I mentioned last week that Verizon was coming out with ads that are directly targeting the iPhone through both the “Droid” ads that feature Android based phones as well as the “there’s a map for that” commercials. Well, I suppose that Verizon definitely does not want to burn its bridges with Apple. Yesterday Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that he (and Verizon) are still interested in getting the iPhone.

He said, “This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court. Obviously we would be interested if they thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner.”

Next year, exclusivity between Apple’s iPhone and AT&T Wireless is supposed to be coming to a close. Apple does have the right to extend the exclusivity, but in my opinion, the company could make more with the device if it were on other networks. The only problem I see is that everyone will have an iPhone and other companies like Palm will be seriously harmed because customers who have not wanted to hop on the AT&T bandwagon won’t have to anymore to get the iPhone.

Then again, not everyone wants an iPhone.

It makes you wonder what the terms were in the first place for AT&T to get the exclusive rights to the iPhone. I know that Apple was interested in the carrier because unlike Verizon, it ran on GSM which makes it easy to produce one kind of phone for the whole world. There aren’t any carriers that run on the CDMA networks outside the United States and the only major companies that do here are Verizon and Sprint.

Only time will tell what will happen with the iPhone and other carriers. I would guess that it won’t move over to Sprint or Verizon until the companies have implemented their 4G coverage (which Sprint is working on quite vigorously).

The Palm PIxi is set to be the new WebOS device and, according to Palm, will be coming out before the holidays this year. The phone, pictured above, is the thinnest and smallest smartphone that Palm has ever come out with and is meant to be a replacement for those who enjoyed the Centro so much.

It will be running the new operating system, WebOS, and also will have a lot of features its big brother the Pre has. Unfortunately, it will also be lacking some of the features too. Instead of a 3.2 megapixel camera like the Pre, the Pixi is equipped with a 2 mp camera. It also lacks WiFi. However, if you have great coverage then the internet should zip no matter where you are. I do see this being a problem though with the large updates that webOS requires.

The Pixi will be available on Sprint. This is good news for the company, who at one time was ailing from poor phone selection. It always seemed like Sprint would be the last carrier to get the trailblazing phones, now they are the first, or at least one of the first. Later this month, the carrier plans to release it’s first Android device, the HTC Hero. The Hero is also known as the MyTouch3G on the T-Mobile network in the United States. However, it lacks the MyTouch3G’s “lip” and is a solid candybar style phone. Sprint is also the only carrier in the United States to be offering any Palm webOS devices. Sprint is also beginning to expand its 4G coverage area; now it is in Atlanta as well as Baltimore.

I always get a little too excited when a new phone like this is announced. I don’t think I’ll be waiting in line this time for the phone since I already have it’s big brother. I would love to try out the Hero, but I can’t afford both the Hero and the Pre at the same time.

This phone was rumored to be called the Eos also. I think that some men will have an aversion to buying a phone called the “Pixi” just for their own reasons so I don’t know why Palm would want to alienate those potential customers rather than just naming the phone something that everyone could agree with.

It’s been some time since I’ve written about the Pre or iPhone…almost 2 weeks? It looks like both of these devices have been seeing their fair share of issues.

First, the Palm Pre, being a first generation device, has done pretty good and Palm is sending updates to fix problems that are coming up. However, the phone does get hot and when it begins to heat up, a “cloud” appears at the bottom of the screen. In my opinion it is annoying and completely unappealing. For this reason, I’m returning my phone tomorrow (some of them have this problem, while others don’t).This is all my opinion and what I’ve read on forums across the internet, Palm has not addressed the issue to my knowledge.

Secondly, the iPhone 3Gs now has a serious overheating issue. If the user decides to use “resource intensive” programs in direct sunlight (according to Apple) then it “could” cause an overheating issue and the phone won’t work. In some cases the white phones’ backs turn brown. Apple has acknowledged this issue and is trying to work it out, but right now there are hundreds of thousands (likely) of iPhone 3Gs users out there with phones that my burn them.

People have been saying that they are experiences the overheating issue while the phone is charging. I have to say, my Pre gets ridiculously hot when I have it plugged in and am using intensive features, but except for the cloud at the bottom of the screen, I haven’t had the issues that the iPhone users are having. I would be really angry if my phone I just paid a couple hundred dollars for decided to turn a different color or be able to cook breakfast foods because of the heat coming off the phone.

I do suppose this isn’t an issue just for these two phones, my husband has a HTC Touch Pro that gets really hot. I don’t think it has any issues directly associated with the heat coming from the phone, but it does (at times) get too hot to hold up to your face to talk on. My LG Fusic (which was not a smartphone, it was a flip) also got too hot to hold up to my face at times, but that’s as far back as an “overheating” problem goes with my phones. None of my old Nokia phones or Motorola phones did.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference left a lot to be desired with the announcement of the iPhone 3G S. Where everyone was expecting something “revolutionary,” they were left with something that was simply “evolutionary.”

The newest addition to iPhone lineup, the 3G S is simply the iPhone 3G with a 3 megapixel camera, a faster processor, and the 3.0 software. Data speeds for the 3G S have been increased to 7.2Mbps HSDPA. Apple also finally added video recording abilities to the iPhone and at 30 frames per second, they’re pretty good. It will also have multimedia messaging.

One of my favorite features is the new fingerprint resistant coating on the phones…I have always been angry at the amount of fingerprints my phone accumulates over the course of 5 minutes. Right now my Pre is a smudge magnet.

The price points were nice announcements, with the 16 GB version running $199 and the 32 GB at $299. They will also keep selling the iPhone 3G (the 3.0 software can be downloaded for free for these phones) at $99. That’s for a non-refurbished phone. I believe that the price points were set to put some pressure on Palm after setting the price of the Pre at $199 after a $100 mail in rebate. The new iPhones will be on sale starting June 19th.

Another announcement regarding the iPhone is the new ability to tether the phone to a computer for data usage. While at first At&t wasn’t announced as one of the carriers to allow tethering, later the company issued a statement saying that it would allow tethering.

One thing that happened at the conference today that was a bit annoying was their depiction of the number of apps the Apple App store has versus other companies. Sure, Apple has over 50,000 apps in the store, why would they compare it to Palm, who JUST launched its App Catalog on Saturday. They gave palm 2 days and all Palm has to offer at the time the presentation was made was 18 apps. Well, while browsing my App Catalog yesterday afternoon, I can tell you that there were 25 apps as of Monday night.

Aside from the iPhone, Apple also announced new Mac Books with non-removable batteries. While this goes along with every other offering from the company like iPods and iPhones, this is a bad idea in my opinion. It never takes long for a laptop to start losing overall battery life and everyone already knows how expensive it is to send an iPod to Apple for new batteries…imagine how much it will cost for a battery for a laptop! Plus, you will be without your laptop for however long it takes to get back to you.

After Palm first introduced us to the Pre at CES in January, I was immediately interested in it and have been waiting for it to come out ever since. As a Sprint user, there has never been many phones that I would call “revolutionary” on their network, until now.

Palm, who many people had written off, introduced the new device and it’s very capable WebOS operating system at CES and it has been creating some buzz among the gadget geek community ever since.

Finally, the phone was released on June 6th, and I managed to pick one up.

My initial thoughts on the phone are that it is pretty in its design. It is very smooth, but I haven’t had any issues with dropping it or it being slippery. The slide out keyboard is small to some, but I’m coming from a Centro and the keyboard on the Pre is much better than what I have become accustomed to. Overall the phone feels very solid and the slide out mechanism is built very well.

The operating system is great, however, there are some things that make it obvious that this is a “1.0″ device and in the next few months there will be over the air updates and many more apps that will hopefully make the phone exceed expectations. I think that, while the phone is very good, it was not ready for “primetime.” It was released without the software development kit in the hands of many people and as a result the “App Catalog” only has 18 apps in it as of today. The apps include Soduku, Accuweather, Tweed (a Twitter application), and Pandora. While they all work wonderfully, there are so few of them.

While it may not matter to some, the 3.2 megapixel camera on the Pre is amazing compared to other camera phones I have had. The quality is excellent for a camera phone, even in poor lighting it is still ok, not excellent, just ok. There isn’t a video recording program for it yet, but Palm has said that it will have one out very soon.

On to the actual touch function! The touch sensitivity is very good. In my opinion it is on par with the iPhone. The gesture controls are extremely fluid and I haven’t had any troubles with zooming in and out of web pages or pictures. The accelerometer in the phone also changes the screen from portrait to landscape mode very quickly.

Of all the things that are great about this phone, I only have a couple of complaints:
The “cloud” that sometimes appears at the bottom of the screen can be annoying. Some are saying that it is from the phone getting hot. I just think that it needs to be fixed. This is by far my biggest complaint about this phone.

While this is actually a problem with Sprint and not Palm, not having a roaming only option doesn’t make me happy because my Sprint coverage isn’t wonderful at home.

You can’t change the message alerts as of right now…Meaning the sound that your phone makes when you get at text message can’t be changed.

Some are calling it the Centro 2 and some are calling it the “mini-Pre.”

It is set to debut in the fall of this year, according to Engadget anyway.

In my opinion Palm should be more focused on the Pre and getting that phone out and publicized. The rumors are floating around that the phone will be coming out on May 17th on Sprint, coinciding with the season finale of Survivor.

Again, Palm’s success is riding on WebOS and the phones associated with the operating system.

How can Sprint and the Palm Pre compete with AT&T and the iPhone?

Question:

With Sprint coming out with the Palm Pre in just a month or two, what does it need to be able to do to directly compete with the iPhone?

Answer:

In my opinion the Palm Pre will be Palm’s saving grace. The Centro has enjoyed some very positive publicity for the company, who could really use some good publicity right now. Sprint also needs the phone to do well and is hyping it up to be the greatest phone to ever come to the carrier.

The phone itself needs to be able to do everything the iPhone can do and more. It HAS to be fluid in gestures, meaning no lagging between applications. It has to be reliable and be generally easy to use.

This phone is positioned to be the make or break phone for Palm. Hopefully, everything will go right for Palm and Sprint and this phone will be the huge success they are hoping for.

So after a stroll in the park with Mr. Hesse, Sprint has decided to end that campaign and start a new one.

Hesse said that he was trying to “humanize” the Sprint name after it was tarnished “by the Nextel merger.” IMO, Sprint’s name was not tarnished by the Nextel merger rather than poor customer service and inaccurate billing. (There have been several people tell me that they switched to a different carrier from Sprint just because not once in their 2 year contract was the bill right)

My guess is that the new ads will feature Sprint’s new phone lineup, namely the Palm Pre?

Today Sprint posted a loss of 1.3 million customers in the 4th quarter, but because the loss wasn’t as bad as some thought it was going to be, the stock price actually rose today (by 19%).

Hopefully Sprint can get it together when the Palm Pre comes out. That is looking like one of the devices that could greatly benefit the company. What’s even better for Sprint is that the phone is exclusive to it until at least the end of 2009. At the same time, I’m sure that Palm has more devices in the works to push to other carriers.

I think it’s funny that you only ever hear bad news about Sprint. I think it’s because it used to be the best, now it’s 3rd. While T-Mobile can’t get enough to beat Sprint in numbers, it still isn’t “picked on” as much as Sprint is…

“Apple and Palm Battle Heating Up?”

Who would have thought that Palm, the maker of outdated handsets could have pulled off creating such a buzz for its new device. I know I write about it a lot, but you have to remember I currently own a Palm phone…

Palm was on the brink of collapse last year and have really poised itself for a comeback.

Apple is now making accusations (though not to Palm directly) about patents it has obtained for “touchscreen devices.” Palm’s response was “we have patents too.”

Source

Is it the actual BlackBerry that is so amazing or is it any all-in-one device, like Android and Windows Mobile phones?

I have played around with BlackBerries in the past and don’t see what makes people so addicted to them. I can’t think of one feature that it had that I can’t get on any other PDA. I mean, I don’t have to pay the extra service fee for having a Palm, and my email is not only sent to my phone but it buzzes when I get a new message. Not to mention the hundereds of applications I can put on it to organize my day a little easier.

If you’re a BlackBerry user, let me know. I’m actually curious.

Well, Asus looked like the early winner with the touch screen netbook, but then Palm came out punching. Palm had the Pre and took center stage. The device was unlike anything anyone was expecting from them. After all, this is a cell phone company many had already written off as dated and ready to be “put out to pasture.” Palm showed that it wasn’t ready to go down without a fight. The Pre will likely be compared to the iPhone, but the Pre has all the newest technology in it (after all the 3G iphone is nothing but the regular iPhone that was made in 2007 with a faster internet connection).

I’m just sad that CES is over, it is my favorite trade show of the year and I would absolutely love to work a trade show like that.

The phone will be offered on Sprint at first, but a GSM model will be coming out in the future.

This is from the Sprint website:

So my mind has been changed as far as the iphone goes…I’m sure it has something to do with the application that lets you shake the phone to pick a restaurant.

However, today Verizon announced that it will be releasing the BlackBerry Storm on November 21st.

The BlackBerry Storm is the first touchscreen BlackBerry available. It will be available on Verizon on 2 year contract for about $200, then the monthly fee.

My Palm Centro cost about $150 on contract and $35 a month It has a touchscreen…and a keyboard. However, I can’t shake it to find a restaurant at random…

I will say that the touchscreeen BlackBerry is very interesting, but I will stick with my Palm for awhile until something new, and VERY innovative comes out.

I only know one person who still has a RAZR. I was recently put in a group for a management project, out of 6 people, I was the only one without an iPhone (I have Sprint, and a Palm Centro). I have thought that the RAZR has been sliding down the popularity list for a couple of years now…I’m really interested in new cell phones, though, so maybe I think some headsets should be more popular than they are…Touch Pro…

So what makes the 3G iPhone so different than the first? From what I hear it’s the faster internet. I don’t know how much different the internet speeds are. Since I’ve been on the internet with my cell phone, I’ve always had high speed wireless internet (Thanks Sprint Ev-Do). If you look at AT&T Wireless’s website, 3g really looks fast, because it has flames surrounding the icon.

Congratulations Apple….you really make a popular product. Is it the best phone in the U.S.? Probably not… Is it one of the best selling phones in the U.S.? Definitely. Did it make your shares rise 3.1% today? Well, quite possibly. However, I will take my Centro over this iPhone. My Centro has all the features in a phone I could want…Touchscreen WITH a keyboard. It’s really nice actually. It also plays music and has the internet (along with Palm’s (outdated but very reliable) OS.

In other phone news, Sprint released the Treo 800w on Friday. It, like my Centro, has a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard. It also sports Wi-Fi and Windows Mobile 6.1. However, it does not come in electric blue or pink, so I will be sticking with my Centro.