After the industry witnessed Palm’s race into the mobile gaming world during CES, they seem extremely adamant of getting things rolling. There’s no question on anyone’s mind who currently use any one of Palm’s current WebOS handsets – it just lacks in the gaming department. They’ve decided to be serious about developing mobile games that rival other platforms by heading over to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this March – they’ll l take the stage during GDC and hold an hour-long presentation. What better way than make an appearance and plead their case to a group of professionals that would be interested in creating titles that probably would spurt some life back into the platform. Although the timing is late, it’s better than calling chess or checkers as your current gaming offers for the platform.
source: GDC via PreCentral

It was cool that Palm announced the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are coming to Verizon at this year’s CES; however, it seems that both the manufacturer and the carrier forgot to inform their loyal customers of the prices for the webOS phones. We had no idea of how much the handsets may cost until today, when a tipster told us that the Palm Pre Plus will come at a price of $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate and of course with a contract. As for the Pixi Plus, it should be available with a BOGO promotion at a price of $99.99, again after some rebate. These prices sound reasonable indeed and are actually the same as Sprint’s. Still, bear in mind this information is by no means confirmed. If you know something else, be sure to drop us a line here. If not, we’ll surely get to know how much both smartphones will cost on January 25, which is pretty close already.
Thanks, anonymous tipster!

As we previously reported, two webOS devices are expected to hit AT&T by the first half of the year. Now let’s play Cellphone Trivia. How many webOS phones do you know? And how many are supposed to go to AT&T? Great. You’re a winner. To add to the math, pre central took a look at the server logs offered by DSL Reports and found AT&T branded versions of the Pre and Pixi running webOS 1.3.8 on the internet. This doesn’t guarantee that the carrier’s two webOS devices will be the Pre and Pixi, but the math sure adds up. While Verizon plans on releasing its version of the two phones with webOS 1.4, it remains to be seen if AT&T will at least match Big Red’s OS build if it indeed launches a Pre and Pixi of its own.
source: precentral

Good news for Palm Pixi owners who happen to be die-hard PalmOS Classic fans. If you are one of the Classic-lovers who migrated to webOS but still use some legacy PalmOS apps and/or like the look and feel of the old PalmOS, MotionApps has come to the rescue. MotionApps has adjusted their popular PalmOS emulator to fit on the smaller 320 x 400 Pixi display. If you want a closer look and more information from MotionApps, just jump on over to their Facebook page and check out some screenshots.

source: Palm Infocenter

European webOS users are now a step ahead of North Americans, as they have been presented with version 1.3.5.2 of the operating system, which for the record is higher than the version available stateside by 0.0.0.1. What’s great is that the update really brings some useful improvements. For example, you can now browse App Catalog’s one thousand apps and run multiple simultaneous downloads, which will also continue to run, should you exit the download screen. Nice fix indeed. Other goodies coming with the webOS 1.3.5.2 update include better handling of prepaid SIM cards, improved performance and more. It would be really nice to see the update become available in the US too. For a more detailed list of what you will get by updating your Pre, check the source link below!

So, webOS users, do you find this new software satisfying, or you won’t settle until you get version 1.4?
source: Palm via EngadgetMobile

Palm Pre Plus

Palm Pixi Plus

We like it when rumors turn out true. In this case, we now have an official confirmation that the Palm Pre Plus will arrive alive and well on Verizon’s network on January 25. The same goes to its little brother, the Pixi Plus. We bet you are dying to learn what the differences are, when compared to Sprint’s variants of the handsets? Well, unfortunately the answer is “not many”. The Pre Plus will double the internal memory to 16GB and will miss the button below the screen. As for the Pixi Plus, it adds Wi-Fi support. Both phones will run on the freshly-announced version 1.4 of webOS.

The bad thing now is Palm and Verizon have not announced the prices of the phones, but hopefully we’ll get to know that soon.

source: Palm Blog

It became clear now that in addition to releasing versions of the Pre and Pixi through Verizon, Palm will also be outing version 1.4 of its still young operating system. What this will bring to the users is the much-wanted video recording and editing capabilities that were up to this point, missing.

Hey, any gamers out there? If you’ve thought simple web-based entertainment is all webOS can offer on the gaming front, well you’ve been wrong. Thanks to a new Plug-in Development Kit, Palm’s App Catalog is now offering seven 3D games, including NFS: Undercover, The Sims 3 and Asphalt 5: Elite Racing. So, why don’t you go check them out and report how your device handles them?

Another important update on its way to Palm’s is Flash 10.1 support for the browser. Now, that’s what we’re talking about, Palm, keep them coming! Still, bear in mind that it isn’t known exactly when Flash will be available. Expect it in the coming months as a free plug-in in the App Catalog.

Don’t leave this page just yet, as there is another thing that might appeal to future Pre Plus and Pixi Plus users. Palm and Verizon have unveiled an app, called Mobile Hotspot, which will basically allow your smartphone to turn into a Wi-Fi router for up to 5 devices simultaneously. Sounds cool to us!

Our sister site, PhoneArena, has posted up a Verizon document that details the specifications for the new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus smartphones. The Pre Plus will double the internal memory of the Sprint model to 16GB, include a 3.1″ capacitive display with 320×480 resolution and multi-touch support, slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A, a 3MP camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, music and video playback, and document viewer.

If the Palm Pixi Plus is more to your fancy, you can expect 8GB of internal memory, a 2.63″ capacitive display with 320×480 resolution and multi-touch support, front-facing physical QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A, a 2MP camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, music and video playback, and document viewer.

Just like their predecessors, neither the Pre Plus or the Pixi Plus have a means of expanding the memory and they both lack video recording. Otherwise, look forward to these new-and-improved handsets on Verizon.

A leaked Verizon document reveals detailed specifications about the carriers upcoming Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus models. The Pre Plus will come with 16GB of internal memory, as the original Pre on Sprint only had 8GB, a 3.1″ capacitive display with 320z480 resolution and multi-touch support, slide out QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A, 3MP camera with LED Flash, Bluetooth, video and music playback, and document viewer. On the other hand the Pixi Plus will come with 8GB of internal memory, 2.63″ capacitive display with 320z480 resolution and multi-touch support, QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, EVDO Rev A, 2MP camera with LED flash, Bluetooth, deo and music playback, and document viewer. Unfortunately, both the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus do not have a microSD memory card slot and do not support video recording.
Thanks to one of our tipsters!

Good news coming out of AT&T’s Developers Summit that’s being held right now in Las Vegas! Ralph de la Vega has just announced that two webOS handsets are expected to land on AT&T sometime within the first half of 2010. With the Palm Pre’s debut quickly approaching the one year mark, it’s been a long wait to see a GSM version come out for AT&T. So far there is no concrete information if it’s going to be either of the existing current Palm smartphones, the Pre and Pixi, that’ll make its way to AT&T. Frankly though, customers from the number two wireless carrier in the country have been on the back seat during this mobile platform war going all out. Not only is this considered a victory for AT&T, but Palm will be getting more face time in between customer now that they’re on-board with three out of the four major providers.
source: Engadget