Author: Derek Kessler

Compared to the last few days, yesterday’s app drop wasn’t so anemic. In fact, it brought plenty of new apps along with only a smattering of updates. Some useful, some niche, but none that stuck us as outright useless (which if it isn’t a first, it’s the first in a long while). Even Appible seems to have scaled back their pace of public domain book releases – and dedicated their Classics collection to the PreCentral readership for all your support. Nope, not making that up. Apart from that, we’ve got a Google Latitude updater if you don’t feel like leaving your patched Google Maps running all the time, the first tower defense game for webOS, and more. It’s in list form, and it’s after the break.

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CrackBerry Kevin takes out some aggression…

UPDATE: Google has issued a statement about this, and it turns out that it was kind of true.

“We share revenue on search, not on mobile applications. The same is true for non-Android devices that use Google as the default search engine.”

There you have it. Nothing to see here. Move along.

***

While we won’t fault anybody for choosing an Android phone over the other offerings (though with webOS soon on America’s three largest networks, you need not feel forced into it), we do wish there were a level playing field on the corporate side of things. We’ve seen revenue sharing from the carrier to the phone maker (hello, original iPhone), but it’s not often we see it in the opposite direction. But that’s what we’re seeing from Google, at least that’s what MocoNews is reporting.

According to their anonymous sources at two different carriers, Google has an agreement with those carriers and the device manufacturers that if they support certain Google functions (e.g. Gmail, maps, etc) with built-in advertising, Google will share those revenues with the carriers and manufacturers.

Obviously, nobody’s going to issue a comment in the affirmative of this, they rightfully refuse to discuss confidential agreements. It’s also no secret that we’re generally fans of Google’s services, but their implementation on webOS sometimes leaves something to be desired.

So here’s the question: is Google playing fair? We have no idea how much Google is paying to companies for their cooperation, nor how much those payments have influenced carrier or manufacturer decisions to support Android. What we do know is that Palm can’t be happy competing with somebody that is actively paying carriers and manufacturers to support their products and services. Or maybe that’s just one of the benefits of having pockets so deep they might as well be bottomless.

[via: Android Central, Phone Scoop]

Some days are just light days. Thankfully, even though yesterday was such a day, it still came with several new and useful apps.

New apps:

• Geotasks Pro, $0.99, by Puggy Digital: Location-based alerts with background tracking, customizable intervals, and personal alert tones.
• Good Jew, $3.99, by Firebrand Forges: Jewish stories, prayers, songs, and history.
• Modern Combat: Sandstorm, $6.99, by Gameloft: Take on terrorists in this 10 mission first person shooter with local Wi-Fi multiplayer action.
• Noise Countdown, Free, by NoiseD: Basic timer app with background functionality and auto-reset.
• SiDiary-Exporter, Free, by Lars Hendrichs: Diabetes log book with entries for blood glucose avlues, consumed carbohydrates, and injected insulin doses.
• Sudoku Master Free, Free, by Thomas Haustein: Twenty-puzzle trial version of Sudoku Master.
• Sudoku Master, $1.45, by Thomas Haustein: Auto-saving, landscaping, penciling, hinting, Sudoku.
• WordPegs – New Testament, Free, by Pressed Apps: More than 150 quotes from the Bible’s New Testament to randomly display as your wallpaper.

Some days are hot and heavy with the apps, others are light. And sometimes, they’re both. “Say wha?” you say. Well, we’re light in the numbers, but sort of leaning to hot and heavy in nature (looking at your apps, On The Go Girls).

New apps:

• Best of Savvy Girls, $0.99, by On The Go Girls: The best of the Savvy Girls sexy women photo collection.
• CompTIA Security+ SY0-201 Test Prep, $3.99, by Upward Mobility: 125 practice and prep questions for the SY0-201 certification exam.
• FreeCaddie, Free, by Mobile Software Design: Full-featured trial version of GPS golf rangefinder FreeCaddie Pro.
• Hottie Show, Free, by On The Go Girls: Download and save to your wallpaper photos of all the hottest adult stars of 2010.
• Isolde Rising Trial, Free, by Fairsing: Fantasy RPG, build a party of four different races with four distinct classes, with customizable stats and spells, all for epic adventure.
• Midnight Mischief, $0.99, by On The Go Girls: Ready for party and trouble, the girls of Midnight Mischief are waiting for your phone.
• Rockus Racer, Free, by Rockus Studios: Race your car up a cheeky chalkboard racetrack.
• Speed Dealer, $1.99, by Unnamed Applications: React quickly (and correctly) to the cards dealt to you.
• VDRemote, Free, by Marcel Meissel: Remote control for your Linux VDR.

Updated apps:

• Baby Data, $1.50
• Lab Values, $3.99
• Super KO Boxing! 2, $4.99
• Zombie Wallpaper, $1.00

Start spreading the news
I’m leaving today
I want to be a part of it –
New York, New York…

Our man Neil sent us this photo of a Palm billboard going up in the bustling advertising Mecca that is Times Square, New York City. As best as we can tell, this billboard is a good thirty feet high and some 60 feet wide, so it’s friggin’ huge and will seem enormous that close to the ground. As you can see, this is part of Palm’s new “Life moves fast, don’t miss a thing” campaign that has seen outdoor advertisements all across the United States and has made the jump to television.

Coming soon to a Palm Pre near you: Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. The 3D game, presumably of the PDK variety, has been posted to a covert YouTube channel named “gameloftpalm” (which is filled with other Gameloft webOS games, in case you’re feeling suspicious). In case you’re not familiar with it, H.A.W.X. is a 3D flight simulator complete with mid-air combat and all that jazz, and it was rather recently (December) released on the iPhone OS. And now, as best as we can tell, H.A.W.X. is on its way to webOS.

With H.A.W.X. you fly your choice of 25 different fighter and jet planes in 13 different missions over a variety of real locales (like Chicago, Rio de Janiero, and Washington, D.C.). You can fly everything from the F-14 jet fighter to the B-2 stealth bomber, and engage targets both in the air and on the surface. H.A.W.X. can be controlled both from an on-screen thumb-pad or by tilting with the accelerometer. On the iPhone version, players can even hook up with up to three others via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and play against each other – and if Gameloft’s Shrek Kart on webOS is of any indication, we can expect that we’ll at least be able to blow each other out of the skies over Wi-Fi.

Thanks to Kurush for the tip!

Are you ready for more exams, books, and searching? At least, that’s the message that I was getting from the new apps that landed yesterday. Three more “keys” search games from tEarn Media (total: 14). Two more technical exam prep apps from Upward Mobility (total: 15), and seven more public domain books from Appible (total: 56). These three developers comprised more than half of the new apps from yesterday – and there were plenty of new apps to boot. Disregarding those, however, we are left with another emoticons sender, some fun-looking games, a new version of the Quran, the obligatory hot girls wallpapers, and a fancy-pants above-my-head subnet calculator. Plus the standard slew of updates (soon to become much worse with international app distribution a’coming). It’s all listed, and that list is after the break.

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Europe, Canada, and Mexico, hold on to your hats, because in one week you’ll be able to buy apps from the Palm App Catalog. Palm has informed developers that March 31st is the go-live date for the international App Catalog e-commerce program. Developers wishing to distribute their apps in other countries are encouraged to resubmit their apps with an update that will provide localized content and/or meta-data. But if you don’t want to do that, Palm’s cool with that too.

In order to get as many paid apps in the various international App Catalog incarnations as possible, Palm’s Developer Relations Team will expedite the review process for apps tagged for international distribution (so expect plenty of updates in the coming week with no version change for the app). Apps submitted for sale in the United States, Canada, and Mexico will receive payment in US dollars, while apps submitted for Germany, Spain, the UK, and Ireland will receive payment in Euros (and from Palm subsidiary Palm Global Operations Ltd). Additionally, Palm is now accepting applications submissions for the upcoming launch of the webOS on SFR.

Developers: start your submission engines. International webOS users: start chilling the bubbly, for next Wednesday we celebrate.

Thanks to anonymous tipsters!

We know our hiatus from last week left you starving for more, and we’re here to give it to you. PalmCast Live returns tonight for episode 100, and we have got some stupendous prizes to give away. Yes, prizes, as in multiples. But you’ve got to tune in to win.

Not only is the PalmCast back, but so is Keith, with his internet tubes reconnected. And Dieter’s going to be reporting in from sunny Las Vegas, site of the 2010 CTIA conference.

With all this news, you might think that we’d drop the whole emails and Twitter lighting round deal. Then you’d be wrong! Tweet us your questions in with the  #palmcast hashtag and we’ll do our best to provide long-winded answers that have nothing to do with the question.

So, yeah, you might want to be there. Tonight. 8 PM Eastern time. PalmCast Live.

As they say with patent lawsuits, you throw everything you’ve got at all the defendants you can find and see what sticks. Today we’ve got defunct chip maker MicroUnity (stopped making chips more than a decade ago) leveling a patent lawsuit against twenty-two companies [pdf] involved in the mobile tech industry. MicroUnity is targeting Acer, Apple, AT&T, Cellco, Exedea, Google, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sprint, and Texas Instruments in the suit. The allegation is that all of these companies (and some of their subsidiaries) are involved in the production, sale, and/or marketing of MicroUnity patent-infringing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon or Texas Instruments’ OMAP-3 and OMAP-4 processors.

In our case, the Palm Pre and Pre Plus use the TI OMAP 3430 processor and is sold and marketed by Sprint (as well as Verizon, Bell, O2, and Telcel, but they apparently don’t matter). We would say that there’s likely little to worry about as far as Palm and Sprint are concerned – Texas Instruments is the one infringing on patents here, Palm only bought the chips.

Even though MicroUnity stopped making chips more than ten years ago, they still have a hefty patent portfolio that they’ve leveraged in the past. In 2005 Intel settled a patent-infringement lawsuit brought by MicroUnity to the tune of $300 million. At the time, MicroUnity had a grand total of eight employees. We won’t call them patent trolls, but we will at least point out that MicroUnity also has pending lawsuits against a number of other tech companies, including Intel (again), AMD, Sony, and Dell.

[via: EETimes]

Thanks to Lemstil for the tip!

According to an anonymous tip sent in to Slashdot, Palm is planning to dump webOS in favor of Android. The tip claims to come from a yet-to-be-released internal memo from Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein. It reportedly states, “While Palm is incredibly proud of our engineers who spent timeless work and effort to bring us this advanced operating system, consumers simply have not caught on. To provide a better future for ourselves and our customers, the only logical choice is to transition our hardware and software to the Android platform.”

The tip claims that Palm’s webOS interface will be integrated into the Android platform, like HTC’s Sense UI, providing the unique multi-tasking and notifications management that makes webOS. Additionally, it’s claimed that Palm will be joining the Open Handset Alliance, the consortium behind the development of Android. The full memo was expected to be posted on wikileaks.org last night, but never materialized.

To all this we have one thing to say: bull. We know, you know, and Palm knows that their single most valuable property is webOS. Not just the UI, but the entire operating system. There are so many ways in which this purported memo is patently false.

We’re as baffled as Palm are as to why somebody would even try to claim this. The engineering, marketing, and PR hurdles Palm would have to overcome in making such a dramatic change would be even higher and harder to clear than those currently facing the company. There are two things Palm needs to reverse their fortunes: better hardware (forthcoming, no doubt) and a better ad campaign (already underway). Explain to the public why they want a webOS handset and we have no doubt that customers will start to buy.

[via: Wired]

Thanks to pcdsim and drewkora for the tips!

Monday brought us all sorts of good news. There’s the upcoming but as-of-yet-not-dated launch of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on AT&T. There’s Mobile Hotspot headed to O2 and the Pre going to China. webOS 1.4.1 is on the way, so is the popular ShopSavvy, and the Pre Plus is kicking the Nexus One in the Androids in Laptop Magazine’s March Madness smartphone showdown. Compared to last week, this week has started off with plenty of good news. Ready for more? We’ve got it, and we call it apps. Sure, maybe this is an underwhelming app drop when held up against the other news of the day (or even previous app drops), but we’ll take whatever good news we can get right now. The list, you know where it is. If you don’t, I suggest you hit that “Read the rest of this entry” link and find out for yourself.

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If you’d asked the developers at Big in Japan if they were making a version of their popular ShopSavvy app for webOS, they’d tell you that they wished they could. If you asked them this week, however, you’d be happy to hear that not only they now can, but they intend to do so. In a response on the Get Satisfaction boards, Big in Japan developer Alexander Muse posted the following just a few days ago:

"We have confirmed we can build a ShopSavvy version for the Pre. Now we just need some time to build it."

Not familiar with ShopSavvy? It’s an app that lets you, well, be a savvy shopper. With ShopSavvy you take a picture of a product’s bar code, ShopSavvy scans it and returns pricing for that same product at both online and local stores. Pretty simple and straightforward, but still incredibly useful. And popular, on Android, iPhone, and Symbian S60. Check out the demo video above – yeah, it’s Android, but at the very least you can see how it works.

Thanks to jpgiv for the tip!

UPDATE: The Palm Pre Plus has felled the Nexus One with 56% of the vote. 4317 votes were cast for the flagship webOS device vs. 3397 for the flagship Android phone. The next victim: the BlackBerry Bold 9700 on T-Mobile. Bring it!

While the Sprint Palm Pixi understandably fell to the BlackBerry Bold in the second match of the first round of Laptop Magazine’s 2010 March Madness smartphone showdown, this week is a new week (week #6, to be specific), and we’ve got another Palm webOS phone in the mix. This week, it’s the Palm Pre Plus (on Verizon, naturally) up against Google’s Nexus One, the powerhouse Android phone hailing from the T-Mobile camp.

Does the Pre Plus have what it takes to handle the Nexus One? We like to think so, but the only way to prove it (and show our frienemies at sister site Android Central who’s the boss (hint: us)) is for the voters (you) to put in a ballot in favor of the Pre Plus.

As of this writing the Pre Plus is in the lead, but just barely, with only a few hundred votes cast so far. Added bonus: if the Pre Plus wins, we get the chance to take on the Bold in the semi-semi-finals and avenge the Pixi’s defeat. And the right to gloat over trouncing the flagship Android phone in an all-important online poll (don’t judge; these days we’ll take whatever victories we can get).

Thanks to everybody that sent this in!

It’s been rumored and rumbled for some time now, but we finally have official word from on high. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, in the news conference following their mostly positive quarterly and fiscal year report, China Telecom Chairman and CEO Wang Xiaochu announced that his network will be picking up BlackBerry devices in May and the Palm Pre in July.

Presumably at this point they will be Pre Plus phones (no word on the Pixi headed to China), but what restrictions China’s government will place on the phones remains to be seen. China Telecom is the country’s third largest provider, and the largest CDMA in China. Looking back at the iPhone launch, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Wi-Fi disabled on or missing from the Pre when it reaches China’s shores. Adding devices from Palm and Research in Motion is part of China Telecom’s strategy to compete with China Unicom, which recently launched the iPhone in China. The smartphone launches are also behind a drive to make China Unicom’s mobile division profitable, currently the business is sustained by landline phone and broadband communications.

China Telecom has been reported to be in talks with Palm since August of 2009, so it’s nice to finally get some official word on the Chinese launch of webOS.

Thanks to mikeh20 for the tip!

Have a Palm Pre on O2, but find yourself envious of your American compatriots on Verizon running Mobile Hotspot left and right? Fret not, for your quandary will soon be quashed. In a tweet on one of O2 Germany’s official Twitter feeds, the following (translated into English) was posted.

Coming soon: the Palm Mobile Hotspot App. Thus the Pre becomes a UMTS Wi-Fi router with WPA or WEP encryption – ideal for iPods & iPads.

Zing! Especially considering that at launch won’t be able to get a 3G iPad in Europe at all. This is the first official word we have of the Mobile Hotspot app making the leap to another carrier. Because the Pre on O2 is a GSM phone, users will be able to still place and receive phone calls while running Mobile Hotspot, something their Verizon brethren can’t do. No word on pricing, though we expect the app to be free, and O2 Germany currently runs a tethering plan starting at €25 a month. Correction: Tethering is offered free-of-charge for O2 subscribers, but watch your usage to avoid going over your plan’s usage cap.

Thanks to Ruben for the tip!

Ah, weekend app drops. We could get used to this. Even if they are light in nature, it’s still more apps. And more apps are always a good thing. While the app drop from this weekend brought plenty of updates to popular apps, we also had some new apps in there as well. Among those new apps? The first two eBay apps for webOS, and both allow you to search for auctions and remotely place bids while on the go. Cool stuff, eh? eBay’s not the only new stuff there, so head on past the break to check out the standard listing of what’s new.

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If there’s one show that’s featured the Palm Pre more than 24, it’s FlashForward. The folks of the FBI Mosaic task force have been toting Pre phones around their post-global blackout world for months now, giving the phone significant screen time in multiple episodes. Such are the benefits of having Sprint as a major sponsor of your show. Last night’s two-hour mid-season re-premiere of FlashForward brought us plenty more Palm Pre action from the FBI. Above, Agent Janis Hawk’s (Christine Woods) Pre, running a custom app that lets her track those extra-fun ankle collars from her phone. After the break, more hot Palm action.

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“Palm is essentially an accelerating death spiral.”

That’s not a good thing to hear, and given yesterday’s bleak financial report, we can’t say we disagree (though we do maintain that it is possible to pull out of a death spiral). That little nugget comes from Ilya Grozovsky, analyst at Morgan Joseph & Co. As CNN Money noted, Grozovsky was one of two analysts to cut their price targets on Palm stock to a heart-stopping $0/share. By valuing the stock at zero, Grozovsky and Peter Misek of Canaccord Adams are declaring that Palm the company is worth nothing.

Those two doomsayers aren’t the only ones kicking Palm to the curb. At this point, not a single analyst will recommend buying Palm stock. Given Palm’s current cash burn rate, most estimate that Palm has only about twelve months to execute a turnaround or find a suitor with deep pockets.

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Canadian brothers and sisters, now is your chance for real savings. As reported by MobileSyrup, if you’re willing to sign on the dotted line for three years, not only will Bell give you a Palm Pre for free, they’ll also chop $10 off per month for the entire term of your contract. Total savings: $360. It’s not uncommon to see a carrier cut the initial purchase price for a phone (they make the majority of their money off the service plan), but seeing any carrier cut the monthly service charge for just one phone’s promotion is a surprising maneuver. Our guess: Bell is (still) having trouble selling the Pre, or is clearing inventory for something new. Or both.

The $10 off every month promotion is good until the end of March (discounts continue for the life of the contract, you just have to sign up by the end of the month) and on any of Bell’s Smartphone Combo plans, ranging from $50 a month to $100 a month. All Smartphone Combo plans come with 3 GB of data service and free tethering.