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Palm Pre GSM First Image

GSM Version Of Palm Pre Presented At Mobile World Congress In Barcelona + New Palm Pre Video + Pre To Get Adobe Flash

Palm-Pre-GSM

The entire smartphone industry is currently congregated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where among others the GSM version of the Palm Pre is making its debut.

As you can appreciate from the first image of the GSM Palm Pre above, it offers a SIM card slot (under the battery) for GSM networks (such as AT&T and T-Mobile in the US) instead of the CDMA version that will be initially released by Sprint (hopefully in May/June). 

Also, although many people were hoping for Palm to announce the name of its official European GSM carrier partner today (strongly rumoured to be Vodafone) no such news has yet emerged.  Having said this, the fact that Palm is demoing the Pre with a Vodafone SIM card has naturally further fueled speculation that this is indeed Palm’s preferred European partner.

New Palm “Meet Pre” Video

     

At the same time Palm also released a new Pre video (above) which highlights how a Preonaut might go about starting his/her day with a focus on the Calendar – checking the weather, appointments, emails/messages, etc.  (I highly recommend watching the video in full screen to view all the details) and shows a bunch of features that I had not previously seen.  Among others:

  • Integrated weather information in the Calendar
  • Integrated Business + Personal Calendar (from Facebook for example)
  • “Acordeon” expansion view of Free time in Calendar
  • Drag & Drop functionality in Calendar
  • Meeting details with Date/Time, Location, Repeat, Alarm and Participants + Meeting Participants breakdown and direct Contact access + Online status?
  • Synergy GTalk on-screen pop-up
  • Synergy “Universal Search” with first view of Palm “App Catalog” and “Amazon MP3”
  • Enhanced Browser functionality view with webpage “Add to Launcher” and “Share” feature
  • Autofill/Contact search functionality in email

I hope that you’ll agree with me that the more you watch Palm’s next generation webOS in action with its Synergy and Cards functionality the more you realize just how smooth, fast, fun and rich an experience it delivers.  The fact that the actual Palm Pre hardware with its large portrait display and sliding keyboard is equally beautiful naturally adds to its overall appeal.

Palm Pre To Offer Flash

Palm-Pre-FlashAnother rather good piece of news from the GSMA Mobile World Congress is that Adobe Systems today announced that “Palm is joining the Open Screen Project - a broad industry initiative dedicated to enabling standalone applications and full web browsing across televisions, desktops and mobile devices taking advantage of Adobe Flash Platform capabilities. The work of the Open Screen Project will help deliver Adobe Flash Player for smartphones on the new Palm webOS platform. The unique capabilities of the web-centric Palm webOS, combined with Flash Player, will enable webOS device users to benefit from the huge amount of Flash based web content for a richer, more complete Internet experience.”  The only thing is that Adobe’s press release also states “Flash Player for smartphones is expected to be available to handset manufacturers at the end of 2009” so we should not expect to see Flash on the Pre at launch…

O'Reilly Media and Palm to Release First Official Resource for webOS Programming

Palm-webOS-bookToday Palm also announced that it is collaborating with O’Reilly Media to create the first official resource for programming the new webOS platform. Written by Palm Vice President and Software Chief Technology Officer Mitch Allen and members of the webOS development team, "Palm webOS: Developing Applications in JavaScript Using the Palm Mojo(TM) Framework" is being edited and distributed by O'Reilly Media, a leading publisher of technology resources.

The first chapter of the Rough Cuts Version of the book is currently available online for free from the Palm Developer Network and is also available on the O'Reilly website. Rough Cuts is a service from Safari Books Online that provides early access to books on cutting-edge technologies prior to publication. Programmers eager to learn how to develop applications on webOS can literally read the book online as it is being written or download it as a PDF. And with Rough Cuts, readers can participate in an ongoing discussion about the book and technology. The complete book will be published upon release of Mojo, Palm's webOS software development kit (SDK).

Also, for those interested, there wil be a live webcast hosted by O’Reilly entitled “Developing Applications for webOS: A Preview” on Wednesday, February 25 at 10am PST with Mitch Allen, VP and software CTO at Palm, Inc. which should prove to be rather interesting.

Palm Pre Meets The Stars

Palm-Pre-IFC-Spirit-Award

Thanks to a US Weekly ad we discover that the Palm Pre will be among the $5,600 “Goodie Bag” offered to all nominees attending the IFC 2009 Spirit Award Nominations – including Anne Hathaway here who is nomited for Best Female Lead for her role in “Rachel Getting Married”.  The more important thing that has more than a few Preonauts anxious though is the fact that the ad states that the Palm Pre will be “available by July” when many are already hoping for a May/June release…

Separately, since the Mobile World Congress runs until this Wednesday I think that we can expect quite a few more interesting Palm Pre news to become available in the next couple of days.

Sources:
GSM Palm Pre Spotted with Vodafone SIM Card [engadget]
Palm Pre GSM Image [Pre Community]
New “Meet Pre” Video Arrives From Palm [intomobile]
Palm Latest Mobile Industry Leader to Join Open Screen Project [Adobe]
Celebrity Nerds [engadget]

Preonauts are always first


Posted by Andrew on February 16, 2009 at 11:01 AM

Palm Pre

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Comments

1
by dmm | Feb 16, 2009 11:37:28 AM

I know there hasn't been any word on carriers--what about the GSM Pre's frequencies? Which ones does it support, and which at UMTS/HSDPA vs. GSM/EDGE?

2
by beaconseries | Feb 16, 2009 1:24:31 PM

I posted the meet the pre video on these forums yesterday morning! lol

3
by David | Feb 16, 2009 2:08:36 PM

Boy, I like that phone and boy, I hate that name! I don't wanna be a "Preonaut"!!! Let's agree to call it something else, like "Palm WebPhone", or "IPhone Killer", or heck, even the "C(ool)-P(alm)-Treo"?! Let's have a naming contest!!

4
by spiregrain | Feb 17, 2009 4:06:11 AM

I think that by “Acordeon” expansion view, you mean accordion, since the zig-zag folds look like the sides of that popular musical instrument.

5
by Chingon | Feb 17, 2009 7:03:44 AM

My family and me agree on dumping At&t (service SUCKS big time) and our iPhones, to get Palm Pre, the first time I put my hands on the Pre at CES, my iPhone felt like it was from the dark ages.
Kudos to Palm, if they stay on top of things, this phone (Pre) will be the best out there.

6
by alayan | Feb 17, 2009 7:30:36 AM

Vodafone sim card in the phone means absolutely nothing. I have 5 sim cards for 4 different countries. And yes, one of them is a Spanish Voda card. I guess in US, everyone sticks with one card and one provider, while here in EU provider fidelity is zero - and for that we need an unlocked device.

7
by PalmNut | Feb 17, 2009 8:23:34 PM

Palm Synergy flows so easily together. I can't wait to try out this phone for myself!

8
by John Whorfin | Feb 17, 2009 11:35:32 PM

I'll bet you all that Apple releases their 3rd Generation iPhone before Palm manages to ship a single Pre.

Just watch.

9
by John Whorfin | Feb 17, 2009 11:47:50 PM

P.S.: I further bet that the Pre will be significantly more expensive than the iPhone.

10
by Saalik | Feb 20, 2009 4:37:22 AM

If the Pre is more expensive than the iphone it's because it deserves to be....

11
by PalmNut | Feb 20, 2009 6:30:59 AM

Saalik, the only problem with your comment is that Palm is in catch-up mode. No matter how great the Pre is going to be, it needs to be competitively priced or just the core Palmattics will buy it. Palm needs this phone more than anything, so it should be reasonably priced. My concern is the exclusive contract w/Sprint. Word is that the exclusiveness runs through '09...that's too long

12
by iPhone Lv8r | Feb 26, 2009 3:30:53 PM

I can't imagine any Palm remotely competing with Apple's products or infrastructure. You take your Pre. I'll keep my iPhone.

13
by K | May 26, 2009 4:55:02 PM

GRRRR! Under the case gsm slot again! I guess I'll never be giving up my 650. I gotta wonder if the switch to under-case gsm slots is to encourage aircard users to get two plans. Screw that....

14
by shane | Jul 15, 2009 2:43:39 AM

I couldn't imagine anyone who would want a device so proprietary. 3rd party software requires hacks that risk warranty and the bicking of the device. Have fun iPhone lovers.

The comments to this entry are closed.

 
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