There certainly has been plenty of talk online about when the Palm Pre will be released. Many of the dates picked by so-called experts have already passed with no sign of the “iPhone killer”. A thread on the Sprint Users forum suggests that the Pre will be available on the Sunday that Survivors’ two hour final episode will play, which is May 17th. According to the post, the device will actually appear in the Thursday episode (May 14th) before the finale and be heavily promoted in the three days leading up to the release of the Pre. If this is true, the phone’s premiere on Survivor would be very appropriate because for Palm to continue to survive as an independent company, the device must live up to the incredible buzz it has created since being introduced at the CES earlier this year.

We don’t really believe in this one, do you?

In a story about Pre vs iPhone, SeekingAlpha has analysed the buzz that each phone has created with its announcement. Palm uses Apple’s 2007 strategy, showing the phone and part of its features months before it hits the market. As both phones are great, they created huge buzz:

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According to a report in the Commercial Times, two of Palm’s upcoming handsets are going to be delayed from mid-year to the end of this year.  Before you head for the phone to call your broker to unload those shares in Palm, neither device is supposed to be the Palm Pre. The only information that we know is that these two models are supposed to be assembled by Compal. The manufacturer is blaming Qualcomm for the problem, saying that the latter’s processors are suffering from poor performance. This information eliminates the Pre (YES!) because that smartphone is said to be assembled by Chi Mei Communications Systems (CMCS) and will have a processor made by Texas Instruments.

So the question of which models are involved remains unanswered. Qualcomm processors often are used in Windows Mobile devices, but the poor performance from the Qualcomm chip would most likely point to a new OS like Windows Mobile 6.5. But that raises yet another question-since Microsoft won’t be releasing the new version of Windows Mobile until later this year, Compal could not be building a handset for Palm using the software now. Another mystery to be solved and we will pass along any new info as soon as we get it.

source: Commerical Times via DigiTimes, Brighthand

Staying old and not in touch with fresh updates can spell doom for certain handsets. There has been a steady trend in phone manufacturers releasing updates to enhance the experience or fix certain bugs that might be causing havoc. This is especially true most recently with the Apple iPhone and BlackBerry Storm. But it looks like Palm will be following the same footsteps by offering free updates for their much anticipated Palm Pre. There was a document that was leaked which hints to Palm providing periodical new software features which will be free of charge to customers owning a webOS product. This is surprising news when knowing that Palm was notorious in the past for not offering software enhancements to their products. We’ve seen how important it is to release these updates to provide long term use. Additionally, it will be a plus to wireless carriers who intend to keep older device as part of their product lineup.

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Fortunately, the weak fiscal results would not stand in Palm’s way to launch the Pre on time. As CNET informs, while speaking about fiscal results, Ed Colligan, Palm CEO, has said that besides being “well positioned” to launch the Pre, Palm is also envisioning a whole line of products to run the new webOS platform. This, of course, is completely expected, as we do not believe that there is a single company in the world that could afford the development of a new OS for every phone it releases. In addition, it is said that users will get a whole “ecosystem” of applications for webOS, which is practically a must if a platform is to live long enough.

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For the seventh consecutive quarter, Palm reported a loss. The third quarter of 2009 saw the company report $95 million of red ink which works out to 89 cents a share, up from a loss of $54.7 million dollars or 53 cents a year earlier. Part of the problem is that buying of Palm products has dried up in anticipation of the launch of the Palm Pre. Since the smartphone was introduced at the CES in January, it has garnered the largest pre-release buzz for a cellphone since the original iPhone. As a result, customers have been waiting for the device to hit the stores and have slowed down their purchases of Palm devices dramatically despite the introduction and release of the Palm Treo Pro, a Windows Mobile smartphone loaded with features and with pretty design. The quarter might have been better if not for the saga of the Treo Pro. The handset was expected to hit Sprint stores in late January, and then by mid February in time to have some impact on the quarter. But delays kept pushing back the release of the phone and by the end of the period, only Canadian carrier Bell had released the device in North America. The Pre is considered the last chance for Palm to become relevant again after nearly disappearing from the cellular scene. Earlier this month, we reported how the carrier was able to raise cash and pay off a debt to Elevation Partners by exercising an option to sell 18.5 million of their shares held by Elevation for $105 million dollars. After repaying $49 in debt to Roger McNamee’s firm, the balance went to Palm to improve liquidity. After all, marketing a high profile device like the Pre is going to take plenty of money. And Palm isn’t the only firm with much on the line here. Networker Sprint is supposed to have the exclusive U.S. rights to sell the Pre for the rest of the year. Will Palm continue to post losses every quarter, or will the Pre help the company post black ink? We’re not sure what the record for consecutive losing quarters is, but we are sure that is not a record that Palm wants to own.

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In an article about smartphone makers, Digitimes claims that the Pre will be manufactured by the Taiwanese Chi Mei. Although it is not one of the major smart phone assemblers, the company did a good product with Motorola, the MPX200, several year ago. We hope they will be able to deliver the high-quality we will all request from the Pre. 

By the way, Palm also “announced” what is the plural form of Pre – it is Pre Phones

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You Tube, I Tube, Palm Tube, Pre Tube … you get the idea. A SprintPalmPre channel has been greated at YouTube and now hosts total of 17 videos from the invite-only webinar that we’ve reported live on a few days ago. Below is the Pre Demo video but make sure to check the channel out for the rest. Just a quick reminder – you won’t see anything that hasn’t been official announced and covered here, but video is funnier than text, isn’t it.

It seems that Apple doesn’t sleep while Palm prepares the webOS and the Pre – according to Engadget, the Cuppertino company will preview (read: not launch) the third generation iPhone OS in five days, on Martch 17th. iPhone and iPhone 2.0 were really good, so this one may be a real rival of the webOS, so we are eager to see it.

Any guess what will they offer? Will they have synergy on their own? Tell us in the comments.

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Hey! The live invite-only webcast from Sprint and Palm just started. First words: we’d say nothing about availability (which is sometime during first half of the year) and about pricing … ohh, they’ll just show off how great it is. 

Refresh this page, as we’ll put live updates here! Also you can follow us on twitter, @webosarena

They talk about the history – how Sprint and Palm are always together … 

Now it is time to say how great Sprint’s 3G network is.

It is an interesting hardware, they will show it off now

Of course they mentioned the CES 09 awards.

The design is curved, it feels well in the hand, the gesture area continues below the screen – yeah, great but we already know it.

3.5mm jack for music, power button, replaceble battery, microUSB – oh my god, this must be better than the iPhone. 

Let’s check the UI now:

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