AllThingsD » App Catalog

Palm Pileup: Weak Smartphone Sales and a Gruesome Q4 Forecast

John Paczkowski — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:22:57 +0000

No surprise, following Palm’s (PALM) dismaying February warning: The earnings news today is grim, though a bit less so than some had feared.

The good news: For its third quarter, Palm reported a net loss of $18.5 million, or 13 cents a share, on revenue of $349.9 million. That’s nicely ahead of its recent guidance of $285 million to $310 million, but obviously well below the $424.7 million analysts had been expecting before the pre-announcement.

The bad news: While Palm shipped 960,000 smartphones during the quarter, the company sold only 408,000 of them. That’s about 30 percent less than it sold last quarter and significantly fewer than the 500,000-600,000 analysts were looking for. Palm has a lot of unsold inventory sitting around.

And then there was this: Looking ahead, the company said it fourth-quarter revenue will be less than $150 million. That’s about half what Wall Street was expecting. Pure ugliness.

“Our recent underperformance has been very disappointing, but the potential for Palm remains strong,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “The work we’re doing to improve sales is having an impact, we’re making great progress on future products, and we’re looking forward to upcoming launches with new carrier partners. Most importantly, we have built a unique and highly differentiated platform in webOS, which will provide us with a considerable–and growing–advantage as we move forward.”

At $4.94, Palm shares are down more than 12 percent as I write this.

Notes from the earnings call:

There are now over 2,000 apps in the Palm App Catalog.
Handset sales are predominantly webOS.
Rubinstein says Palm has been held back by “execution missteps.”
Rubinstein declined to discuss speculation about a possible acquisition of the company

FURTHER READING:

Palm's PDK to Allow Easy Porting of iPhone Apps

John Paczkowski — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:30:25 +0000

Palm’s single biggest asset is webOS. Sadly, the company’s single biggest deficit–aside from the public’s apparent lack of interest in its smartphones–is the webOS application ecosystem. But that’s changing.

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week, Palm (PALM) plans to release its webOS Plug-in Development Kit, a set of tools to help developers create graphics-intensive games.

Perhaps more important, the PDK will allow developers to rewrite mobile apps created for other platforms to run on webOS with minimal modification. Apps that currently run on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, for example, can be ported over in a matter of days, sources close to the company tell me, and they don’t really suffer any degradation in performance.

That’s a compelling proposition for developers looking for additional distribution channels. And if enough of them take Palm up on it, we may see the current paucity of third-party webOS apps quickly head toward abundance.

If you’re tempted to raise an eyebrow over that statement, consider this: Since Palm announced the PDK at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, its early access partners–EA, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Laminar Research–have cranked out close to three dozen games.

“The webOS experience has been smooth and user friendly,” Baudouin Corman, VP of Publishing, Americas, for Gameloft told me. “We’ve been pretty aggressive thus far with the number of games hitting the App Catalog, so it’s safe to say that we plan to continue this momentum for the remainder of the year….We’ve seen strong interest from Pre consumers for the kind of games we are releasing. WebOS is going to bring a lot of value and competition to the mobile space.”

That bodes well for Palm, which has almost certainly been hurt by deficiencies in its App Catalog. The webOS PDK could do much to grow the company’s developer ecosystem and give it the critical mass of high-quality third-party apps it needs to really gain traction in the smartphone space.

Get Your Storage Out of the Cloud

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:35:34 +0000

Ask anyone in the technology industry to talk about trends and “the cloud” is sure to come up in conversation. The cloud is a hip way of describing Web-accessible storage, and whether people know it or not, they’re using this more each day. Social networks save account information in the cloud. Photo-sharing sites store images in the cloud. Web-based email programs keep messages in the cloud. People also are starting to back up the contents of their computers to the cloud, which makes files accessible from almost anywhere using an Internet connection.

[ See post to watch video ]

Not everyone is gung-ho about storing personal data somewhere other than on their own PC. They might wonder who else can access the cloud’s contents and if the cloud is a truly reliable option for storage.

This week I tested Pogoplug (pogoplug.com), a $129 solution that lets people back up their digital files and access them via a Web browser, or mobile devices. It streams content through the cloud (Pogoplug servers), but never actually stores anything in the cloud. People keep their content on their own hard drive—the Pogoplug lets them access it elsewhere via the cloud.

For the most part, Pogoplug works like a charm. One downside is that files can be a bit slower to open from remote computers or mobile devices than on computers within the same network as the Pogoplug. But its single best attribute is its ability to do the job without trying to tell you every smart thing it’s doing in the background.

Unique Model

Pogoplug comes from San Francisco-based Cloud Engines Inc. and its business model is unlike other cloud-storage solutions. Pogoplug users pay upfront for the device and a hard drive of their choice, which is the storage device, and they never pay again. Other services store content in the cloud, making for faster remote access to files. But these services charge users monthly or annually for storage. ZumoDrive offers 2 gigabytes of storage free but charges annual fees ranging from $30 for 10 gigabytes to $800 for 500 gigabytes. SugarSync, a cloud-based synching program, also offers a free 2-gigabyte program, but charges from $50 to $250 a year for 30 to 250 gigabytes.

Pogoplug uses in-home storage with through-the-cloud access.

Cloud Engines sent me a hard drive for my testing: Seagate’s (STX) FreeAgent Go with 250 gigabytes of storage. This little rectangle costs $90 on Seagate.com or $69 on Amazon.com (AMZN), bringing my Pogoplug set-up total to $200. This is $180 less than just one year of ZumoDrive’s 200-gigabyte plan, or $50 less than SugarSync’s one-year, 250-gigabyte plan.

The Pogoplug is a white box with an electric pink strip running down one side and its underbelly. Three cables attach to it and run out to the wall socket, a router and whatever storage you choose (a hard drive or a small thumb drive). Each Pogoplug has four USB ports, allowing four hard drives or several USB hubs with additional USB ports to connect to the gadget at once.

A Mini Computer

The Pogoplug runs as a mini computer with its own processor that sends files out to the cloud for streaming whenever you want to see them. It creates thumbnails of photos and organizes media, making it easier to find on the my.pogoplug.com Web site. And Pogoplug also uses advanced networking to create a secure connection so people with firewalls and extra secure network settings can leave them just as they are.

Setting up Pogoplug is as simple as plugging in its three cords and pairing it with a computer. I shared with the Pogoplug at least 100 files from a Windows 7 PC and a MacBook Pro. I also set sharing to synchronize with Pogoplug whenever new files were added to designated files on my computers. All of this content was stored on the Seagate hard drive and neatly displayed on my.pogoplug.com.

Hunting for Files

This Web site looks sort of like a bare-bones version of iTunes. Three sections on the left—My Media; Show My Files (sorted into today, last week, last month, those I shared and those shared with me); and My Library—opened content in a large panel. Options at the bottom of the screen changed the way this content was displayed, and a search box enabled hunting through all types of files for specific words. I tried “snow” and found many results, thanks to photos taken of the recent storms in Washington, D.C.

Each file saved to Pogoplug is represented by a thumbnail image on the Web site and can be downloaded, shared or previewed by you or others with whom you share. Videos are, by default, shortened to 10-second previews, but an option in settings allows videos to always show in their full formats. An Upload button at the bottom lets people share content from whatever computer they are using to Pogoplug, and a Sharing button sends files to friends via email or social-networking sites including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Options let people set sharing so Pogoplug constantly updates friends whenever new data is added, like new photos added to an album.

Both Macs and PCs worked for me while I tested accessing Pogoplug on the three main browsers that run on both machines: Mozilla’s Firefox, Google’s (GOOG) Chrome and Apple’s (AAPL) Safari. Internet Explorer worked on Windows. I simply opened my.pogoplug.com, entered my username and password, and I could see all the files on the Seagate hard drive. A desktop app for the Mac or PC treats Pogoplug as a local drive, making it easy to drag and drop media to it.

Most common files types can be stored, accessed and shared through the Pogoplug. I tested sharing movies, music, photos, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs and others. These digital files can reside solely on the hard drives plugged into the Pogoplug. Computers in the same network opened files faster than computers or smart phones working in other places, but the wait wasn’t unbearable.

I also used a free Pogoplug app on the iPhone and Palm (PALM) Pre, and the interface was just as simple as the my.pogoplug.com site. A Pogoplug app also exists in the Android Market app store for Android phones, but the app for BlackBerry isn’t yet in RIM’s (RIMM) App Catalog and must be installed via the Desktop Manager. Even without an app, I used the iPhone browser to open shared files sent to me in emails, and had no trouble viewing images or listening to songs.

Pogoplug is a terrifically simple way to back up files and make them accessible from afar or on the go. Starting in March, Pogoplug will be capable of synchronizing and backing up content through the cloud service with other Pogoplugs located elsewhere. For instance, you can keep Pogoplug at home and one at the office and have a backup to your backup device.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Analyst: Palm May Be Acquired in the Next Two Years

John Paczkowski — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:55:12 +0000

Palm’s got potential–M&A potential.

That’s the word from Deutsche Bank analyst Jonathan Goldberg, who believes there’s a good chance the company will be acquired in the next two years.

In a note to clients this week, Goldberg argues that Palm (PALM), with its new Verizon (VZ) distribution deal in hand and nearly nearly 1,300 webOS applications in its App Catalog, is building the sort of market momentum that would be attractive to a larger company looking to break into the mobile device market–or shake it up.

“Big consumer electronics companies need some way to participate in the market and most of them have failed to come up with a successful strategy,” Goldberg writes. “Street consensus appears to be that Palm will be acquired in the next year or two, which given the current environment we think could be a reasonable possibility.”

But to make it a reality, Palm must first demonstrate its viability. “We think Palm needs to prove it can be a stand-alone entity, a viable business in its own right. We clearly think that it can.”

Clearly. Goldberg believes Palm will likely sell 600 thousand webOS devices through Verizon this quarter, and he says that Palm’s App Catalog, whose applications already outnumber those in Nokia (NOK) and Microsoft (MSFT) stores, will soon exceed those available in RIM’s (RIMM) App World and possibly the Android Market as well. That would certainly be enough to elicit an acquisitive glance from a company with mobile ambitions. Just who that would be, however, Goldberg doesn’t speculate about.

Of course, Goldberg is far from the first analyst to posit Palm as a takeover target. I’ve written here before about speculation that the company might be acquired by Dell (DELL) or Nokia.

If You Think AT&T Has Network Problems Now, Just You Wait

John Paczkowski — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:04:43 +0000

For AT&T, 2010 will be all about Android and Palm’s webOS. At least, that’s the impression one’s left with after the company’s event at the Consumer Electronics Show this morning, which featured a lot of talk about devices based on those operating systems and little mention of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, the device that has overstuffed the company’s wallet almost as obscenely as it has its network.

Evidently, AT&T (T) thought it best not to mention the iconic super-smartphone too much lest its executives be driven offstage by a mob of iPhone users complaining of dropped calls, lousy service, delayed text and voice messages and testudine download speeds.

Anyway, as I was saying, AT&T said it will add two so far undisclosed Palm (PALM) webOS phones to its lineup this year as well as five Android devices. Among the latter, a mysterious new HTC phone (hmm…wonder what that could be?) and Dell’s Mini 3, a device that shares the basic design as smartphones Dell (DELL) already sells in China.

Oh, and the company has adopted an “Apps for All” strategy that will see it supporting Apple’s iPhone App Store and Palm’s App Catalog, the Android, Windows Marketplace and Nokia’s (NOK) Ovi Store (is anyone even writing apps for that?).

So AT&T is adding five new data-guzzling “superphones” to its 2010 lineup along with four new app storefronts. How does the carrier propose to handle the resulting data demands considering the difficulties it’s had supporting the iPhone?

Said AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega: “How is our network going to support this growth? We’re continuing to add thousands of new cell sites and back-haul connections and preparing for the move to LTE. We’re confident that our industry-leading investments and upgrades will help us maintain our position as the nation’s fastest 3G network.”

Whatever you say, Ralph. I’d call to question your wisdom, but I keep losing service.

Palm Pixi Needs a Dusting of Speed

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:52:55 +0000

Since the debut of the Palm Pre in June, Palm has talked about the value of the device’s webOS operating system, which offers fast responsiveness, multitasking, universal search and smart synchronization. These features are accessed using delightful multitouch gestures like swiping with a fingertip. So it makes perfect sense that Palm would want to expand its family of products running this great mobile operating system.

[ See post to watch video ]

This week, Palm (PALM) introduced a second device with webOS: the Palm Pixi (palm.com/pixi). This is a stripped-down version of the Pre and it costs $100 (after a $50 instant rebate and a $100 mail-in rebate and with a two-year service contract) compared with the $150 Pre. Walmart.com is currently selling the Pixi for even less—$50 (http://3.ly/oSE). Both the Pixi and the Pre run on Sprint’s (S) network.

I’ve been testing the Pixi and I’ve found that the physical differences from the Pre are acceptable variations that most people won’t mind and may not even detect. These include a smaller, lower-resolution screen, a two-megapixel camera rather than the Pre’s three-megapixel camera and stationary keyboard instead of one that slides out. The Pixi isn’t as pebble-shaped as the Pre, but its back cover is rounded to fit comfortably in a hand. And like the Pre, it has an eight-gigabyte storage capacity and it’s thin and light enough to forget in a jeans pocket or to comfortably hold up to your ear during phone calls.

The Pixi’s internal changes are much tougher to accept. It lacks Wi-Fi capability and so must rely solely on Sprint’s 3G network for its connection, which I found to be frustratingly slow at times. This littler phone also runs on a weaker processor than the Pre, a decision that Palm says helped cut costs and make the Pixi small. But this processor’s speed is slow enough to notice immediately and it robs webOS of its lightning-fast speed. The Pixi’s progress indicator—a spinning, white circle—appeared on my screen too often.

The $100 Palm Pixi is like a mini version of the Pre. A $70 Touchstone accessory (right) magnetically holds the Pixi as it charges.

Like its super-smartphone competitors, including Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) newer BlackBerrys and Google’s (GOOG) Android phones, the Palm Pixi taps into a virtual store from which users can download apps for the device. But Palm’s App Catalog currently holds fewer than 400 apps and roughly 80 of those aren’t yet configured for the Pixi. This means that people who buy the $100 Pixi can choose from just around 300 apps for download, compared with the 100,000 apps available for Apple’s $100 iPhone 3G.

Some apps come preloaded on the Pixi, like Facebook and NFL Mobile Live. I downloaded others, including Pandora radio, Tweed for Twitter and a game called Word Whirl Lite. I logged into my Pandora account and played songs from one of my personalized radio stations while reading through email. A tiny “P” icon at the bottom of the Pixi’s screen notified me that Pandora was running. Other notifiers, like new emails or instant messages, appear at the bottom as well.

If you aren’t familiar with webOS, it’s easy to learn. Functions are designed to be more people-centric rather than program-centric. For example, I can look at a name in Contacts and see how I’m linked to that person—like through Facebook or Google Talk. If I want to start an instant-messaging conversation with that person, I can do so right there rather than opening AIM or Google Talk first to find a person’s name and then initiate conversation. I logged onto the Pixi with a Google account and the device was smart enough to also synchronize data from my Google Talk, Google Calendar and Gmail contacts.

The Card View, a display of all the programs that are simultaneously running at any given time, can be exposed with a simple, upward finger swipe starting below the screen. To close a program, simply touch it with a finger and toss it upward, as if throwing it away. This is one of the most satisfying gestures in webOS. And it’s a good thing, too, because Pixi users will need to use it more often than they did with the Pre. Palm suggests running only seven programs at once for the best performance, rather than the 10 you can leave opened on the Pre.

But my Pixi stuttered with just five programs—sometimes fewer—opened. Simple tasks like opening an email or searching for an app in the App Catalog were painfully slow. I received an email containing one digital photo, and the process of opening just the email—not even the photo—took about 10 seconds. When I finally opened the email and its photo, I saved it to my Pixi and tapped on a menu option to upload it to Facebook. But five minutes later, the spinning progress indicator was still on my Pixi’s screen and I gave up. I tried again and the same thing happened. Finally, on the third try, my photo posted to Facebook.

As was the case for the Palm Pre, the Pixi can be charged by plugging into a normal AC adaptor or by resting it on the Touchstone, a $70 accessory that, with the help of a special back cover that snaps onto the Pixi, magnetically holds this device as it charges. A handful of stylish “Artist Series” back covers will sell on Palm.com for $50 each and will ship in early December.

The Pixi’s 2.6-inch screen has a 320×400 resolution, which is a step down from the Pre’s 3.1-inch, 320×480-resolution screen. Palm estimates the Pixi’s battery lasts for five hours of talk time, the same as the Pre, but for 350 hours of standby time—or 50 more hours than the Pre.

The Palm Pixi’s keyboard is tiny but sufficient. People who are used to BlackBerry or even iPhone keyboards might be irked that the Pixi keyboard doesn’t have built-in shortcuts like holding down a key to capitalize it or pressing the space bar twice to add a period to the end of a sentence.

Like its predecessor, the Pixi has a designated Gesture Area just beneath its screen where users can swipe a fingertip for quickly navigating through screens, like swiping right-to-left to go back a screen. Unlike the Pre, the Pixi doesn’t have a silver button below its screen that immediately takes users to Card View, but I didn’t miss this button.

Though the Palm Pixi is $50 less than the Palm Pre, its downgraded performance doesn’t make that dollar savings worth it.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

New Verizon Ad Hits AT&T Where It Hurts

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:00:07 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

New Verizon Ad Hits AT&T Where It Hurts

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:00:07 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Palm's Developer Program Not Nearly So Annoying as Apple's

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:05:39 +0000

Development for Palm’s new webOS platform will begin in earnest come winter with the official opening of the company’s developer program. At a small gathering in San Francisco Monday night, Palm said its developer program will open in December, and when it does it will be a different beast entirely from rival programs by Apple, Google (GOOG), et al.

For one thing, Palm (PALM) is waiving its $99 app submission fee for open-source webOS apps. For another, it’s giving developers the option of selling their apps through the App Catalog or via a Web-based storefront.

The first option entails a $50-per-app fee and requires review and approval by Palm. This includes the chance to bid on priority placement in the App Catalog if developers wish. The second option requires neither fee nor review and allows developers to distribute their apps over the Web with Palm handling transactions and fulfillment–assuming the apps conform to Palm’s content and user interface criteria.

“By opening up a web distribution channel free from our review, we are placing a great deal of trust in you–the developer–and the community,” Palm said on its blog. “We want you to embrace these principles, establish a high bar of quality and user experience, and help enforce these rules.”

An interesting strategy–assuming developers do establish the high bar of quality to which the company refers. Certainly, it’s very different from Apple’s (AAPL) approach, which includes an application-approval process criticized as obtuse and byzantine. By offering developers the chance to pay to promote their software in its Apps Catalog or to distribute it via the Web without having to suffer through an approval process, Palm is positioning its program as the polar opposite of Apple’s. Question is, are these enticements enough to win their attention?

Palm's Developer Program Not Nearly So Annoying as Apple's

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:05:39 +0000

Countertrend: H-P Says Please Print Often

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:18:02 +0000

If your company makes printers but general trends are leaning toward using less paper and moving digital content to e-readers and smartphones, what can you do? Hewlett-Packard’s solution is to find new ways to get people to print more.

The $399 H-P Photosmart Premium All-in-One with Touch-Smart Web (hp.com/go/touchprinting) will print, copy, fax and scan like other all-in-ones. But it connects to the Internet using built-in Wi-Fi and displays customized Web applications on its 4.33-inch touch screen. These apps are designed to promote printing in any way possible, including photos from Snapfish, Sudoku puzzles, movie tickets from Fandango, coupons, maps from Google (GOOG) Maps, coloring-book pages and news articles—all without using a computer.

[ See post to watch video ]

The print apps are part of the new H-P App Studio, H-P’s (HPQ) answer to the flurry of app stores—Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry World, Android Marketplace, Palm’s (PALM) App Catalog and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Zune Marketplace—that ease the process of downloading onto mobile devices. A “Get More” icon on the printer’s touch screen presents descriptions of available apps. There are currently 15 available for download onto your printer, and more will be added in coming months.

The Photosmart All-in-One connects to Web apps that promote printing of everything from photos to tickets.

This printer is designed to work with more than just the H-P App Studio. A downloadable tool called the H-P Photo Print Gadget installs on computers running Windows 7 or Vista (not Windows XP) so people can drag and drop photos to it for printing. PlayStation 3 owners can capture and print screen shots as evidence of their game success. And a long-available free app in Apple’s App Store called H-P iPrint Photo lets iPhone and iPod Touch owners send photos to this and other H-P printers.

The goal of this product is obviously to get people to print more, and in my case, it worked. I used more paper in a week of testing the Photosmart Premium All-in-One than I normally print out in three weeks at my office. The printer quickly churned out dual-sided pages with photos in rich colors.

But the concept of adding apps to a printer while also asking people to become more paper-reliant seems like one step forward, two steps back. I could see this concept working on a thin, stylish printer that could fit neatly on an entryway table, making it a cinch for people to grab maps, movie tickets and coupons on their way out the door. But this is a large, all-in-one machine that takes up some serious space.

And if this all-in-one is truly meant to work without a PC, it should do a better job of letting you interact with pages, like zooming in on a document to preview before printing. In the current document preview screen, the text is too small to read. Likewise, the Google Calendar app printed a nice one-page calendar month view, but I couldn’t zoom in on the print preview to see specific appointments. This forced me to print the page to see its contents, using more ink and more paper.

Other apps are shamelessly begging users to press Print. A Toys and Crafts app made by H-P itself includes paper dolls with cut-out clothes that can be snipped and folded to stay on the doll’s form. For the doll’s face, kids are encouraged to use a photo of themselves that–surprise, surprise—they can print using their all-in-one.

Coupons.com supplies two apps—one for coupons and one for recipes. I browsed through 87 product coupons in my ZIP Code and marked those that I wanted to print using a small check-box on the touch screen. Pressing “Print” compiled three coupons on one piece of paper. Recipes from Coupons.com printed with brightly colored photos of the end result; I’m looking forward to following one for Curried Chicken Salad.

For now, the Google Maps app isn’t ready for prime time: It prints only maps, not directions. H-P says it’s planning to add directions but wouldn’t say when. And a Nickelodeon app couldn’t load on my printer. Some apps took from 10 to 30 seconds to load—precious time when you’re running out the door.

One of the smartest apps, Tabbloid, lets people assemble a personalized tabloid-style print-out of news from a variety of sources like Daily Kos for politics and FanHouse for sports. But this assembling must be done on a computer, thus negating this printer’s no-PC approach. I chose from a list of 10 topics including automotive, celebrity, politics and sports and created a printable Tabbloid that, with one click, was sent wirelessly to the corresponding app on my printer. I printed it out to read during my commute.

I liked using the Photosmart Premium All-in-One’s generous screen for touch gestures like flicking left-to-right through a carousel of icons that represent apps. An on-screen keyboard appeared when I had to type in passwords for things like my Snapfish account.

H-P says it will introduce other products with TouchSmart Web capability and access to the HP App Studio, and one hopes these products will include low-end printers rather than expensive all-in-ones. The apps on the H-P Photosmart Premium All-in-One with TouchSmart Web are user-friendly, but I’m not convinced they’ll incite people to print more things more often.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Orange You Glad the iPhone’s Coming to Vodafone?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:00:33 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Palm Throws in the Towel on iTunes Synch

John Paczkowski — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:01:05 +0000

Palm has begun rolling out webOS 1.2.0, a minor point release to its new flagship operating system, which boasts some 70 improvements, among them support for e-commerce in the App Catalog, improved copy/paste, support for over-the-air-purchases from Amazon (AMZN) MP3 and the ability to download files from the Web browser.

Notably absent from this update, however, is the reenabling of iTunes synchronization, which Apple (AAPL) spannered when it released iTunes 9.0 earlier this month. Seems that Palm (PALM) was either unable to develop a way to restore this feature or has thought better of doing so after the USB Implementers Forum took issue with the manner in which it was doing it.

Google: Apple Rejected Voice App; Apple: No We Didn’t

John Paczkowski — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:00:27 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

E-Commerce Coming to Palm App Catalog Sept. 24

John Paczkowski — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:09:26 +0000

The “mid-autumn launch” of Palm’s App Catalog e-commerce beta program now has a firm “Go Live” date: Sept. 24.

According to a new company timeline (see image below; click to enlarge), webOS developers who’ve had their applications accepted for the App Catalog will see them featured there on that day. Apps can be purchased via credit card. App sales will be split 70/30, with 70 percent going to developers and 30 percent going to Palm (PALM).

Streaming Video Better on Pre Than on iPhone?

John Paczkowski — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:10:28 +0000

Though it got off to a slow start, Palm’s App Catalog is slowly evolving into the ecosystem for which the company had hoped. It recently surpassed four million downloads and is poised for a bit of a growth spurt now that more applications have begun to appear on its virtual shelves. Indeed, in the last week, the number of applications available for the Pre increased by 40 percent to 58.

Now, that’s still a trifling number when compared to the 50,000 or so available in Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes App Store, but it’s something, and it shows that Palm (PALM) is managing to convince iPhone-addled developers that writing WebOS applications will be lucrative business.

Among the latest and most promising of those new apps, DirecTV’s (DTV) NFL Sunday Ticket. Though the app–which allows users to watch NFL games on their cellphones–is available for the iPhone as well as for the Pre, it may offer a better experience on the latter, as Pali Research analyst Walter Piecyk notes in a research alert this morning.

“We will be interested to see how this application performs on Sprint’s (S) network compared to how it will perform on the iPhone on AT&T’s (T) network,” Piecyk writes. “Sprint is more likely to allow a less compressed stream and therefore higher quality video on its network as we have seen with Sprint’s implementation of YouTube, which is much higher quality than viewing YouTube clips on the iPhone over the AT&T network. When the iPhone is forced to WiFi, the quality of the YouTube clips improves to the level we experience on the Palm Pre but that kind of defeats the purpose of the mobile internet.”

An interesting point and an interesting potential selling point for Palm and Sprint–especially given the beating AT&T’s network has been taking in the media lately.

Palm Pre Apps Catalog Hopefully a Bit Less Sparse by Fall

John Paczkowski — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:14:20 +0000

The drought of third-party mobile apps for Palm’s new Pre handset is almost over. Though the company had warned that its release would be delayed until late summer, Palm today opened its long-awaited Mojo Software Development Kit to the public.

About time, too.

“The initial response to Palm webOS apps–from both developers and customers–has been enthusiastic,” said Jon Zilber, Palm director of online communications, in a blog entry on Thursday. “Even in its initial beta stage, over 1.8 million apps have been downloaded from the beta App Catalog since Palm Pre was released less than six weeks ago. Thousands of developers have participated in the Mojo SDK early access program since it began in early April. New applications are in the pipeline for the Palm App Catalog, and the App Catalog submission process will be opened to all developers beginning this fall.”

The fall, huh? Well, that’s a bit of a disappointment. It doesn’t seem wise to delay the submissions process when the lack of SDK-access has already hampered development of applications for the device. After all, Palm (PALM) has a lot of catching up to do if it hopes to offer even a decent alternative to Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes App Store, which currently boasts around 65,000 applications, the work of some 100,000 developers.

FURTHER READING: Pre and Web OS: Longtime Palm Developers Sound Off

Hospital Confirms Apple CEO's Liver Transplant

John Paczkowski — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:28:05 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Hospital Confirms Apple CEO's Liver Transplant

John Paczkowski — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:28:05 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

One Million Palm Pre Apps Downloaded

John Paczkowski — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:28:49 +0000

Well, here’s a nice data point to consider in advance of Palm’s earnings tomorrow. The company’s Pre App Catalog, which has been widely criticized for its paltry selection, just reached one million downloads.

Not bad for an app store that launched with just 18 applications and currently boasts only 30. Think of how many more downloads there might have been, if the company wasn’t so maniacally selective in its distribution of the WebOS SDK.

“Just 18 days after the launch of the Palm Pre, their App Catalog has hit its first major milestone, 1 million downloads,” reports mobile analytics outfit Medialets. “On launch day, Palm sold 50k devices and their App Catalog experienced 100k downloads–that’s an average of 2 apps downloaded per device and 5,500 downloads per app (with a low of 600 and a high of 20k). 18 days later and they’ve tripled the user base to 150k units, averaging 6+ apps downloaded per device and 33.3k downloads per app (with a low of 2.4k and a high of 114k).”

Now, granted, Palm’s (PALM) one million downloads in 18 days doesn’t even begin to approach the performance of Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes App Store, which reached a similar milestone in about a day. But as Medialets notes, it’s not really fair to compare the two. “The App Store hit the 1 million download point about 17 days earlier than the App Catalog, housing more than 16x the amount of apps and was accessible by more than 26x the number of devices than the App Catalog,” the firm says. “Still comparing at the 1 million mark, the average Palm Pre user had downloaded 26x the number of apps that iPhone users had, and the average app in the App Catalog experienced 16x the number of downloads that apps in the App Store had experienced.”