the merger with Nextel in 2005.
[via: Engadget]
HP’s offer for Palm was for $5.70 a share, a hefty premium over yesterday’s closing price of $4.63. Understandably, when the news of HP’s purchase broke, both the volume and price of Palm’s stock skyrocketed, with Palm stock opening the day up nearly 24% from yesterday afternoon. Right now shares of Palm are trading around $5.74 (yes, higher than HP’s offer), with investors hedging that somebody else is going to come in and place a higher bid for Palm than HP’s $1.2 billion package. We wouldn’t count on it, and we’re not sure we could take the excitement either. Chart after the break.
While something may have happened yesterday, things must still carry on at Palm. So in that spirit, we shall carry on as well, and thankfully there are still new apps to discuss. Yes, life does indeed go on. So what have we in this App Catalog? Well, there’s a sale going on in the Glu Mobile section, so if you’re interested in picking up some PDK gaming goodness, now’s your chance. Of course, there’s other stuff happening the in the App Catalog, but I’m not going to spoil it for you. That is, unless you want me to, in which case you should give serious consideration to clicking the “Read the rest of this entry »” link.
While we won’t expect Elevation Partners to say anything about it until the sale is complete, it looks like they’re about to walk away from Palm with a small profit. This flies in the face of sensationalist claims of partner Bono (yes, of U2 fame) being “the world’s worst investor,” though we imagine he, Roger McNamee, and the rest of Elevation Partners had hoped to make a bit more off the deal. Just how much is Elevation set to get when all is said and done? $485 million, according to Venture Beat.
That amounts to 40% of the $1.2 billion that HP is set to lay down to snap up Palm. The story of how Elevation’s getting more than their 30% share of Palm is an interesting one. Elevation’s initial investment in Palm in 2007 was to the tune of $325 million, which wrapped up 25% of the smartphone maker under Elevation’s control. Elevation has twice in the intervening years invested in Palm stock, upping their total investment to $460 million.
So luckily for Elevation Partners and all their investors, they didn’t lose money on this deal. Of course, if they’d sold their shares late last year when Palm stock was trading over $18, they could have brought in close to $1.5 billion. Yes, you’re reading that right, a third of Palm used to be worth more than what HP is paying today. That’s what happens when expectations are tempered by reality.
There are two huge questions we had with regards as to how Palm would be merged into HP. First: what would happen with webOS (they’re going to keep it – that’s why they bought Palm). Second: what would happen to Palm the company?
Here’s the word, straight from HP during today’s conference call: “We intend to operate it as a business unit, which is in line with the way we’re structured today.”
So the question is, what is a business unit with HP? Hewlett-Packard is currently organized as a series of loosely inter-connected ‘business units,’ including the Imaging and Printing Group (printers, scanners, and cameras), Personal Systems Group (desktops, laptops, handhelds, and miscellaneous ‘personal’ connected devices), Enterprise Business (servers and networking), Software & Solutions (corporate software), and the Office of Strategy and Technology (research and development, marketing, and mergers and acquisitions). Judging by this hierarchy, we’d say that Palm is due to operate independently of but alongside the Personal Systems Group. That’s not to say that Palm will be operating with any degree of autonomy, but given that the majority of Palm staff, including CEO Jon Rubinstein, look to be staying aboard, we wouldn’t count on any major changes in the way Palm operates.
While HP is clearly making an enormous investment in Palm and webOS, don’t think they’re giving up on their other operating systems, most notably Windows Mobile. While their current sales of iPaq devices running Windows Mobile are less than lustrous, we can’t exactly say that Palm sales are moving along gangbusters either. So, we won’t fault HP for wanting to continue on with Windows Mobile alongside Palm webOS. Said HP VP of Strategy and Corporate Development Brian Humphries during the conference call today:
“We intend to continue to be a strategic partner for Microsoft. They’re a huge piece of our business today, and will continue to be so.”
During the conference call discussing the HP purchase of Palm, HP VP of Strategy and Corporate Development Brian Humphries dropped what we can only read as a hint at something we think webOS would be awesome at: tablets. Above is Slide #5 from the conference call, on which you can see the Verizon Pre Plus, Pixi Plus, and the HP Slate. Slide #6 cites the key things that Palm and HP bring to the table, with Palm bringing webOS and loads of experience in the sector, while HP brings loads of cash and scale. Scale, as in deploying webOS onto multiple form factors, like tablets. Of course, nothing concrete apart from the purchase itself was announced, but it’s clear that HP is psyched about what they can do with Palm and webOS.
Our friends over at Engadget were able to get on the horn with Brian Humphries, HP VP of Strategy and Corporate Development, and Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, and they had a pretty positive picture painted for them. According to their chat, HP plans to be “doubling down on webOS,” which Engadget confirmed with Rubinstein, saying “that was the whole point.” webOS is our singular most favorite part of Palm and the part we worried most about with the HP merger. Additionally, Rubinstein and most of the Palm executive staff will be staying on board, so for now it seems like Palm will continue to be Palm, but with the assets of the world’s largest technology company behind them.
So what will HP be doing with Palm and the “prized asset” that is webOS? Engadget was told that they intend to scale the OS “across multiple connected devices.” Tablets, anyone? Additionally, Rubinstein believes that HP wouldn’t be taking Palm and webOS “unless they were willing to make the kind of investment necessary to win.” Considering that HP is currently nowhere near winning in the smartphone marketplace (the lone smartphone OS they use, Windows Mobile 6.5, is due to die a slow painful death), the purchase of Palm isn’t just for IP considerations.
Jawbone headsets have been regarded as the gold standard in both audio quality and design for years, a tradition that the Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset continues with aplomb. Going back to the original wired Jawbone headset from 2004, Aliph’s headsets have always been at the forefront of aesthetics and noise cancellation. The new Icon series of headsets does not disappoint, picking up a more compact design while still packing in even better noise cancellation technology. Even better, the Icon recently snagged a firmware update that adds in A2DP for Bluetooth music listening. As always, the newest Jawbone is easily one of the best headsets available on the market.
After a few disappointing days in the App Catalog, the apps have roared back with a vengeance. Between new apps and updated apps we broke nearly 100 entries from our last overview. And there’s some good stuff in there, including plenty of games (like Gameloft’s Driver). Of course, games aren’t the only thing to the webOS platform, as we also get new calculators, a unique persistent note-taking app in Jot It, and some fun ways to mix up your, *ahem* dating life. Now I’ve got your interest, eh? Head on after the break to check out the list.