• pro,  sprint,  treo,  windows mobile

    Gagets On The Go: Sprint Treo Pro Hands On

    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!”

    Keep reading

    [Via GadgetsOnTheGo.net…]

  • apple,  mac os x

    MacBook Pro 17-inch…NOT!

    I just returned home from my latest trip to the Apple Store in the Westfarms mall. The purpose of the tip, aside from a detour to the Rain Forest Cafe, was to purchase the totally new, totally sexy, super slim, all powerful, Apple MacBook Pro 17″.

    I had (virtual) fists full of cash. I had the green light from my CFO (read: wife). And I had a full tank of gas in the car. Too bad the Apple Store didn’t have any in stock.

    Ugh!

  • blackberry,  rim

    BlackBerry App World – Coming Soon

    Last night’s big news from Research In Motion was that their mobile application store front, App World, is “coming soon.”

    “Coming soon! Find tons of great applications designed for your BlackBerry smartphone in one convenient place – BlackBerry App World. Personalize your BlackBerry smartphone with games, social networks, personal productivity applications and so much more. Message your best friend, track the stock market, or channel your inner rock god. Sign up to receive updates for BlackBerry App World today and discover how to put more of your life on your BlackBerry smartphone.”

    According to the BlackBerry website, App World will require that you have a Berry that has OS 4.2 or later installed and a device with a trackball or a SurePress touch screen device.

    For more details, check out:

    http://www.blackberry.com/appworld

  • pro,  treo,  windows mobile

    Palm Treo Pro Comes to Alltel Wireless

    Palm continues their roll out of their latest Windows Mobile phone, the Treo Pro, around the world. Today’s news is that Alltel Wireless now has the Treo Pro available for their business customers. As was previously mentioned here, the Alltel Treo Pro will ship with Windows Mobile Professional 6.1 and the new version of Pocket Internet Explorer, version 6.0.

    “Palm, Inc.and Alltel Wireless today announced that the Treo Pro smartphone is available today at Alltel Wireless retail stores and online at alltel.com. Treo Pro is a sleek, full-function smartphone that offers business users the ease of use and robust features they demand while providing the reliability and manageability IT departments require. With Wi-Fi, GPS and Windows Mobile 6.1, Treo Pro helps busy professionals stay connected on the go so they can structure their lives around their priorities without sacrificing work productivity.”

    “Businesses want the control and savings that Windows affords, in an innovative and elegant package that keeps their users happy. Treo Pro balances both,” said John Traynor, vice president, business products, Palm, Inc.

    “Treo Pro strengthens our aggressive business product portfolio by letting customers easily stay connected and experience Alltel’s broadband network,” said Angela Rittgers, director of product management for Alltel Wireless. “Businesses will benefit from Treo Pro’s advanced functionality and well-designed user interface.”

    Alltel customers looking to purchase the Treo Pro can do so for $199 with a two-year service agreement. For more information about the Treo Pro, visit the Palm website. Customers can view the service plans and pricing on the Treo Pro on the Alltel website.

  • sprint,  treo,  windows mobile

    Palm and Sprint Talk Treo Pro Release Date

    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.

  • pre,  web os

    Palm Reports Preliminary Q3 FY09 Results


    Earlier today, Palm released their preliminary results for their Q3FY09 period which ended back on February 27. The news doesn’t look good.

    Palm states that they are on target to end the quarter somewhere between $85 to $95 million dollars. The reasons for such a low earning quarter? According to Palm, there is continuing decline for the company’s “maturing legacy smartphone products,” a sluggish economy, and “later-than-expected shipments” of the Treo Pro in the United States.

    Allow me to translate: Palm isn’t selling the Treo 755p and Centro anymore; people are worried about paying for the essentials – not smartphones; and Palm and Sprint can’t get the Windows Mobile Treo Pro, which has completely overshadowed the Treo 800w, certified and out the door.

    The silver lining in all of this is that the company is reporting that the new webOS-powered Pre is still on target for a launch in this half of 2009.

    “The much-anticipated launch of the Palm Pre remains on track for the first half of calendar year 2009, but as expected we’ve got a difficult transition period to work through,” said Palm President and Chief Executive Officer Ed Colligan. “Despite the challenging market environment, the extraordinary response to the Palm Pre and the new Palm webOS reaffirms our confidence in our long-term prospects and our ability to reestablish Palm as the leading innovator in the growing smartphone market.”

    And speaking of webOS, a small little nugget was dropped in today’s statement.

    “Separately, Palm indicated that since it expects to periodically provide new software features free of charge to customers of its Palm webOS products, including the recently announced Palm Pre, it will recognize the revenues and cost of revenues associated with Palm webOS product sales on a straight-line basis over the product’s estimated economic life of 24 months. The company will be recording deferred revenues and deferred cost of revenues on its balance sheet, and amortizing them into earnings on a straight-line basis over the estimated economic product life of 24 months. The company will continue to expense engineering, sales and marketing costs as they are incurred. This accounting treatment will have no impact on cash flow.”

    From that statement, we can draw the conclusion that Palm might be returning to a position that the company held years ago to provide free software updates to customers. It also indicates that the Pre will have a service life of about two years.

    Palm will be reporting their full Q3FY09 results on Thursday, March 19. A conference call will be held at 4:30pm ET/1:30pm PT.

  • mobile apps 360,  windows mobile

    Mobile Apps 360: KeySwop

    Mobile Apps 360 takes a look at mobile software for your Palm OS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and the iPhone/iPod touch that will help keep your favorite mobile device fresh with new software.

    KeySwop, written by Vicott Wong, is a small utility that will allow you to reassign the function of the soft keys on a Windows Mobile device. For example, on the Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional device, like the Palm Treo 750, the left soft key lauches Pocket Outlook and the right soft key opens the Today Screen menu.

    Once you have installed KeySwop, you can remap the left and right soft keys to be any other application on your Windows Mobile 5 or 6 smartphone. I like this application because it restores some of the functionality that I have on my Palm OS devices. On Palm OS, you an reprogram the hardware buttons to be any other application on your handheld or PDA. KeySwop give you another option for gaining quick access to applicationst that are important to you.

    Best of all, KeySwop is a free application! You can download KeySwop from Mr. Wong’s website. Version 0.4.1 was released in January, 2009.

  • dataviz,  iphone

    Documents To Go for iPhone/iPod touch Update

    The folks at DataViz have been hard at work on the latest port of their flagship mobile application: Documents To Go. DataViz dropped us a line the other day with an update on the progress of the iPhone/iPod touch application.

    “We wanted to let you know that Documents To Go is still on track to be released in the second quarter of 2009. We’d also like to give you a look at a few screenshots so you can get a better feel for what we’re up to.

    We’ll provide you with more information on features as we get closer to the release. For now let’s just say we have some exciting things planned for this app!”

    To tease us, or hold us over until the application launches later this year, DataViz included some screen shots to look at.

    The one question that I still is whether or not Documents To Go for iPhone/iPod touch will be as important as it has been on my Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry devices. Without the ability to cut/copy and paste information, which I do frequently when editing Microsoft Office documents, I’m not sure how useful this application is going to be. Come on Apple, let’s have us some copy and paste goodness like every other Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry smartphone has. In my opinion, the iPhone can not be considered a true business phone until it has copy and paste. Support for Exchange ActiveSync alone does not a business phone make.

  • web os

    Palm webOS Developer Webcast Posted

    Jon Zilber posted a note on the Palm company blog on Friday afternoon to let us know that the O’Reilly webcast on developing applications for Palm’s new mobile operating system, webOS, has been posted online.

    Mr. Zilber writes:

    “If you missed O’Reilly’s SRO webinar featuring Palm’s Software CTO Mitch Allen, here’s your chance to catch it whenever you like. You can also leave questions and feedback for Mitch and the rest of the team on the Palm Developer Network blog (and they’ll answer the ones they can). “