Author: Kris Keilhack

Last week we covered Palm’s market share gains as well as a new report suggesting Verizon’s order for WebOS devices was possibly as high as 600,000 devices, up from the 400,000 previously reported. Now a new report from Kaufman Brothers analyst Shaw Wu (via Electronista) gives a bit more credence to that number.

By Mr. Wu’s estimation, Palm will ship 1 million total WebOS phones this quarter, with Verizon’s refreshed “Plus” models potentially comprising up to 550,00 to 600,000 units of that total. Wu goes on to assert that the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are being chosen at the expense of competing Verizon smartphones running not only BlackBerry and Windows Mobile but the high-profile Android Droid and Droid Eris, though it is unclear exactly how one determines which handsets were considered but ultimately not purchased by consumers.

With Verizon’s WebOS launch firmly in the rearview mirror, AT&T remains the largest domestic carrier currently without any WebOS devices. While AT&T Mobility head honcho Ralph de la Vega already made a vague promise to offer two WebOS phones in the first half of 2010, Palm and AT&T have thus far remained mum on any specific release dates.

Thanks to some careful analysis of the FCC documentation, PreCentral forum member ToniCipriani has turned up some solid hints as to when we might expect the first GSM WebOS device to be officially available in the US. Give or take a few days, May 10th seems to be the target date for an AT&T launch, which would bring the arrival of the North American version of the GSM Pre (certified last year) within shouting distance of the one-year anniversary of the CDMA Pre launch on Sprint on June 6th of last year.

An interesting new article has just been posted by D! All Things Digital’s John Paczkowski discussing the ever-rampant rumor that Palm may be acquired within the next year or two. Citing Deutsche Bank analyst (and periodic Palm prognosticator) Jonathan Goldberg, Paczkowski’s article is interesting not because of the hypothetical Palm acquisition speculation but rather because of a brief mention regarding how many webOS “Plus” units are in the Verizon channels.

Previous reports claimed that Verizon had purchased a 50/50 mixture of Pre Plus and Pixi Plus units for a total of 400,000 devices. I was told last week by a Verizon support rep who had just finished training on webOS that they had “closer to a half-million” due to a greater-than-anticipated Pre demand. If the 600,000 unit report is correct, than Verizon could be planning on giving WebOS a greater push than originally anticipated, especially given that two new Verizon Pre Plus Valentine-themed ads that have been plastered all over primetime television lately (here and here). Additionally, Verizon is still running their “buy one webOS phone, get a free Pixi” promotion.

Quickies: Kicking off this batch of quickies is a report from Tam Hanna from TamsPalm of a Palm-sponsored developer event in Germany on February 10th. No word as any specific details such as time or even the venue for the session. The event is intended to celebrate the one-millionth app download from the Palm App Catalog as well as cover important topics for European WEbOS developers around the usual items of discussion such as Mojo, Ares, and the upcoming PDK.

Secondly, Dmitry Grinberg has posted several updates to his DGOS blog since our last report. The latest news for his project is that USB mass storage compliance is coming to the Palm TX and T|E2 NAND issues have been sorted out. Most encouraging of all is the news that he is hoping to give a UI demo soon for DGOS. DGOS is Mr. Grinberg’s ambitious effort to create a new Palm OS-compatible OS for scratch. His current list of target devices includes the TX, LifeDrive, and Tungsten E2.

It’s been four years since the last major piece of news from Palm and Verizon in January, which was the Treo 700w launch on January 5th 2006. Yesterday marked the occurrence of an event that many (yours truly included) feared would never take place: Verizon launched not one, but two new Palm devices and both are currently Verizon exclusives. Palm fans that refused to jump ship to Sprint now finally have the opportunity to grab a webOS device on a second domestic network.

Not wanting to miss any of the launch excitement, I accompanied my boss to the local Best Buy to grab a Pre Plus. He’s a long-time Treo owner, having used a Treo 600 since its launch on Verizon in 2003, and was clinging dearly to his Centro. I convinced him to take the plunge to move to a webOS device since his Centro wouldn’t last forever and he was yearning for a device with a larger, higher-resolution screen. Besides, I told him he might as well learn to cut the cord and embrace the cloud. Best Buy was the natural choice as a purchase destination, due to the retailer’s customer-friendly policy of eschewing the hassle of mail-in rebates. Read on for a full report on the in-store experience, as well as the device migration process and my initial impressions of the Verizon Palm Pre Plus.

With the recent launch of webOS 1.3.5 and the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus joining the existing Pre and Pixi, the main areas of Palm.com are now webOS-exclusive. Palm has recently removed the company’s most recent non-webOS device, the Windows Mobile-powered Treo Pro from the company’s front page, the Palm products page and even the direct links on the palm.com online store.

Interestingly enough, a search of palm.com brings up a still-active product page for the CDMA Treo Pro in Alltel and Sprint flavors, along with links to purchase an unsubsidized version of either handset. Users seeking an unlocked GSM Treo Pro can still purchase a new unit from Dell for $179.99 with free shipping as well as from Amazon.

Contrary to their usual policy, Palm has lifted the review embargo for the new Verizon “Plus” variants of the Pre and Pixi a few days ahead of schedule. Presumably, Palm is looking to generate some free early buzz online prior to the devices’ official arrival on Verizon this coming Monday the 25th.

After reading through a number of reviews, the general consensus around the web is essentially that Pre and Pixi in their “Plus” incarnations are solid devices and Palm’s finest smartphones yet. However, by offering only minor improvements ranging from evolutionary (Pre) to incremental (Pixi), there aren’t enough reasons to warrant existing Sprint customers breaking their contracts to jump ship to Verizon. Catch the review list after the break.

Things in the Palm world are understandably quiet now in the aftermath of the CES excitement, but there is definitely some noteworthy news items circulating around the Internets.

First off, a HowardForums post from member Scaredy reveals that that both the original CDMA Palm Pixi as well as the refreshed CDMA Pixi Plus has been approved by Industry Canada. Industry Canada is the Canadian government’s regulatory department roughly analogous to the FCC in the United States overseeing areas such as wireless spectrum management and certification. These new webOS devices join the existing CDMA 8GB Pre and the HSPA 8GB Pre in carrying Canadian certification. To date, no Pre Plus or GSM Pixi versions have been approved for release in Canada, so Verizon may enjoy a period of exclusivity on the CDMA Pre Plus.

In case you haven’t had enough legacy excitement for one week with the Aceeca Garnet PDA announcement, Palm OS programmer extraordinaire Dmitry Grinberg is now seeking team members to assist with his DGOS project.

DGOS is a rather admirable but gargantuan project by Mr. Grinberg to write a 100% Palm OS compatible, modernized OS from the ground up. I am pleased to see that his admirable efforts continue over a year since beginning the project. Details are still sketchy at this point, but Dmitry appears to be concentrating his development efforts by using the highest-powered, most recent Palm OS hardware for benchmark purposes, namely the LifeDrive and TX, alongside the older Tungsten E2. Additional details and updates are available at the DGOS blog.

We are scarcely two weeks into 2010 and we may have already witnessed the most surprising news item of the year. Out of nowhere and via the TamsPalm blog, New Zealand based ruggedized handheld specialist Aceeca has unofficially confirmed that they are readying not one but two new Palm OS Garnet handheld PDAs for release. These new Garnet machines will be based upon shared hardware architecture with a pair of new Windows CE 5.0 handhelds.

Officially, Aceeca remains one of Access’ final remaining Palm OS licensees, so the news is not totally out of left field. While Aceeca has remained rather quiet as of late, the firm has remained committed to supporting their existing stable of Palm OS devices.

Since the announcement last week at CES 2010, the chief question concerning Verizon’s newly-announced Palm Pre Plus has been regarding its internal RAM capacity.

While it is widely known that the device will feature double onboard storage space at 16GB, whether or not the original Pre’s 256MB RAM would also be upped remained uncertain until recently. PalmInfocenter can confirm that the Palm Pre Plus will indeed come equipped with double the operating memory at 512MB of RAM.

As 2009 draws to a close, more and more confirmations are appearing to suggest that several WebOS are headed to Verizon Wireless in early 2010. The latest rumor comes from a PhoneArena article claiming that some VZW tipsters are reporting the presence of a “Palm Pre Plus” in big red’s internal inventory system. Unfortunately, there is no clear indication of specs, pricing, or release date thus far.

For quite some time the rumor mill has been reporting several different possibilities for an improved version of the Pre on Verizon. These claims have ranged from the likely (16GB of internal storage and/or a microSD slot) to the far-fetched (a larger-size LCD). Based on Palm’s past history with upgraded devices such as the 700w/700wx, the most plausible scenario would see Verizon initially carrying refreshed versions of the Pre and Pixi, with webOS 1.3.5 possibly standard. Then those updated versions will presumably arrive on Sprint in the Q2/Q3 timeframe to replace the original ’09 editions.