Palm's got great hardware, and WebOS is a genuinely terrific operating system. But that's not enough anymore. While Android's got a plethora of hardware partners, Palm's trying to go it alone in a vertically integrated world. It's a numbers game, really: Palm owners have 2,000 apps available to them. The Android Marketplace has fifteen times that, and the iPhone's got 150,000. If developers have given up on WebOS—which it certainly seems like them have—consumers have no reason to stick around. Especially given that the more money Palm loses, the harder it becomes for them to innovate on the hardware or the software side.

So Palm's got great guns, they just don't have any ammo. This isn't a new revelation; John called it back in October, when it was first clear that Palm was being squeezed out by the combination of Android and iPhone. What's different today is that the financials have finally caught up to the facts.

Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein offered up his own rationale during yesterday's call, blaming his company's demise on timing:

"If we could have launched at Verizon prior to the Droid, I think we would have gotten the attention the Droid got. And since I believe we have a better product, I think we could have even done better."

Easy to say, impossible to prove. And even if Droid stole some of Palm's thunder, that's nowhere near the totality of the company's problems.

If yesterday's earnings call put Palm on life support, its grave is being dug by Wall Street, with analyst Peter Misek handing out the shovels. Misek's prediction today that Palm's stock price would hit zero within twelve months is the kind of headline-grabbing, self-fulfilling prophecy that makes me not like analysts very much. It's also effective: Palm shares are already down 25% today. And while that could make it a more attractive buyout target for Google or whomever else, that kind of transaction takes the kind of resources and time that Palm may not have.

So where does that leave Palm? Bleeding out, with more than a million phones sitting in their inventory waiting not to get sold.

And where does that leave you? If you're smart, running as far as you can in the opposite direction from Palm, knowing that once a company dies the customer support dies with it, along with any third party or internal development. Running, and lamenting the passing of the last great indie phone maker.

But that's not the worst of it. An analyst claims that "AT&T has cited a long list of technical issues with the Pre and Pixi. Furthermore, the carrier has decreased its initial order size and has decided to sharply reduce its marketing budget for the launch." Talk about a face Palm. [All Things D]

ZumoDrive gives you 1GB of storage for free and offers plans ranging from $3 to $80 per month for additional space. Like some other cloud-based storage services, ZumoDrive offers a neat option to link folders in the cloud to folders on your computer for automatic syncing. This means that you could have an automatically updated music, video, or document library accessible from most of your devices.

The apps as well as 1GB storage are free and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store, Palm's Software Store, or the Android Market right now.

ZUMODRIVE SUPERSIZES ON-DEVICE STORAGE WITH NEW MOBILE APPS
FOR PALM AND ANDROID DEVICES

New Apps Give Users Access to their Personal Media Libraries and Documents On-the-Go

BURLINGAME, Calif., March 16th, 2009 – ZumoDrive, the consumer service for easily accessing and storing media and documents across devices, today announced the release of ZumoDrive for Android and ZumoDrive for Palm Pre, building on the success of the company's iPhone application. With these mobile apps, consumers now can access and play their music, video and photos without having to bother with cumbersome sync or take up precious disk space on their smartphones. ZumoDrive is now available on Mac, PC, Linux, iPhone, Android and Palm Pre platforms.

ZumoDrive's ultra-thin file replication is an innovative approach to going beyond storage and backup to provide streaming access to music, video and photos at a moment's notice. This approach lets consumers easily access and play their entire iTunes library on their phones even though the songs are not locally saved. Additionally, ZumoDrive changes the equation from manually saving files to a specific location to a more seamless system of designating folders to be linked to ZumoDrive. The files within these Linked Folders are automatically updated in ZumoDrive and available anywhere.

"Consumers today purchase and use more devices than ever, and they expect to access their content on all of them," said David Zhao, founder and CEO of ZumoDrive. " ZumoDrive unshackles our users' content so they can enjoy it wherever and whenever they want, without worrying about syncing and downloading. With the new Android and Palm Pre applications, consumers can now access documents as well as share playlists or photo albums from even more mobile devices."

Features of the new Android and Palm Pre applications include:

• Video streaming from ZumoDrive directly to the device in MP4, H.264 format
• Music playback of all songs
• Music organized by artist, albums, and even playlists created on other devices
• Ability to stream music in the background
• Ability to listen to music over both 3G or EDGE networks
• Access to photo albums saved in ZumoDrive
• Easy document access and viewing for Microsoft Office documents and PDF files
• Ability to easily share files from ZumoDrive with anyone (Android)

The Android and Palm applications can be downloaded from here and here, respectively. The applications are also available as free downloads from Palm's Software Store or the Android Market. ZumoDrive offers tiered storage options so users can choose the plan that works best for their needs. See here for options.

[ZumoDrive]

On modder overclocked his Pre (1.3.5.1 software) from 500 to 800MHz. He lost a good deal of battery life. Apparently battery life was unaffected, but heat can be a real issue. Chances are that the phone may one day get so hot that it melts his Hanes to his hip.

But hey, marginally faster performance. You can't beat that. If you're interested, download the kernel update for 1.3.5.1 at the link. The 1.4 update is technically available as well, but the code isn't quite finished cooking yet. [PreCentral via Palm News Daily via Engadget]

UPDATE: From Caj2008, one of the developers behind this Pre overclocking, heat isn't a major concern. In fact, it sounds like the everything runs pretty well!

I am caj2008 (Jeff) and I worked with the brilliant developer unixpsycho (Marco), to create the 720 MHz and 800 MHz kernels for OS1.3.5.1 on the Palm Pre (all versions). Prior to release of this software to the public, we ran an 80 member strong alpha test study (users from all walks of life) comparing the 720 and 800 MHz kernels with the standard Palm 500 MHz kernel (control). It was discovered that these kernels compared with the 500 MHz kernel did not significantly increased heat production or result in dramatically reduced battery life. The performance of the Pre improved incredibly with no loss in stability (vide infra)...We will withhold the OS1.4 version until all safety criteria have been met. The install process will be improved further by Rod Whitby's Preware program aided by aupt-4 new technology (E. Gaudet). Look at our data and reach your own conclusions. I myself have had my phone 800 MHz installed for a few weeks without any hiccups. All phones with prolonged cpu intensive activities produce heat but our kernel does not appear to exacerbate that...

Unreal Engine 3—a version of it, at least—was already ported to the iPhone last year. Since the Pre and the iPhone both use PowerVR chips, the fact that Epic managed to port an engine that was already downsized to fit on a mobile chip to another phone that runs a very similar version of their mobile chip isn't that impressive. But it is cool for Pre users, since that means games that use Unreal Engine 3 will be possible in the future. [MobileCrunch]

The full list is below, and while it's just available for Sprinters at the mo, Verizon Wireless Palm customers should expect it sometime soon too. Interestingly, Sprint's blog post on the update got yanked almost immediately after being published, with forumgoers speculating it'll be republished later in the day once the update actually goes live. [Sprint via BGR]

Fixes:

* Time Zone bug fixed
* Network time sync bug fixed to reflect accurate Network time
* Bluetooth car-kit transition to device corrected
* No EV icon bug fixed (random)
* Random browser formatting bugs fixed
* Fixed bug that incorrectly displayed Sprint when actually was Digital Roaming
* Missing Contact issue specifically with swap down to 1.2.9.1 or less

Feature Updates:

* Phonebook Transfer (import & export)
* Adds Video Capture capability & edit
* Calendar Enhancements
* Messaging Enhancements
* Improved Performance (Phone & CAL)
* Email Enhancements
* Notification Enhancements
* Adds Adobe Flash 10.0 (Pre Only)
* NOTE: The 1.4 software adds the ability to use the Flash 10.0 Adobe plug-in which will be available shortly from the Palm Appl Catalogue.

Nothing on here is stuff we didn't already know, including video capture, Flash 10 support for the Pre, improved speeds and a bunch of small fixes and upgrades. [Precentral via Everything Pre via Engadget]

The implication of "longer than expected" is that success will come if everyone just waits long enough. But to say something like that in February of 2010, over seven months after the Pre launch, three after the Pixi launch, and weeks after a by all counts anemic launch for their barely differentiated Verizon counterparts is to tacitly admit that there's a serious problem. If Palm's current lineup doesn't have momentum now, it never will—and their investors know it.

For Palm, this leaves two options: either build a new product—something they may not be able or positioned to do—and hope it's a wild success; or sell out. So who's buying? BusinessInsider throws the regular suspects on the table—RIM, Nokia, Dell, HP—but they seem chosen because they'd be interesting buyers, not because they've shown any real interest. Hey, wouldn't it be neat if Nokia or BlackBerry absorbed webOS, so they could both have truly modern, user-friendly smartphone operating systems? Yeah it would! Someone should tell them.

This leaves Palm with nothing to do but wait: to die; or to be saved by a hero it hasn't even glimpsed yet, and that probably doesn't exist.

UPDATE: Here's Rubinstein's memo to Palm employees re: their lowered guidance for the year. It's far from defeatist, but even further from reassuring:

Team,

This morning we announced preliminary results for our 2010 third quarter. Since the quarter has not yet closed, it is too soon to offer exact numbers, but we stated that we expect to report revenues for Q3 between $300 and $320 million. We also announced that we expect our revenue for this fiscal year to fall below the guidance we gave to Wall Street, which ranged from $1.6 to $1.8 billion. As we mentioned in our press release, our softer than expected performance is due to slower than expected customer adoption of our products, which in turn has prompted our U.S. carrier partners to put additional orders on hold for the time being. On a positive note, we expect to exit the quarter with over $500 million in cash on our balance sheet. We're scheduled to announce our full financial results in March.

I realize this news is difficult to swallow. We made this announcement today to prevent a surprise for Wall Street when we announce quarterly earnings in March. In the meantime, the entire executive team has been working extremely hard to improve product performance, and have implemented a number of initiatives to increase awareness and drive sales.

Dave Whalen and I just returned from a very successful meeting with Verizon Wireless, where they acknowledged that their execution of our launch was below expectations and recommitted to working with us to improve sales. To accelerate sales, we initiated Project JumpStart nearly three weeks ago. Since then, nearly two hundred Palm Brand Ambassadors, supplemented by Palm employees from Sunnyvale, have been training Verizon sales reps across the U.S. on our products. Early results from the stores have already shown improvement on product knowledge and sales week over week. You may have also seen a growing number of Palm ads on billboards, bus shelters, buses, and subway stations-all getting the word out about Palm.

All of these efforts are examples of how we are working to accelerate adoption and grow distribution of webOS. In the next few weeks, your management will work with you to make sure your priorities are laser-focused, primarily on helping to increase sales, improve product quality and differentiate the Palm product experience.

Our goals are taking longer than expected to achieve, but I am still confident that our talented team has what it takes to get the job done.

We'll schedule an all-hands meeting after our earnings announcement in March, and I'll be happy to answer your questions.

Go team!!!

jon

200 brand ambassadors and maybe some local advertising? That's more worrying than if Rubinstein had said nothing at all. [BusinessInsider]

It'll also make the Pre and Pixi slightly faster, and have a few other minor changes not worth explaining. Here's hoping you've got something interesting to film come Thursday, even if it's just of an iPhone user struggling with their meager non-flash 3.0-megapixel camera. [PreCentral]

TheStreet.com's Scott Moritz has an exciting exclusive: Northeast Securities analyst Ashok Kumar has learned that Microsoft is working on a Microsoft-branded phone based on its Windows Phone 7 Series OS. It'll be manufactured by HTC, and software problems have postponed its release into 2011.

The story would seem to give new life to old rumors about a Microsoft phone, code-named project "Pink." Except…Scott Moritz stories headlined as"exclusives"–usually crediting Kumar for the scoop–have a crummy track record of exclusively revealing stuff that turns out to be true. When I see them, my instinctive response is skepticism, not bland acceptance of anything in the story as gospel.

Shall we recap?

The exclusive: Verizon, disgruntled over Palm Pre sales, decides not to sell the phone:

The upshot: At January's CES show, announced it would sell Palm's Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, starting later that month. (Of course, it's conceivable that Verizon changed its mind, and if you want to get really technical, you might contend that the Pre Plus isn't a Pre.)

The exclusive: Google plans to to sell an Android phone through retailers by the end of the year, bypassing wireless carriers, says Kumar:

The upshot: The Google phone is real , and it almost shipped in 2009. Moritz's story says it will use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip (correct) and speculates that it might be built by HTC (ditto). But it's sold direct by Google, not at retail–and it's offered with a rather non-disruptive T-Mobile contract.

The exclusive:Kumar says that the much-anticipated Apple tablet will use a chip from Apple's own PA Semi division,not an Intel CPU:

The upshot: Bingo! (Of course, the real surprise would have been if the iPhone-like iPad did use an Intel processor.)

The exclusive: A new iPhone available on Verizon Wireless this summer wpack a Qualcomm wireless chip, Kumar says:

The upshot: We may not know for a few months if there's anything to this one.

The exclusive:: Kumar has learned that the Apple tablet will use Verizon Wireless for broadband–proven by its use of a Qualcomm chip:

The upshot: Less than a week later, Apple unveiled the iPad. Its 3G version will run on AT&T. I'm not sure if anyone who isn't involved with manufacturing of iPads knows for sure if there's any Qualcomm technology inside.

That's three exclusives that turned out to be completely or partially bogus, one that was correct, and two (counting the new Microsoft one) that may or may not amount to anything. Even if you assume that both the Qualcomm iPhone and Microsoft phone exclusives will pan out, chances would be fifty percent that Moritz was right, and fifty percent that he was wrong.

Anyone want to explain why Moritz keeps relaying Kumar's rumors as "exclusive" facts–and why TheStreet lets him do so?

Reprinted with permission from Technologizer.

Aardvark Party
Google has acquired Aardvark, a unique social search engine, for $50 million. With the internet still buzzing over Buzz, it isn't exactly surprising to see Google expanding further into the "space between you and every other human being on the planet," as Jason described it. For those who aren't familiar, Aardvark takes user's questions and, using artificial intelligence, distributes them to real live people who know something about the topic. For queries that don't have a simple, Google-able answer, this type of expert search engine could become a powerful tool. But we'll just have to wait to see how Google implements the technology, that is, to see if the experts' answers will be audible above the Buzz. [Technology Review]

Halting the Halt
Earlier today there was a big head-scratcher: Palm, according to a report from OTR Global, was completely halting production on all Pres and Pixies. One of OTR's sources explained ominously:

The decision is very sudden, and Foxconn was told to reduce all February Pre forecast to zero on Wednesday and nobody knows whether shipment will resume in March.

Was Palm being bought by another company, Boy Genius wondered? We furrowed our brows and feared the worst. But before we could really get worried, Engadget put everyone straight: no halt on production, just a brief hiatus for Chinese New Year. Ok, that makes a little more sense than a Palm buy-out. And with that, just as quickly as it started, the great forty-five minute Palm mystery came to a close. [Engadget]

LG Reads
LG wasn't about to let Kindle and Nook and iPad battle it out for E-Reader dominance in 2010, and today the company's CEO, KW KIM, announced that they will enter the fray with their own reader sometime in April. In recent months LG pushed out a solar-powered reader and showed off some nice flexible 19" E-Ink displays, so they might just end up coming out with something that has some sort of edge on the competition. But we're going to have to see it to believe it. [E-Reader Info]

Panny's Prices
We love Panasonic's Lumix line of point and shoots, but we wish they'd just announce the prices along with the products. The most recent batch, including the rugged DMC-TS2 and the geotagging-capable ZS7, got our inner-adventurers all excited, and now we have some price tags to consider: Lumix TS2 and ZS7 will go for $399.95; the Lumix ZS5 and ZR3 will be $299.95. The whole bunch will be available by mid-March. Check out the original posts for full specs or follow the link to today's press release. [PR Newswire]

Actually, that's far from the truth. Both phones are pretty damned gender neutral, unless you're the type of person who believes only men appreciate hard lines and ladies are drawn to curves. And apparently that's what Verizon believes, based on their advertising.

I mean, just look at these new Verizon Pre ads! Why are they showcasing this as a phone for moms? It's a quite capable phone that people of all genders and ages would enjoy. But I guess if they made the ads for the Droid so explodey and masculine they thought they had to make up for it with these.

Hey Verizon: they're both good phones. Feel free to just advertise them as such. [Engadget]

Personally, I noticed that positioning was a little off this weekend using Google Maps on a Pre Plus in San Francisco, though the lock wasn't so slow it rung any alarms. It doesn't seem to be particularly widespread, but if you've got a Pre Plus, how's it working for you? [PreCentral]

Game Boy Advance games, like Mario Kart Short Circuit, aren't quite running at full speed yet—about 60% of normal speed with sound or 90% without—but Game Boy and Game Boy Color games work just fine, and, as they say, emulators can't be choosers.

The VisualBoyAdvance for WebOS project only started two weeks ago, so hopefully updates and improvements will be quick to follow. As shown in the video, the emulator can already switch between portrait and landscape and supports custom skinning.

Check out the project's page on Pre Central for information on how to install. [Pre Central via Engadget]

The webapp mimics the functionality of hitting up Google Voice on your desktop. You can make calls, send texts, listen to voicemails, change your settings and access your contacts all from your phone's browser. It syncs up with your Google account's contact list—not your iPhone's contact list—so you'll have to make sure to sync your contacts to Google first. The Pre however, if you already have your GV account as one of your contacts, should have a more transparent process.

Unlike the Google Voice app now, which calls your phone first and then connects the other party, you actually dial out directly into the Google Voice service, which then hooks you up with who you're trying to reach. It's going to be like the 406 numbers that Google Voice users are used to using for shortcuts to their contacts, but possibly not 406, since Google has a pool of numbers they are using.

Google also tells us that you can add dialing credits directly from the phone if you want to make overseas calls, saving you the trouble of having to get on a computer.

All in all, the experience is solid and fluid, mimicking an iPhone app as best as possible on a web interface. If we had any gripes, it would be that when you're texting someone from your contacts list, it only grabs the phone number and doesn't display the name after it. Also, that you can't text multiple recipients. But calling from your contact list is fluid and takes only one more step than regular dialing from your iPhone.

It's not as good as a native app, but it's more than adequate. [Google Voice]

The prequel to the first Assassin's Creed is a couple of years old now, but still worth checking out as it's probably one of the biggest names to hit the Pre (apart from Doom and Quake, which aren't exactly official). I say Pre, and not webOS—sadly, the Pixi and Pixi Plus are too underpowered. Available now for $6.99. [PreCentral]

Anyway, I'm stuck on the third mission of GTA: Chinatown Wars on my iPhone, because I keep getting calls while I'm playing, which shuts down the game completely. So, my question is, is this Pre Plus making fun of me? Because it sure feels that way. [PreCentral]

Sure, there are minor hardware differences—most notably the doubling of the RAM and the storage space—but it essentially feels like the same phone.

What's changed in the hardware

The three most visible changes you'll notice are the removed front button, the matted inductive-charging-capable backplate and the slightly improved keyboard.

Palm realized with the Palm Pixi that a front button was unnecessary, since it broke up the smooth finish of the face, and replaced it with a touch-sensitive button instead. It's what the Pre should have been like in the first place. The new touch button works fine, and within a few minutes you'll barely even miss the hardware key like you would never miss a sixth toe you never had.

The keyboard has been upgraded as well, made much less mushy with more tactile feedback when you hit a key—another lesson Palm learned from the Pixi. You'll type faster and more accurately with these keys compared to the original Pre, even though they don't raise up any higher off the body and their layout remains unchanged.

The Touchstone-compatible inductive backing comes standard on the Pre Plus. Palm effectively lowered the cost of their inductive charger by $20—it's $70 on Sprint, which comes with the back, and $50 on Verizon, which doesn't—and makes the accessory all the easier to justify buying. Even if you don't go the wireless charging route, the matted, inductive finish makes the phone a lot classier and less prone to fingerprint smudging.

Everything else is the same

That same cheese-cutting bottom edge of the phone is still there, and the overall mold of the device is exactly what we saw with the first Pre. There's no change in camera, processor, graphical capability or screen. And, luckily for Pre owners, the software is identical, too.

Basically, if you didn't like the original Pre, you won't like the Pre Plus any more than before. But if you did like the Pre and didn't want to jump to Sprint, Palm's graciously brought it to you.

How does it compare to the original in performance?

Both phones took almost exactly two minutes to boot up, side by side. Flicking around, browsing websites, listening to music and answering emails—in any of these routine tasks, you'd never tell the two phones apart through blind testing. However, there is a slight difference when you start getting to heavy multitasking.

The increased RAM starts to be utilized when you open a LOT of apps—I'm talking about ten or more, something you normally wouldn't do unless you were really bored, really forgetful or really lazy about closing your apps. Once you have all these things open at once, you'll notice that the old Pre takes somewhere between 5 to 10 seconds longer to start up new applications than the Pre Plus. While this improvement may be handy for some, the fact that the discrepancy is only 5 to 10 seconds is a testament to how well the multitasking memory allocation worked in the original Pre. Once all these apps are open, there isn't much difference, but switching around is a bit faster.

Mobile Hotspot

While the Sprint Pre lacks tethering, Verizon's Palm Plus includes an excellent Mobile Hotspot app that's quite simple to use. It's essentially the same as other tethering apps out there: Fire up the app, set a hotspot password and switch on the tethering. Any Wi-Fi device (laptops, phones) will see the broadcasted network and be able to connect to it as you would any other hotspot.

And Verizon, although not the "fastest" 3G network, still gave pretty damn good speeds when I was testing this feature—and it's reliable to boot. The only downside is the pricing, which we'll cover later, but having a portable MiFi that's also your phone can be a lifesaver if you need to connect from the field.

So that's why Palm called this Plus

There isn't enough to call this an entirely new series of Palm phones, or even a Palm Pre 2. The Pre Plus improved on the Pre in a few important regards, don't get me wrong, but it's essentially the same phone we've seen for the last six months. You won't notice the increased memory unless you're a habitual window-opener, nor will you appreciate the keyboard unless you really had a problem with the previous one.

So yes, it's called the Palm Pre Plus for a reason. And it lets Verizon customers get in on the web OS action while staying on their preferred network—which is a good thing, and actually a decent move for Palm. Rather than try to suck more money off the same group of potential customers (Sprint users) with a phone that will be a bit better but not all that different, Palm went ahead and repackaged the same phone with slight modifications to a new sea of potential users.

I suspect that this strategy will grant Palm more return on their initial webOS/Palm Pre investment, justifying the production of an entirely new phone that catches up to both the Nexus One and the upcoming iPhone 4. For Palm's sake, it better.

Pricing

The Palm Pre Plus will be $150 with a two-year contract on Verizon, and the Pixi Plus will be $100. That's the same price as it is currently on Sprint—even though Sprint had some deals earlier to push their Pre down to the $100 range.

But, Verizon has a special deal where you can buy either a Pre Plus or a Pixi Plus and get one free Pixi Plus after mail-in rebate, if you want to switch your family over to all Palms.

Here's the bad. The 3G hotspot feature will be an extra $40 on top of your existing voice and data plans, and it won't be unlimited! Verizon will give you 5GB and charge 5 cents per MB that you go over. It's pricey, but nice to have in an emergency.

And here are the voice plans that go with. You'll be able to buy the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus—which we didn't review, because it's the same exact hardware with Mobile Hotspot added—January 25.

More RAM and storage means a slightly better experience, but you might not notice it

Keyboard is improved

Hotspot tethering app is somewhat unique, since it's officially sponsored by the provider

Still a fan of webOS as a smartphone platform, and it's still in good shape here

Still not as many apps as Android or iPhone yet

It's basically the same phone as the Palm Pre

Hotspot access is expensive

Background can be found here