Talkin' Palm - Edition 51 8

Since our last edition, Palm's app catalog topped 3,000 (It's quality, not quantity, right?), a clever fan-crafted Pre commercial earned high praises, AT&T dropped the Pre Plus to $99.99 online with activation, and HP decided to kick in a $50 gift card with the purchase of AT&T Palm phones.

As for HP-Palm news, stories of note included:

• A TechCrunch post by MG Siegler ( HP Wants To Become Apple. WebOS Is The Key):

"Based on what we’re hearing, HP has been having similarly themed meetings in recent months. They want to transform themselves — from HP, the successful tech juggernaut, into Apple, the sexy one."

• A MocoNews story (Ex-Palm VP Says It’s A Two-Horse Race Between Android And iPhone) quoted David Temkin, formerly Palm’s VP of developer platform and now VP of mobile at AOL, saying the following:

“We are in a eyeball business. To the extent that Palm or Microsoft turns it around, we’ll pay more attention to it. It’s a two-horse race.”

• Rahul Sood, founder of luxury PC maker Voodoo, HP's CTO of gaming and recent champion of webOS, vocalized a bit in two posts making the rounds.  Sood sat down with Palm's directors of dev relations Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer.  This rare discussion was captured in an audio only podcast that includes: Rahul's background with Voodoo, his passion for design, what HP has to offer the webOS community, his thoughts on where mobile gaming is going, and more.  The other post
  delves into webOS gaming.

• HP CTO Phil McKinney spoke at the AlwaysOn conference. As expected, there were no major announcements to be had.

McKinney did discuss some of the roadblocks between where we are and where we need to be with regard to mobile cloud computing - hitting on issues like the US falling behind in broadband infrastructure and companies intervening between app developers and users in oppressive ways.

Talkin' Apps:

• Palm's Featured Apps
• Hot Apps Winners Announced…$100,000 Winners

Winner, Paid categories: YouView Visual Voicemail Client by Syntactix is a visual voicemail client powered by YouMail. It replaces your carrier's voicemail and provides a ton of handy features for handling your voicemail and other phone services.

Winner, Free Apps:  Pandora Radio by Pandora, is your free, personalized, streaming radio station, that customizes playlists for you based on the kind of music you like.

Talkin' Tips:

• Easy Does It - This Palm blog post talks about how customers love webOS because it is easy to use. Sometimes even easier than they realize.
• Six ways to get your webOS phone working again

What's Tweetin…

• Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus now available at O2 UK: The updated Plus version of Palm Pre and Palm Pixi are now av http://bit.ly/94RvxD --lookslikeatif
• Phone wiped itself (photos and data) and, after finding out that others have had this happen, I must relegate the Palm Pre to a "DON'T BUY"  --stuartstuart123
• The Golden Gate Bridge. Taken with my @palm pre http://twitpic.com/27ns0h -- ngaio420

• Palm Pre Plus and HTC Desire put through their paces today. My brain hurts now. -- gazcoop
• I love my uncle, he's a walking hotspot, VZW @Palm #Pre FTW --Jabrilli
• LOL You are funny @zpower from @engadget "Let's hope we finally see a #Pre 2, a #PalmPad, or heck, a frickin' LifeDrive 2" @Palm --MrKal_El
• I just got the palm pre. Great smart phone one of the easiest to use that I have ever seen. -- da_man50
• Ugh, the cable is out. I'm using my @Palm #Pre's Mobile Hotspot for internet. -- ThomasCoe
• Just discovered the Evening Standard app for my Palm Pre. It's not quite the same without the hand-written headlines on the newsstand. --burfeind
• RT @precentral: Fan-crafted Pre commercial bests Palm with sheer simplicity http://bit.ly/a7mCjI //Cool! -- amateurhack

• My mom got a new Palm Pre today and I'm in love with it :) --rcrdalexander
• Palm Pre - webOS Power User Tweaks: Learn to how get the most from your Palm Pre phone. Power users in the P... http://tinyurl.com/3ag2rj5 -- xacxen
• Mobile hotspot on my @palm pre letting me work while waiting for my flight. Dunno if thats a good thing or not... -- duffmanpants
• The Woz carries a Palm Pre! http://www.precentral.net/woz-best-compromise-solution-iphone-4-pre-plus -- Mike_Neale
• RT @palm: RT @mikecane: BBC's new SHERLOCK series. A Palm Pre is used by Inspector Lestrade. http://twitpic.com/28pa4w --spaceflight
• After 2 months of no use, giving Palm Pre Plus to sister-in-law. Hers cracked, then she dropped so can't replace. She enjoys it too. --palmsolo
• Indians/Yankees with my @Palm Pre http://twitpic.com/299wlw --tylerdurden689

• Apparently AT&T's own employees do not know what a Palm Pre is >_< WTF?!?! -- poeticgraffiti
• Probably going to pass on getting the iPhone 4 and go with a Palm Pre instead. -- juliogarcia
• Sprint Gets First Customer Gain In Three Years [Sprint Posts Impressive Q2 ... - TFTS (blog) (http://bit.ly/9aPR6Q) #Palm #Pre --Crazy4Pre
• To verify antenna problems Consumer Reports tested the new iPhone against the #ATT #Palm Pre Plus http://yfrog.com/3umyxp #webOS --PreNotes
• RT @aquitayo: Shopping Manager a Handy Shopper app http://bit.ly/cjrK3D @palm pre plus pixi plus webos @vivalvsoftware --vivalvsoftware
• I really love @zumodrive on my @palm pre, hope they launch ZumoCast soon on webOS -- mahootzki
• AT&T just sent me an email talking about the "revolutionary" Palm Pre Plus, pppssshhh... -- mccartsc

Palm Summer Tour Update:

San Diego pictures are here.  Palm heads to Las Vegas on Friday, July 30.

Closing thoughts:

You Didn't Expect Motorola NOT to Make a Huge Deal of IPhone's Antenna Problem, Did You?

In a print ad in the New York Times for its new Droid X on Verizon, the handset manufacturer boasts:

At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn't have to dress up their phone for it to work properly. That's why the DROID X comes with a dual antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket. For us it's just one of those things that comes as a given when you've been making mobile phones for over 30 years.

Comment:  People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.  Sure the Moto ad made us chuckle, but Moto hasn't exactly set the mobile world on fire yet:

"...In the second quarter, the company sold 8.3 million phones, and while that’s still down significantly from a year ago period when it sold 14.8 million, its focus on smartphones is starting to ramp up. A year ago, the company didn’t even break-out smartphone units, but in the current quarter it sold 2.7 million, increasing sequentially from 2.3 million.

Of course, Motorola still has a long way to go to match Apple’s same-period sales of 8.4 million iPhones sold. Still, the company’s financials are trending in the right direction..."

A Programming Note: Talkin' Palm is heading off for a summer break.

That's a wrap!

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