The addictive game Angry Birds is now available for the Palm Pre and Pre Plus. Available in the Palm App Catalog for $2, your Pre must have the latest version of webOS, 1.4.5, under the hood. According to a press release issued by Palm, Angry Birds will be made available for Pixi owners later. The game’s creator, Rovio, had asked the webOS community if they wanted the game for their platform and the response was extremely positive.

For those Rip Van Winkle types who are not familiar with the multi-level game, using a slingshot you launch birds-each with a different power-toward a number of green pigs protected by wood or stone housing. Spurred on by the massive success of the game on the iPhone and iPod, the developers want to put the game on other platforms. While the game is among the top selling apps in over 60 countries, so far Android users have been shut out.
source: Palm

While Germany’s O2 is the only carrier to officially offer the webOS 1.4.5 upgrade to its customers, and AT&T owners will probably be the last to receive it, a self-proclaimed “Sprint employee” tells the PreCentral forum that webOS 1.4.5.1 will be available from Sprint on July 7th after most European carriers will have already made 1.4.5 available to customers. On the Palm site, it does let us know what changes to expect from this download, mostly some repairs to minor problems. On the browser, for example, if you enter text on certain web pages, the screen focus now will remain on the text being entered. The upgrade will also correct a rare problem that prevented some podcasts from downloading correctly and addresses several security issues with the software. The forum writing “Sprint employee” also dropped a few more items that the upgrade will bring to Sprint users such as fixing the e-mail so that the Sprint branded e-mail default signature is correctly branded. There will be some improvement to battery life and videos will be able to get sent via multimedia messaging. Sprint TV will have a couple of changes with an upgrade to version 3.5.4 and parental controls will be enhanced. Meanwhile, Palm has made the webOS 1.4.5 SDK available to all developers including the just out of beta PDK. The upgrade will allow 3D gaming PDK apps to be supported by the Palm Pixi.
source: PreCentralForums, Phonescoop

Beginning to intermediate webOS developers are getting a jump start courtesy of AT&T, which has secured Josh Marinacci from Palm’s Developer Relations, for a webinar scheduled to air on 6/17, 10-11am PST. What’s more, the attendees of “An Introduction to Palm webOS” are being enticed with a raffle for an AT&T smartphone.

So anybody who wants to further their webOS development skills, or learn how to port their applications to the platform, can head over to the AT&T Developer Program website and signup. How many gadgets will webOS end up powering after Palm’s acquisition by HP, is anybody’s guess, but there is a decent chance of it getting to more and more devices.
source: PreCentral

With a launch expected for later this summer, the training model of the Palm Pre Plus is expected to reach AT&T today. The model will be used off the sales floor to train reps, but when training is complete, the model becomes a live store display. With things starting to move rapidly, it could be that the carrier will be ready to offer the webOS flavored model a bit earlier than thought. The faster the distribution of the Pre Plus widens, the better the chances are that Palm could generate enough cash flow to stay alive. Speaking of cash, there is no word on how much AT&T plans on selling the phone for.
source: EngadgetMobile

Even though the words “coming months” attached to the Palm Pre Plus & Pixi Plus models for AT&T might indicate a time frame from now to something like six months down the road, the latter of the two devices might already have a head start. There was a Palm label with the model P121UNA seen over at the FCC which might indicate that it’s the expect Palm Pix Plus that’s bound for AT&T. The findings can be found in the “P121” which indicates a Palm Pixi while the “UNA” means that it’ll be for the North American GSM market. Even though the Palm Pixi Plus has its head poking around the FCC first, we’d imagine that both Palm devices will be released at the same time – so it shouldn’t be too long now before AT&T customers can finally check out what WebOS is all about. Let’s just hope that it isn’t too late for the veteran smartphone maker to really turn things around as they embark on a journey with the second largest wireless carrier in the country.
source: FCC via Ubergizmo

Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein reportedly released a memo on Tuesday that seemed to announce a shift from the webOS platform to Android. The memo was supposed to be up on Wikileaks at midnight, which it never was. The important part of the memo reads, “While Palm is incredibly proud of our engineers who spent timeless work and effort to bring us this advanced operating system,consumers simply have not caught on. To provide a better future for ourselves and customers, the only logical choice is to transition our hardware and software to the Android platform.” According to Wired’s Gadget Lab and Engadget, a source inside Palm says that there is no plan to switch to Android and that the company is committed to webOS.

There is no question that Android is hot at the moment. Even Rubinstein said that the DROID’s launch at Verizon before the Pre Plus was one of the reasons why his phone is selling poorly at Big Red. But there are things that Palm can do with its OS. Considering that many analysts who hated the hardware of the two phones love the OS, Palm could license webOS to another company who can make superior handsets. Whatever move Palm makes-and time is running out-dumping their home grown OS for the same software everyone else is using seems unlikely.
source: Slashdot via GadgetLab and Engadget

Things are not going well for Palm. It’s hard to believe that when the Pre was introduced last year, things looked so promising for the manufacturer. Now, the stock is down to $4, the Pre and Pixi have been flops at Sprint, enhanced versions of both failed to sell at Verizon despite high hopes, and AT&T is having problems while testing the pair of webOS phones for its network. So, you ask, what else can go wrong? How about Verizon deciding to pull the plug on promoting the Pre? According to the Examiner, Big Red will stop promoting the Pre at the end of the month. The site’s tipster says people are coming into Verizon stores with the Pre in mind, but are flipped to the Android flavored Motorola DROID by reps. In L.A., industry analyst Paul Mueller blames several defective Palm units for some of the problem. Mueller says, “When a device gets returned, people hear about it. It may  not be publicized in the media, but word-of mouth is powerful.”  But there is no question that the DROID has taken many possible sales away from the Palm units. With a much larger hi-res screen, many more apps available, solid construction and the free turn-by-turn navigation, the Android device has become Verizon’s flagship model. The carrier’s initial spots for the Pre focused on how the smartphone was perfect for “Mom” and the gender specific ads might also have been part of the problem. By the time Big Red changed the focus of the campaign, it was already too late. So now what ELSE can happen to Palm?
source: Examiner

AT&T came up with a press-release to officially announce the upcoming availability of the webOS-powered Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus. Unfortunately, users won’t be able to enjoy the many advantages of Palm’s webOS soon, since both smartphones will become available sometime “in the coming months”, so the information hinting at a June or July release might turn out true (but we hope it won’t). Expect the Palm Pre Plus to cost $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate. The  Palm Pixi Plus will be available for $49.99 on the same conditions.

Both handsets look identical to the models already found in Verizon’s catalog, except for these being GSM phones with 3G support on the 850/1900 MHz bands. Also, users will be able to use voice and data services simultaneously.

Both devices will be showcased at the CTIA event, so expect our coverage!
source: AT&T and TheOfficialPalmBlog

While never actually confirmed by the carrier, AT&T was expected to offer its own version of the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi as soon as next month. However, Peter Misek, an analyst for Canadian brokerage firm Canaccord Adams, is saying that the webOS handsets will not be released by AT&T until June or July. To make matters worse for Palm, the delay appears due to a long shopping list of technical items that the carrier has with the Pre and Pixi. As a result of these problems, AT&T is said to have reduced its initial order for the devices while lowering the marketing budget for the phones. Things are not looking too good for Palm and with the DROID said to be selling like hotcakes, Verizon might not be seeing too many Pre Plus and Pixi Plus units walking out the door.

What seemed so promising for Palm a year ago, has disintegrated right in front of their eyes. Now, it seems that all of the hope that Palm had of seeing things pick up with the inclusion of the handsets in the line-up of the nation’s largest carrier has evaporated, and AT&T apparently will be no help either. Misek now expects Palm to have shipped 670,000 units in the February quarter, down from his previous estimate of 720,000. For 2011, the analyst has reduced his estimate of sales from 4 million to 3.58 million. While no one could have forecasted Androidmania or the return of Motorola as a relevant player in the industry, perhaps the biggest surprise is how quickly the excitement that originally surrounded the Pre when it was introduced, disappeared. Does Palm have enough time left on the clock for one last Hail Mary play?
source: AllThingsDigital via EngadgetMobile

It is well known that AT&T is going to release two webOS powered models this year. PreCentral member TopTongueBarry claims to be an AT&T IT employee and says the carrier has just completed testing on the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus in front of a possible April 26th launch. He also says that AT&T will soon begin testing on another webOS device called the Palm Elan. The testing should start in 2 weeks for the handset, which talk within the carrier says is equipped with  a soft QWERTY keyboard. According to the word inside AT&T, the Elan will be released in Europe first. Another PreCentral member, Shadow-360, googled the Palm Elan name and found several accessories that manufacturers had listed as being compatible with the Palm Elan before taking them down. Because the same accessories were also for the iPhone, it points to a slate like form factor for the mystery handset. While all of this might be a strange and weird coincidence, a Taiwanese company named Elan once sued Apple for infringing on multitouch patents. Wow! Call it karma or the Circle of Life. You might also note the Palm Elan mentioned as a name in the picture below, next to the Pixi. Many webOS aficionados have been hoping for a high end device and hopefully, the Palm Elan is the phone that makes those wishes come true. Talk of a new webOS device has been circulating and we reported a similar story at the end of last month.
source: PreCentral via Engadget