Talkin' Pre -- Week ending 24 July 35

A lot of folks were "Talkin' Pre" again this week and there were definitely some recurring themes. Here's the stuff we didn't get to last week.

Read on for creepy ad tweets, iTunes Whack-a-mole, web apps and web app games, and the top most-wanted Palm Pre features.

 Creepy Ad tops Tweets

Turns out we at PreCentral.net weren't the only ones who got the heebie jeebies from Palm's ads. It was a ginormous theme on Twitter, where you can find tons of tweets about just how creepy it all is. Feels like the reaction is a lot like how people barfed all over the Seinfeld ("It's pleather") ads with Bill Gates for Microsoft.

If the intent is to get people tweeting, Palm's agency succeeded.

I tend to agree with one "@mikelightman," who tweeted, "these Palm Pre commercials are truly horrendous. Goodby should get the business. They pulled off a minor miracle-they make Sprint look good."

And then there's Whack-a-Mole: the Apple-Palm Edition
Moving right along, technology analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies was asked for his thoughts regarding the news that Palm had re-enabled iTunes sync with the Pre. He told AP technology writer, Rachel Metz, that "he expects the technology equivalent of a game of whack-a-mole to continue for a while, because he doesn't envision Apple giving in to Palm."

Metz's story also included a comment from Palm spokeswoman Lynn Fox, who said her company thinks Apple is improperly using its USB vendor code. Metz wrote, "She would not elaborate, but presumably Palm believes Apple should not be allowed to set iTunes to respond only to devices with Apple's USB codes."

Dieter has written extensively about it here.

Maybe Google was right... Pre games accessible online.

Last week, Vic Gundotra, Google Engineering vice president and developer evangelist, told the Mobilebeat conference in San Francisco that the Web had won and users of mobile phones would get their information and entertainment from browsers in future. In his "Techblog" post for FT.com, Chris Nuttall wrote how Gundotra "claimed that even Google was not rich enough to support all of the different mobile platforms from Apple’s AppStore to those of the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android and the many variations of the Nokia platform."

The reason I bring this up was that coincidentally, one of our readers, Tristan, sent a tip about PlayScreen.com:

Great games for PALM PRE ON playscreen.com: access them from the web browser of the Palm Pre. There's a wide variety of games, so this website will do until the app catalog comes up to par.

Our Jason wrote about PlayScreen when they first launched their portal with 25 free Pre apps in early June. If you type www.playscreen.com/palmpre in your browser, you'll see all kinds of games: Sudoku, Bowling, Golf - Driving Range, Video Poker, Snowboard Alley, Straight Dice and more.

And check this out, there IS a Whack game!

Called iWhack, it looks like the mole is actually Steve Balmer.

I wonder if Version 2 will have the Podfather, Jon Rubinstein in place of Balmer?

Okay, enough with the creepiness, fun and games.

Here's one more for the road.

Survey Says... Top 20 Pre Features Wanted

Odditory in our forums has posted up a uservoice poll where you can vote on your top most-wanted features for the Palm Pre.  As of this writing, we have some clear winners:

1. Blinking center button for notifications [809 Votes]
2. Improve battery life [706 Votes]
3. Customization of system sounds [578 Votes]

That's a wrap!