Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been about a year since Palm pulled itself back from the brink of imminent destruction with the announcement of webOS and the Palm Pre, and even less time since the products announced actually hit the market. In that time span, the company has issued another handset (the small, less powerful Pixi), released a number of over-the-air updates to its OS (nine in all), and created and disseminated a slew of developer tools, including iterative releases of its SDK and a new web-based development environment called Ares. Throughout the ups and downs of the past 12-or-so months Palm has been “back,” the company has stuck with Sprint as its lone carrier partner in the US — so while it’s been innovating and tweaking on its platform and devices, the third-place partner has kept it from the larger audiences AT&T or Verizon might offer. Now — almost a year to the day — Palm has turned around and opened its devices up to the country’s largest carrier, in addition to bumping the specs and features of both phones it offers (the Pre getting an additional 8GB of storage and double the RAM, the Pixi is now equipped with WiFi). All the while significantly improving its SDK (with the new native Plug-in Development Kit) and app distribution model. So can Palm finally really get this ship sailing, court the developers it badly needs, and deliver on the promises of webOS, or is it too little, too late? Read on to find out!

Continue reading Palm Pre Plus (and Pixi Plus) review

Palm Pre Plus (and Pixi Plus) review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday we heard some rumblings about Verizon making alterations to its calling plans, and wouldn’t you know it, here’s the official PR setting the record straight. Firstly, there’s an Unlimited Talk plan for $69.99 per month, which can be augmented with free text, picture, and video messaging by moving up to the Unlimited Talk & Text plan at $89.99. Family SharePlan varieties — which cover the service costs for the first two lines — are also going to be available, priced at $119.99 for Talk and $149.99 for Talk & Text. Monthly Unlimited Prepaid options complete the new unveilings, costing $5 more than contract-bound subscribers would have to pay — i.e. $74.99 and $94.99. A less happy rumor confirmation is that all but the simplest of phones will require a $9.99 25MB mobile data add-on, while smartphone owners will have to pony up $29.99 for the Unlimited mobile data stuff. All these changes are coming into effect on January 18, as speculated, though current Verizon customers won’t be affected unless they opt to move to one of the new plans. Hit the read link for the full announcement and more details.

Verizon announces Nationwide Unlimited Talk and Talk & Text plans originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d secretly hoped that 4G would spell the end of 5GB caps on so-called “unlimited” plans, but the problem is that new categories of wireless devices are coming into the mix so quickly that we’re likely going to get crunched no matter how advanced the technology — hence the FCC’s pleas to free up spectrum. Echoing comments made recently by AT&T Mobility head Ralph de la Vega, Verizon CTO Dick Lynch is saying that he doesn’t see how they’ll be able to offer an all-you-can-eat plan when the company’s LTE network goes live over the course of the next few years, citing its open development initiative as a key reason — it’s losing control over what devices (and what kinds of devices) can get on its network, raising the odds that there’ll be gadgets that incur particularly heavy use. It’s a disappointing line for the company to take, but possibly a necessary evil in a truly wireless world. Long-term, the FCC and FTC might need to take a good, hard look at real-time network utilization to verify that Verizon’s pricing is in line with its claimed usage, but for now, let’s hope we don’t all get priced out of our MiFis.

Verizon CTO: flat-rate data ‘isn’t long-term sustainable’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FCC chairman and general ass-kicker Julius Genachowski is siding with his commissioner Mignon Clyburn this week, noting that Verizon’s response to the Fed over its $350 “advanced device” early termination fee didn’t really satisfy everyone’s curiosity. He’s not ready to talk about the FCC’s next move in the case — we’re guessing another lengthy open letter is in order — but he assured media on hand that “the bureau is looking into” the situation. In the meantime, just don’t get tired of that Droid too fast, alright?

FCC chairman echoes commissioner’s sentiments, says Verizon’s ETF response ‘raised more questions than it answered’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 02:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve alluded to this a couple times already, but Boy Genius Report is coming out today and saying that Verizon’s webOS launch devices early next year will indeed be called the “Pre Plus” and “Pixi Plus.” We’re able to independently confirm that this is the intel out in the field right now — so unless Big Red calls an audible, these are the names you should be keeping an eye on as you’re scanning the shelves. The report goes on to say that Verizon’s models are the same size as Sprint’s, but as we’ve already seen in the FCC, these new versions are going to be supercharged in one way or another — at the very least, the Pixi should have WiFi on board, a welcome boost. Any way you slice it, it sure looks like Sprint got the short end of this stick, doesn’t it?

Palm likely calling its new Verizon models Pre Plus and Pixi Plus originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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