Talkin' Pre (& Pixi) -- Week ending 2 Jan 10 9

New Year, New Name and a Double Dose of Talkin'

Happy New Year, Folks!  Hope the holidays treated you and your family well.
As we launch into 2010 (pronounced twenty-ten), it's time for yet another name change for this column.  Feeling that Palm has many things up its sleeve tied to webOS, it seems like the current "Talkin' Pre (& Pixi)" may be a tad too limiting.

So Talkin' Palm (& webOS) it will be starting with next week's column.

And due to a mix-up at PreCentral HQ, you are being treated this time to a double dose of Talkin' that covers the last two weeks of 2009. So without further ado, let's get Talkin'!

PALM closed the year at $10.02. It opened in January 2009 at 3.25 and spiked a couple of times: When the Pre began shipping in June/July ($16.22) and the end of September (it hit $17.46). The slide has been fairly continuous from November through year-end. Was there profit taking? Of course. But check out this activity...

One analyst initiated coverage, one downgraded Palm from Hold to Sell, while five others upgraded Palm during the last two months of the year.

All eyes seem to be on the upcoming CES show (January 7-10, 2010).

Recently, at Minyanville.com, Bob Faulkner posted a story (Palm Reading: Investors Left With More Questions) that raised an interesting issue:

"...More troubling to me were the comments from management regarding weak sell-through at Sprint (S). This was followed by a statement that Palm has “work to do increasing the awareness of the Palm brand.” Say what? Palm’s been around for more than a decade and its brand isn't exactly a well kept secret. Given the hype associated with the lead-up to the Pre launch and that following it, brand awareness wouldn’t seem to be the problem."

You will see more commentary in the days ahead as folks try to figure out what the podfather, Palm's CEO Jon Rubenstein will unveil at CES.

Moving right along, Fast Company has named Jon Rubinstein one of the “Geeks of the Year”.  Also, David Pogue, tech pundit at The New York Times, had some nice things to say about the data consolidation aspect of webOS in his Pogie award write-up covering the year's best tech ideas. 

PALM PRE DATA CONSOLIDATION Palm’s latest app phones, the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, offer a software trick that’s satisfying both in concept and execution: it consolidates the different sources of your life’s information.

For example, you get to see the appointments from your online Google or Yahoo Calendar, your Outlook work calendar and your Facebook events, all on a single color-coded calendar. Ditto with your various online address books, your various e-mail accounts and your various chat program buddy lists. Simple is a good thing; we like simple.

Another Milestone for Palm -- 1000 Apps Reached. Success comes in the form of crawling before you walk (or run). Reaching the magical 1K mark was a significant one for Palm's catalog of apps.  Read more here.
 

Engadget App Now Available. And speaking of apps, Jon Zilber, over at Palm's blog, noted that a new Engadget app is now available that will offer "a steady stream of all the news,unboxings, photos, and video from The Engadget Show."

webOS Version 1.3.5 Released.  It offers improved performance and enhancements for several features, as well as more consistent performance for Palm Pixi. According to Jon Zilber, notable improvements include:

• Room for more apps: You can now download and store gigabytes of applications, effectively eliminating the limitation on the number of apps that could be installed.
• Better battery management: Users in areas with marginal network coverage may see improved battery life.
• Palm Beta App Catalog improvement: Searching for and downloading apps have been enhanced.

PreCentral covered it here with a post by Dieter, who noted:

"For the non-nerds, er, non-homebrewers: the big news here is that Palm is now storing apps in a new place - the USB partition - so you are limited only by the 8 gigs of onboard storage. Install away, friends! While you're at it, rejoice in the knowledge that the Official App Catalog is no longer tagged "Beta." Now we've hit the big time."

Smartphone Round Robin Update. CrackBerry Kevin took his turn with webOS.  Click here to see the video.

Rumors about Voice on the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. It looks like Voice Memos and Voice Activation may be part of what makes the Verizon version of the Pre and Pixi a "Plus." Dieter has done a write-up quoting the Boy Genius Report.

Creepy Names on AdWeek's List of Freakiest Ads.  It is a list that Palm didn't want to be on... coming in at #24 was the Palm Deja Vu ad.

Some thoughts on New Year's Resolutions.  IntoMobile did a piece that covered resolutions for mobile phone makers. About Palm, this was written:

"We don’t have any real resolutions for 2010. We just hope the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi can gain more traction on Verizon’s network than it did on Sprint. We have no idea what else to do. Bono and Elevation Partners will be pissed if we go under."

Clearly, they were having fun with this write-up.  Other resolutions included:

• Research In Motion (RIM) - "...to have fewer BlackBerry service outages in 2010."
• Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) - "...The iPhone is badass, and it’s ours. We don’t really see anything wrong with our business. If you don’t like something, why don’t YOU make a resolution to change your perspective on life. We’re done here."

Thus ends this week's Talkin' column. Now here's what you missed from last week.

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Although it was short work week, quite a bit happened in and around the worlds of Pre and Pixi. The BlackBerry outage that happened to coincide with some busy travel days couldn't have pleased its users.  It also served as an attention getter for Palm Pre and Pixi owners.

Dieter wrote:

"Unlike the Sidekick, data you're syncing to the Palm Profile is stored locally on your webOS phone. Unlike the BlackBerry, your push email happens directly via Exchange or IMAP Idle, unlike the iPhone, Palm has yet to release a push notification service so there's nothing to go down there (yeah, that last one cuts both ways).

Of course, both the Pre and Pixi need to talk to Palm's servers for their first-use setup, so if there's an outage that will be a problem. Otherwise take heart - if your email or data goes down on your webOS phone, you will know exactly who to complain to - your email provider or your carrier."

Speaking of holiday travels, Palm's Jon Zilber had some advice on a few ways your phone can help you stay connected and sane while getting "some quality F2F time with friends and family."

Here's a rundown of some of the other things that happened this week.
 

PALM News...

Barron's had a story (THE STRIKING PRICE: Playing Palm for a January Pop) that delved into how the Consumer Electronics Show in a few weeks "should present bullish opportunities for trading the stock's options."

On Wednesday, Palm filed a couple of SEC reports:

PALM INC Files SEC form 8-K, Change in Directors or Principal Officers EDGAR Online(Wed, Dec 23)

PALM INC Files SEC form 10-Q, Quarterly Report EDGAR Online(Wed, Dec 23)

And right before the holiday break, The Motley Fool Staff conveyed their thoughts in a post.  Looks like a split decision (661 outperform vs. 818 underperform).

D: All Things Digital @ CES -- Kara Swisher wrote about the live-streaming interviews that will be taking place during CES. Organized by The Wall Street Journal, the interview event will take place Friday, Jan. 8, 2010, at the Venetian hotel. While space is limited at the invitation-only event, we will be live-streaming the entire thing on the site, starting 3:30 pm PT and ending at 5:30 pm (and it will be available later for watching anytime). On the ATD red-hot seats are: Reed Hastings, CEO, president and chairman of Netflix (NLFX) and Jon Rubinstein, Chairman and CEO of Palm (PALM), talking to BoomTown about what’s going on one year after the company unveiled its Pre smartphone and webOS.

Palm Readies webOS Update - InformationWeek's Marin Perez did a post on how, in addition to releasing new webOS firmware, Palm is boosting its developer tools to better compete against BlackBerry and the iPhone.

Smartphone Round Robin Continues...  As mentioned last week, the Smartphone Experts Round Robin is underway where editors from the SPE community sites —AndroidCentral.com, CrackBerry.com (BlackBerry), NokiaExperts.com, PreCentral.net, TheiPhoneBlog.com and WMExperts.com (Windows Mobile) — will be learning what it's like to live "on the other side of the fence" as they compare their everyday smartphone for each of its competitors.

This week it was AndroidCentral's Casey Chan go at the webOS Pre and Pixi. You can see the video here.

Apps, apps, apps... The app catalog continued to grow.  Click here to see the latest news.  Also, Network World's John Cox wrote a story on the "Best Twitter apps for Palm Pre and Pixi smartphones."

Tips...  Tips were abundant this week as new Pre and Pixi owners came on line. Dieter did a post on "where to get started." Gizmodo wrote about the 20 Essential Palm Pre apps and on Palm's blog, there were tips to speed up the webOS Quick Launch capability.

Pre Sighting...  In the Sunday New York Times last week (December 20), there was a story (Revised and Condensed: A Reader’s Digest That Grandma Never Dreamed Of) on the front page that featured a nearly 9-inch version of a Palm Pre.

What's Tweetin'...  Many of the tweets were tip related. For example, this one from the TotallyPalmed blog covered "How-to: Erase Your Palm Pre and Palm Pixi."  Another interesting tweet had to do with enabling Activity Cards on a Jailbroken iPhone with ProSwitcher [Video].  This video resurfaced. It is pretty funny and appropriate for those experiencing a Pre or Pixi for the first time.

That's a wrap!

Enjoy your holiday week! Welcome to 2010.

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