The written musings of a long-time Apple //e and Macintosh tech nerd. Opinions are my own.
Jimmie over at GadgetsOnTheGo.net posted the new Sprint ad, in which the Palm Pre makes an appearance, posted to his website.
I kind of like this ad. I don’t know why, it just strikes me as being funny. Not the laughing-so-hard-you-fall-out-of-your-chair funny, but funny none the less. Ok, enough of this money business. Just check out the commercial and let’s hope that we will be able to get our hands on the Pre before the end of May.
Late on Friday afternoon, Sprint/Nextel released Maintenance Release 2 (MR2) for the Nextel BlackBerry 8350i.
Shortly after it’s initial release, issues where discovered with the long awaited Nextel phone. Sprint and RIM are finally showing 8350i customers some love with MR2. According to a post on Sprint’s discussion forums, MR2 addresses the following issues:
* Quiet and Vibrate Profiles will move Nextel Direct Connect calls to handset
Customers that have already upgraded to the 4.6.1.128 (225) software version will be able to complete this upgrade over the air. The upgrade will take approximately 60 minutes.
That’s good news. However, a few hours after releasing MR2, Sprint discovered that a service book update after the device software update was still required.
“The one issue we said would be fixed with MR2 that was not immediately fixed was: Remove Original Message when replying to a text message. This fix requires the download of MR2 and a service book push to your device. Sprint conducted some additional testing on the service book push this week and today sent approval to RIM.
When this fix is available RIM will push it to all devices and it will just require you to reset your device to see the change.
We estimate this push to be out by April 10.”
So it sounds like Sprint/Nextel customers who have the BlackBerry 8350i should hold off applying the update until at least this coming Friday, April 10th. If you are one of the brave readers who have forged ahead with this update, let us know how you made out by leaving a comment.
BlackBerry Device Software 4.6.1.204 (316) [aka MR2] can be downloaded directly from the Sprint BlackBerry 8350i downloads page. You can also download the latest edition of the BlackBerry Desktop software 4.7 and the older BlackBerry Device Software 4.6.1.128 update [aka MR1] from the same page.
The folks over at PhoneNews.com have gotten their hands on what appears to be the Sprint product road map through Q3, 2009. Of particular interest to Palm fans is that the Pre is scheduled to launch in Q2. If position in the grid has any meaning, and I don’t know if that is true, the Pre could ship in the middle of the quarter. Do I hear May anyone?
Today the Palm Treo Pro went live, finally, on Sprint’s wireless network. Sprint customers join those of Alltel (EVDO) and AT&T (unlocked GSM) in all of the yummy Treo Pro goodness.
For those who don’t know, the Treo Pro is Palm’s latest Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 device. The Treo Pro for Sprint sports the latest software updates from Microsoft which includes Pocket Internet Explorer 6.1 . In addition to software updates, the Treo Pro also includes a 320×320 touch screen, a 2.0MP digital camera, Wi-Fi and GPS radios, voice dialing, a microSDHC card slot, and a microUSB data sync and charging port. For a complete listing of the Treo Pro’s specifications, visit the Palm website.
The Treo Pro can be orderd on the Sprint website for as little as $199.99 after a $250 instant rebate and a $100 mail-in rebate and a qualifying two-year service agreement. Customers who do not wish to extend their contact will need to pony up $549.99. The Palm Treo Pro will also be available at Sprint’s retail locations.
To purchase your Palm Treo Pro, visit the Sprint website.
Last week, during the Palm/Sprint Pre event, an industry customer return rate of 20% was cited for PDA smartphones. Over the weekend, The New York Times ran an article about spotty 3G wireless network coverage. A smartphone is only as good as the network it is on. If you don’t have cellular coverage you might as well have left your phone back in your office. The same is true for the feature that manufacturers pack into their phones. The fact of the matter is that most customers don’t read the thick user manuals that come with their phones. The result is that customers never realize the full potential of their smartphones.
For example, Mr. Richtel writes for The New York Times:
“Oh, the things modern mobile phones can do. They are music-playing, video-taking, direction-providing multimedia powerhouses. But many people have trouble getting them to perform their most basic functions, like making phone calls.”
“The resulting technological glitches have given many owners of fancy new phones the urge to throw them out the window and onto the highway.”
The rest of Mr. Richel’s article goes on to talk about customer’s dissatisfaction with their cellular carrier’s 3G wireless networks.
I think that articles like the one that appeared in The New York Times and statistics like the one Sprint quoted last week show that carriers and manufacturers have a real problem to deal with.
There is no one silver bullet that will fix this issue for any of the parties involved. Apple, Palm, and Sprint have taken some positive steps. Apple, leading the charge for easy to use devices, has been leveraging their retail Apple Store locations to help educate customers with one-to-one training sessions. You can make an appointment with one of Apple’s Geniuses who will teach you how to use Apple’s products. Can’t make it down to an Apple store? No problem. Apple has a number of short tutorials on their website that explain how to use the iPhone. If people are unwilling to read the user guide, they are likely willing to watch a short video. I haven’t read any statistics on how well Apple’s videos have been received. Sprint’s Ready Now program aims to offer a similar service when you stop in their stores to buy a new phone.
In store training is good, however, I think Palm is working to make the Pre, powered by their new webOS operating system is also making positive strides to making smartphones easier to use.
The webOS, according to Palm, will have an “instinctive user interface” and “intuitive and unobtrusive notifications” is suppose to make using the Pre easier to use. The first Palm smartphone that will use the webOS, the Palm Pre, will go on sale later this year. Palm used to have a motto of “Delight the customer.” Any smartphone maker and wireless network operator that can pull that off will stand to gain significant market share.
Customer frustration with their phones and the carriers they sign a 2-year service contact with is a real problem for the industry. Customers are looking for technology that is simple to use. The good news is that companies like Apple, Palm, and Sprint are moving in the right direction. Hopefully by the time our 2-year contacts are up, things will have improved.
You can read the full New York Times article on their website.
Yesterday afternoon I attended Palm and Sprint’s Pre event. The following are my notes from the presentation which featured David Owens, Director of Consumer Acquisition for Sprint, and Matt Crowley, Product Line Manager at Palm.
The show’s host was quick to clear the air about the Palm Pre’s availability date and pricing; that information was not going to be discussed on this webcast.
Some of Sprint’s customers are too young to remember the Treo 300?! Zoinks! A statement like that tells me that Sprint and Palm are going to targeting teens with the Pre. Or, more accurately, the paying parents of teens. If customers want to enjoy the full benefits of the Pre’s capabilities, subscribing to a Sprint Simply Everything plan is recommended.
Sprint also indicated that not all of their service plans will be available for the Palm Pre. Expect Sprint to offer the Individual, Family, and Business Simply Everything plans which start at $99.99 a month with the Palm Pre.
Sprint will also be encouraging their customers to partcipate in their Ready Now program. If you are not familiar with Ready Now, I wasn’t until I watched the webcast and I’m a Sprint customer, it is a program where you can work with a sales associate one-on-one to select your phone, set it up, and then have them teach you how to use it. This may seem like a waste of time for smartphone fanatics like us, but there is a huge pool of customers who find “PDAs” too complex. 20% was tossed out as the generic industry number for the return rate for PDA smartphones. This return rate was mentioned because most people find smartphones too complicated and don’t want to read a 267 page user guide.
The Palm Pre Smartphone
When the Palm Pre was developed, it was designed with a polished river stone in mind. There are no sharp edges on the Pre. Everthing is rounded.
Contact information can come from Google, corporate Exchange servers via Exchange ActiveSync, or Facebook for example. Palm’s Crowley did indicate that data was stored in a local database on the Pre. That should be good news for people who are worried about losing access to their PIM data when the phone is off or when they are in a wireless coverage dead zone.
The Synergy data synchronization engine works with email, calendar, and the address book. There was no update as to how the Pre will sync with Microsoft Outlook on a PC desktop computer or how customers will be able to migrate data out of Palm Desktop and into the Pre. There are a few ways to move data around now on the Mac and Windows PCs today, but they require that you know how to export and import data using a comma separated values file (.csv files) or a paid utility that pushes data from Palm Desktop into Outlook. Stay tuned on this point. I believe that Palm is working with Chapura to help liberate data in Palm Desktop 3, 4, and 6 and move it to the Pre. Chapura has been helping customers to synchronize data with Outlook for the last 10 years. DataViz may also have a product to help migrate data as they have some experience in this area with their Beyond Contacts application.
webOS’ search application is called Universal Search. When you start typing in webOS, the software begins searching your phone for the information you are looking for. If the inforation is not found on the device, you are presented with a screen to begin a search on the Inetnet using Google. In the demo, the user has to trigger the search on the Internet. This should also be a comfort to people who like to keep a tight control on how often and how long their phone is connected to the Internet.
The zoom in/out controls for webOS is exactly like those on Apple’s iPhone/iPod touch. No wonder why Apple’s COO Tim Cook seemed so upset during the recent Apple quarterly earnings conference call. (I’m on the record as saying that there will be no law suit between Apple and Palm.)
Palm’s Crowley reiterated the same information from the CES demo: notifications in webOS do not interrupt the foreground application like they do today in Palm OS 5. Notifications push up into the bottom third of the screen, but don’t change the focus away from the application that the customer is in the middle of using. That is such a nice feature.
Crowley also spent some time talking about the coolest feature of the Pre, the Touchstone charging base. Touchstone is a conductive magnetic base that works with the Pre to change the phone when it is at rest on the pedestal. The Pre’s webOS knows that it is on Touchstone and if a call comes in while it is at rest on Touchstone, the call immediately goes to speaker phone mode. The Pre can be used in portrait or landscape mode while attached to Touchstone. The Touchstone charger will be sold as an accessory and will be available at Sprint retail locations when Pre launches. Customers will not be required to purchase a Touchstone and the Pre will come bundled wiht a microUSB charging cable.
This week’s Pre event was very much about getting the word out about the Palm Pre smartphone and Palm’s continuing partnership with Sprint. There wasn’t a lot of discussion of some of the technical details about how the Pre will sync with your data that isn’t already in the cloud or in a corporate Exchane server. I encougae Palm to start talking about how customers will need to sync their PIM data before the Pre goes on a sale later this year.
My friend and fellow gadget blogger, Jimmie Geddes, has gotten his hands on on the new Palm Treo Pro for Sprint a few days early.
“The Sprint Treo Pro comes in the exact same packaging as the unlocked Treo Pro. Palm’s packaging for the Sprint Treo Pro is very reminiscent of Apple’s iPhone packaging. It’s clear that Palm wants to make a great first impression before you even get to the Treo Pro inside its box and they succeed in doing so. Very classy!”
[Via GadgetsOnTheGo.net…]
Palm and Sprint will be holding a series of invitation only Palm Pre events and I will be in attendance. The first webcast will be held soon so be sure to come back to Smartphone Fanatics for all the details.
Looks like after a false start or two, Palm and Sprint are finally on the same page and are talking about the release date for the Treo Pro.
“Palm, Inc. and Sprint today announced the upcoming availability of the Treo Pro smartphone for the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network on March 15.”
“Treo Pro will be available through all Sprint retail channels, including www.sprint.com/treopro, 1-800-SPRINT1 and Sprint retail stores, for $199.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement (after a $100 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate, with an Everything plan with data or a $30 per month or higher data add-on). It also will be available through the Palm Store (www.palm.com/store) and Palm’s B2B sales organization beginning March 16.”
“Treo Pro is a sleek, full-function smartphone offering users the ease of use and robust features they demand while providing the reliability and manageability IT departments require. With the EV-DO Rev. A speeds of Sprint’s Mobile Broadband Network, Wi-Fi, GPS and Windows Mobile 6.1 capabilities, Treo Pro helps busy professionals stay connected on the go so they can structure their lives around their priorities without sacrificing work productivity.”
“Business decision makers require a product that not only integrates seamlessly into their existing IT infrastructures, but one that’s also cost-effective,” said John Traynor, vice president, business products, Palm, Inc. “Treo Pro delivers just that – a feature set that IT managers need to support their mobile work force.”
In a related new article, the folks over at Engadget Mobile are reporting that the new “special blend” Sprint Treo Pro (which does sport different hardware specs than the unlocked GSM edition) will in fact ship with a version of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional that will include Pocket Internet Explorer 6.
“Occasionally, Microsoft will freshen an existing version of WinMo with a so-called AKU, and going forward, all 6.1 devices to hit the market (including the Sprint Treo Pro, coincidentally) will use AKU 1.4, which includes IE Mobile 6.”
I’m glad to see that Palm has refined the totally sexy Treo Pro for Sprint and even baked in the latest version of Windows Mobile Professional. If the Palm Pre wasn’t so close to launch, I’d probably spring for one one since I’m a Sprint customers.
PreCentral.net is running a story today that suggests that the Palm Pre may ship later than some had hoped. You will recall in our debate on 1SRC.com Podcast show 205 that Jeff Kirvin, Rick Cartwright, and I where in disagreement about when in “the first half of 2009” the Pre would ship. Rick and I where leaning toward late May for a target launch of the Pre while Jeff was expecting that the Pre would be on sale in just a few weeks; certainly by April.
PreCentral.net’s Dieter Bohn, writes:
“While we knew all along (despite crazy hopes) that the February 15th release date was just a pipe dream, we were hoping the persistent rumors (now circulating on the Ides of March) meant that the “First half of 2009″ target would mean something sooner than June. Well, we’re a little less hopeful today. First up an anonymous report which we’re not putting much stock in (yet) claims that testing is taking longer than expected due to some security issues. More interestingly, in our forums we read that the Pre has two more rounds to testing to come, the first of these not slated to begin until April 1st.”