Talkin' Pre (& Pixi) -- Week ending 5 Dec 3

A week that started off with some killer deals on Cyber Monday, was full of activity. The Palm Pixi got the "Oprah" treatment on the Ellen talk show as part of a “12 Days of Giveaways” promo. Each member of the studio audience was told they’d be receiving their own Palm Pixi. And apparently, there is a Pink Pixi on the way.  There was takeover buzz, a webOS update for Pixi, apps added and capabilities demo'd. Let's talk Pre and Pixi!

Palm's Q2 Earnings.  Palm started off the week by announcing that their earnings call (Q2 FY2010 financial results) was going to take place on Thursday, Dec. 17, shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. Pacific), followed by a conference call for the public at 4:30 p.m. Eastern (1:30 p.m. Pacific). The conference call will be hosted by Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer, and Doug Jeffries, chief financial officer.

Another Round... Nokia Should Buy Palm?  Seems like this keeps bubbling up... There was talk of Nokia possibly buying Palm for its webOS operating system AND for the guy who quarterbacked its development, CEO Jon Rubinstein.

Talkin' Lawsuit.  This week, Artifex Software announced it has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Palm, Inc., based on Palm’s unauthorized copying and distribution of one of Artifex’s registered technologies. Artifex is the developer and copyright owner of muPDF, a high-performance PDF rendering engine. Palm’s unauthorized copying of Artifex’s copyrighted muPDF is widespread, as Palm has included “PDF viewer” in every Palm Pre unit shipped since the product’s launch in June 2009.

Seeking Alpha talks Dubya Pattern.  Bryan McCormick did a post about how Palm's (PALM) daily stock chart shows a bullish "W" pattern in progress, but these formations are not the slam dunks that they might appear to be. There are a few features he points to that could break the formation at any time.

Capabilities Demoed

AdMob Launchers Beta Ads For Palm webOS.  AdMob is announced beta support for the webOS platform. They offer one ad unit at the moment, which can be placed inside of a webOS app. AdMob has made their webOS SDK entirely open source.

New Mobile Twitter... looks Great on the Pre! Try going to http://mobile.twitter.com from your Pre or Pixi's browser. Twitter has a new look, and has some new touches that work best on @Webkit browsers – Android, iPhone, Nokia S60 and Palm Web OS phones all come with these browsers installed.

Game Boy Emulator Demoed. 

Derek remarked:

"While there’s some less than pretty code that rolls across the screen at points, it’s still Game Boy on webOS, and there’s something to be said for that. Now all we need is for this to be wrapped up in a tight little package for the less-than-technically proficient among us (such as this blogger) and then we’ll be set.."

What's new in the Palm App Catalog.  There were several posts. Hit the app catalog tag to see what transpired this week.

Visual Voicemail Today!  Dieter wrote about getting Visual Voicemail from Mobile Entertainment Group working on the Pre or Pixi... using Google Voice.

photoWALL Expands Free Photo Uploading App to Pre and Pixi.

photoWALL, a new showcase of mobile devices, real-time web technology and user-generated content, announced it is available to all Palm Pre and Palm Pixi customers as a free download in the Palm Beta App Catalog. photoWALL enables an unlimited number of media channels (or WALLs) and displays them live on photowall.com. Mobile users can easily upload live photos with user-entered hash tags to an attractive, searchable web site for public, network or private viewing. photoWALL also features simultaneous live uploading of mobile media to Facebook, Flickr and Twitter.

In the initial two weeks since the Palm test launch, over 15,000 Palm Pre users have downloaded and used photoWALL.

Year in Review - Pre a Yahoo! Darling.  The Palm Pre ranked 8th on the Yahoo! list of Market Darlings.  This is what editor, Amy Weaver, had to say:

Palm once ruled the handheld universe. To revive its sagging image (not to mention its fortunes), the hardware company unveiled its much-hyped Pre smartphone in June at a consumer-friendly $199. The follow-up to Palm's successful Treo became a hopeful rival to the iPhone (one tech blogger even called it "St. Paul following the iPhone Jesus"). Despite much buzz and many glowing reviews, the Pre didn't touch Apple's market and now has fallen into third place behind Google's Android.

Still, the media frenzy surrounding the release gave the titan a much-needed boost. Besides, Palm modestly claims, it never really meant to take on the iPhone—probably a shrewd position, since, as the NYT puts it, "Palm is a mouse in a land of cellphone giants."

What's Tweetin'...  Here's a rundown of some of the hot Palm-related topics that were tweeted this week:

• Multi-tasking on a Pre
• Pre does its best Sidekick impression
• QuickTake
• Mobile Choice comparison Pre vs. HTC HERO
• Talk about Palm Pre Placement on FlashForward and some pictures

Lastly, some fun with Photoshop...

That's a wrap!