When news first broke out that HP was buying Palm, we got stoked about webOS getting a huge injection of infrastructure and marketing muscle. What we didn’t know was how far HP was going to use its newly acquired property.

Going beyond the Palm Pre smartphones and the HP PalmPad TouchPad tablet, it seems that HP wants to extend webOS beyond the mobile market into printers, computers, and more. Remember that printers represent a huge part of HP’s business. How awesome would it be to have a webOS interface on your multi-function rather than the commonly clunky menus that plague just about the entire segment?

I’m not at all convinced on the use of webOS on a notebook or desktop, though, as it seems too lightweight for these kinds of applications. That is, unless they plan on using webOS as the “quick boot” environment instead of the Linux-based stuff that we see from the other PC guys?

[BGR via HP]

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If you’ve been patient and wanted a bargain, Bell Mobility may be the place to go. The Canadian carrier has slashed the price on the Palm Pre to a much more affordable zero dollars and zero cents. Not one penny.  Back when it first launched, the Palm Pre was sold by Bell for $199.95 with a three-year contract, placing it on par with the iPhone. Then, they dropped the price. Then, they dropped it some more. The kicker is now you can get it for $0.00 with a two-year contract. Yup, Bell even took a year off the offer.

Slow sales may be a major motivator for Bell, but there could be another one. You know how American’s have the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus? It’s possible – though far from confirmed – that Bell could be doing the same. Or they could just be giving up on Palm altogether.  After all, HTC already did the same.

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I thought a relationship between HTC and Palm could be a serious winner. Palm brings lots of intellectual property to the table and HTC brings some great hardware development. Together, they could make a real iPhone killer. Apart, one’ll go bankrupt and the other could be bankrupt fighting in the courtroom.

So, who’s going to buy Palm now? Lenovo? Nokia? Google? Any takers?

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Motorola Droid encased in an Otterbox protective case

If you’re looking for the ultimate protection for all of your technological gear, you can’t really go wrong by choosing a protective case from the good people at OtterBox. People have done tests where they threw these cases against walls and drove over them with SUVs, only to reveal that the product remains largely unscathed.

Extending this level of protection to a few new handsets today, OtterBox announced that it now has protective cases for the Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, Palm Pre Plus, Palm Pixi, and Palm Pixi Plus. These will protect them from “scatches, bump, shock and everyday wear.”

On the Motorola Droid side of the equation, you can expect the Commuter Series from OtterBox. The case is comprised of three sleek layers and the case allows for complete interaction with the phone’s core features: touchscreen, camera, microphone, and volume keys. The micro USB port and headphone jack are protected with silicone plugs.

In addition to the Commuter Series, Palm devices also get outfitted with OtterBox cases from the Tandem Series and the Impact Series. The former is for the Palm Pre and Palm Pre Plus. It comes in two pieces to allow for the best access and fit. The latter is for the Palm Pixi and Pixi Plus. It is a silicone skin designed to absorb impact and dissipate shock away from the device.

Otterbox cases for the Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, Palm Pixi Photo Gallery

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Palm Pre

When the Palm Pre was revealed at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, many said that it could be a serious competitor to the iPhone. Apple’s handset still reigns supreme, but that doesn’t mean Palm and Sprint are going to run and hide in a corner. They’re pushing out upgrades that’ll make the Palm Pre even more enticing, so they hope.

Sprint will be sending out the new WebOS 1.4 upgrade to Palm Pre owners after a community alert was dispatched revealing the news. The new OS comes with a range of improvements, but the most notable is support for a new Adobe Flash 10.1 plug-in from the Palm App Catalog.

WebOS 1.4 will also bring video recording to the mix, phonebook transfers, messaging enhancements, email enhancements, and improved phone performance. You get a number of little bug fixes to go with it too.

The original community alert, which said that the WebOS 1.4 update would be ready for delivery today, has since been pulled. On the bright side, the upgrade should be coming soon and, from what we can gather, Palm Pre Plus owners on Verizon should be getting a similar update too.

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On January 25, exclusive to Verizon Wireless, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus will be offered with vital updates.

Palm Pre Plus had the bulk of changes. The navigation button has been removed, action of slider mechanism improved; it now clicks in/out of place. Palm also changed the keyboard, dumping the orange coloring, revamping the action of the keys, making them clickier and slightly more raised. Adding 8GB of storage, making the internal capacity 16GB, and Palm is going full blast with gaming thanks to its PDK. The feel is closer to the Pixi, and that’s a really good thing.

The Palm Pixi Plus is still “thin and lightweight”, Wi-Fi connects easily – and quickly, and a whole new slew of stylish back covers, feeling rubbery with perforations, on the solid color versions, the printed ones are smooth. The cases have holes for the camera lens, headphone jack, speakers, etc. And they’re swappable.

The Pixi has a built-in inductive back cover; the Pre Plus comes with an inductive back battery cover so you can use the phones with the Touchstone charger out-of-the-box.

Pricing has not been announced, but considering that the Pre and Pixi are currently available on Sprint for $150 and $100, respectively, I expect the Pre Plus will cost a little less than $200 and the Pre Plus will be close to $100. Back covers were displayed for $50.

The post The Verizon Palm Pre Plus with 16GB, dont forget the Pixi too appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

If you own a Palm Pre and you don’t mind broadcasting your physical location to everyone, though, you just may be in luck. Following in the footsteps of the iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry, webOS has now been provided with a proper Foursquare app.

Available for download through the App Catalog, the Foursquare app for webOS works in much the same way as the apps available on the other platforms. You log into your account, check into a location, and try to become mayor of said location.

Unfortunately, there is one function missing from the beta version of this app. You don’t get to see any city leaderboards, but that may change with future releases.

Source: Intomobile

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The Palm Ares SDK is a web-based software development package that lets you code and create apps for the webOS-based Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. This is quite different from Mojo, which is Palm’s more traditional webOS SDK.

The development environment with Ares is completely web-based, meaning that you don’t have to download and/or purchase any additional tools to turn your app ideas into a reality. Well you’ll still need some knowhow, but you don’t need much in terms of a “hardcore coding background.”

To take the Palm Ares SDK out for a test spin, head on over to the official page at ares.palm.com. Let us know how it goes.

Source: Engadget

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First off, we have the Motorola Devour A555 shown here. This handset has been a very long time coming, since we first heard about the phone formerly known as the Motorola Calgary in the early part of this year. They say that the Devour will be “DROID’s little brother” and it’ll get Android 2.1, MOTOBLUR, and a 3-megapixel camera.

On the Windows Mobile side of things, we’ll be finding the LG VS750. While LG and Verizon are certainly no strangers to one another, this is actually the first LG smartphone to be offered through Verizon. Previous handsets were really just “feature phones” and “messaging phones.” The LG VS750 has Windows Mobile 6.5 and CDMA/GSM for roaming.

Not to be outdone, the folks at Palm are heading over to Verizon too. The Palm Pre is currently being exclusive to Sprint, but as per so many other rumors, the platform is expanding to other carriers. The Palm Pre Plus is slated to join Verizon with webOS. There’s no explanation of the “Plus” part of the name, so it’s just conjecture for now.

Source: BGR

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The iPhone is already home to a huge range of licensed games, as well as a series of unauthorized emulators for classic gaming systems. The Palm Pre is starting to catch up in this arena, thanks to the creation of the Gnuboy Game Boy Emulator.

This emulator has been ported over to the Palm webOS by Dudestatus of webOS Internals. It’s not the most user-friendly of ports and you’ll need to do a little bit of legwork on your own to get it to work, but it does mean that you can get in on some classic Pokemon, Mario, and Zelda action at will.

We’ll leave the legal ramifications of game emulators for another day. In the meantime, you can peep the video below for a brief preview and demonstration. It is interesting that the graphics are in color, so are we to believe that this emulates Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games too?

Source: Intomobile

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