Tams Palm

Ever since Palm got taken over by HP, not much was heard from the boys in Orange. No leaks, no OS updates, no nothing – this has just changed.

A member of the PreCentral forum now claims to have been told the following by a Palm employee:

…

Question: Are there plans to release any new devices this year?

Answer: I’m not allowed to talk about future roadmaps, especially because we’re in the process of being acquired by HP, so I can’t say. But yes we have a road map. We are working on future devices. And… new version of the OS. So I think, you’re going to find the next year very exciting.

Q: [I can't hear this clearly on my recording.] …on the Pre and Pixi, how will apps be handled on those devices?

A: Yes we have more devices in the works. I can’t talk about form factors, but we have said that the Pixi will be the smallest screen size that we ever create in terms of pixels. For the most part, you don’t need to do anything to adapt to different hardware. Same OS, with roughly the same capabilities. Just speed and memory are different. And screen sizes are different, but that’s pretty easy to handle, it’s no different than a desktop web application that the user can resize his browser.

…

As of this writing, not much further information is available…

Dear Readers,
WordPress once was an excellent blogging platform – focused on downward compatibility, upgrades were painless and didn’t require any theme-fiddling.

Unfortunately, everything good comes to an end. Our theme, which was originally designed by an individual called Shamsul Azhar (who has since disappeared), has now reached the end of life point…and must be replaced.

Given that the design was indeed somewhat dated, I felt that it was time to try something new. Over the next 12 hours, you will see the new identity of the Tamoggemon Content Network. We have a few surprises in stock for you:
Different design
So far, mobile-related web sites always were black-on-white. We go the other way – and hope that you will like it!

Rotating background images
This is another little nicety we have in stock. If all works well, you will soon be able to feast your eyes on a different background image every day. Artistic, mobile-related, funny – Doris is currently curating a kickass selection for your viewing pleasure.

It is our target to make the TCN stand out from the rest of the mobile media not only by delivering quality content and analysis, but also in a visually appealing sense.

Unfortunately, good things take time. So, please bear with us as some small things break – and keep us in the loop by sending emails to tamhan (at) tamoggemon (dot) com. Or, shoot us a tweet via @tamhanna.

Please let us know what you think! Help us make the TCN the best-looking content source!

Tam Hanna and Dr. Doris Maria Kohrs for the entire Tamoggemon team

As the Palm Pre is intended to replace not only Palm’s Treo smartphones but also their legacy PDA’s, I thought that a size comparison between a few of these “victims” might be interesting.

We scoured our archives, and are proud to present the gallery below. First of all, the Palm Treo 650. It is larger, but has a much better keyboard:

GSPDA”s infamous M70 is smaller, but boxier:

Don’t get us started on the PDQ. Technology has clearly come a long way:

The Palm TX has a larger screen:

As does the Palm Tungsten T3:

Next up is our infamous yellow Tungsten E2:

Palm’s m500 is surprisingly similar in size:

Whereas both the Palm IIIc and the Viix are larger:

Tune in again soon – we’ll look at more recent devices next…

Palm’s Tungsten T3 was (and still is) one of the fastest-booting handhelds of all time – the introduction of NVFS slowed the boot process down to a “market level”.

HP now wants to get back to these old times of glee – LinuxForDevices reports the following:

HP has agreed to purchase the HyperSpace Linux fast-boot technology from Phoenix Technologies in a deal due to be completed later this month. In addition to purchasing HyperSpace, HP will acquire Phoenix’s HyperCore and Phoenix Flip instant-on and client virtualization products, with all three products netting $12 million in cash, says Phoenix Technologies.

…

Even though the boot time of the Pre is not too big an issue (the device is rebooted rarely), it is likely to become significant as the operating system is moved to devices like printers and scanners.

Given that HP is a huge company and that 12million USD are no money for them, the purchase doesn’t have to be too important – but it could lead to faster webOS boot times…

Mobile device freaks all over the world know Oliver W Leibenguth as PDA collector extraordinaire. If you think about a vintage device, he probably has it in his collection (except for a Palm Vii prototype, which is guarded in the Tamoggemon corporate archive).

Those who have are given – he just managed to get his hands onto advertising brochures for both the extremely rare 2MB WristPDA and the Foleo:

Find out more via the URL below:
http://blog.compuseum.de/?p=511

Microsoft’s Windows XP can well be considered the longest-serving operating system in the mobile market – no other system has been used and actively sold so long after its initial introduction.

Even though it was originally planned to be eliminated much earlier, the emergence of ultra-low-power netbooks caused Microsoft to prolong its lifetime to keep Linux deployments at bay. However, this “amnesty” now also ends:

Just a reminder that – as announced in April 2008 – as of October 22, 2010, OEMs will no longer be able to pre-install Windows XP Home on new netbook PCs. However for a majority of our customers, they may not notice much change; many PC makers have already been actively manufacturing and selling a broad set of Windows 7 netbooks since Windows 7 released in October, 2009. In fact, according to NPD’s Retail Tracking Service, by April 2010, 81% of netbook units sold at retail in the US came with Windows 7 pre-installed.

I would also like to remind people who are still running Windows XP that as of July 13th, 2010, Windows XP SP2 will also reach the end of support. You will need to install the latest service pack available (Windows XP Service Pack 3) via the Microsoft Update website or look at moving to Windows 7 to be running a supported version of Windows. Support for Windows XP Service Pack 3 will continue through April 2014.

Given that Qt Creator now starts to support more and more mobile platforms via Linux, I predict that this decision could result in more Linux deployments in the mobile space (as Windows Mobile 6.5 dies, there is no real need for Windows unless you do BlackBerry) – let’s see…

Hutchison Austria is known for acting anticyclically – while most carriers currently cut back on unlimited data, they have just introduced the new SuperPhone plans:

Both of them offer 5GB of data, after which a speed reduction to EDGE niveau is applied. The interesting thing here is that tethering is allowed.

When asked on capacity issues, the representative stated that increasing capacity alone leads to situations like the ones seen at other countries. He went on to say that smartphones _never_ cause network overloads; these are instead caused only by tethering.

My recent request for pictures of the blue version of the Palm Pixi Plus was ignored by Palm – but one attentive reader found some.

Steven Wood found a review of the box on CNET, which contained a bunch of images. One of them is below:

Find out more here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/palm-pixi-plus-blue/ …

Learning about Symbian is not particularly easy – if you want to acquire the skills at home, expect to go banging your head against a wall frequently. Fortunately, courses are frequently held all over Europe by yours truly.

The next event is in Vienna. Esther Schneeweisz, the organizer of the PlumberCon, managed to get /me talking there:

Further information can be had via the URL below – if you book now, tickets will be cheaper:
http://plumbercon.org/schedule/79

Even though the first three days of a device’s shelf life are not that important (long tail, anyone?), device manufacturers and carriers alike tend to be quite obsesses over first-day sales figures.

Sprint recently reported that the HTC Evo out-sold the Palm Pre by a factor of three. Yahoo now quotes Reuters as following:

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Sprint said on Tuesday the total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on the launch day was in line with the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over their first three days on the market combined.

“We originally reported that the total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on launch day was three times the number…”We inadvertently erred in the comparison,” Sprint said in a statement on Tuesday.

…

Not too much to add here…

Even though At&T’s no-commitment price of just 300$ for the Pixi Plus is more than humane, I am glad to report that the device has just become even cheaper when purchased with a meaningful data contract.

In the condition above, the 50$ price we saw a few days ago is waived:

Further information can be had via the URL below:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-details/?device=Palm%C2%AE+Pixi+%28TM%29+Plus+-+Blue&q_sku=sku4680224

It is with great regret that I have to announce the passing of a longterm friend of the house – mobile visionary and Hutchison CEO Berthold Thoma has succumbed to a yet-unknown unknown illness just a few hours ago.

Berthold Thoma’s engagement is what has made the mobile market in Austria what it is today. In just 8 years, he transformed the market from one governed by fear of internet addiction and insane GPRS data prices to one where data prices are among the lowest in the world:

During this process, he always was hindered by government entities – both seeking to protect the governmental carrier A1 and other revenue sources important to powers close to the state.

If one man has done something for the smartphone market in Austria, it was Berthold. Phones used to look cool – after him, phones are powerful.

The whole Tamoggemon Content Network team mourns the death of a visionary, who has shaped both our network and the mobile world in general. His ideas and predictions often turned out to be true.

Berthold, you were a true friend. May you and your work and spirit live on in all of us!

Tam Hanna
Tamoggemon CEO

Dear Readers,
I have to wholeheartedly apologize for the short downtime experienced today around 08h00 local time.

As of this writing, I have not been informed about what has caused the downtime. I am thus extremely thankful if you could report any oddities via email…

With best regards and apologies
Tam Hanna

Palm’s Foleo has hit quite a few web sites in the past – I thus wonder why nobody stumbled across this so far.

A blog called IXLE Foleo now shares the image below:

The blog is operated by a former Palm OS developer, who managed to get his hands onto a Foleo. In case you are interested, find out more via the URL below:
http://ixlefoleo.blogspot.com/

The Pixi Plus, on its own right, can hardly be considered news nowadays. However, the machine has just hit AT&T with a twist:

Leaving the 299$ no-commitment (aka OTC) price aside, careful lookers will see that the device is available in both black and blue (pictured above) color shades.

As of now, no photographs of the back side of the device are available. However, I assume that the blue version will be blaco on the front and will have a blue back shell. Order yours via the URL below – and don’t forget to tell us how that blue Pixi Plus really looks:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-details/ …

Developers doing business with PalmGear should already know about their excellent bookkeeping – they had insane issues paying out royalties in the past. Handango, on the other hand, were known to be moronic but pay on time. Murphy’s law states that minus and minus is more minus – and it looks like the merger brought out the worst sides of both companies.

According to insider information, Handango has suspended payments. A group of developers are fed up with this situation, and are planning to gang up on the boys:

We de-listed everything from Handango as soon as we heard about the PalmGear take-over. Too late though. Handango immediately implemented a freeze on all developer payments as per PalmGear’s mo. That was back in March IIRC.

At this point we have had multiple email requests for final payments ignored or answered with template text that all dev payments are suspended until the restructuring is completed. We threatened to sue but HD couldn’t care less. Obviously.

So – seems we’re not alone in this boat and even small claims court costs money. Hence the question – maybe pool a bunch of claims? Is that even possible?

Should anyone of you be interested in joining in on the action, please leave a comment with your email address here – we will then put you in touch!

Legal disclaimer: Tamoggemon Ltd has no active business relationship with any of the companies mentioned above. We are reporting the story above only to inform our readers on the happenings, and are thus covered by the Austrian constitution. However, we would welcome a statement from Handango or PalmGear and would publish it unchanged immediately.

When HP announces its intentions to take over Palm, two open questions remained. a) was whether the FCC would accept the merger, while b) was whether the stockholders would agree.

a) has just been solved in favor of Palm and HP. The SEC filing contains the following passage:

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On June 1, 2010 the Federal Trade Commission granted early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended, relating to the pending acquisition by Hewlett-Packard Company (“HP”) of Palm, Inc. Palm has also received all required pre-closing foreign antitrust approvals. The proposed merger remains subject to other customary closing conditions, including the approval of Palm’s stockholders. The special meeting of Palm’s stockholders to vote on the proposed merger is currently scheduled to be held on Friday, June 25, 2010.

…

Now, all that needs to be cleared is the agreement of the stockholders – let’s wait and see what happens on the 25th…

Strange things to happen in business – for example, HP’s CEO has just retracted part of his statement on the acquisition of Palm not being about the smartphone space.

Engadget just got the text below:

When we look at the market, we see an array of interconnected devices, including tablets, printers, and of course, smartphones. We believe webOS can become the backbone for many of HP’s small form factor devices, and we expect to expand webOS’s footprint beyond just the smartphone market, all while leveraging our financial strength, scale, and global reach to grow in smartphones.

Of course, all of this could just be a smokescreen-style maneuver to keep developers loyal to the Palm webOS platform until a critical amount of applications is reached. On the other hand, few companies know mobile as well as HP does.

Stay tuned…

Smartphone users were long considered unaware that applications existed for their devices – they used what was in the ROM, and often didn’t even bother to look at the goodies on the included software CD.

Nielsen now polled US consumers, and found out the following about the number of applications found on the average user’s handset. Nokia was left out – but given the state of Ovi, I predict that the number of free apps is likely to be close to +inf, while the number of paid ones will correlate to about 0.001 or so:

Average number of apps: Smartphone: 22, Feature phone: 10

* BlackBerry: 10
* iPhone:37
* Android: 22
* Palm: 14
* Windows Mobile: 13

When looking at content categories, the following picture emerges:

Hit the link above to find out a bit more or to order the full report…

When HP snatched up Palm, most of us assumed that the buy-up was intended as a “fuckyou” gesture at Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7. This was only too logical if you look at the recent history of HP’s iPaq line.

ZDNet now quotes HP’s CEO as following:

We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn’t seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The WebOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment…We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices…Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment. That is a very value proposition.

Folks – I have to admit that I am not yet sure what to make of this. webOS is intended for smartphones, and I struggle to see much value in a “Palm Printer”.

Ideas, anyone?

P.S. Talking back is free and anonymous. So, HP heads – why not hit the comments form below?