With the fate on Palm still hanging in the balance in the near term, Verizon Wireless is looking to do something that’s considered as a bit unorthodox. One of BGR’s Verizon Wireless connects has informed them that Palm webOS devices on their lineup will not require a mail-in-rebate starting tomorrow. Instead, customers choosing to go with either the Pre Plus or Pixi Plus will receive the discount instantly – much like what indirect dealers like Best Buy or Radio Shack offers. This surprising move may spell some kind of ominous feeling as one source says that “we make a ton of money off people not sending those rebates in.” It also may point to the fact that they’re taking some daring measures as the handset offerings may not be preforming well and not meeting their expectations. Even though it’s only limited to the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus handsets, it would really be something if Big Red decides to ditch the whole concept of mail-in-rebates altogether – potentially paving the way to even greater rewards with its customers.
source: BGR

Some people detest it whenever a developer releases an app that really isn’t perceived to be one – actually, it’s basically the same thing when you visit a mobile version of a web site. Case in point Facebook’s app for webOS – it was basically the same exact thing whenever you visit the website on a webOS handset. Luckily though it managed to get a much needed facelift most recently to offer users a substantial way of keeping connected with friends. Some new features found on the latest version of the Facebook app includes an enhanced inbox, access to your friends photo albums, view profiles of friends and strangers, notifications for events & birthdays, and friend search to look up some old buddies. When you take a closer look at the application, you’ll be enthralled by how its come very far from its previous incarnations – making the overall experience seem spectacular when you pit it against the real deal on your computer. As with anything applications, we’re sure that this one is going to be updated on a consistent basis to further its capability for webOS owners.
source: Palm via PreCentral

With Sprint receiving their Palm Pre and Pixi webOS 1.4 update on Saturday, it only took a day later before Verizon customers started to get the 1.4 update on their Pre Plus and Pixi Plus units. The total time it takes to download the 40-some MB file and install it is roughly 1 hour, so make sure your battery is fully charged before starting. The webOS 1.4 upgrade includes enhancements and updates to the SMS messaging, video recording with editing and uploading to YouTube, expanded calendar and tasks functions, more email options with ringtone selections, Yahoo! mail support, and much more. The full change-log for the Palm Pre Plus can be found here and for the Palm Pixi Plus here . We should also point out that Flash is not included in the update, however, it does make the web browser compatible with Flash 10.1 whenever Adobe releases it the first-half of the year. Let us know what you think of the webOS 1.4 update in the comment section below.
Source Verizon Wireless (Pre Plus, Pixi Plus)

As we managed to report not too long ago, Sprint has gone ahead  and reduced the price in half of the Palm Pixi from its original cost of $99.99 to now $49.99 – it happened ominously on the same day when Palm cut its revenue target and raised profitability concerns. Although many will see the 50 percent drop in price as an attractive offer, it still doesn’t beat the lower price that other retailers like Wal-Mart offers to customers who purchase the handset through them. Even before Sprint’s cut, Verizon reduced the price of its Palm Pixi Plus smartphone to $79.99 which boasts some improvements over the one offered by Sprint – this all points to the unusual move by mobile operators when they quickly reduce prices so soon after launch. CL King analyst, Lawrence Harris, said that “Inevitably this will hurt Palm’s profits.  If it’s not in the February quarter, it’ll be in May.” BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long also questions Palm’s outlook in the coming months as wireless providers appear to already have problems getting rid of Palm inventory. Palm of course partly blamed the poor marketing of its Verizon Wireless phones and has recently launched a new campaign known as Project JumpStart to aid Verizon employees in sales of its products. Despite all of their new plan changes, analysts still view it as not enough and that Palm will need to offer new phones with bigger screens and keyboards than what the Pre and Pixi offer. When you look at it, the Palm Pre has been on the market since last June and is quickly approaching its one year mark – possibly signaling the onset of a successor in the coming months.
source: Reuters

In the US, Sprint Palm Pre owners are getting the first taste of the latest version of the platform while the O2 and Movistar variants are also getting in on this treatment. The download itself is at a mere 39MB and will be all that stands in between your way from getting video recording, Flash, enhanced message notifications, and improved battery life that’s all found on webOS 1.4. Everyone else will have to eye these owners with envy as they will become the first to test out these new features. As they prepare to launch the update on other carriers and handsets, it’ll be a test to see how quickly Palm can expedite the roll out of their next installment of the platform as things have begun to look shaky for the company. They’ll need to really capture the attention of consumers if and when they release the next version in order to compete in this ever fierce market.
via Engadget

It’s unclear if Palm’s recent announcement about lowering its fiscal year 2010 guidance had a play in Sprint lowering the price of the Palm Pixi to $49.99. Since its release with the number three wireless provider, the Palm Pixi stayed in the $99.99 price boat for a while – it was considered by many to be too high and would not garner the attention it needed at that level. When Verizon came along and introduced the Palm Pixi Plus to their webOS starved customers, they managed to offer their version at the same price – but it housed a bit more features to justify a better purchase decision than Sprint’s version. Maybe this might be an attempt to really get people to take notice now – it should’ve probably been like that from the beginning. Some argued that the original $99.99 price of the Pixi really made customers consider to upgrade to the Palm Pre which was priced at $149.99. For all we know, this move by Sprint could spell some other ominous feeling that lurks behind the walls over at Palm – or maybe it could reinvigorate sales that could potentially lead to some serious profit.
source: Sprint via PalmInfocenter

Things have definitely been rocky over at Palm where they witnessed some extreme lows to only experience the fruits of their success again and finally brought straight back to reality in the course of a year. With that said, Palm has gone ahead and updated its guidance for its fiscal year 2010 revenues that is expected to be “well below” the forecasted range of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion. They now anticipate third quarter revenues to come in somewhere between $285 million and $310 million on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) and between $300 million to $320 million on a non-GAAP basis. Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein said, “Palm webOS is recognized as a groundbreaking platform that enables one of the best smartphone experiences available today, and our work to evolve the platform and bring industry-leading technology to market continues. However, driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than we anticipated.” Palm expects to announce its official third quarter earning on March 18, 2010. Six months ago when the Palm Pre was still garnering a lot of attention, it was unfathomable to see Palm almost back to its original situation before the unveiling of webOS. They’ve managed to dodge a lot of stuff in the past, but fierce competition in the market may force them to look elsewhere to survive in this cut throat industry.
source: Business Wire via Mobileburn

The big day is finally here for Palm owners waiting to get their taste of webOS 1.4, but it’s still unheard of any webOS owners seeing the light of it. Although the rumor pointed to today as being the release of webOS 1.4, it looks like the changelog for it has been leaked – we hope. The latest update to Palm’s platform hosts a myriad of fixes that’ll put an end to some annoying bugs that plague some handsets. The biggest thing to come out of it is the capability of capturing video – easily something that might have prevented some people from choosing it as their handset of choice. There are also numerous features to expect such as an improved universal search which includes outlook Exchange and corporate address look up. Palm Pre owners should pay extra attention because there’s one exciting feature that’ll affect you the most – webOS 1.4 will add support for Adobe Flash 10 Beta. So far it sounds like no one has been able to get their hands on the update, but we’d suggest to keep on checking every now and then because you never know when Palm will give it the green light.
source: PreCentral

WebOS owners will soon have yet another online music service app that’s heading their way – Grooveshark announced today the launch of a native app for webOS. For those not too familiar, Grooveshark is an online music service that allows users to access its vast on-demand song catalog; similar to other live streaming services out there. Not considered a small fish in the pond, Grooveshark host a numbers of tracks that runs well into the millions – at the same time, it offers a personal playlist and favorites for its base of users. It’ll be some time before the actual app is made available through the App Catalog, but Palm Pre and Pixi owners should expect to see it “very soon” according to the startup. Their latest offering for webOS owners supplements their existing support for apps catered for Android and BlackBerry smartphones. Although they’ve completed their work on an iPhone app since back in July 2009, its appearance on the App Store is still nowhere in sight – let’s hope that the same fate doesn’t play out with the webOS version.
via MobileCrunch

It only seemed like yesterday when Palm unveiled to the world it’s Palm Pre handset that featured a refreshing new platform call webOS. In the course of over a year, we’ve seen their handset launched with much anticipation and hope riding on its back – but during the same period, we’ve seen Apple strike back so quick with the iPhone 3GS and then came the wave after wave of top notch Android handsets. Lost in all of it, almost losing some of its luster during the process, Palm is still trying to move forward as it faces an insurmountable mix of opponents that seemingly have set the bar. The latest blow to Palm comes in the form of a Bank of America/Merril Lynch analyst, Vivek Arya, cutting his rating on Palm to Underperform from Buy – slashing his target price of $20 to all the way down to $10. He states in a research note that “Palm’s superior platform features have not translated into sufficient carrier support and consumer demand, and we are concerned the window of opportunity may be closing as Google’s Android ecosystem gains ground, Research In Motion revitalizes its portfolio, iPhone increases its presence, and as Microsoft reboots its efforts with Windows Phone 7.” Looking toward Q4 already, Arya expects Palm’s potential for sales growth to dramatically decrease, by as much as 20 percent, when Microsoft plans to launch their latest Windows Phone 7 Series platform. Just 6 months ago Palm was looking to make a serious rebound with their stock performing at a 2 year high of $17.46 – now it has dropped to less than $9 today after Arya’s stance on the company. When you look even further into the numbers, Palm has not seen a profit in more than 8 quarters.
source: Barron’s via wmpoweruser