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We updated the video collection about the Palm Pre again:

2009-06-18: HW and webOS reviews
2009-05-23: Palm SDK videos to get a better understanding of webOS' behavior, look&feel
2009-05-13: added real life demonstration, ironical video, unboxing, webOS,  fair presentation
2009-05-12: added real life demonstration
2009-04-30: added PalmOS emulation under webOS
2009-04-25: added promotional videos
2009-08-31: Bell commercials added
2009-09-16: Bell commercials updated

As we have recently reported a lot about Germany's first preDevCamp in Berlin, organized by Ben Kampmann and Christof Rodejohann, the event planners step into the final stages of some organisational stress.

The room has been booked and confirmed already, the agenda is out and looks pretty impressive, developping goals are set, machine with webOS pre-installed, the attendance list is constantly growing ervery day (so hurry up, because registration is strongly required!), people are getting more and more nervous and every participant will receive a gorgeous memory of the webOS preDevCamp right after the event!

I may say, this seems to be a tough program for a Saturday with really exciting goals and thus, we though of how we could make the night more pleasurable for everyone?

So, we take over after 7 p.m. and PUGcast as well as the Palm User Group have organized a nice come-together in one of Berlin's fines Irish Pubs, the so-called "Molly Malones", which is just a few minutes away from TU Berlin (larger map) by car and good reachable by subway.

As a loyal Palm user of many years, it pains me to write that WebOS and Palm may become the CP/M or Betamax of the current smartphone wars.  For the youthful among the readers, back before the invention of the internet by Al Gore (Yes, he really claimed to be its inventor.  He continues his delusional thinking in his current crusades) and when dinosaurs roamed the shopping malls, CP/M was the competing operating system to Microsoft DOS (MS-DOS) in the days before Windows, and Betamax was the competitor to VHS in the video tape world.  In those days, CP/M and Betamax were considered the better systems in their respective fields, but the power of branding and the marketing of MS-DOS and VHS caused the “better” systems to fall by the wayside. 

I fear the same will happen to Palm and its much vaunted WebOS.  Even as this is written, Palm shares have begun their descent from highs of $15+ to less than $13 and falling since the introduction of the iPhone 3G S.  International print and visual media here in Europe gave 24 hour every half hour coverage to the release of the iPhone 3G S and the new iPhone 3.0 operating system, but hardly any covered the release of the Palm Pre.  Those that did stopped any coverage as quickly as they had started their cursory mentions.  Certainly Pre reviews were published and most were favorable, but the introduction of iPhone 3.0 and the subsequent introduction of the iPhone 3G S sucked all the oxygen out of the room leaving the Pre to hope that long suffering Palm users will wait for a probably-will-be-coming-and-hope-it-will-be-worth-the-wait GSM model.

If sales figures to date and chatter on a number of the Palm blogs are any indication, people are not waiting.  They are jumping to the iPhone, and people will be lined up around the block once again when the iPhone 3G S hits another raft of countries later this month and throughout the summer.  The first weekend saw over a million units sold, and that was in a more limited release when compared to the original iPhone;  higher sales numbers but in less countries than the original iPhone release.  To top it off, Apple has substantially lowered the price of the original iPhone.  All this news does not bode well for the Pre.

So what does Web OS and the Pre offer?  Better interface?  Certainly looks and feels better by most accounts.  Better speed?  Maybe.  Less applications?  Certainly.  Less storage?  Painfully, yes.  No way to use the one feature that made Palm stand out above the rest all these years:  its built-in PIM and desktop sync feature?  Absolutely.  And yet Palm is charging the same as their main competitor.  (Sigh)

The only bright spot has been the recent appointment of Jon Rubinstein as Palm’s CEO.  Maybe the “podfather” can help turn around the fortunes of Palm just as he did Apple, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it at this point.  This is not a question of his skills, but an appraisal based on current market conditions.   
 
Apple has been pitch perfect in their marketing and brand creation.  In fact, if some enterprising developer designed a way for the iPhone to sync with the Palm desktop, he’d make a bundle of cash and put the final nail in Palm’s coffin.  Rubinstein can only hope that his former colleagues don’t take this easily accomplished route before he has a chance to work his magic at Palm.  Even barring that, once WebIS (the company behind Pocket Informant) finishes providing a way to sync their well designed Pocket Informant PIM to Outlook, it could remove one of the last reasons for users to wait on Palm’s promised desktop sync without going through the cloud.
 
So, will Palm and its WebOS continue, or will it become the CP/M or Betamax of our day?
 
[John v. Hollande]

As Sprint announced today, the Palm Pre will be nationawide available across the United States at

It will not only be available in Sprint stores, but also Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Wal-Mart stores and online at Sprint.com.

The argument that you need one phone for work and another phone for play, or that you have to make compromises between business and lifestyle productivity, is over,” said Dan Hesse, president and CEO of Sprint. “With Pre, compromises of the past are history.

Pre is truly a new phone for a new web-centric age,” said Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executive officer. “We’re a mobile society, and we want our people, calendars and information to move with us. With Pre’s exquisite design and the unique webOS software, running on Sprint’s fast broadband network, we’re changing the perception of what a wireless phone can be.

Pre comes with a charger in the box, but for anyone tired of plugging a cord into their wireless phone, Palm introduces the Touchstone™ charging dock, the first inductive charging solution for phones, available exclusively for Pre. Simply set Pre down on top of the dock without worrying about connection, orientation or fit. Pre is active while charging, so you can access the touch screen, watch movies or video, or use the speakerphone.

The Palm Pre phone will be available from Sprint on June 6 for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year service agreement on an Everything Data plan or Business Essentials with Messaging and Data plan. An array of compelling accessories also will be available for Pre, including the Palm Touchstone charging dock. The Touchstone™ Charging Kit, which includes the Touchstone charging dock and Touchstone back cover for Pre, will be available June 6 for $69.99. The Touchstone charging dock and Touchstone back cover also are available separately from for $49.99 and $19.99, respectively.

As Palminfocenter is reporting, a Global Equities Research analyst (Mr. Trip Chowdhry) guessed Palm is preparing to release a Foleo II with quite unchanged specifications to the cancelled Foleo I in 2007.

As stated during the Foleo's cancellation in 2007, Palm underlined that the concept is not dead and could be reacitvated at any time.
Now it's time for a Palm netbook and it's called the Foleo II. The device is said to run as long as 8 to 10 hours and costs about 400 USD.
Of course, the Foleo II will run with webOS.

Another nice  thing is that the Foleo II comes with built-in 3G for wireless surfing on-the-go. Not every netbook currently available is featuring 3G, but can be put online by a 3G USB stick, which isn't that elegant compared to on-board 3G.

As I have guessed at the beginning of 2009, we will see a Foleo II latest by Cebit 2010.

Update 2009-05-03: The Palm EOS is said to come to Sprint in the CDMA version as well.Then most likely featuring EVDO.

Sprint is rumored to begin shipping the webOS powered Palm Pre by somewhen between middle of May to middle of June. As earlier reported there were many informtion leaked by Spint and thus also some unboxing picuters are worth to took at retrieve some more information.

I am pleased by Palm's stock quote, because for the last couple of months it is continuously going up.

Well done Palm!

Those of you who always want to stay current on what's going on in the world of mobile comuting, most likely follow appropriate blogs, twitter, facebook, newsites, etc.
What, it you could get only those news you are interested in on a timeline - from various sources?

 
Google timeline is new at the Google labs and does exactly this. Thus, one can stay up-to-date with daily updates, wonderfully sorted and arranged by publishing media and per day/week/month.

The screenshot shows the timeline of any news regarding the "Palm Pre" appeared on the Google network.

PUGcast is now also available as Twitter-Feed (what is Twitter?), providing news about PDA's and mobile computing at bits of information of about 140 characters at maximum.