Palm

HP Releases App Catalog Fix to Keep WebOS Devices Afloat

I own an HP Touchpad, and I have to admit, it’s still one of the most enjoyable tablet OSes I’ve used to date. I’ve tweaked some of the software and hardware with Preware, set up dual-booting with CyanogenMod 9, and its been fun doing all this. However, it was revealed that one of the key certificates governing HP WebOS cloud services, particularly those items relating to HP App Catalog and cloud backups, was set to expire on July 23, 2013. Were that to occur, access to WebOS catalog apps, app purchase history and device cloud backup would almost certainly fail,…


Rapidly Advancing Smartphone Technology Makes It Hard to Go Back

Early this year I got the Motorola Droid 4 for Verizon (on release day no less), and I joined the 4G/LTE revolution. At first it was underwhelming since the 4G coverage in our area was ‘spotty’ at best, and non-existent for the most part. But within a couple of months, Verizon had added a new 4G zone to our area and expanded coverage in the existing zone. It was awesome! So for the next few months I enjoyed fast data speeds — and the zippy performance — of the Droid 4. It was apparent that the phone itself thrived on…


Teething Troubles for Tablet Adoption in the Workplace

It’s always tempting to impute Unlikely virtues to the cute. – Ogden Nash The tech world is abuzz with them, many of us own our own and several of us use them at work. They have transformed the personal computing landscape and become a standard in their own right, sized  from the neighborhood of 10″ down to 7″. I am speaking, of course, of tablets. Whether the Apple iPad, the varying Android builds, HP Touchpad or even the BlackBerry PlayBook, tablets have become very popular mobile devices and increasingly showing up in the business world. Before you start gallivanting off…


HP Open Sources WebOS

HP has put up a press release regarding the fate of WebOS.  WebOS has been given to the open source community. HP will engage the open source community to help define the charter of the open source project under a set of operating principles: The goal of the project is to accelerate the open development of the webOS platform HP will be an active participant and investor in the project Good, transparent and inclusive governance to avoid fragmentation Software will be provided as a pure open source project This is probably the best thing that HP could have done with…


Killing webOS Cost HP HOW MUCH?!? Also, HP Nabs #2 Tablet Spot for 2011!

Two interesting pieces of contrasting TouchPad news: one about failure and the other success. From AllThingsD, we get a snip from the recent HP earnings report specific to Palm, webOS and the impact of folding up that business on their results. Here is their quote from the earnings report: Non-GAAP earnings and operating profit information excludes after-tax costs of $3.3 billion, or $1.56 per diluted share, related to the wind down of HP’s webOS device business, impairment of goodwill and purchased intangible assets, amortization of purchased intangible assets, restructuring charges and acquisition-related charges.



HP TouchPad – Beware the (non) Deals

Just over two months ago HP created market hysteria by killing off the TouchPad tablet and then dropping the price for quick sell-off to $99 for the 16GB and $149 for the 32GB version. In a dazzling internet-breaking weekend, a variety of sites posted and quickly sold out of the TouchPad at those prices. All of which is nice history, but it is relevant because now we are starting to see some stock of the TouchPad trickling out to a few deals sites, Amazon.com and HP itself. All of this before the anticipated final rush of TouchPad inventory made to…


It STILL Really Is Just An ‘iPad Market’

We have talked about the so-called ‘Tablet Market’ as really being the ‘iPad Market’, with some marginal players scraping for scraps. Some of us have bought or spent considerable time with one or more of the various tablets that have come out over the last year – the Samsung Galaxy Tab, Motorola Xoom, BlackBerry Playbook, HP TouchPad, HTC Flyer, Acer Iconia, and on and on. Yet in all of these cases there have been some serious flaws that have derailed the tablets and ultimately resulted in the failure of the tablets to gain market penetration. Last week the IDC released…


HP TouchPad … Prepare for the Final Onslaught

It is hard to believe that the #2 Tablet in the world was released and cancelled within six weeks … but that is the situation with the HP TouchPad. ‘Soft launched’ in early July and formally launched a couple of weeks later, the webOS tablet was cancelled with the entire webOS product line by mid-August and existing inventory sold off quickly in a ‘fire sale’. In early August Staples had a big sale paired with a ‘weekend coupon’ from HP for $100 off, making the TouchPad a delicious $299! Yet I didn’t buy one, and described why here. I also…


When Is an Android Device Not an Android Device?

When the Grid 10 was announced by the ever-reliable Chandra Rathakrishnan last month, it was said to run Android apps but not be an Android device. This was later clarified to mean that it is actually an Android kernel running the show, but thoroughly skinned and possibly even forked to a version of Android incompatible with future Google-backed updates. We’ll see someday, maybe. Now TechCrunch is reporting that Amazon’s long-rumored tablet will be hitting the market in a couple months, running a completely forked Android kernel. This one is apparently pre-2.2 (how far pre is undefined) and has been so modified…


No Matter How You Slice It, HP/Palm are Three Time Losers …

Today on Google + I saw the following post from Francis: We’re writing to inform you that your order XXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX from onSale has been canceled because the item(s) you purchased were out of stock. Please return and place your order again at a later time. When I returned to my desk I checked my email … and of course I had the same thing waiting. The ‘item’, of course, was the HP TouchPad – recently discontinued and then put on fire sale clearance by HP for $99/$149 for the 16 & 32GB models. These emails are amongst the literally tens…


How Dismal Are HP TouchPad Sales? Woot Sold 612 … THAT is How Bad!

Image Courtesy of Demotivation I recently remarked about how and why I didn’t buy a HP TouchPad during the recent mega-sale at Staples and elsewhere. As I mentioned then, Dan had also looked at the TouchPad when it was released and described it as “a bit too laggy for my taste”. Since then he posted about the upcoming AT&T 3G model with a faster processor, and said the main reason he didn’t get one during the big sale was his local store didn’t have any. My post also drew comments from others less than thrilled with the TouchPad. Turns out…


Five Reasons I Didn’t Buy a HP TouchPad Last Weekend

As most tech-heads are aware, this past weekend HP ran a $100 off ‘instant coupon’ special on the HP TouchPad. In addition, certain retail shops ran additional $50 off specials and Staples even had a $100 off deal, meaning it was possible to get the 16GB version of the TouchPad for $299 – $349. I know many folks who simply couldn’t resist the price and went right out to grab one. Since I am a big Palm webOS fan as I indicated in my review of the Palm Pixi Plus, I certainly printed out the Staples coupon – yet I…


Retrospective Review: Revisting WebOS and the Palm Pixi Plus

With the upcoming HP WebOS tablet and Pre 3 smartphone featuring great-looking features such as touch-sync, it is interesting to take another back at WebOS as it exists today. Recently I came upon a nearly free deal for a no-contract 8GB Palm Pixi Plus which I was easily able to activate on Verizon to test. I used the Pixi as my sole phone for two weeks, enough to develop some things I loved about the phone and WebOS … and some things I didn’t like so much! The Hype: The thinnest Palm mobile phone yet, the Palm Pixi Plus for…


HP’s WebOS Announcements

We’re all Palm fans from way back in the day. So while none of us are currently using WebOS, we were all excited to follow HP’s recent announcements! Of course, big geeks that we are, everyone had their own opinion on the new entries to the smartphone and tablet world … Carly Z: Anyone else following the HPalm stuff? Amazing what HP’s deep pockets can do. Francis Scardino: yeah, works out for us…(greedy consumers) The touchpad looks awesome. Touchstone support is a winner. No cords for you. Carly  Z: All that phone<–>touchpad integration is awesome. They are out-appleing apple! Francis…


Sprint SERO Plans Adding Support for Newer Phones

Before the advent of “Simply Everything” there was an even cheaper way to get Sprint service. All you needed was the email address of a Sprint employee, and you’d qualify for a special plan called “Sprint Employee Referral Offer” or SERO. Basically, it was deeply discounted service, and the people lucky enough to sign up have enjoyed ridiculously cheap wireless for the last few years. In an attempt to drive people off SERO and onto the more lucrative “Simply Everything” plans, Sprint stopped allowing SERO customers to upgrade to new phones. Basically, name a hot phone on Sprint, and SERO…


Android on a Palm Tungsten C!

(image courtesy Dmitry Grinberg) Yes, Android has been ported to iPhones, but what about older devices? If you’ve got a Tungsten C, you can (theoretically) run Android 2.1 on it! Yes, a Tungsten C can run a higher version of Android than some official Android phones! This upgrade (if you can call it that) was done by Dmitri Grinberg, possibly the last major hacker/developer of the Palm OS platform. He’s claimed for some time to be working on “DGOS”, a pseudo-upgrade to Palm OS. Either to not endanger his DGOS project or because the Android port is so unstable, it…


Graffiti One Comes to Android!

If you were a Palm OS fan, you were probably a whiz with Graffiti, the shorthand text input system. In college, I took all my notes on my Palm M100, and I used Graffiti so much my pen and paper notes were in an unholy mix of print scrawl and Graffiti. So when I saw this morning that Access had released Graffiti (the famous, original, pre-lawsuit with Xerox version) for Android, I practically danced in my cubicle. It is everything I had hoped it would be and more! I was very skeptical at first since Graffiti is so stylus-based, but…


Palm’s Legacy

By now you’ve probably heard the news that PALM is officially part of Hewlett-Packard. If you, like many of us, started with a Palm OS device before moving on to smartphones, it’s a bittersweet ending. On the one hand, no one wanted to see Palm die, even after their slow circling of the drain for years. On the other hand, it’s an open question how Palm will do as part of HP, and whether WebOS will resurface or be absorbed into an HP Printer. One of the original Palm-people, Donna Dubinsky, wants to remind people there’s always been something special…


No Relief in Sight for Palm

Poor Palm just can’t get a break. They are up for sale, but no one’s showed up at their open house, and Jon Rubenstein even baked cookies! In all seriousness, there’s no concrete evidence of a buyer, and the last few days have just been one blow after another. First, their Senior Vice President of Software resigned, and from the looks of the stock grants flying around, apparently, most of the office intended to follow him. Palm threw loads of stock at people to keep them around; if a new, deep pocketed suitor were around no one would be beating…