Author: Derek Kessler

Sprint users, say goodbye to the NFL app: Sprint has lost their contract with the National Football League. The Wall Street Journal notes that Verizon users have reason to celebrate (if you are into such things), as Big Red has signed a new four-year contract with the NFL to bring all the coverage and the popular RedZone Channel to Verizon phones. The new deal is valued at $720 million, a 50% premium over what Sprint was paying the NFL. And that’s not all: Verizon users are getting more from the NFL than Sprint did: they’ll have access to live footage of every NFL game and plenty of additional content.

Football fans on Sprint need not fret, though you may find yourself disappointed. With the NFL contract gone, Sprint’s football app will cease functioning at the end of March, as was posted on SprintUsers.com. A new Sprint Football Live app will replace the NFL app, but all that exclusive video won’t be coming along with it. Apparently Sprint Football Live will provide all sorts of live coverage of the NFL draft, games, and more, but in the form of raw data, news, and commentary – not the official stuff with live audio and video that Sprint users have gotten used to.

Sprint Football Live is expected to be available before the end of the month, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see it mixed in with the next webOS update for Sprint devices. Verizon webOS users may be disappointed for a while, though, as Verizon marketing chief John Stratton noted to the Wall Street Journal that their new NFL service will be available for Android and BlackBerry devices. The equally capable webOS devices like the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus? Not mentioned.

Thanks to mu7efcer for the tip!

Most quality clip-on phone cases come in solid colors and maybe a few transparent varieties, but the Mobi Products Protector line of cases for the Palm Pre actually come in more than a dozen different designs and textures. For my time with the Protector Cases I sampled three distinct product lines, the standard Protector case, in a metallic red, the Skull Wing graphic Customer Protector, and a Dragon-emblazed soft-touch Lizzo Protector case. While I had little doubts about the protective abilities of these cases (good for a fall here or there, but not running over with a car), the finish on two of the three left something to be desired.

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Hey, look at that, new apps! Yeah, new apps make us smile. Especially when the list of new stuff includes stuff like the bible translated into Klingon or a fantastic homebrew graduate like podcatcher drPodder. It’s stuff like this that makes us laugh (because we’re giant geeks) or proves useful that makes up for things like the “quotes” apps that we see so much of. For what it’s worth, don’t worry too much about the App Catalog being overtaken by this stuff – we’re not alone. While you won’t find Apple and Android patting Palm on the back and saying “It’ll be okay, trust us,” they’ve lived through the proliferation of less-than-useful apps as well. How do you think Apple got to more than 140,000 apps? It wasn’t sheer willpower, we’ll say that much. Regardless, we’ve got new apps, and you’ve got a list after the break to check out. Do it.

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If you’re looking for a multi-purpose financial calculator, then you should look no further than T-Money. The $9.99 app by Sound Expressions features calculators for loans, savings and withdrawals, and profits and loss. Not can T-Money compute things like payments or principles, it can also show you multiple graphs of the calculations over time: a powerful tool for determining how your investment can be expected to perform in the months and years ahead.

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That’s more like it. While the app feeds may still be running behind, the App Catalog itself has shifted back into drive and is moving full steam ahead. There’s plenty of newness in there from the last app drop, including location-based social networking-like apps Streetbrew and Gowalla. Coolness, eh? And of course, there are plenty of other apps, including games, reference tools, and the obligatory public domain book or two. It’s all after the break, in the alphabetized lists you know and love.

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Those sneaky App Catalog managers at Palm did it again: slipped a large update-filled app drop in during the wee small hours of yesterday morning. So early (or late, depending on how you look at it), that the App Catalog feeds have yet to catch up, so we’re back to doing this the manual way for today. Not that I’m complaining, though it would be nice if the feeds updated more quickly (nudge nudge, wink wink). What I might be inclined to complain about is how there were just five new apps there, and four of them were “quote” apps from a certain prolific developer. Wondering what I’m talking about (or just who is getting quoted this time)? Head on past the break for the complete list.

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Having recently acquired iambic, SplashData announced in an email sent to iambic customers that they intend to expand their offerings onto new platforms. Specifically, Agendus, and specifically onto webOS and Android:

If you haven’t heard, SplashData has acquired iambic, combining the resources of two of the most respected and established developers of mobile productivity software. We are very excited to have the opportunity to work on Agendus and expand its features as well as bring it to new mobile platforms such as Android and webOS.

Agendus is iambic’s signature product and something missed by a great many Palm OS users after making the switch to webOS. When we’ll see Agendus on webOS and what condition it will be in is still up in the air, but it’s great to hear that it’s coming regardless. And trust us, as soon as we hear something more, we’ll let you know!

If you’re not familiar with Agendus, it began as a Palm OS app (back in the day when the were still called applications) that served as a replacement for the Palm OS Date Book. Agendus was more than just another calendar: it integrated with your memos, tasks, contacts, and more to bring it all into one tightly-knit package: your agenda. There’s even more to it than that – to see why Agendus was such a beloved Palm OS app, we’re going to point you to Agendus’ extensive feature list. If just one quarter of those features make it to webOS we’ll be exceedingly happy campers.

Thanks to Doug for the tip!

While yesterday’s app drops certainly feel like they were a touch on the light side, it’s certainly not the lightest we’ve had. In fact, it’s still long enough to warrant the traditional “after the break” listing instead of throwing it here on the front page. But is it substantial? Well, I’m asking that question for a reason, so you can probably guess my opinion on the matter. And to be frank, my opinion matters very little – what I want to know is what do you think of the *ahem* light nature of recent app drops?

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Have a Palm Pre or Pixi on Sprint and wishing that you’d signed up for the $7 a month Total Equipment Protection plan during the first 30 days of your contract when you still had a chance? Sprint’s giving you a second chance: for the entire month of March Sprint has opened up TEP to all subscribers. If you’re not feeling like pushing your luck any further, you can sign up until the end of the month. For those unfamiliar, TEP has two components: hardware failures are completely covered and accidental damage or loss replacement comes with just a $100 deductible. Having replaced his own Pre three times – taking advantage of TEP each time – this blogger knows all too well how useful of a tool TEP is. 

[via: Palm News Daily]

Analysts say all sorts of different things about Palm, and when we’re hearing something wild from just one of them we tend to discount it. But when multiple analysts and supposed insiders are chattering about something we have to sit up and take notice, even if we’re still not completely buying it. The latest Palm rumor falls into that camp: Palm is developing a WiMAX (4G) device for Sprint and could be unveiled as early as this month at CTIA.

We’re not entirely sure what to make of this. There is always the almost mythical Palm C40 floating around in Sprint’s inventory systems, but we haven’t heard anything other than rampant speculation about what Palm’s next products might be.

As for all the talk about how a WiMAX phone will save Palm… That, like the existence of the phone itself, might be wishful thinking. Like it or not, WiMAX still has a relatively small footprint and Sprint is still a network with half as many subscribers as competitors Verizon and AT&T. A WiMAX Palm phone would be undeniably awesome, but it would also mainly be compelling to a small subset of users on a small network. 

Thanks to DeltaSPARTAN003, EtuTreo300, and spectre686, and, well, a lot of other folks for the tips!

Coming soon to the webOS App Catalog will be version 1.5 of Pivotal Labs’ popular Twitter client Tweed. As posted on the company blog, Tweed 1.5 will come with integrated TwitVid uploads. It’ll be a beta feature, as webOS in its current form doesn’t have any mechanisms for retrying failed uploads (which can happen with large files like videos over cellular, so Pivotal Labs recommends you do video uploads over Wi-Fi). A demonstration video has been already posted to TwitVid.

Tweed 1.5 will come with a number of other changes and fixes, including updates to the Load More feature, external links, and notifications. Additionally, the price of Tweed is going to be temporarily cut from $2.99 to $0.99. This is due to problems with the free version (Tweed Trial), on which development was stopped with version 0.9.16. Changes made with webOS 1.4 rendered Tweed Trial inoperative, so Pivotal Labs is going to withdraw the app and will temporarily reduce the price of the full Tweed to $0.99 to allow for an easy upgrade path for Tweed Trial users.

Thanks to Bassam and miles4000 for the tips!

While there wasn’t a lot of new app action in the App Catalog, there were plenty of updates. And after all the excitement kicked up by the new Facebook app, we almost missed that there were other new apps to check out yesterday as well, so now worries. That said, there’s still plenty of newness, and we’ve got it all waiting for you in the traditional location. You guessed it… after the break.

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Our friends at Palmpre-France noticed a new survey on SFR’s websites that seems to have revealed possible pricing for the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus on the French network. While the survey starts out pretty mundane (how do you use your phone and the like), the deeper you get into it, the more it becomes about Palm’s soon-to-be-launched smartphones. But we already know an awful lot about phones to start, so what we really found interesting was how pricing was unveiled: the Pre Plus at €99.00 and the Pixi Plus at €49.00. And to that, we just have to say, “Cool.”

Yes, folks, it’s a Facebook kind of morning here at PreCentral. What can we say, we’re celebrating the new app in style.

Having recently taken charge of Palm’s Developer Relations team, web developers extraordinaire Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer decided it was time to try out their tools for themselves and use them to revamp the webOS Facebook app. The two came into the project with years of web programming experience but none with webOS. They used the experience as away to both become familiar with the tools they push, and to explore the SDK from a developer’s point of view.

Chuq Von Rospach posted about the experience on the Developer Center Blog, noting that, “Working on this application has given us a really detailed look at the current state of our tools and documents. Here in Developer Relations, we’ve been sitting down and evaluating the results and putting plans in place to remove as many of the speedbumps and potholes as we can, as quickly as we can.”

Almaer went more in-depth on his personal blog, diving into the process that went into the revamp. It’s no secret that the version 1.0 Facebook app was a disappointment to many, but the folks at Palm listened and prioritized the updates for this latest version (those being access to Facebook messages and profiles). They also worked to bridge the gap between webOS-style and Facebook-style, designing the app such that it works much like the website.

This is what Almaer and the team hope will be the first of “a regular cadence” of releases. Where they go from here is a question that they want your help answering. The options are many, including birthday integration into calendar or webOS notifications. Both the Palm Developer Center Blog post and Almaer’s own are interesting reads and give us more hope for the future of webOS apps.

Feeling like you’re spending too much time on PreCentral? We assure you that you’re not. But if you feel like you should be spending more time elsewhere on the internet, we thought you’d be glad to know that PreCentral is elsewhere on the internet as well. Be it on the old standby Twitter or our new Facebook fan page (or in the really old standby of RSS), PreCentral is everywhere that you want to be. Check it all out after the break…

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The bad news for Palm keeps piling up, especially if you’re concerned about the whole financials thing. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services has reversed their outlook on Palm, flipping from cautiously optimistic to downright negative. S&P’s ratings are a judgment on a corporation’s credit potential, and the occasionally issue outlooks statements on how they think that company may fair in coming months and years.

S&P’s current judgment of Palm is a CCC+ rating, the top tier of the low highly speculative territory. It was back in October that S&P upgraded Palm to a CCC+ rating and issued their positive outlook. But given recent revelations about Palm’s lower than expected sales figures, S&P’s analysts saw fit to retract their positive outlook. The outlook reversal had little effect on Palm’s stock performance for the day – all the damage was dealt earlier in the week.

Thanks to amateurhack for the tip!

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 version of Law & Order, you never know. Today, however, we’re taking a more personal look at ourselves and our devices and putting our wallpapers on the line. Check it out, after the break.

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There was certainly plenty of newness in the App Catalog yesterday, but a lot of it had a slight whiff of old to it. That’s not the copious updates I’m referring to, no, I’m pointing my nose straight at the new apps. I’ve got to say, I’m a little concerned and a touch disgusted that fifteen of the eighteen new apps from yesterday are classic public domain (expired copyright) novels and other literary works (Thomas Paine’s Common Sense) that Appible has packaged up for webOS and is charging for. I suppose that’s the general state of app development on every platform – many things are charged for that are available freely just as easily. Enough of the hand-wringing about what is right with regard to repackaged content sales – onward to past the break, where the list awaits.

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Adobe’s been teasing us with Flash 10.1 on webOS for what seems like ages now. In fact, the first news about webOS and Flash came from Palm and Adobe more than a year ago. It’s been five months since we first saw Flash demoed on a Palm Pre and in the intervening months we’ve seen it shown off on all manner of Android devices as well. What we haven’t seen is Flash 10.1 on more lowly hardware, such as the Palm Pixi or HTC Hero. Now we might know why.

An Adobe employee, after revealing that they were not working on getting Flash 10.1 to work on Windows Mobile 6.5 (little surprise) recently declared that Adobe was only working to get Flash for Android working on ARMv7 processors. Processors that fall into that category include the Qualcomm Snapdragon powering devices like the Google Nexus One (and HTC Desire) and the TI OMAP3430 inside the Palm Pre, Pre Plus, and Motorola Droid/Milestone.

What doesn’t have an ARMv7 could be a problem for some webOS users: the Palm Pixi and Pixi Plus run off the Qualcomm MSM7627 processor, which is an ARMv6 chip. The MSM7627 is a beastly little chip, with two processing cores (600 MHz for processing, 400 MHz for the modem) and a 300 MHz graphics-core with Open GL 2.0 support – all packed into a tiny thumbnail-sized package. Has Adobe come out and said that they’re not working on Flash for the Pixi? Nope, but they haven’t said that they are. Even our man Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein, when showing off Flash 10.1 at CES 2010, was careful to say that Flash 10.1 would be coming to “all Pre phones.” Note the lack of Pixi in there.

[via: Engadget [via: Gizmodo]]

Thanks to Shadow-360 in the forums for the heads up!

If there’s anything we love about AdMob, it’s all the reports they compile for our perusal. The latest is their January 2010 metrics report, which in addition to the standard global and regional breakdowns of OS and device usage, included a sampling of data on the demographics of those users. In particular, AdMob looked at the age, gender, and app download patterns of iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and webOS users. There’s a lot of interesting, if marginally relevant data in there, and we’re going to take a look at it all after the break.

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