We all know Microsoft has a reputation of stealing ideas. Weather this is true or not really depends on who you talk to. This is just blatant though.
I guess maybe it’s possible that this is just coincidental but Palm’s ad came out first so they get the credit.
Check out the two ads and judge for yourself:
Here is the Palm Pre ad:
And the Series 7 ad:
The app world for the Palm Pre just got real hot. Earlier today at CES, Palm announced the release of some very good looking games. Now we get to see developers tap into some of the power of the Pre! The Electronic Arts CEO, Travis Boatman was there to talk about the new SDK and show some new apps, including Sims 3 and Need for Speed. The games support full 3D graphics and they look real good. These new apps will be available today.
Source: http://www.precentral.net/palm-brings-games-native-development?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Precentralnet+%28PreCentral.net%29
Palm Introduces 3D Games for webOS
Hot Game Titles from EA, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Laminar Research Available Today in Palm App Catalog
LAS VEGAS, Jan 07, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- 3D gaming has landed on the Palm(R) webOS(TM) platform. Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today introduced several graphics-intensive game titles for webOS, from leading game developers EA Mobile(TM), a division of Electronic Arts Inc.; Gameloft; Glu Mobile; and Laminar Research. Demonstrated at Palm's CES event, the games will be available today in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers.
"We are very excited about the potential of webOS as a platform for mobile 3D gaming," said Katie Mitic, senior vice president, Product Marketing, Palm, Inc. "This is a key application category, and we've worked closely with some of the leading game developers to deliver a great game experience for our customers."
Seven 3D games were introduced today in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers:
Five other mobile games were also introduced: EA Mobile's "Tetris(R)," "Sudoku," and "SCRABBLE(R)," and Gameloft's "The Oregon Trail" and "Brain Challenge."
"Recent improvements to Palm webOS represent major advancements in enabling world-class mobile gaming," said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios for EA Mobile. "These innovations have allowed us to quickly bring our best IP to the platform."
The developers introducing titles today have had early access to the Palm webOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK), which extends the Palm webOS Software Development Kit (SDK) with a set of tools, documentation and APIs that let developers write plug-ins for their webOS applications. The PDK lets developers easily integrate C and C++ code into their webOS applications, enabling new functionality, including immersive 3D games. A public beta version of the webOS PDK is scheduled to be available to all developers in March.
"The performance of the platform allowed us to create these great games in a limited timeframe," said Baudouin Corman, vice president of publishing, Americas, Gameloft. "webOS allows us to deliver an outstanding gaming experience, and we look forward to bringing our best games to Palm customers worldwide.""We expect the plug-in model to play an important role in the evolution of the webOS platform, just as plug-ins have with web browsers," said Mitic. "And with this plug-in, we are making it super-simple for developers to bring the hottest games to webOS."
The Palm App Catalog currently offers more than 1,000 webOS applications for download. Palm's unique over-the-air model also makes it easy for customers to get webOS updates and new features delivered directly to their phones. For example, at CES today, Palm announced that video recording, editing and sharing capabilities will soon be available for users of webOS phones. This new video capability will be delivered automatically to current and future Palm Pre(TM) and Palm Pixi(TM) products via an over-the-air update.
Palm also demonstrated Flash content in the browser on a Palm Pre and expects a free Adobe Flash Player 10.1 plug-in to be posted to the Palm App Catalog in the coming months. Palm expects webOS to be one of the first mobile platforms to support the full Flash Player in the web browser.
More information about the webOS PDK is available at the newly updated Palm Developer Center (developer.palm.com). More information about games for webOS is available at www.palm.com/applications.
About Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc. creates intuitive and powerful mobile experiences that enable consumers and businesses to connect to their information in more useful and usable ways. The company's groundbreaking Palm(R) webOS(TM) platform, designed exclusively for mobile application, introduces true multitasking and Palm Synergy(TM), which brings your information from the many places it resides into a single, more comprehensive view of your life.
Palm products are sold through select Internet, retail, reseller and wireless operator channels, and at the Palm online store (www.palm.com/store).
More information about Palm, Inc. is available at www.palm.com.
Palm, Pixi, Pre, Synergy, and webOS are trademarks of Palm, Inc. MONOPOLY and SCRABBLE (in the U.S. and Canada) are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
SOURCE: Palm, Inc.
Palm releases its second WebOS device, the Palm Pixi, and again it's exclusively on Sprint: The Now Network.
The Pixi has a cool form factor and is slimmer than the Palm Pre. The obvious difference between the two is the lack of a slide out keyboard on the Pixi. Instead, the device is all in one with the screen and keyboard, similar to a Blackberry or Treo. According to Palm, the Pixi is aimed at a different audience than the Pre. They're going for a younger audience with less money on hand and less need for productivity functionality. For starters, WiFi is no included with this device like the Pre. You could say that with Sprint's EVDO data speeds, you really don't need the WiFi, but it still seems silly to take it out. The camera is 1 megapixel lower than the 3MP Pre, the screen is a little smaller, and the processor is a little slower as well. All this to keep costs down.
The Pixi is obviously not intended for every user, especially not for those who already have a Palm Pre. It does introduce another WebOS device to the market though, and at a price of $100 from Sprint, it's quite affordable. Looks like Walmart is selling the Pixi for $50:
UPDATE: Looks like Amazon is letting it go for $25!!
Via http://Twitter.com/engadget: Palm Pixi one step closer to free, now $25 on Amazon http://bit.ly/2jbq4R
For a full review of the Palm Pixi, head on over to Pre|central.net and check out their write up. Videos are included as well.
Popular Mechanics releases its 10 Most Brilliant Products of 2009 and the Palm Pre made the list.
"Most breakthrough innovations make their greatest contributions when they become products people can buy. Here, Popular Mechanics awards the top 10 most brilliant gadgets, tools and toys that you can buy in 2009."
Published in the November 2009 issue.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/upgrade/4332407.html
Here's what they had to say about the Pre:
The Palm Pre (which costs $200 with a contract from Sprint) doesn't break ground with any one engineering advance. Instead, it sets a new standard by putting all the best available technologies together. Most cellphones—even high-end ones—excel at some tasks, while utterly ignoring others. The Palm Pre's features read like a gadget geek's wish list: optional inductive charging, a full keyboard, the ability to sync with iTunes—and it can run multiple applications at once. Sometimes more is more.
Way to go Palm! If you haven't heard me say it yet, I really like my Pre! I'm glad that the phone is getting some of the recognition it deserves. Palm hit it out of the park with WebOS and as time goes on, things just keep getting better, more developer support, which leads to more apps, and more functionality brought to the phone via over the air updates. Oh and just to be fair, the price of a new Pre is $149.99 now, not $200.
For those of you without a Pre, this means nothing. For the rest of you, the latest WebOS update is finally here. This adds a few things that I'm glad are here like copy and paste within applications and an updated App Catalog. Just go to "Updates" from your Pre's launcher and download the approx. 74Mb update.
webOS 1.2.0
Version information
New applications
NONE
Feature changes to existing applications
Amazon MP3
App Catalog
Backup
Bluetooth
Calendar
Clock
Contacts
Email
Media Sync
Memos
Messaging
Music
Phone
Photos
Sprint Navigation
System
Tasks
Web
Security
This release addresses several security issues with Palm webOS software.
If you haven't heard me say it by now, I love my Palm Pre. As a power user of many gadgets I have come to know exactly what I want a device to do and how well I think it should do said function. I've tried many devices and without a doubt the Palm Pre and iPod Touch are two of the best devices I've ever owned. They are intuitive, functional, stable, and they just seem to do things right.
At current time, the iPhone is obviously the most sought after phone available and for very good reason. About the only flaw I see with an iPhone is Apple's decision to go exclusively with AT&T and their terrible data network. The best alternative for a phone that shows as much promise as the iPhone is the Palm Pre, and it is evidenced in the following case study:
PDF: Signature Smartphones: Gaining Mindshare in Order to Gain Market Share
To sum it up, the report reveals how Palm has managed to get a huge slice of mindshare with the Pre despite being massively disadvantaged in the market. It is second only to the iPhone 3GS in the metric, which looks at three driving factors behind smartphone purchasing decisions: 1. A belief that the phone is "smart", 2. A belief that the phone is "hip or cool", and 3. The belief that the phone will make them more productive.
They rated lots of phones ranging from the BlackBerry Curve and Storm, to the Google G1, and Windows Mobile phones. The report found that only the iPhone and the Pre balanced the three factors so well that they actually deserve the price tags associated with the devices. In fact, only the Pre and the iPhone were able to even strike a balance of the factors at all, the other phones were lopsided in their balances.
There's not much more info in the study, but it is interesting to see how Palm managed to put itself back into the forefront of handheld devices. I guess having a product that is actually cool helps a lot.
After months of waiting and a couple more months of anticipation, the Pre was finally made available to Sprint employees and people with employee accounts. I got mine today and I'm very excited to finally replace my Windows Mobile phone with something that actually contends with the iPhone.
The friendly UPS man brought me this little box. Doesn't look too impressive, but I know what's inside! J
Open the box…nice bubble wrap they use these days:
And there it is! I recently read an article about the new Pre builds in the "sunset box". Looks like I got one.
It's a pretty cool shaped box:
And there it is in all its beauty. It has a screen protector on it and I'll probably leave that on until it falls off so it doesn't look as clean as it could.
Nice packaging effort. I like the orange ribbons around the manuals and quick start guides.
The accessories underneath the manuals. There's a nice plastic cover over them.
Included in the package: A USB cable, headphones/hands free headset, pocket carrying pouch, and wall charger.
Now I'm ready to charge it up a little bit and get this bad boy activated! For some reason the phone won't activate without first switching my current line over…gee…imagine that? LOL
I'm extremely happy to get this thing going so I'm gonna call the Sprint people and get it started! WOO HOO! Happy day!
