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Good news for those of you on Verizon Wireless. Palm continued it’s midnight madness event with the release of webOS 1.4 for webOS devices on the Verizon Wireless network. It’s good, you want it, so go hit that updates box this morning if webOS 1.4 isn’t waiting for you.
Thanks Dora!
Palm today revised their guidance for revenues for the quarter and year stating they will be “well below its previously forecasted range of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion”. Palm expects that revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 will be in the range of $285 million to $310 million on a GAAP basis.
In a press release Palm states,
“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,” said Jon Rubinstein, chairman and chief executive officer. “Our carrier partners remain committed, and we are working closely with them to increase awareness and drive sales of our differentiated Palm products.”
This comes on the heels of a report from the WSJ that Verizon was considering dropping the Palm phones due to disappointing sales. This news was sourced by an analyst who cites conversations with Verizon officials. To us, this doesn’t seem plausible. Both the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus have been out for roughly a month. It does raise concern that perhaps Verizon will not provide the marketing commitment necessary to help boost sales.
Our friend Dieter at PreCentral points us to a survey that shows some disturbing numbers regarding keyboard issues plaguing Palm Pre Plus owners. A myriad of issues including letters being entered twice, some letters not being entered and input lag. Not good, not good at all. The issue is isolated to the Verizon Palm Pre Plus.
As with any forum poll, the numbers are usually not reflective of the greater userbase, but this is still alarming. At last check, only 23% of respondents indicated “No typing problems”, while a whopping 42% are experiencing all three issues. Roughly 20% experience double letter, missed letters, but no input lag.
Have a Verizon Palm Pre Plus? Are you experiencing any of these issues?
Verizon’s previous BOGO (buy one, get one free offer) allowed for a free Palm Pixi Plus with any Palm Pre Plus purchase. Both required a 2-year commitment, but it certainly was a good deal. Verizon has sweetened the pot today, offering up the Palm Pre Plus as one of the eligible phones in their BOGO program. Starting today, you can receive a free Palm Pre Plus with the purchase of a Palm Pre Plus. 2 year contracts are required for both, but you are out the door with two Palm Pre Plus phones for $149.99.
Other phones included in the promotion are the Droid, Droid Eris, LG Chocolate Touch, Samsung Alias.
[via Mobile Crunch]
Interesting events have occurred with myTether over the past few days since our article, “Is MyTether a Black-Eye for Homebrew“. PreCentral’s Jason Robitaille, also the author of webOS Quick Install, gave his blessing to myTether and also detailed some of the changes made by the developer.
Better still, with this version of MyTether, there’s no more wifi driver replacement. It now harnesses the Mobile Hotspot Linux daemon present in all webOS devices to get the Mobile Hotspot-like results in MyTether. As Palm is unlikely to kill their own Mobile Hotspot app, this route will likely, in turn, make MyTether lasting and reliable.
Earlier this week the developer of myTether, via their Twitter account, wrote “Palm, Inc. claims to PayPal that I’m infringing upon their intellectual property.. what IP did I infringe?” This brought concerns that perhaps this app wasn’t long for this world, given that it does directly compete with Palm’s Mobile Hotspot app.
It appears the changes made in myTether 2.1, as outlined by Robitaille, have put the developer back in the good graces of Palm. As per his tweet this afternoon, “IP issue with Palm, Inc. has been resolved. I had some old, unused files of Palm inside the service, from mytether 2.0.1. Removed them now.”
Looks to us like everything has been resolved both within the homebrew community and with Palm. Group hug?
A Deutsche Bank analyst has reiterated their ‘Buy’ rating on Palm due to improving sales trends at Verizon Wireless, despite the lack of promotion. Ongoing training efforts seem to be paying off with increased sales of webOS devices. Interestingly, the survey found Palm closing in on BlackBerry for “the most preferred at 17%”.
[via Street Insider]
Last week, myTether released an update to their application that added support for Verizon’s new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus. For those unfamiliar with the app, it allows you to utilize your Palm Pre Plus or Palm Pixi Plus as a wireless modem, allowing you to use your webOS device to connect a laptop to the Internet.
Ruh-roh. Verizon’s new Mobilehotspot software just got new competition in the form of homebrew app myTether. The developer has released a Verizon compatible version that effectively does the same thing as the Mobilehotspot app, but without the monthly fees. Of course, myTether will set you back $14.95, but that’s a small price to pay when compared to the monthly hotspot fee of $40 for a 5GB plan.
We should caution you that if Verizon happens to see activity on your account that indicates you might be using something other than a Palm Pre Plus smartphone, you could subject yourself to contract termination or overage charges. With that disclaimer out of the way, we’ve never seen this happen to folks who were using PDANet.
[Palm Pre Hacks via jkOnTheRun]
Amazon is now offering the Palm Pixi Plus on Verizon Wireless for just $49.99. This is a $50 savings over the current offer on Verizon Wireless. If you don’t mind two contracts, Verizon is still offering their BOGO (buy one, get one free) on webOS devices. However, for those looking to get in the Palm Pixi Plus at a good price, this is the lowest we’ve seen.
As a reminder, the Palm Pixi Plus is essentially the same model that we reviewed, but comes with WiFi.
A big complaint amongst the tight knit Palm community has been the questionable marketing messages in previous Palm Pre ad campaigns. Despite statistics showing that the creepy Palm girl resonated with viewers, it was not very popular with Palm Pre users. (Editor’s note: We actually like the ads). Those ads were run by Palm, who most will agree did a fantastic job with the Palm Pixi ads. Can you get that Sleepyhead song out of your head? In addition to Palm running ads, the carriers also pick up a big part of the marketing responsibility. Most will remember the onslaught of DROID commercials that aired leading up to it’s launch. It was non-stop. As a result, the DROID saw increased sales numbers.
Last week, Verizon launched the Palm Pre Plus and you probably wouldn’t know of it if you didn’t follow tech blogs. So where is the advertising and what’s coming? Well, the first ads we’ve seen cropped up on our iPhone forums at everythingiCafe and color us confused. The banner reads:
“The 3G smartphone
smart enough for mom.”
UPDATE: PreCentral alerts us to a few new ads that have showed upon Verizon’s YouTube account.
Verizon spent a year waiting for webOS devices and this is the campaign that is going to drive adoption of the Palm Pre Plus. Say it ain’t so.
Have you seen a TV ad or perhaps a banner ad with a more appropriate message? What do you think of the new ads. Let us know in the comments.