• centro,  palm os

    Palm Launches Verizon Centro, Facebook

    Introducing the Palm Centro for Verizon Wireless

    Today, Palm and Verizon Wireless launched the Palm Centro smartphone. Having already debuted on Sprint and AT&T, many customers have been waiting for Centro to arrive at Verizon. At last, the wait is over.

    The Verizon Centro will only be available in a single color, cobalt blue. The Verizon Centro shares the same technical specifications set as the Sprint Centro models.

    The Verizon Centro will sell for $99 with a new two-year customer agreement and after a $70 mail in rebate. Customers will be able to purchase Centro starting June 13 (tomorrow) from Palm.com, VerizonWireless.com, and other Verizon Wireless retail locations.

    Today’s full Palm Centro for Verizon Wireless press release can be found on the Palm website. For the full Centro product information, visit the Palm Centro website.

    Palm Launches Facebook Client

    Along side today’s Centro product launch announcement; Palm released a native Facebook application for the Palm OS-based Centro, Treo 680, and 755p.

    The Facebook client can be downloaded for free over the air (OTA) directly to your Palm smartphone by visiting the address http://mobile.palm.com/facebook from the Blazer web browser.

    Facebook for Palm OS has the following features:

    • Send and receive Facebook messages, and respond to friend requests.
    • Capture video using your smartphone and post it to your Facebook profile.
    • View and post photos right from your smartphone — or snap and send off new ones.
    • Check out your friends’ photos and post a comment or two.
    • Receive News feeds, change your status, and get friends’ status updates on the go.
    • Browse friends’ profiles, post messages to their wall, and send friend requests or search for old friends through Facebook.
    • Open your Contacts and dial your friends with just one touch.

    For more information on Facebook for Palm OS, including the user guide and the desktop Palm application installer, visit the Palm Facebook website.

  • foleo,  palm os

    Colligan Talks Palm OS II, Foleo II

    APC.com, the digital extension of APC Magazine, published an article online yesterday about Palm, their upcoming Linux operating system, and a glimmer of hope for another run at the Foleo.

    Of the new Linux-based successor to the current version of Palm OS, APC writes:

    “…Colligan calls it “Palm OS” and later “Palm 2.0”, both times his fingers drawing quotation marks in the air as he speaks. Palm 2.0, as in Web 2.0, although he makes it clear that “I’m not coming up with the branding right now – whether it’s Palm OS 2.0 or Next Generation, we’re not coming up with the branding right now. But this is something different to this” he says, pointing to the Centro.

    Colligan speaks of this as being a “next-generation operating system with much more capabilities, driven around the Internet and Web-based applications”. It reminds us of a very modern take on the original OS, as well as a revisiting of the strategy which saw Palm create everything from the OS to the handhelds. It worked fine for Palm in the early days, and it’s working pretty well for Apple too.

    “We’re focused on executing our own system, mostly because we really believe that to create the most compelling solution it should be an integrated package much like we started with the Palm OS and doing the original Palm Pilots: we did the operating system, we did the hardware and we did the whole synching architecture and the desktop tie-in, which is equivalent to the Web these days. One of the things we wanted to do is to make sure that we had an end-to-end solution we really controlled and could deliver the end-user experience we want to deliver. We think it’s going to be stunning and breakthrough in its execution, and we’re working on some very exciting new devices to go with it”.

    But APC wasn’t just going to ask Mr. Colligan about Palm OS II. They also asked about the possibility of a future Foleo product that Colligan alluded to some months ago in his notice to the Palm user community that the original Foleo project was being canceled. APC writes:

    Not all of those [Palm OS 2.0] devices will be smartphones. While Colligan axed the much-maligned Foleo ‘mobile companion’ notebook, he admits the concept (if not the brand) could make a comeback.

    “I still believe the idea will be vindicated some day. But the core decision behind that product cancellation was really driven by that we were developing this whole new operating system that is going to bring a new user experience, (but the Foleo) had been started under a different design centre, a different thought process and a different set of system software. I really want there to be one Palm user experience, and so we’ll come back around to that idea when we’re done delivering that experience”.

    Indeed, when Colligan canned the Foleo just short of the product’s debut in September 2007, he said noted that he was cancelling “the Foleo mobile companion product in its current configuration” and reiterated that “the market category defined by Foleo has enormous potential. When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category.”

    These are encouraging remarks from Palm’s skipper. I am, as many of you are also, looking forward to new devices built around Palm’s new Palm OS II operating system.

    Read the full APC.com article here

  • centro,  palm os,  rumors,  treo

    Rumor: A New Palm Smartphone Before Year’s End?

    We know that Palm is working on a new Linux-based operating system, often referred to as “Palm OS II” or “Palm OS Nova.” We also know that Palm is working on new hardware form factors for their Treo smartphone line. It has also become generally accepted that we will have to wait until this time next year before we will be able to get our hands on Palm’s new products running the new operating system until 2009. Or will we?

    While reading an article on AppleInsider about the impact to both Research In Motion and Palm, there is a short statement from an industry analyst that may hint at a new device from Palm, possibly a new Treo, before the end of 2008. Ya, I said before the end of 2008. The following is a quote from the AppleInsider article:

    “Palm’s new Centro smartphone is also characterized as a stopgap measure to tide users over until a real, Linux-based Treo replacement is available near the end of 2008. It sells for as little as $99 but isn’t seen as capable of holding its own against either the iPhone or other rivals for the next few quarters. Most customers are attracted to the Centro for its price rather than its feature set, a situation the Needham researcher says is likely to change once prices drop.”

    This is the second time in as many months that I’ve seen mention of a new Palm product becoming available before the end of the year that is not one of the rumored devices I’ve been following.

    It is important that we not get ahead of ourselves here. Before smartphones can go on sale in the US, the wireless carrier needs to certify each device before they will allow it to be connected to their network. It is also widely expected that Palm will need to deliver new smartphones to the networks up to six months in advance of it going on sale. Could this analyst simply be confused by what will happen by year’s end? Did he really mean that the carriers will get new Palm devices for testing, or did he really mean that new devices running the new OS be on sale by the end of 2008? It is hard to tell, but it would sure be some welcomed news for the Palm OS user community if a new device and operating system became available in time for the holidays. And I’m sure Palm wouldn’t mind a little sales boost in December either.

    Fact or fiction? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

  • palm os,  rumors

    Palm OS II on Target for 2009

    Brighthand Editor-in-Chief Ed Hardy has posted an article earlier today which states that Palm OS II is on target for a 2009 launch.

    “Last fall, Palm, Inc.’s new Chairman said his company will release smartphones running a new Linux-based version of the Palm OS in 2009. Last week, a Palm executive told Brighthand that the company is still on track to have the first model out early next year.

    Palm, according to Stephane Maes, VP Smartphone Product Marketing, expects to finish work on this operating system late in 2008, and around that same time will begin distributing the tools developers need to create applications, or check compatibility of their current ones, for this new operating system. Naturally, those who are writing the software that will be bundled with the first model will get access to the SDKs well before the general public.

    Palm plans to have the first devices running this operating system out early in 2009. Maes says that wireless carriers are already expressing strong interest in Palm OS II — though he didn’t call it that. According to rumor, the internal code-name for this platform is “Nova,” but Palm itself hasn’t revealed the official name.”

    Keep reading

    [Via Brighthand.com]