With Verizon’s latest BOGO offer already in full swing, one of their latest additions to the lineup is getting a slight price break. Hoping that it will encourage sales, Verizon has gone ahead in reducing the price of the Palm Pixi Plus smartphone by $20 – making it rest comfortably at $79.99 after all the discounts are applied for new customers. It’s been less than a month since it first managed to arrive on the scene with it’s bigger brother the Palm Pre Plus, but the original $50 price difference separating the two webOS handsets may have swayed some customers to go with the more powerful Palm Pre Plus. Now that it’s somewhat more attractive at $79.99, maybe customers won’t have that itch to go upgrade and settle for the still capable Palm Pixi Plus. Depending on how things go with this latest move, Big Red may chop it down even more to spur sales of the smartphone.
source: Verizon via PalmInfocenter

Palm looks like they’re taking the last steps in getting their webOS powered devices into the stores of all the major wireless providers in the country. We’ve already heard news back during CES about AT&T landing some webOS devices in the near future, but now there is word that T-Mobile is about to be graced with Palm’s blessings. The market as it stands right now is pretty competitive when you look at what’s around – it’s a clear cut indication to branch out to as many partners as possible to get ahead in the smartphone platform race. According to one of BGR’s connections, T-Mobile is now in the “final stages” of planning out their webOS handset launch with Palm. From the looks of it, they’re going to attack the lower end of the spectrum by making available a Palm Pixi-like handset at first. By making this move, it’ll put Palm in a better situation with their platform clearly having visible space among all of the major carriers – it’ll only strengthen them as yet another new platform is expected to be unleashed by Microsoft. Still, they have to duke it out with all the others that are currently available – so this moves bodes well for them; that’s unless they really stutter in providing great hardware to supplement their platform.
source: BGR

It was a bit of a shocker, as we reported, when Verizon came out of the chute with the Palm Pre Plus marketing the phone to Mom. Yeah, Valentine’s Day was approaching and all, but the ads were so soft and-for lack of a better phrase-feminine, especially when contrasted with the Rock and Roll, in your face, loud macho spots for the Motorola DROID. And sure, women use smartphones too. But it seemed as though Big Red had not really studied what happened with some of the Palm Pre spots that Sprint ran. If you recall, those ads were so avant garde that they made no sense and never focused on the webOS operating system that many felt was the main selling point of the phone. And if screwing up the ad campaign for the Pre wasn’t enough for Sprint, they practically repeated the experience when the Pixi was launched.

Whether it was the (lack of) sales numbers or the marketing department just coming to its senses, Verizon has changed the spots to concentrate on the handset’s styling, software and of course, the Verizon 3G network. With this spot, Big Red talks about the features that would appeal to everyone. The styling appeals to all, the Notification page shows a text in progress that would appeal to the teens and young adults and talk of a syncing calendar showing events like Timmy’s guitar lesson and baseball game is aimed at the parents. Verizon has apparently learned what Sprint did not pick up on and that is that the content of a television ad campaign is important when selling smartphones and no matter how many consultants tell you otherwise, an ad that just shows someone’s head spewing forth rambling comments does not really tell much about a phone.

Note that Verizon’s BOGO deal is supposed to change today from what you see at the end of this spot. Check our earlier story here.
source: YouTube via precentral

Verizon has been known to offer some of the industry’s best BOGO offers in the past, but there  might be an even sweeter promotion that’s going to be on the horizon. BGR is reporting that the latest Buy One, Get One Free promotion that Big Red is speculated to start running today, February 16, will feature some of their best devices to date. So if you held out long enough and plan on buying a Motorola DROID, HTC DROID Eris, Palm Pre Plus, or a Palm Pixi Plus, you’ll be eligible to get a second phone of equal or lesser value for free. If you want to venture from something aside an Android or webOS handset for the free phone, you can simply check out something like a Windows Mobile or feature phone. Finally, like all their previous BOGO offers, they will require you to sign a two year contract and tack on any required data plans. Still, you really can’t beat the savings you’ll get by this sweet promotion they’re offering.
source: BGR

After hearing about some disappointing sales news from an analyst about Verizon Palm Pre and Pixi units, one would think that it could have an ominous repercussion with the future of Palm. Add in the news regarding a potential takeover bid that could see the smartphone maker on the fence; it leaves very little to be optimistic about their future. The latest round of news is somewhat of a departure and is a bit soothing after all the commotion it was able to stir up. Research firm OTR Global really had people wondering about the future after a report claimed that Palm ordered all Pre and Pixi production were to cease – potentially jump starting the end for Palm. Fortunately though, someone jumped the gun and didn’t pay close attention to the calendar or verified with Palm. The team over at Engadget was able to clear things up a lot amidst an aura of confusion about the report – it seems like Palm ordered the halt for the Chinese New Year that’s happening on the 14th; with production to go live again at the end of the month. Although Verizon Palm sales may not be where it should when compared to Sprint’s launch, Palm is ramping up production early in the year to cover the downtime that’s expected to happen – the availability of handsets won’t be affected.
source: Engadget

It was about a month ago when news about webOS 1.4 started surfacing and brought some delight to owners – it pointed to a possibility of seeing Flash support on the platform. Although Flash may be on hold for webOS 1.4, the latest update may be expected to launch on February 15 – based on an email that was posted by a PreCentral forum member. Both Palm Pre and Pixi owners can look forward to seeing video capture, assorted calendar enhancements, improved phonebook transfers, and messaging enhancements in this latest update. The biggest feature owners are probably looking forward to is the ability to record video of course – something that most people agreed should have been offered since its launch. Nonetheless it’s finally here and should be expected as long as the rumors hold true and could potentially be moved up depending on the carrier.
source: PreCentral

With commercials up and running for Palm’s handsets for Verizon, it looks like it hasn’t been able to spur up some impressive sales so far. Launching the phones on the nation’s number one wireless provider would’ve brought sales up to the positive, but according to Piper Jaffray analyst T. Michael Walkley, he is “slightly disappointed” with the outcome of the movement. On the flip side though, he contends that a more aggressive media campaign from Big Red and Palm should stir up some demand for the handsets. Just watching the commercials so far, one can gather that Palm’s devices are only targeting a specific demographic as opposed to attacking a mix of categories. Walkley states that the company is on track to meet his forecast goal of 1 million webOS phones in the February quarter. In order to hit his 1.5 million unit goal for the May quarter, Walkley says it will require “ramping sell-through trends at Verizon.” Maybe we’ll start seeing a different side to future commercials which will hopefully make it attractive enough to get consumers to start jumping aboard the webOS train.
via Barron’s

Palm’s very own web browser for webOS is by no means a small time player in the world of mobile web browsing. It’s pretty in-depth with its easy to juggle set of cards for each link you open; plus it has support for multi-touch as well. So do you really think webOS owners may see an outside source being added on to the already versatile browser? Actually, Mozilla Labs has announced that they’re in with webOS as they work on a Weave Sync client for the platform. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Weave Sync is Mozilla’s way of syncing bookmarks, passwords, history, and even open tabs from Mozilla Firefox on your desktop to you webOS handset. Right now it looks like it’s just a test to see if the client can work properly – in reality it is just a viewer for your data; as opposed to having the ability to make edits. Although there is very little hope in seeing a mobile Firefox version for webOS because the platform is pretty much locked down, there is a placeholder inside the launcher for “Default Applications” to someday set an alternate browser as the primary one. Still, the integration of Weave Sync points to a possibility that may happen someday.
source: Mozilla Labs via PreCentral

It was only days ago when we started seeing a Gameboy emulator for WebOS powered devices, but now its bigger brother steps up to the plate packing some of Nintendo’s most popular games. NesEm is a Nintendo NES emulator for WebOS and was ported over by Kalemsoft – it’s capable of playing over 300 original NES games. Additionally it supports four channel sound, game saving, automatic speed adjustment, key config control, and anti-aliased image smoothing. Although it is already available in demo form through PreWare or Kalemsoft’s web site, it is closed source and will run $9.99 for a license. The only limitation to the demo is that it restricts you to only run ROMS that are under 40k and also has a time limit – so if that isn’t your kind of thing, we’d suggest getting a license to relive those nostalgic games. Now you’ll be able to play some old school games you’ve probably forgot about all in the palm of your hands.
source: Kalemsoft via Palm Info Center

After seeing a brief appearance during CES, Slacker Radio is hitting up the airwaves on WebOS handsets – it even managed to sneak its way onto the latest Verizon Palm Pre Plus commercials. It’s finally being made available for download in the App Catalog – providing the platform a much needed name to its growing lineup of apps. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Slacker is an online radio station player that enables music lovers to find content that suits them best. There’s even the option to upgrade to Slacker plus, with a monthly fee of course, that can get you additional bonus features like creating lists out of specific song, lyrics, and ad-free listening. So maybe instead of relying on using up the precious storage space on your handset, you can always switch on to Slacker Radio and enjoy all your favorite music – plus we’re confident there’s a good mixing of artists and genres that’ll fit to your liking.
via PreCentral