Our sister site PreCentral.net has been covering all thing Palm Pre lately, and I bet you've almost caught up on all that good stuff. Well, if you haven't had a chance to catch all the iPhone 3G S news and all the other stuff from the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2009, now's your chance.

That's right, our sister site The iPhone Blog, has got all the WWDC news covered in full in this great WWDC 2009 roundup:

• TiPb WWDC 2009 Live Meta Blog
• Apple Posts WWDC 2009 Keynote Live Stream
• Apple Announces iPhone 3G S - Ships June 19
• Apple Posts iPhone 3G S Guided Tour
• iPhone 3.0 Release Date: June 17
• 2008 iPhone 3G Now Priced to Move! $99 Starting Today!
• iPhone 3G S - What We Didn't Get
• AT&T - MMS Later. Tethering... Um... Er... Bai!
• AT&T Responds: iPhone 3.0 MMS and Tethering
• Rogers/Fido to Sell iPhone 3G S in Canada, $199/$299 on June 19
• iPhone 3G S - Apple Delivers Mobile Video to the Masses
• Apple Demonstrates Voice Control for iPhone 3G S
• iPhone 3G S - 2x Faster, but Still no 802.11n
• MobileMe Update Coming June 17: Find my iPhone, Remote Wipe, iDisk Mobile, File Sharing, Public Folders
• Apple Releases iPhone 3.0 Gold Master to Developers WARNING!

Head on over to TiPb and read up on all the iPhone sweetness! ;-)

I read over at MobileSyrup that lots of new smartphones are headed to Saskatchewan in Canada via SaskTel, the leading full service communications provider there.

Seems that SaskTel has officially put "Coming soon" on their website for the Palm Centro and Palm Treo Pro, along with the BlackBerry Pearl and the Samsung Omnia.

No word on the prices or actual dates yet.

Palm announced today that the Treo Pro is now available on the Telecom New Zealand XT Mobile Network.

The Treo Pro is aimed at business users and lets IT managers support an increasingly mobile work force with the ease of use and robust feature set. Running on Windows Mobile 6.1, the Treo Pro allows for easier device management and access to information on the corporate network. Plus, there are benefits of lower costs and increased productivity.

Treo Pro helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, including:

• One-touch Wi-Fi button -- Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).
• Today screen enhancements -- Web search directly from the Today screen.
• Ringer switch -- Silences the device immediately.
• Screen saver -- Lets users know at a glance -- without turning on the device -- what time it is and whether they have missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.
• New voicemail indicator -- The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.
• Dedicated email and calendar buttons -- Fast one-button access.

You can read the full press release here. And more information about the Treo Pro is available at www.palm.com/TreoPro.

Fictionwise, my favorite eBook haven, is going to be turning 9. They're in the midst of an anniversary sale, so if you're in the reading mood, now would be a great time to browse through their eBooks.

"Fictionwise is turning 9 -- Celebrate with us and save 30% to 50% on EVERY eBook, with Micropay Rebates and discounts throughout the store. Hurry and Save because before you know it, we'll be 10!"

Head on over to Fictionwise and take part in their anniversary sale and save some money.

We reported earlier this week that iambic had released an updated version of their Agendus for Palm OS. Today, iambic has announced that Agendus for Windows Mobile version 3.4 is now available.

Agendus enhances, integrates, and extends the built-in Windows Mobile PIM applications (Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks) allowing users to get things done quickly and efficiently when on the go, on their touchscreen and non-touchscreen Windows Mobile phones.

Built from the ground up with the inter-relatedness of the various functions in mind, Agendus includes many indispensable features such as numerous views, advanced contact searching, contact history tracking, address mapping and directions integration, weather forecasts, stock quotes, and much more.

New in Version 3.4:

• Month View Clocks: Corrected the inability to see the numerical portion of a date when an event (clock) was present.
• Tasks: Addressed alarm dates on repeating tasks not adjusting along with the regenerated task upon marking complete.
• PowerSearch 411: Restored the "City" field which was inadvertently removed in the previous update.
• Meetings: Corrected changing a "Timed" meeting to a "No Time" meeting remaining "Timed" after saving.
• Resoved a stability issue when attempting to create a new Call if using Pocket Outlook edit dialogs.

You can get Agendus for Windows Mobile (Standard Edition - $19.95) here and the $24.95 Professional Edition here. Of course you can always download the Free trial and give it a test run first to see how you like it.

iambic announced earlier this week that their Agendus for Palm OS is up to version 13.06. Agendus for Palm OS enhances, integrates, and extends the built-in PIM applications (Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Memos) allowing users to get things done quickly and efficiently when on the go. Additionally, Agendus is optimized for one handed usage on d-pad equipped phones such as the palm os based Treo and Centro devices.

Built from the ground up with the inter-relatedness of the various functions in mind, Agendus includes many indispensable features such as numerous views, advanced contact searching, contact history tracking, address mapping and directions integration, weather forecasts, stock quotes, and much more.

New in Version 13.06:

• Calendar Views: Resolved a corrupted date display in some instances on meetings in which the start and end times were the same (no duration)
• Split View: Addressed some Tasks not showing in many instances with particular preference settings applied, despite they show in other views
• Split View: Addressed a mis-timing issue when using drag 'n drop to reschedule a meeting which previously spanned midnight to a time frame which did not
• Split View: Corrected auto-applying of Effects as defined in Meeting
preferences for after Completion/Cancellation not showing in this view when the status was changed via the edit dialog vs. the tap/hold context menu
• List View Standard: Resolved an "Out of Memory" error appearing when attempting to define a Custom Date filter in which the beginning and ending dates were the same
• Task View: Corrected the inability to scroll properly when this view was Grouped by "Due Date"
• Task View: Corrected selecting a "Custom Date" while already filtered by a Custom Date reseting the filter view to "All"
• Prefs > Tasks > Show: 'Show Only Dated Items' is now disabled by default, upon fresh install, follow a number of customer requests

You can get Agendus for Palm OS in the Standard Edition for $29.95, Professional Edition for $39.95, and the Premier Edition for $59.95.

Our sister site TiPb is going to be celebrating their one year anniversary on May 11, and they're having a Birthday Bash!

Starting today (May 7th), TiPb will be having daily give-aways including iPhone accessories, promo codes for some of their favorite apps, iTunes gift cards, and... their biggest grand-prize so far:

• A factory unlocked 8GB iPhone 3G in your choice of 35 different color options courtesy of the awesome folks at ColorWare.

Sounds good, huh? Want to enter? Simply enter the daily give-aways, and each time you enter one of the give-away contests, you'll automatically be entered to win the grand-prize.

If you haven't joined the TiPb iPhone Forums, you'll need to Register because the contests are going to take place in the forums.

Now head on over to TiPb and read about the contest details! Good luck! ;-)

And Congratulations to our sister site TiPb for turning One Year Old!!

SnapperMail has recently been updated to version 3.0. I've never used SnapperMail but have always heard positive things about it. SnapperMail works like your desktop email app and can receive and open attachments when paired with software such as Documents to Go. SnapperMail's main features are:

1. Native Attachments
2. Robust User Friendly Interface
3. Manual/Auto Delivery
4. IMAP 4 Accounts
5. Ghost Messages
6. Unlimited Folders, Accounts, and Mail Storage
7. Smartphone Navigation

The feature selection for SnapperMail version 3.0 has focused on improving the speed of viewing information, finding information, and navigating information.

Version 3.0 adds Four Main Features:

1. Online server mailbox search (Enterprise Edition only)
2. Message list filter
3. Small font in message list
4. Faster navigation

There have also been many bug fixes and smaller improvements included in version 3.0

SnapperMail version 3.0 is a major version upgrade so there is a fee to upgrade. This is the second upgrade fee charged in the lifetime of SnapperMail.

Head over to snappermail.com/trial to try version 3.0 of SnapperMail, and go to snappermail.com/store/upgrade to upgrade your version of SnapperMail. There is a link on the sign-in form if you have forgotten your sign in details.

We reported a couple of weeks ago that the Palm Treo Pro became available at TELUS in Canada. Just back in February, the Treo Pro was made available in Brazil on the Claro Network.

The Treo Pro continues to move around the globe, and Palm announced today that the Treo Pro is now available in Mexico through Movistar, Telefonica Mexico's local carrier brand. Palm's press release says that "since the company's arrival to Mexico, Movistar has earned the reputation for offering the best communications solutions for pre-paid, contract and corporate customers. Currently Telefonica Mexico has more than 15.3 million customers in Mexico."

The Treo Pro, running on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, including:

• One-touch Wi-Fi button -- Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).
• Today screen enhancements -- Web search directly from the Today screen.
• Ringer switch -- Silences the device immediately.
• Screen saver -- Lets users know at a glance -- without turning on the device -- what time it is and whether they have missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.
• New voicemail indicator -- The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.
• Dedicated email and calendar buttons -- Fast one-button access.

More information about the Treo Pro smartphone is available at www.palm.com/TreoPro.

I read over at MobileCrunch that Americans really love to send text messages. I knew that there was lots of texting going on here, but was surprised to learn just how "much"!

I text but not all that much really. I probably average about 15-20 per day. I do admit to texting in one vote for Danny Gokey on "American Idol" recently. I love that guy! One of my nieces was texting her friends up to 10,000 messages a month recently! I'm sure there are people who text much more than that. I know people who text so much that they don't even have to look at their keyboard while texting.

The majority of people I see texting are teenagers. I've seen some that I know personally standing together in a group texting, and they were all textintg someone different instead of each other.

All that texting is fine and dandy, but not when some of those texts are being sent while driving. I know of someone (I won't mention their name) who was texting me last week. I was here at home texting back and forth with the person and I assumed that he was sitting at a drive through window or in a parking lot. But I continued to receive the texts even as the car was pulling into the driveway. Shame, shame, shame! You know who you are, and you'd better stop that! ;-)

Head on over to the press release and read the other survey findings.

Annie reported last week that TELUS was slated to begin selling the Treo Pro soon.

Palm announced today that the Treo Pro is now available at TELUS in Canada.

Treo Pro offers TELUS clients simplicity and productivity - including TELUS mobile email, TELUS Navigator, Wi-Fi, web and 3G network capabilities - to meet the needs of businesses and consumers alike. Treo Pro's thin design blends style and functionality with an LCD touch screen, one-touch buttons and a full QWERTY keyboard.

The 3G-capable Treo Pro smartphone from TELUS helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the Windows Mobile platform, including:

• Full QWERTY keyboard
• High-resolution color LCD touch screen
• Dedicated email and calendar buttons for fast one-button access
• Ringer switch, which silences the device immediately
• One-touch Wi-Fi button for an easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g)
• Screen saver, which lets users know at a glance - without turning on the device - what time it is and whether they have missed a call or have a new SMS message
• New voicemail indicator which flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting
• TELUS Navigator, for audible turn-by-turn navigation
• TELUS Visual Voice Mail

The Treo Pro is available on TELUS for as low as $149.99 (with qualifying 3-year service plan).

You can read more about Treo Pro being avalable at TELUS in Canada at www.palm.com/ca or www.telus.com.

PhatWare Corporation today announced the release of PhatNotes 5.4, the new update of the company's award-winning notes organizer software for Microsoft Windows-based desktoop computers and Windows Mobile smartphones. PhatNotes 5.4 is available in two editions: PhatNotes and PhatNotes for Outlook.

PhatNotes is one of the most popular Pocket PC and Smartphone notetaking apps on the market. It allows users to create notes and organize them by type, subject, creation, and modification date. PhatNotes also provides powerful text search with regular expression support, document security and email capabilities.

Version 5.4 now features the ability to send SMS from within the application when used on a smartphone. Plus PhatNotes now allows users to either dial a telephone number embedded in a note or send a SMS to it. And the software also enables users to send a selected portion of a note via SMS.

PhatNotes 5.4 is available now at the list price of $39.95, while PhatNotes for Outlook 5.4 is priced at $19.95. Free 30-day trial versions of PhatNotes and PhatNotes for Outlook can be downloaded from the PhatWare web site at www.phatware.com/phatnotes. Existing users of the corresponding editions of PhatNotes 5.x can upgrade to the latest version free of charge.

Sounds like a great notetaking app for our WM Treo smartphones!

Palm, Inc. announced yesterday that Treo Pro by Palm is now available in Brazil on the Vivo network.

Treo Pro is an easy-to-use smartphone for businesses that want to simplify their IT infrastructures and lower costs, and for users who want to stay on top of their professional and personal lives. With its streamlined design and Palm? innovations layered on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Treo Pro is a unique combination of sleek simplicity and robust productivity -- including email, Wi-Fi and GPS(1) capabilities -- that meets the needs of businesses and end users alike.

The Treo Pro smartphone, based on the popular Windows Mobile platform, helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, including:

• One-touch Wi-Fi button -- Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).
• Ringer switch -- Silences the device immediately.
• Screen saver -- Lets users know at a glance -- without turning on the device -- what time it is and whether they have missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.
• New voicemail indicator -- The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.
• Dedicated email and calendar buttons -- Fast one-button access.

Good to see the Treo Pro making its way around the globe. You can read more about the Treo Pro here.

Alltel beat Sprint to the finish line, but we learned on March 4th that the Sprint Treo Pro was confirmed for March 15th. And as of yesterday, the 15th, the Sprint Treo Pro is finally on sale. Good to know you can finally get the Treo Pro from Sprint after the delays. A few people were able to grab a Treo Pro from Best Buy last month before the devices were sent back due to some problems. Malatesta over at our sister site WMExperts got a hold of one and posted up a review.

Dieter gave us a great unboxing and hands-on video recently so be sure to check that out! Plus he answered your Sprint Treo Pro questions from the forums.

So, rejoice and get your Sprint Treo Pro here for $199.99 after contract and rebates.

Wow, TealPoint Software is really working hard on their Beta version of TealOS, their multifuctional application launcher that gives your Palm OS device the look of WebOS on the new Palm Pre.

We reported on Beta version 1.14 being available on March 5th, and it looks like TealPoint Software has been updating the Beta everyday since. The Beta for TealOS is now up to version 1.27.

Changes in version 1.27:

• Added support for customizing quick launch bar icons
• Added support for customizing wave launcher icons
• Added ability to preview background jpeg before loading
• Added automatic filtering out of launcher-x launcher stubs
• Added bouncing anim when trying to discard locked cards with 5-way
• Added tip suggesting forcing full scan after effects change
• Improved quick launch bar preferences to preview icon images
• Improved wave preferences to preview icon images
• Fixed icon duplication after installing new apps
• Fixed icon process to allow background circle even if desaturate and edge options disabled
• Fixed loading jpeg menu from bringing up icon screen

Those are just the changes that were made yesterday! There are a crapload of other changes that you can see here that were added since version 1.14.

I'm glad to see TealPoint working so hard on this app! If you'd like to download the latest pre-release, beta version, 1.27, go here.

And if you want to download the stable, for sale version 1.06, you can do so here. TealOS for Palm OS costs $14.95. If you're longing for the Pre and want a little taste of that cool WebOS, why not give TealOS a whirl?

And don't forget to read Andre's TealOS review.

I just read over at Palm Infocenter that Barnes & Noble has announced today that it has acquired Fictionwise, a leader in the eBook marketplace, for $15.7 million in cash.

Barnes & Noble plans to use Fictionwise as part of its overall digital strategy, including the launch of an e-Bookstore later this year.

Fictionwise founders Steve and Scott Pendergrast will continue to operate the e-book marketplace as a separate business unit within Barnes & Noble.

There is a FAQ section on the Fictionwise website regarding the Barnes & Noble acquisition. As to the question, "Why was Fictionwise sold at this time?", the answer is:With the eBook market expanding rapidly, Steve and Scott were looking for the right partner with a shared vision on the future of the industry. Barnes & Noble was an excellent match and Steve and Scott look forward to working with them during this exciting time for eBooks.

Another question was, "How will Barnes & Noble's acquisition of Fictionwise, Inc. affect the Fictionwise.com and eReader.com websites?"

The Answer:

The acquisition is very good news for eBook customers at both websites. Customers can expect to see more eBook content than ever before. It also means that additional resources will be available to improve the websites and continue the expansion of the eReader format onto more platforms.

Fictionwise is my favorite eBook website, and I'm excited to learn that we can expect more eBook content than ever and the expansion of the eReader format onto more platforms. I may have just bought a Kindle 2 and also put the Kindle App for iPhone on my iPhone 3G, but that won't stop me from reading eBooks on my Palm smartphones. I love reading eBooks on my Treo's and my Centro and have found many great eBooks at Fictionwise over the years. Plus many great bargains!

Congrats to Steve and Scott and to Barnes & Noble also!

Jason over at our sister site PreCentral.net reported on the photos circulating of what appeared to be a Centro running on WebOS. Annie let us know that what we were actually seeing was a new app by TealPoint Software called TealOS. Then Andre wrote up a review of the app after downloading it to his Centro. Andre wrote:

..A few days after seeing Palm's webOS debut at CES (yes, after, not before), the TealPoint devs rolled up their sleeves and set out to recreate the webOS experience on the well-aged Palm OS.

The result, TealOS, emulates much of the basic eye candy and user interaction found on the Palm Pre: swipe gestures, card representations of multiple applications, updated icons, and a "wave launcher" callable from within almost any application. But while TealOS mimicks the Pre, there's no true multitasking, no Synergy, no universal search, and of course, none of that lovely hardware we're all dying to get our hands on...

Andre was impressed with TealOS, but concluded:

I'm too used to my hardware button settings to replace my default navigation with TealOS, and I'm too close to replacing my Centro to register this app, but I was very impressed nonetheless. If nothing else, it gives you a way to test drive some of the Pre user experience. But while I wouldn't avoid getting the Pre for the lack of a D-pad, the ability to navigate TealOS with the D-pad is a clear advantage over the "real thing."

Be sure to read his full review.

I just read over at PalmAddicts that there is a new beta of TealOS.

Read on for the full article

Phil over at our sister site WMExperts has let us know that the Alltel Treo Pro has gone on sale a day before expected. So Alltel beat Sprint out of the gate for having the first CDMA Treo Pro for sale in the United States. As we heard earlier today, Sprint's Treo Pro is confirmed for March 15th.

The Alltel Treo Pro retails for $519.99, but you can get it for $199.99 after an online discount of $195 and and a mail-in rebate of $125, and other contract stuff.

I couldn't find the Treo Pro on an Alltel site for my zip code but finally found it for a Charlotte zip code. Yep, I reckon I live out in the boondocks y'all. I noticed that Alltel is offering a Free Bluetooth headset if you order online.

Well, we finally know for sure when the Sprint Treo Pro is coming; March 15th!

Palm, Inc. and Sprint today announced the upcoming availability of the Treo Pro smartphone for the Sprint Mobile Broadband Network on March 15th.

Treo Pro will be available through all Sprint retail channels, including www.sprint.com/treopro, 1-800-SPRINT1 and Sprint retail stores, for $199.99 with a two-year subscriber agreement (after a $100 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate, with an Everything plan with data or a $30 per month or higher data add-on). It also will be available through the Palm Store www.palm.com/store and Palm's B2B sales organization beginning March 16.

Don't forget you can read Malatesta's world's only hands-on over at our sister site WMExperts.

Note: Click on pic to enlarge.

Looks like Sprint has a new way of getting some new customers that will also make their current customers happy. Sprint is now offering a plan that pays $125 for each referral. This is a limited offer that's valid until 3/31/09.

So if you refer a friend to Sprint before the end of this month, you and your friend will receive a Sprint Referral Reward Visa debit card. After your friend's account has been active for 30 days, you'll receive a $100 card and your friend will get a $25 card.

You're limited to 12 referrals over the course of a year, and of course you can't refer yourself.

To refer someone, go to Sprint's web site and send an email from this link. If your friend buys a new Sprint phone, he or she is to call #REF (#733) within 15 days or by 3/31/09. Sprint will ask your friend for your Sprint number so you can get credit for his or her new account.

Think of all the new customers Sprint would be getting and all the gift cards given out if the Palm Pre were to be released this month!

via PhoneArena

Sprint customers are still waiting for a CDMA Treo Pro to be released. Looks like Alltel could be releasing one as soon as March 5th, this Thursday, according to WMExperts via BGR.

Apparently, BGR got word on this little secret, and the news is spreading. After a $125 rebate, Alltel subscribers can get the Treo Pro for $199 on a 2-year contract.

According to BGR, "this might just be for divested customers only".

MobileSyrup mentioned Thursday that the CDMA Treo Pro was listed for sale on Bell's website.

Looks like Bell finally made the release official on Friday. Below are the price plans available for the lucky Canadians:

• 3-year: $99.95 (until March 31st)
• 2-year: $399.95
• 1-year: $499.95
• 30-Day/Prepaid: $549.95

Of course you'll need a minimum monthly Voice and Data plan of $45.

So it looks like Canada got the CDMA Treo Pro while we're still waiting. As you know, the Treo Pro on Sprint has had RAM problems, and the Treo Pro's that were previously available at Best Buy were sent back to have those problems fixed.

One of our forum members posted that he found out from a Sprint internal source that the Treo Pro should launch on 3/15. Let's hope that really does happen.

If you're a WM Treo owner and you use Winterface, you'll be interested to know that VITO Technology has just released version 1.3.

If you're not familiar with Winterface, it's a Mobile Shell comprising the options of a launcher, task manager, and a multitude of Today plug-ins. Winterface virtually replaces the default interface of touch screen Windows Mobile devices, giving the user unprecedented freedom to easily lay out the interface exactly the way they like it.

In version 1.3, you can choose either the black skin with white stylish icons or the bright skin with colorful icons and 3d images. An option making Winterface even more attractive is the ability to switch on or off Full screen mode. This mode allows you to either show or hide the standard topo WM bar that shows the essential information like start button, time, profile, mobile operator, etc.

Also new in version 1.3 is the ability to to add URL favorites to the main screen, not only from the IE browser but also from Opera Mobile.

Plus VITO Technology fixed all the bugs connected with SMS notifications and the Weather icon.

You can get Winterface here for $19.95.

Yahoo! announced recently at MWC the upcoming launch of its new Yahoo! Mobile service, which is a highly-personalized mobile starting point to the Internet.

Yahoo! Mobile will be available on the mobile Web, as an app developed for smartphones powered by Windows Mobile as well as for the Apple's iPhone, smartphones from Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Motorola.

Yahoo! Mobile is available now through a managed beta program, but with general availability expected in Q2 2009.

From the press release:

"We believe the new Yahoo! Mobile will transform the way millions of mobile users around the world will interact with the Internet," said Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Yahoo! Inc. "Yahoo! Mobile will enable users to create their own Internet starting point on their mobile device so they can better discover, connect to and stay informed about the people and things that are important to them."

Read on for the full article

Dieter mentioned in a PreCentral article that the Treo Pro would be launching on the Bell Canada network on February 26th.

According to MobileSyrup, the Treo Pro might be available through Bell on February 27th now. And for as low as $99.95*.

The Treo Pro's pricing on Bell looks to be:

• 3-year: $99.95
• 2-year: $149.95
• 1-year: $249.95
• 30-Day/Prepaid: $549.95

*Note: You'll need to have a minimum monthly Voice and Data plan of $45.

So now we've heard that both the Palm Pre and the Palm Treo Pro will be coming out on Bell Canada. I'd love to see both smartphones released in February but the Pre is said to launch in late Q2 or early Q3.

Thanks for the tip Jason!

With our editor-in-chief, Dieter Bohn off in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, the inmates site editors are left running Around SPE this week. So, while he'll be breaking news and giving us some hands-on observations on all the new software and hardware on display, we'll be keeping you covered here at home, starting with a quick recap of where we are right now:

CrackBerry.com

More after the break!

Just a reminder that our newest sister site Nokia Experts is having a great launch contest. The contest to win a Nokia N85 or E71 goes through the end of February.

The contest is already in Week 3. This week's contest ends Sunday, February 15th at midnight Pacific Standard Time, so hurry and get your entries in! If you're reading this, I know you're a gadget freak, and I know that you'd love to get your hands on a free gadget. So why not enter?

This week you need to answer 3 questions in order to enter the contest. Head on over to Nokia Experts for the full contest rules.

Even if you don't care about winning a sweet Nokia smartphone, and you know that you do want to win one, head over to Nokia Experts and read all the great articles and reviews!

Update: Malatesta reports over at WMExperts that "some Sprint stores are getting re-stocked as we speak with new Treo Pros with the new ROM on board, so keep an eye out for those."

Mal also goes into more detail about the low amount of RAM, so be sure to head over there and read what he says.

Well, we've certainly reported many times lately about the delay of the Sprint Treo Pro. Most recently, we told you that Sprint has now targeted March 15th for the release of the Treo Pro.Today Brighthand is saying that the reason for the delay is now known. Seems there's a serious bug in the system software:

According to engineers at HTC -- the company that developed the Treo Pro in cooperation with Palm -- they are hard at work trying to fix a problem that results in this device having only about 40 MB of free memory when no applications are running. This model has 256 MB of RAM, so it should have far more available memory.

So, we'll see if the Treo Pro gets those kinks worked out and actually does see a March 15th release. I've got my fingers crossed.

Well, looks like the Palm Treo Pro has headed over to Brazil on the Claro Network. Palm announced the availability today and said that the Treo Pro is an easy-to-use smartphone for businesses that want to simplify their IT infrastructures and lower costs, and for users who want to stay on top of their professional and personal lives.

Yep, the TReo Pro empowers Mobile Work Teams with Windows Mobile 6.1 and Palm's ease-of-use innovations that we've all come to love and appreciate.

The Treo Pro, based on the Windows Mobile platform, helps optimize business processes by effortlessly mobilizing users with enhancements to the WM 6.1 platform, including:

• One-touch Wi-Fi button -- Easy, fast Wi-Fi connection experience (802.11b/g).
• Ringer switch -- Silences the device immediately.
• Screen saver -- Lets users know at a glance -- without turning on the device -- what time it is and whether they have missed a call or have a new SMS/MMS message.
• New voicemail indicator -- The center button flashes to let users know that a voicemail is waiting.
• Dedicated email and calendar buttons -- Fast one-button access

Read the full press release here.

Spb Software today announced that they have worked closely with Microsoft and Netflix to develop the first official Netflix application for Windows phones.

Mobile Manager for Netflix Features:

• Seamlessly interfaces with the Netflix web service
• Allows searching the entrie Netflix library
• Viewing the movie details
• Managing the DVD queue
• Adding movies to Instant Queue directly from Windows Mobile phones

And the unique exclusive feature of Mobile Manager for Netflix is the ability to play trailers of movies, directly on your phone.

The Mobile Manager for Netflix was developed in cooperation between Microsoft, Netflix, and Spb Software. If you've used Spb's apps like Spb Wallet, Spb Online, etc., you should be familiar with The Mobile Manager's interface because it's built on the Spb Mobile Shell UI engine. This UI engine allows optimizing the efficiency of the user interface and speed of service navigation. Plus it streamlines the Netflix mobile user experience, allowing subscribers to preview movie trailers on the go, add selected items to the DVD queue, or the Instant Queue - to instantly watch movies on TV screens using Microsoft's Xbox 360.

This sounds pretty cool. I have a Netflix account and I love being able to watch movies on my laptop instantly. I think I'll download the Mobile Manager for Netflix on my Treo Pro and give it a whirl. It'll be neat to be able to manage my DVD queue and adding movies straight from my Treo Pro. And watching movie trailers will be fun too!If you want to check out the Mobile Manger for Netflix on your WM Treo, download it here.

Yep, here we go again. Another change of plans in the release date of the CDMA Treo Pro on Sprint. We reported yesterday that the Sprint Treo Pro's release date was changed from February 15th to TBA.

Today WMExperts tells us via BGR that Sprint has now targeted March 15th for the release of the Treo Pro. Goodness knows what's causing all these delays, but BGR's ninjas are apparently reporting that the Treo Pro didn't pass Sprint's standard testing process.

I feel for those Sprint customers who are anxiously awaiting the actual release of the Treo Pro. This delay stuff has to be getting pretty tiresome. I'm sure that those wanting a Sprint Treo Pro would rather wait for a stable device though instead of getting stuck with a buggy one.

Let's hope that March 15th will be the real deal this time. It's only a target date for now, so don't hold your breath.

Annie Latham has posted over at our sister site PreCentral.net that Palm's CEO Ed Colligan will be presenting at the Thomas Weisel Partners Technology, Telecom & Internet Conference 2009 on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 9:10 a.m. Pacific Time.

Thomas Weisel Partners, a global growth-focused investment bank, will be hosting its Annual Technology & Telecom Conference in the three-day event, which will focus on opportunities and challenges in the technology and telecom sectors for 2009 and beyond. Palm will be among the over 225 companies representing applied technologies, communications equipment, computer systems and storage, electronic supply chain, information and financial technology services, semiconductors, software and telecom services. Whew, that's a lot of technology!

Palm is inviting investors to listen to the live webcast at investor.palm.com

Head over to PreCentral to read more.

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Heck, we'd like to know what you like too and what you like reading about. So will ya please fill out the reader survey for us? We'd sure appreciate your help! And we really appreciate you choosing TreoCentral for your Treo news too! ;-)

As we just reported over at our sister site PreCentral, the Boy Genius Report has scooped up some juicy news this morning. Seems that there is a Sprint EOL list that reveals the Palm Pre's target launch date, along with the Treo 755p's targeted EOL.

Yep, BGR couldn't post the actual list, but one of their ninjas got them an internal document that shows some good stuff. Some EOL devices are listed, but so are some replacements that we've been anxiously waiting for, specifically the Palm Pre.

The document shows that the Palm Treo 755p (blue) will be replaced by the Palm Pre. The target in-stock date of the Pre is March 15th. According to BRG:

...the EOL dates represent the target death of the EOL handset (in the warehouse, existing store inventory will still be sold) and the target in stock-date at Sprint’s warehouses for its replacement.

Also listed in the Sprint EOL document is the Palm 800w to go EOL in April and to be replaced by the Treo Pro. Hmmm, the Treo Pro's target in-stock date is 2/15, but we already knew that, plus we now know that there were problems that caused those "in stock" Pros to go back for some repairs.

Anyway, let's hope that this 3/15 target date for the Palm Pre is for real so we can stop all the guessing.

Head over to BGR to see more EOL listings.

Update: Miles brought to my attention that the EOL document also shows the Centro (berry) to go EOL in June. Also shown for EOL are the (green) Centro and the Palm Centro Refresh (black). Both these EOL's are targeted for July.

Palm Infocenter is reporting that Donna Dubinsky, Palm's former CEO and one of the original founders, is planning to resign from her seat on Palm's board of directors.

When I think of Donna Dubinsky, I think of Jeff Hawkins and Ed Colligan since the trio were the founders of Handspring. Ms. Dubinksy is a shining star all by herself though of course. I've always looked up to this gadget girl since I first heard that she was a co-founder of Handspring. Fortune nominated Dubinsky, together with Hawkins, to the Innovators Hall of Fame.

Remember when Elevation Partners gave Palm the additional $100 million equity deal? Well, apparently Elevation got the right to appoint an additional director for election on Palm's Board.

PIC points to Palm's recent 8-K SEC filing, which states that Elevation's board decided to keep its current size. Donna Dubinsky offered to resign immediately in advance of the election. I'm glad to hear that Dubinsky's offer to resign was not over any type of disagreement.

Rajiv Dutta was nominated for election to the Board in Dubinsky's place. Mr. Dutta recently retired as the President of eBay Marketplaces and Executive Vice President of eBay Inc.

Donna Dubinsky of course was a co-founder of Handspring and the Chief Executive Officer and a director since the company's founding in July 1998. Before that, Dubinsky served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Palm Computing, Inc. Currently, Ms. Dubinsky serves as the CEO of Numenta, the company she co-founded with Jeff Hawkins in 2005. Hmmm, I didn't know this, but according to Wikipedia, after graduating from Harvard Business School, Ms. Dubinsky went to Apple Computer where she started work as a customer-support liaison. By 1985 she was running part of the company's distribution network. So there's another Apple/Palm link.

Annie let us know last month that the CDMA version of the Centro was going to cross the border into Canada on February 2nd, and today is the day.

Palm announced today that the Palm Centro is now available in Canada on Bell Mobility's high-speed mobile network. This Centro on Bell Mobility is Midnight Black with the soft-touch paint, similar to the Sprint refreshed Centros. The Centro on Bell also has 128MB of available memory, Facebook for Palm, and Google Maps with the My Location feature.

From the press release:

"Centro is the best example of a user-friendly smartphone that's both fun and easy to use," said Brodie Keast, senior vice president of marketing for Palm, Inc. "Centro's sleek and lightweight design makes it perfect for first-time smartphone users who want voice, text, email, web, contact and calendar capabilities all wrapped into one compact device."

The Midnight Black Centro through Bell is now available as low as $49.95 with any three-year voice and data plan activation with a minimum $45 monthly service fee.

You can read the full press release here.

Speaking of Bell and Palm, Dieter mentioned recently in a PreCentral.net article that Palm is already meeting with employees from Bell Canada to fill them in on the Palm Pre, Treo Pro, and Palm Centro. We of course see today that the Centro has hit Bell and is available. What about the Pre? Well, there are still rumors abound that the Pre will be released on February 15th. We certainly hope those rumors are true, but we'll just have to wait and see.

That's right, you can "eat fresh" by ordering from Subway via SMS in New York City. I just read an Into Mobile article (via Engadget Mobile) which says that Subway has launched a free service called Subway Now to allow New York City residents to make sandwich orders via text message.

Once you register on Subway's special website where you enter your credit card info, address, and make a list of your favorite sandwiches, you're ready to order. Just text "menu" to Subway's shortcode (466626). Subway will reply with a list of your predefined favorite sandwiches. Simply reply back with the number of the favorite you want to order, and you'll receive a text confirmation and pick up time. Pretty neat.

Since you'll have already paid for your order with your credit card, you can skip the line when you arrive at Subway and just grab your sandwich and go. This service is only in NYC at the moment, but will expand later. I'd love to be able to text in my Subway orders on my Treo Pro or Centro. Well, I know what I'll be buying for supper this evening. Looks like I'll be doing my ordering on the phone though.

The Official Palm Blog has posted up a short article on mobile gaming. As mentioned in the article, many people are seen playing games on their mobile phones. I've killed a crap load of time myself playing games on my Treo 680 and Centro while waiting around in a boring doctor's office.

According to the article, phones have been equipped with mobile gaming capabilities for over a decade. Plus, the number of mobile gamers around the globe is expected to reach 220 million this year. Yep, I'd say that the mobile gaming business is definitely booming. Big time!

The article lists the most popular Palm OS games over at Handango. Looks like Bejeweled 2 came in at the top of the list. Over at the TreoCentral Store, Bejeweled 2 comes in at number 5. Number 1 at the moment is The Real Dice Network

The Official Palm Blog asked some of the folks in the Palm community about their favorite games. Our own Dieter Bohn was asked, and he singled out Crosswords. I'm not surprised because I've heard Dieter mention a few times in podcasts how much he loves crossword puzzles. The author of the article likes Bookworm. Hey, that's one of my favorites too!

Go check out the article, and you can chime in on your mobile gaming habits on Palm's Facebook discussion board.

Thinking about all those Palm OS games sure does make me wonder what kind of games we'll be seeing on the Palm Pre. With no stylus, I doubt if we'll be seeing many of those games in which you have to tap on the screen to choose something like a colored jewel or a specific letter. Should be interesting to see what happens when the Pre is launched.

Yep, our sister site WMExperts got their hands on that wishy washy released date Sprint Treo Pro. I'm really glad that Malatesta was able to snag one because I figured it would probably be awhile before anyone got a hold of one. There is a thread in our forums regarding the delays. Seems that the Sprint Treo Pros have a software glitch of some type and will be going back for a ROM reflash. I guess the few people who did manage to walk out of a store with a Sprint Treo Pro will be sending them back.

Malatesta has taken the Treo Pro for a spin and has posted his first thoughts and some mouth watering photos to boot.

Mal let's us know that the Sprint Treo Pro is an exact port of the GSM version, with some minor changes for CDMA, the biggest being the inclusion of Mobile Internet Explorer 6, plus a bump in storage memory.

And speaking of memory, in the article, Mal says that it only has 43mb of free RAM (program memory) after a boot but that it's not been a problem so far with regular use.But... I did just now read a post by Mal in the forums where he talks about the RAM being too little. Hopefully, this will be something that will be addressed when the Treo Pros are sent back for repairs regarding the software glitches.

Anyway, head over to WMExperts and check out Malatesta's hands on and be sure to look at all the great pics too!

Note: Click on pic to enlarge.

As we've been hearing, some Sprint stores will most likely have the Treo Pro available this coming Sunday, January 25th. WMExperts let's us know that the Palm Treo Pro is available to order Now online via Sprint's website.

As expected, we see $549 for the Treo Pro, minus $200 for a contract and another $100 fora mail-in rebate, which totals $249. Malatesta points out one caveat on the mail-in rebate; read the fine print to make sure your current plan qualifies.Although not exactly confirmed, it looks as if the Treo Pro has 96MB RM and 512MB ROM. If true, Palm has doubled the available storage memory for programs, with a total of about 336MB. Malatesta says:

On the other hand, RAM may have taken a hit, meaning you may only have ~42mb of RAM after a soft reset. (See page 363 of the user manual --> .pdf). We're working to confirm this last part, so take with a small grain of salt. And yes, it's okay to pray that it's not true.

Mal says that the Sprint Treo Pro is running the Qualcomm MSM-7501a processor at 528mhz and has a 1500mAh battery. Nice.

I bet the orders will be pouring in on Sprint's website today. I read over in the forums that one forum member has already put in an order. ;-)

Update: Sprint has contacted us and let us know that they inadvertently posted info on the Treo Pro and apologize for any inconvenience caused. Sprint says that they look forward to welcoming this exciting, new device into their portfolio as soon as it has been approved through our customary testing process. And added that they'd share details on the correct availability date as soon as the standard testing of both the device and its interaction with their network has concluded.

Update: Reports coming in that Sprint has taken the product page down.

Palm, Inc. announced yesterday that the Treo Pro has arrived in Colombia. Yep, now those in Colombia will be able to enjoy the easy-to-use Treo Pro, which runs on Windows Mobile 6.1, for businesses that want to simplify their IT infrastructures and lower costs. Users who want to stay on top of their professional and personal lives will also enjoy the Treo Pro.

The Palm Treo Pro will be available in Colombia through Comcel, a Colombian mobile phone operator, owned by Mexican group América Móvil.

Back in November, Palm announced that the Treo Pro was available in Latin America from carriers in seven countries:

• Argentina (Personal, Movistar, and Claro/America Movil)
• Chile (Entel)
• Costa Rica (ICE)
• Guatemala (Claro and Tigo)
• Mexico (Movistar and Telcel/America Movil)
• Panama (Movistar)
• Puerto Rico (Claro/America Movil)

We have the GSM Palm Treo Pro being sold unlocked through Palm here in the states. Plus we heard that AT&T sort of picked up the Treo Pro after they chose it as one of the first handsets to have received 3G network certification in the AT&T Specialty Vertical Device Program. This made an AT&T Network Compatible Treo Pro available through AT&T Business Alliance Channels, including CDW, Insight, CNM Wireless, and VOX Mobile.

And as the leaks continue to pour out, it looks like our CDMA friends will soon be getting the Palm Treo Pro on Sprint.

TreoCentral forum member jimh2000 got to play with a Treo Pro at his local Sprint store and has posted his first impressions:

• very nice feel in the hand, well made
• Flush screen is nice
• Touch sensitive butons worked well
• Keyboard smaller than my 800w but wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be
• Audio quality was great, earpiece and speaker
• Pro has a manual PRL update icon in settings menu
• Has a youtube icon that goes to Kinoma Freeplay when pressed
• Memmory was 369 storage and program (I think, will verify)

jimh2000 said that it was the first time he'd helda Treo Pro. He noted that his Treo 800w feels like a Ford truck and the Pro fel like a BMW. Sound like he was pretty darn impressed with the Tro Pro.

Malatesta posted something by forum member deanwoof from the Sprint Users forum that was interesting:

The demo phones for the Sprint stores should have all arrived by now.

My thoughts on it so far:

Cons - the phone has frozen up a few times for about 3-4 seconds while playing Bejeweled 2 and having Activesync running in the background. That's not a good sign even though it's supposed to have more RAM on the damn thing compared to the 800wx. Not much of an improvement over 800wx performance wise.

Read on for the full article

We've been hearing about the upcoming Sprint Treo Pro, but hadn't seen the specs on it. Malatesta over at our sister site WMExperts has just posted the specs after seeing that TreoCentral forum member elistone had revealed them via an internal email. The internal email also has the release date as January 25, 2009, which is what we'd been hearing. Good to have a Sprint executive as a friend, huh? ;-)

Below are the Sprint Treo Pro Specs:

• Robust battery life with an 1500 mAh li-lon battery and 5 hours of continuous talk time.
• Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional Edition (OS) providing a feature rich experience (with Enterprise SCMDM options)
• 128MB program memory (DDR) and 256 non-volatile memory (175MB of user store)
• A-GPS – for navigation and turn-by-turn directions - Autonomous & Simultaneous GPS allows points of interests searching and mapping from contacts.
• Instant-on WiFi short-cut key - WPA/WPA2 certified
• 2.0 Megapixel resolution Camera for still and video shots with BPP Basic Printing Profile
• Price: $549 retail; $249 2-year contract

You can read more details in the forum post by elistone.

Update: TreoCentral forum member Jimh2000 wrote in to let us know that Best Buy does have the refreshed Black Centro with 128MB of memory. The Black Centro's body is the slick version though and not the soft-touch, rubberized casing. Jimh2000 said that Sprint told him they had several thousand old Centro's in the warehouse and would not sell the new black one until the existing stock was reduced.

Remember those two new Centro's in the pretty olive green and rose for Sprint? Those two new colors were a refresh with expanded memory of 128MB, soft-touch paint, revised "gel" keyboard, Palm's Facebook app, and Google Maps My Location feature.

Well, Palm Infocenter is reporting that there's a leaked upcoming Best Buy retail store flyer showing that the refreshed 128MB Centro is available for Free with contract, in-store at Best Buy.

According to PIC, the Best Buy ad makes it appear that the black Centro which is also offered, is the refreshed version. The black Centro on Sprint is supposed to eventually be updated with the same specs that the rose and olive green Centro's have, but of course that hasn't happened yet. The Best Buy's SKU number listed for the black Centro (9057183) shows that it's still the original black Centro with 64MB.

If you're an existing customer who is eligible for upgrade pricing by signing a new contract, you can get the olive green or rose Centro for only $19.95. This price will be in effect from Sunday, January 18th through Saturday, January 24th. You'll need to check for availability in the Best Buy store in your region.

Speaking of Best Buy, Dieter let us know over at our new sister site, PreCentral.net that rumor has it Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer of the Palm Pre for the first 60 days.

I read an article at Electronista saying that Palm could sell as many as 1.5 million Pre smartphones in a year. This is according to an investment note by Citi analyst Jim Suva. Suva has upgraded Palm's stock rating from "sell" to "hold" based on the technical abilities of the Pre, Palm's first large touchscreen smartphone.

I also read an article over at MarketWatch wich quotes Suva saying:

"Pre looks like a game changer for Palm and [a] sell rating is no longer warranted," Suva said in a research note. "With the company's long-term viability in doubt, Palm debuted the best new handset we have seen in quite some time."

Game changer indeed. From what I've seen and read so far, the Pre is the coolest smartphone I've ever seen. It's eye candy inside and out.

Suva also said that Palm could have a very rugged February quarter and a potentially tough May quarter until Pre is actually launched. Citi Group seems to think that many carriers and consumers will wait for Pre rather than order older Treos or Centros.

I sure hope that the Pre will be available from Palm unlocked sometime soon. I'm not switching to Sprint but might consider opening an account at Sprint just to get a Pre.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Palm sell over a million Pre smartphones in the first year. Heck, they could sell 2 million.

Palm Infocenter has heard from a seemingly reliable firsthand source that Palm is prepping a new Centro 2 that will debut later this fall on Sprint.

According to Palm Infocenter, the Centro 2 is supposedly around the same size as the current Centro and will run on the Palm WebOS.

PIC also mentions a PCMag article that addresses the top 15 questions concerning the Palm Pre and the WebOS. Question #4 was "Will there be other Pre models?", and the answer is:

Yes. There will be different models, in different shapes and sizes. According to a tipster, the next Pre may be a lower-cost, candybar-style phone without a QWERTY keyboard.

Hmmm, a very interesting rumor. Besides different sizes and shapes, I hope to see different colors also. Let the rumor mills continue to spin!

I read over at the NYTimes.com that writer Matt Richtel interviewed Jon Rubinstein following Palm's press conference. Rubinstein talked about how important the application developers are to the success of the Palm Pre.

Palm's competition such as Apple and RIM have many application developers. So did Palm when they were in the glory days of being the pioneer of the smartphone. The number of applications grew in astounding numbers for the Palm OS. When Palm's Garnet OS became stagnant, many Palm developers had to move on, and we saw the apps for the iPhone and the BlackBerry grow.

Palm was very smart to have changed with the new Palm Pre. According to the NYTimes article, Rubinstein argued that Palm's new operating system, the WebOS, is easy to develop for, and relies on HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, and other program environments that developers are familiar with. He also added that Palm has a long-standing relationship with developers.

From the article:

"There's a large, very loyal Palm developer base," he said. The key to success is "you reinvigorate those developers." He declined to provide details of Palm's efforts to court programmers, saying the company was focused on getting the Pre introduced in the first half of this year.

I've already seen some developers in the forums asking about the new Palm Pre and developing for it. With the Palm's new WebOS being so easy to develop for, I'm hoping to see developers flocking to it and really giving us some wonderful applications. If I was a developer, I'd be very excited to dig in and get in the game. Hopefully Palm will get back many of those developers from the Garnet days who had to move on.

Update: Engadget has updated their article and are now saying:

We've just seen a copy of the Pre's press release, and sadly, the 3G GSM version is listed as being intended for "other regions" -- in other words, places not served by Sprint. The good news, we guess, is that we've also confirmed that it's HSDPA.

Engadget is reporting that they have gotten Palm on the record saying that there's a WCDMA (read: UMTS world 3G) version of the Pre in the works! WhooHoo!!!

That means that we be could seeing the Palm Pre on AT&T, T-Mobile, and Vodafone. Of course no word on when, but just hearing that it's a possibility makes my drool glands go cuckoo. Please Palm! Pleeeaaase!!

Dieter has reported over at our sister site WMExperts that just like last year, another Palm smartphone has been outed at a Microsoft Keynote. Last year it was the Palm Treo 800w that showed up on the video screen. This year, what "appears to be" the Sprint Treo Pro, was shown on the video screen while Microsoft was showing Internet Explorer 6's flash support.

We know that IE6 Mobile isn't going to be made available on current devices, but requires a completely new ROM, plus a decent amount of power on whichever devices it lands.

Dieter points out that:

"We already have seen screenshots of Internet Mobile 6 leaked here on WMExperts and also seen speed tests from an unreleased Sprint Treo indicating the browser was Internet Explorer 6. So sure, it's entirely possible that we are looking at a GSM Treo Pro running Internet Mobile 6 with a customized ROM. But why go through all the trouble of creating a custom ROM when there's a perfect explanation of what we have here?"

So it seems very likely that the photo here is of a Sprint Treo Pro.

Our friend Sammy McLoughlin over at PalmAddict has let us know that TreoCentral's TreoCast has won Best Mobile Technology Podcast in the PalmAddict Reader Awards 2008.

Sammy said that PalmAddict received in excess of 82,000 votes over the year, so Congratulations to Dieter and Mike for winning the Best Mobile Technology Podcast in the PalmAddict Reader Awards of 2008!! Well done guys!

Best Mobile Technology Podcast:

• TreoCentral TreoCast 33%
• MobileTechRoundup 32%
• 1src 19%
• Mobility Today Podcast 11%
• Other 5%

Dieter and Mike have recorded 57 TreoCasts so far! You can listen in on all of the TreoCasts here.

Thanks Sammy! PalmAddict is a great place to go to read about Palm gadgets and lots of other cool gadgets as well. Be sure to check it out! I've been reading there for years and check it out daily. ;-)

I just read over at Pocket PC Thoughts about an interesting app called VirtuaMouse One-Hand that's just been released by Innovisoft. VirtuaMouse gives you a virtual mouse pointer that can be used instead of the stylus, whenever the stylus isn't convenient for you.

With VirtuaMouse One-Hand, you can "tap" anywhere that a stylus can tap, easily and without the stylus. VirtuaMouse One-Hand lets you use the virtual mouse cursor as a "temporary stylus" whenever you need it, instead of relying on your stylus for those non-thumb-friendly apps.

To use VirtuaMouse One-Hand, you simply use your Pocket PC's D-Pad/Joypad to control the mouse cursor. This cursor can be used to:

• Easily "tap" any part of an application
• Open any program
• Browse the web
• Read your email

Innovisoft says that VirtuaMouse One-Hand is designed to significantly reduce stylus use in an easy, natural and enjoyable way.

Requirements are Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 2003, 2003 SE, 5.x or 6 Professional installed.

VirtuaMouse One-Hand is priced at $24.95, but you can get a free trial and give it a whirl first to see what you think. I would think that the app would work on some of the Palml Treos. Learn more here.

I just read over at CoolSmartPhone.com that the Palm Treo Pro has just popped up on the O2 website. The Treo Pro became available in Europe recently via Vodafone and Palm had a nice event in London and had a fun event at a pub also.

The O2 online shop is offering the Treo Pro for free to business customers with some data plans.

With O2 Business, you can keep your number, have access to My Business Account Online, Unlimited calls to 10 UK landlines, Unlimited calls 18 million 02 mobile customers, 20% discount on 24 month tariffs, Calls to Europe 8p/min, Free 24/7 UK customer service, Free Voicemail, and Unlimited free texts to your team from your secure website a/c.

Spb Software House, the world's top WM software developer, has just announced that they've updated their Spb Online. The mobile TV update doubles the number of mobile TV channels streamed. Commercially launched at the end of September 2008, the subscription-free mobile TV component of Spb Online has hosted over a million of mobile TV viewing sessions, and today it offers 40 mobile TV channels in 11 languages.

Some of the new channels streamed by Spb Online are:

• Deutche Welle (Germany)
• MAD TV (Greece)
• Graafschap TV (Netherlands)
• Channel One Russia
• CCTV (China)
• RTV Pink (Serbia)
• iTele (France)
• and more...

Spb's patent-pending mobile TV technology facilitates fast channel switching, on-screen controls, intelligent video/audio stream adjustment to broadband fluctuations, picture-in-picture mode, and an integrated TV guide with option to set outlook show reminders. Other Spb Online components are Online Radio, Online Games, global Weather service, News reader, and an On-Device Catalog.

Tim Ferrill, over at our sister site WMExperts, reviewed Spb Online back in September

You can get Spb Online here for $29.95.

Dieter, over at our sister site WMExperts, is a Qik fan and he's let us know that Qik has added more WM phones for live video streameing. Qik, the free live-video-streaming app, has added over 20 Windows Mobile phones to their compatibility list. So now the latest Treo from Palm are compatible with Qik.

With Qik, you can share your videos with the entire Internet or just the people you choose. You can share with anyone and everyone what's going on anywhere and everywhere you go.

Update: Seems that our sister site WMExperts had already reported on this news a few days ago. I missed it from being so busy with last minute holiday stuff going on.

I just read over at jkOnTheRun that SlingMedia has added fifteen current phones to their lineup of SlingPlayer Mobile compatible phones. The Palm Treo Pro and the Sprint Treo 800w are among those fifteen phones.

Below are all fifteen newly added phones:

• Sprint Treo 800w
• Sony Ericsson X1
• Palm Treo Pro
• Sprint HTC Touch Diamond
• Sprint HTC Touch Pro
• Verizon HTC Touch Pro
• Verizon Samsung Saga
• Verizon Samsung Omnia
• AT&T LG Incite
• AT&T HTC Fuze
• AT&T Samsung Epix
• HP iPAQ 910
• AT&T Pantech Duo
• Sprint Samsung ACE
• Verizon XV6900

According to jkOnTheRun, some of these phones might have worked with the SlingPlayer client in the past, but they're now officially supported. Also, the newest client supports resolutions of 800x480, 640x480, 400x240, and 320x320. Treo Pro owners will surely appreciate that last one; the 320x320.

We told you recently about Palm announcing they'd be holding an "invitation only" press event at the CES in Las Vegas on January 8th. And that Palm was having a contest in which one lucky Facebook fan could win a trip to that special event by coming up with the best dialog in the contest cartoon.

Palm has selected the top 10 entries for the Palm "Send a Fan to Las Vegas" contest. Palm is inviting the Palm community to help select a winner and voting ends on December 29th.

From December 20-29 you'll get to vote from among those 10 top-scoring entries listed over at Palm's Facebook page. You can read the rules right there on the page where the top 10 entries are listed.

So head over there and read the top 10 and start voting!

Our sister site WMExperts is reporting via The Boy Genius Report that the Palm Treo Pro is heading to Best Buy. Seems that BGR ninjas have gotten their hands on an internal Best Buy form that shows the Treo Pro 850 in stock as of December 8, 2008. Well, I guess that date is a little off, huh? But the BGR ninjas say that as long as the device is actually in the system, it's sure to come.

In an update to their article, BGR says that their ninja just informed them that the actual in-stock dates for both of these items looks like January 25th. Well, that sounds about right since WMExperts reminds us about an earlier post saying that the CDMA Treo Pro release date had been pushed back to January 25th from Sprint and January 21st from Brightpoint (resellers, perhaps telesales for business).

Palm, Inc. announced today that Elevation Partners has agreed to make an additional $100 million equity investment in Palm. Under a definitive agreement reached today, Elevation will increase its investment in Palm by acquiring newly issued Series C preferred stock that is convertible into Palm common stock at a price of $3.25 per share, a 31 percent premium to the closing price of Palm commn stock on Dec. 19, 2008.

According to the press release, the Series C preferred stock carries a 0% dividend rate. Elevation will also receive warrants to acquire 7 million shares of Palm common stock at the same price. Prior to March 31, 2009, Palm may elect to cause Elevation to sell up to $49 million of this new investment to other investors on the same or better terms than on which Elevation invested.

From the press release:

"The additional capital from Elevation Partners will enable us to put added momentum behind the new product introductions scheduled for 2009 and will provide us with enhanced stability in unsettled economic times," said Ed Colligan, president and chief executive officer of Palm, Inc. "Elevation has been a great partner to Palm, and we appreciate their continued confidence and support."

Read on for the full article

Consumer Reports recently posted their January 2009 issue online and have some articles on smartphones and cellphones. In the article where they rank smartphones, Consumer Reports have given top ranking to the Samsung Blackjack II (AT&T), with a a score of 69 out of 100.

The Palm Centro (AT&T) came in at number 7 with a score of 61 out of 100. Following right behind, the Palm Treo 800w (Sprint-Nextel) came at number 8 with a score of 61 out of 100. And the Palm Treo 755p (Sprint-Nextel) came in next at number 9 with a score of 61 out of 100. Surprising, the Apple iPhone 3G came in at number 10.

I was very happy to see those Palm smartphones ranking in the top 10! I'm still loving my Centro and can't wait to be able to use it daily again after the Smartphone Round Robin is finished.

I was just reminded over at Palm Addicts that Palm will be announcing their Q2FY09 results tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. PT.

Of course we'll have full coverage here at TreoCentral tomorrow so stay tuned.

Palm Infocenter is reporting that Marc Blank of ChatterEmail has announced his departure from Palm. Blank posted this message yesterday over at the ChatterEmail Forum:

As of December 14, 2008, neither Josh nor I are affiliated with Palm, Inc.; therefore, neither of us will be monitoring this board or handling support [...] What's more, we are not privy to any plans that Palm might have for supporting new and existing customers

Palm purchased Marc's popular ChatterEmail program and brought him into the company in early 2007. Seems like everyone figured that Marc's email program was going to be part of Palm's next generation operating system since the ChatterEmail acquistion was mentioned at the same time as Palm announced their new operating system. There was never an official statement saying so though.

Marc has been posting in the TreoCentral forums for a long time and has always been very helpful to our forum members regarding ChatterEmail. We certainly wish Marc and Josh the best!

The Official Palm Blog is reporting that the Palm Treo Pro is one of the first handsets to have received 3G network certification in the AT&T Specialty Vertical Device program.

Specialty Vertical Devices refers to a broad range of devices that AT&T doesn't stock or sell directly. They include trunk-mounted modems, handheld units, communication modules, point-of-sale devices, fleet tracking "black boxes", and more.

According to The Official Palm Blog, the AT&T Network Compatible Treo Pro is available now through AT&T Business Alliance Channels, including CDW, Insight, CNM Wireless, and VOX Mobile.

So maybe AT&T will actually be carrying the Palm Treo Pro soon. That would be great!

I'm sure you've all got some big holiday wishes this year. Maybe you've been lusting after the latest smartphones out there or eyeing all the new laptops and digital cameras. Well, Claüs is rounding up holiday wishes right now.

Just send Claüs a text and tell him what you want. If you've been nice, you just might get your wish! I hope you've all been nice and not naughty this year.

The Offical Palm Blog refers to Claüs as the "season’s superhip Centro-fied Santa". I love that pic of Claüs sitting on the icy chimney while he's playing with his Centro. And check out those shoes! Hey Claüs, drop me a pair of those sneakers down my chimney, would ya please? ;-)

Head on over to Palm for the details and official rules.

I just read over at Palm Addicts via the BBC News Website that there is a virus making its rounds on Facebook.

According to BBC, the virus 'Koobface' is targeting Facebook's 120 million users. Koobface is designed to get hold of sensitive info like credit card details, and it spreads by sending a message to people's inboxes, pretending to be from a Facebook friend. Hmmm, Koobface had just targeted MySpace back in August. Stupid hackers!

According to BBC, Koobface sends a message that says, "you look funny in this new video" or "you look just awesome in this new video". If you click on the link provided, you're asked to watch a "secret video by Tom". And when you try to play the video, you're asked to download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. If you do, the virus gets in and attacks your computer.

If only these hackers useless clumps would use their brains to do something more useful. They're a dime a dozen though and what goes around, comes around.

So, be careful if you're a Facebook user! Don't open any messages from people you don't know, especially if the message says something like "you look funny in this new video". I get emails that say that or something similar everyday and I just delete them all.

You can read more here.

Fictionwise is have a sale on their holiday ebooks at the moment. To help you get in the holiday spirit, Fictionwise is offering over 400 "Holiday" eBooks for 30% Off. The sale runs from now until Christmas Day.

Below are some of the Holiday Titles that caught my eye:

• Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea by Mary Higgins Clark & Carol Higgins Clark
• Holiday Illusion by Lynette Eason
• Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries
• Hometown Recipes for the Holidays by American Profile
• Holiday in Death by J.D. Robb
• The Christmas Train by David Baldacci

There are hundreds of Holiday Titles to choose from, so head over to Fictionwise and see if you can't find a good eBook to read over the Holiday!

You can buy gift certificates at Fictionwise, so surprise some of your eBook reader family and friends with some eBooks stuffed in their Christmas stockings!

Reuters.com is reporting that, starting today, New Corp's online social network MySpace will make video clips from its members' pages available for viewing on the Palm Centro and other devices including the BlackBerry Bold, Motorola Q9, LG Voyager, Nokia N95 and the Samsung Instinct.

MySpace members will be able to view video on their homepages and their friends' pages. Plus, they'll be able to view professionally produced video from TMZ, National Geographic magazine, The Onion, the National Hockey League and more.

The service is free and will be supported by advertising.

According to Reuters, MySpace is partnering with RipCode to make video available on mobile phones.

The video clips will be streamed from MySpace pages instead of downloaded onto mobile phones, so it looks like the clips won't be available on the iPhone since it runs downloaded video.

I guess I'll have to check out some videos via MySpace on my Centro.

You can read more here.

Dieter reported back in September that the Palm Treo 680 was going to be officially discontinued on AT&T's network.

Today Palm Infocenter is reporting that this month's Palm Channelsource newsletter for its reseller partners has a large list of Palm peripherals now classified as having reached end-of-life status. The newsletter makes the Treo 680 EOL status official.

Looks like Palm's GPS Navigator by Garmin kit has also joined the EOL ranks. According to PIC, the Garmin powered Palm GPS Navigator Kit was Palm's only branded GPS solution that is officially listed as compatible with the Centro.

Below is the full list of Palm EOL announcements:

• 1048NA Palm Treo 680 Smartphone (Generic)
• P10950U Palm Care for Handhelds
• 3291WW Palm Vehicle Power Adapter for Treo 800w
• 3262WW Palm GPS Navigator Car Kit for Treo 680 and Treo 700p
• 3380NA Palm GPS Navigator featuring Garmin
• 3264WW Sudoku Deluxe CD
• 3358WW 1 GB MicroSD Expansion Card with SD adaptor
• 3359WW 2GB MicroSD Expansion Card with SD adaptor
• 3360WW 4GB MicroSD Expansion Card with SD adaptor
• 3294WW Advanced Brain Trainer

Hmmm, also among the EOL'd is the Palml Care extended warranty kit, which PIC says is an extension of the retail warranty on a Palm handheld alongside a one-time screen replacement. Does this signal an imminent EOL notice of Palm's remaining handheld models?

Dieter recently wrote that Palm is laying off as many as 200 people worldwide. We reported today that CNBC's Jim Goldman had given Palm a thumbs down after hearing that Elevation Partners, Palm's huge financial backer, might be looking to unload its stake in Palm.

Palm Infocenter is reporting that as a result of that analyst report, Elevation Partners co-founder and Palm Board member Roger McNanmee, has released a statement reasserting their position. Mr. McNanmee stated that Elevation remains very excited about Palm's progress and next generation operating system and they have no plans to back out of their Palm investment. Below is the statement in full:

Elevation Partners is very pleased with the progress Ed Colligan, Jon Rubinstein and the entire Palm team are making. The Company's product pipeline, including a next generation operating system due out soon and a new device targeted for the first half of 2009, excite us enormously. Elevation supports Palm in taking the difficult but necessary steps required to migrate from legacy products. We have a very long-term investment horizon and have no plans to exit our investment in Palm.

Well, that sure is good to hear! I'm happy to know that Elevation Partners has that confidence in Palm. A company would have to have a lot of confidence in any company in which it invests $325 million anyway. I still have confidence in Palm and I can't wait to see what they bring to us in the first half of 2009.

Palm Inc. today announced the Treo Pro smartphone is now available in Latin America from carriers in seven countries:

• Argentina (Personal, Movistar, and Claro/America Movil)
• Chile (Entel)
• Costa Rica (ICE)
• Guatemala (Claro and Tigo)
• Mexico (Movistar and Telcel/America Movil)
• Panama (Movistar)
• Puerto Rico (Claro/America Movil)

Looks like a lot more people will now be able to enjoy the Palm Treo Pro, which is an easy-to-use smartphone for businesses that want to simplify their IT infrastrctures and lower costs. The average smartphone user can also enjoy the Treo Pro. The Treo Pro runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

Of course you can get the Treo Pro here in the states, but you'll have to buy it unlocked at the moment as there aren't any carriers yet. We are hearing rumors that Sprint will be getting the Treo Pro in January, and we don't have very long to see if those rumors pan out.

We heard on Friday that Palm was laying off as many of 200 people Worldwide and that Palm may be closing some international offices in Europe and Asia as well. Last Wednesday, Palm Infocenter had reported that Palm's stock price dropped another 21% that day to close a 1.76. Ugh, that's really low.

Jim Goldman of CNBC has written an article and says that those following Palm's problems weren't very surprised when they heard on Friday about the layoffs coming at Palm, especially since there have been layoffs in other Silicon Valley businesses in the past few weeks.

Goldman said that investors might actually notice the fact that Global Crown Capital's Pablo Perez-Frernadez not only downgraded Palm shares to a "Sell", but he also suggested that Palm's single biggest investor, Elevation Partners, might be looking to unload its stake in Palm. Goldman said that if true, that could be the end of Palm.

According to the article, Perez-Fernandez chides Palm's strategy to pay a one-time, $900 million dividend to engineer Elevation's 25% stake for $325 million, saying that it made no sense then and still doesn't today, given Palm's current financial situation.

You can read the full article here.

I've still got my fingers crossed that Palm's new platform will breathe new life into their finances.

We told you last month about VITO Technology's Free Weather app. Weather is a Windows Mobile software for getting the weather forecast right on your device. It has an intuitive and finger-friendly interface. In Winterface, the weather icon shows either the degrees of the first city in the list or the image that shows whether it is cloudy, snowy, windy, etc.

We learned today that a new version of free Weather has been released. Weather 1.2 has been revamped with an updated cities database that includes 100% of USA cities and all major world cities.

VITO Technology says that with its finger-friendly and stylish interface, Weather is the WINNER among Windows Mobile weather applications. And it's 100% Free.

Weather can display the forecast for up to 10 cities. Users make a swiping gesture on the screen for smooth sliding to the next page with a forecast for another city. Users can also decide the order in which the cities appear in Weather by dragging and dropping a city with their finger in the list of added cities.

Weather also integrates into VITO Technology's next generation mobile shell Winterface. When users add the Weather icon in Winterface, it can display either temperature or the weather status icon.

You can get Weather here for Free. I think I'll try it out on my Treo Pro!

Remember back in August when we told you about the Iris Browser for Windows Mobile? To refresh your memory, the Iris Browser is an iPhone like browser and has the revolutionary technology that allows you to access the full Web on resource-constrained devices and get the same functionality as you would on a PC. Sounds pretty good when you think about the ho-hum browsing we have to endure on our WM Treos.

I just read over at the::unwired that Torch Mobile has released its Beta 2 of Iris Browser for Windows Mobile.

According to the::unwired, the new version contains over 100 fixes and improvements and is said to be incredibly fast and stable now.

The Torch Mobile Blog states that the focus on Beta 2 was entirely on:

1. Performance
2. Smaller footprint - we're 10% smaller than beta 1!
3. User interaction improvement
4. Stability
5. Page rendering improvement

From the Torch Mobile Blog:

Surfing your favorite pages will feel much more responsive, and the dreaded “memory pressure” warnings are very hard to find on devices with 128MB of memory. Even devices with less memory are capable of browsing much larger pages now, and our use of memory on these pages is reduced in almost every case.

You can download the Iris Browswer Beta 2 here for Free.

Engadget Mobile is reporting via The New York Times that AT&T is buying Centennial Communications for $944 million in cash. The New York Times says that the price is more than double Centennial's stock market value.

Darren Murph over at Engadget Mobile says that the transaction will beef up AT&T's coverage for customers who live in rural areas of the Midwest and Southeast United States, plus Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Hey, maybe it'll beef up my coverage since I live in the rural Southeast.

From AT&T's press release:

"Mobility is a vital investment area for AT&T and our company's biggest growth driver," said Ralph de la Vega, president and chief executive officer of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "This transaction enhances network coverage for our consumer and business customers and is expected to create long-term value for AT&T's stockholders.

According to The New York Times, AT&T is locked in a fierce battle with Verizon Wireless to dominate the nation's cellphone service business. When Verizon acquired Alltel in June, they surged past AT&T as the dominant presence in the field.

The acquisition must first pass regulatory approval, approval of Centennial's stockholders and other customary closing conditions. AT&T's press release states that Centennial's largest stockholder, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, has agreed to vote in support of this transaction.

You can read the full press release here.

Palm announced today the Treo Pro on the Vodafone New Zealand network. With its streamlined design and Palm's ease-of-use innovations layered on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Treo Pro is a unique combination of sleek simplicity and robust productivity -- including email, Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities) -- that meets the needs of businesses and end users alike.

I'm sure that Vodafone customers in New Zealand are excited to be able to get their hands on the Palm Treo Pro.

From the press release:

"Vodafone New Zealand's business customers need mobile access to business productivity tools in a well-designed device that's easy to use," said Alan Leigh, general manager of Business Marketing, Vodafone New Zealand. "Treo Pro broadens our business product portfolio with a Windows Mobile smartphone that can increase productivity as it lowers infrastructure and support costs."

You can read the full press release here.

Palm Infocenter is reporting that Palm's holiday Sprint Centros, the refreshed Olive Green and Rose Centros, are now available for purchase on Sprint's and Palm's online stores.

If you recall, the refreshed holiday Centros have twice the storage at 128MB, the ability to add up to 4GB more with a microSD card, soft-touch paint, Facebook for Palm, and Google Maps with the My Location feature. PIC notes that the new Centros also have a slightly revised "gel" keyboard. I wasn't aware of that. Interesting.

You can get the new Centros for $79.99 after $100 mail-in rebate and a 2 year contract. And don't forget that you have a chance to win a Vibrant Rose Centro from Palm and InStyle.com through November. You have until November 30 to enter the contest. One entry per person.

Read on for the full article

Yes! I'm so happy to have just read over at Brighthand that AT&T will be jumping aboard the femtocell bandwagon later this year, following Sprint and Verizon. Sprint was the first United States carrier to start using femtocells with their AIRAVE. We've reported several times on Sprint's AIRAVE and recently on Verizon's Ubicell, that could launch early next year. What's a femtocell? If you haven't read the previous articles, Wikipedia defines a femtocell as:

A femtocell—originally known as an Access Point Base Station—is a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in residential or small business environments. It connects to the service provider’s network via broadband (such as DSL or cable); current designs typically support 2 to 5 mobile phones in a residential setting.

I recently reported on Engadget Mobile's review of the Sprint AIRAVE, and the device works pretty good and really does improve signal strength.

Read on for the full article

I read last week over at Palm Addicts via Mike Cane's Blog that Apple wanted to purchase Palm back in the summer of 1997.

Cane posted a link to an article entitled "Android: First Impressions" by Jean-Louis Gassée over at Monday Note. In the article, Jean-Louis Gassée noted:

A perhaps little known fact: in the Summer of 1997, Steve Jobs called Eric Benhamou, 3Com's CEO (the company owned Palm). "Give me the Palm and come and join my Board of Directors. Only Apple can make Palm a true consumer brand." Nothing happened. Apple's foray into the product segment had to wait ten more years.

Read on for the full article

Palm Infocenter is reporting that John Hartnett, Palm's senior vice president of global markets, will be leaving the company. According to Palm Infocenter, Palm has filed a regulatory 8-K statement with the SEC indicating a "Change in Directors or Principal Officers." Hartnett will be leaving Palm effective November 28, 2008. Seems that the circumstances regarding Hartnett's departure weren't disclosed.

John Hartnett has been with Palm since the Handspring days and was promoted to SVP back in May of 2005. Below is a description of Hartnett's job from Palm's website:

As senior vice president of global markets, John is responsible for Palm’s sales and customer support for all channels, including retail, distribution, carrier, and eCommerce.

According to Palm's website, Hartnett was a member of the merger leadership team when Handspring and palmOne became one, combined company.

Before joining Handspring, Hartnett was senior vice president of U.S. marketing, support and operations for MetaCreations.

The news of Hartnett's departure comes on the heels of Palm hiring Simon Lloyd as senior director, EMEA Marketing to help Palm win some ground in the European market.

What's this?... Just days before the WM6 update for the Treo 750 is set to go away, we're noticing another absence; The Treo 750 is no longer available on AT&T's website. Maybe they've replaced it with the Samsung Epix, or maybe it means that the Treo Pro is finally on its way to official-dom on AT&T. Having the Treo Pro on AT&T would be pretty sweet.

Looks like the Treo 750 for AT&T is also gone from Palm's own website, but you can still buy the 750 unlocked for $529.00.

And keeping with the trend of Palm smartphones moving on, Dieter reported last month that BGR had uncovered AT&T's upcoming launch schedule and found that the Treo 680 would be officially discontinued on AT&T's network. Earlier this month, Jay reported on some rumors of the Treo 700wx being EOL'd. Jay found no "EOL" indication on Verizon's website though.

We're still wondering if the Treo Pro might show up on Sprint in the near future after WMExperts spotted a mysterious Treo850e via Sprint over at DSL Reports recently.

Anyway, we'll just have to wait and see if the Treo 750 is gone for good on AT&T and will be replaced by the Treo Pro.

Brand Republic is reporting that Palm is attempting to make a comeback as they've lost their way in the brand stakes against RIM and Apple. The BlackBerry Storm and the iPhone have both been seen in lots of advertising lately. I've seen countless iPhone 3G commercials and have been seeing a new BlackBerry Storm commercial lately too.

According to Brand Republic, the BlackBerry Storm has been in the headlines of technology pages of the national press saying that it's a challenger to the iPhone. Vodafone has the exclusive network rights to the Storm in the UK, and they're spending like £6m on a prominent ad campaign for it.

But Brand Republic says that Palm is planning to fight back and win some ground in the European market. Palm hired Simon Lloyd as Senior Director, EMEA Marketing. Lloyd was the former Nokia UK marketing director, and joined Palm earlier this month.

Read on for the full article

We reported on Palm's new holiday color Centros for Sprint recently. If you recall, the Olive Green and Vibrant Rose Centros have twice the storage of other Centros at 128MB (user-accessible RAM), the ability to add up to 4GB more with a microSD card, Facebook for Palm, and Google Maps with the My Location feature all wrapped up in new colors at a special holiday price as low as $79.99 as the $99.99 price is lowered to $79.99 until January 10th.

These two new Centros also have the soft-touch paint. Sweet! I think both new colors look great! You can see some drool worthy pics of the Olive Green Centro over at Palm Infocenter where Ryan has gotten hold of one.

How do you like that gorgeous Vibrant Rose Centro? Pretty, huh? Well, Palm is running a promotion with InStyle.com through November, giving away 10 Sprint Centros in Vibrant Rose. So 10 lucky people are going to win one of these sweet Centros.

So head over to Palm's contest entry page and enter for your chance to win a Vibrant Rose Palm Centro from Sprint! Good luck!

We've talked about the Sprint AIRAVE a few times over the past year. If you recall, the AIRAVE is a CDMA femtocell device that creates a CDMA signal for your mobile phone (like a miniature cell tower). The AIRAVE provides enhanced and reliable mobile phone coverage in your house or office even if your existing wireless coverage is poor.

Engadget Mobile is reporting (via Cell Phone Signal) that Verizon Wireless will soon be releasing a CDMA Base Station from Samsung called Ubicell.

According to Engadget Mobile, there's no mention of a price or release date yet, but from looking over the user manual, installation and operation will be exactly the same as Sprint AIRAVE. Engadget Mobile reviewed the AIRAVE and found it to work great in improving call quality and signal strength. One of their few minor annoyances with the AIRAVE was that it won't operate without a GPS lock proving that you're currently located in the U.S. Seems that the Samsung Ubicell for Verizon will be the same.

If you're a Centro or Treo user on Verizon and you don't get a decent cell signal where you live, you might want to think about the Ubicell when it becomes available.

Sprint announced today the availability of Sprint WebCapTel(R) On the Go, a new, free mobile Web-based service that allows hard of hearing customers to read word-for-word captions on Windows Mobile 6 Web browsers, like the HTC Diamond, HTC Mogul, Palm Treo 800w and the MOTO Q9c by Motorola. In addition, the service is also compatible with the Safari 2.0 Web browser. Spint WebCapTel On the Go is expected to help an estimated 30 million Americans with hearing loss. Way to go Sprint! I think that's great!From the press release:

"Sprint is committed to equal access to all individuals," said Mike Ligas, director of Sprint Relay. "As such, we pride ourselves on offering the newest technology to hard of hearing individuals. This new solution offers the hard of hearing community mobility by being able to read real-time Web-based captions on Windows-enabled mobile devices."

Read on for the full article

Om Malik of the NYTimes.com has written an article explaining why he thinks that Windows Mobile is in trouble.

Our sister site WMExperts reported back in September that Windows Mobile 7.0 would be delayed. According to the NYTimes, VentureBeat reported that WM 7 could be delayed as late as 2010. Malik says that WM 7, which was aimed at giving Microsoft a bigger presence on the mobile stage, wouldn't have been enough, delayed or not. He says that Windows Mobile is facing its toughest environment yet with competition from RIM's BlackBerry, Apple's iPhone, and mainly the new Google Phone platform.

From the article:

I’m not saying that Windows Mobile is no longer relevant. What I am saying is that Microsoft’s grand mobile ambitions might have to come down a few notches. Just like open-source server software made it impossible for Microsoft to extend its stranglehold to servers and the back-end infrastructure business, these newer mobile platforms will act as speed barriers to Microsoft’s mobile ambitions.

Malik goes on to talk about research firm Gartner's recently released market share data for the second quarter, showing that RIM's market share shot way up. He noted that this was even before RIM figured out its game and announced a bunch of devices aimed at higher-end consumers. You can read up on all those BlackBerry devices over at our sister site CrackBerry.com. If there is even the slightest whisper about a new BlackBerry, Kevin will have it covered and has probably already gotten the full lowdown on it. ;-)

Malik talks about T-Mobile pre-selling 1.5 million G-1 phones and how he got a chance to play with a G-1 recently. He seems pretty impressed with the G-1. Malik says that Google's Android is a direct competitor to Windows Mobile. In fact he says that it's "Windows Mobile done right".

You can read the full article here.

Gx5 has created a small app that they think Treo and Centro users will absolutely love. With Ringtone Shuffler, each time a call comes in you hear a different custom ringtone that you've put on your Centro or Treo. Click on the pic to the right and you can see a larger pic of the Ringtone Shuffler screenshot showing some ringtones chosen from a list.

If you have many custom ringtones and you want to be able to enjoy all of them, Ringtone Shuffler is a great feature because you're getting to "shuffle" the ringtones so you'll hear a different one instead of just one particular ringtone over and over.

With Ringtone Shuffler, you can select the ringtones that you want to shuffle. Maybe you have created 3 ringtones from one song; the first verse, second verse and the chorus. With Ringtone Shuffler, you can select those 3 and enjoy them all. Another scenario would be that you have like 20 ringtones and 5 of those are from one or a few artists you're really into. With Ringtone Shuffler, you can just select those 5 as the ringtones to shuffle.

Sounds pretty neat! I'm not one to create a lot of ringtones for my Centro. If I was, I'd give Ringtone Shuffler a try because it sounds like a nice app. I know that when I listen to music, I always enjoy being able to shuffle the songs as it is a way of surprising myself and not hearing the songs in any particular order.

You can check out Gx5's Ringtone Shuffler, which is currently in Beta, at Gx5's website and also in our TreoCentral Store.

We recently told you about VITO Technology's cool app Winterface for WM devices. Apparently, many Winterface users asked for weather support. VITO Technology says in their press release today that many users find Winterface much more attractive than the Today screen and they want to see Weather information in Winterface.

So VITO Technology has kindly developed a free stand-alone product Weather, which installs on your device just like any other app but its icon displays the actual weather information when added to Winterface. Weather is completely finger-friendly and easy to use.

Besides the Weather icon, the new version of Winterface features other status icons with "live" info like time, calendar, e-mail, tasks and other icons. Winterface 1.14 also addresses some minor device specific bugs and provides further improvements.

You can download Winterface here. You can download Weather here for Free.

Winterface is an app that would look pretty cool on your Treo Pro or Treo 800wx.

Brighthand is reporting that T-Mobile has already sold 1.5 million T-Mobile G1 smartphones. Man alive, that's a lot of phones! All those were pre-ordered, and since the availability ran out, I'm sure there would have been many more sales. T-Mobile has sold all the smartphones that it has available to ship by October 22, which is the launch day.

Geek.com reported last week that T-Mobile had received so many pre-orders that they nearly tripled their production.

Those numbers are pretty interesting since Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3Gs during their launch. Looks like the iPhone and the G1 will be fierce competitors.

According to Ed Hardy at Brighthand, there are two options available for those who are wanting a T-Mobile G1 as soon as possible but didn't get their pre-order in. There will be about 2 million units in T-Mobile stores across the U.S. later this month when the smartphone launches. If you don't care to brave the crowds in those stores, you can put in a pre-order now, but those won't be delivered until some time after the launch day. If I were going to get a T-Mobile G1, I'd go the pre-order route because I cannot handle crowds.

Head over to www.T-MobileG1.com to find a store.

ZHMICRO LLC, today announced availability of new Z47 Processors for Pocket PC and Windows Mobile Operating Systems. These new processors provide software development organizations with one development platform for the creation of Mobile Applications without the need for additional third party tools, SDK's, API's, or Emulators.

According to the press release, the Z Visual 08 IDE offers an "All-in-One" Integrated Development Environment that provides software developers the capability of building mobile, desktop, and enterprise apps that require, or would be enhanced by, extending the capabilities of C++. When used with the corresponding Z47 Processor, apps written with Z++ Visual 08 are capable of running multiple Operating Systems. ZHMICRO says that these would include Operating Systems for the Enterprise and Desktop such as Microsoft Windows, LINUX and Unix, and for mobile devices like Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Palm. The combination of apps written with Z Visual 08, and the use of the Z47 Processor, allows for the fast development of Multi-OS Applications and the integration of these Applications onto a wide range of devices.

Read on for the full article

NormSoft has just released Pocket Tunes Deluxe 4.1.1 for Windows Mobile. This patch release fixes a number of known bugs and is available for free to anyone who purchased Pocket Tunes Deluxe 4.1 for Windows Mobile. If you are new to Pocket Tunes Deluxe 4.1 for Windows Mobile, a 15-day trial can also be downloaded for free.

Also, the download for this release now Includes the 320x320 skin for new devices such as the Treo 800w and Treo Pro. Nice!

There's a long list of changes for version 4.1.1, and you can see them all here.

There are also some New Skins for Pocket Tunes for Windows Mobile. One of the new skins is called Thy Gold, and you can see it to right. Check out the skins Pcok Green and Lean too.

All three new skins will support 240x240 or 240x320 or 320x240 resolutions and can be downloaded free.

Be sure to read Brian Hart's Pocket Tunes for Windows Mobile review.

I just read over at InformationWeek that Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz is leaving the company to start his own business with Facebook engineer Justin Rosenstein.

Dustin Moskowitz helped design Facebook, the popular social networking site. InformationWeek is reporting via Valleywag that Moskowitz plans to launch a software startup. Evidently CEO Mark Zuckerberg notified Facebook employees in an e-mail.

Rosenstein left Google in 2007 to join Facebook. Rosenstein said that the company did with 60 engineers what 600 other engineers could not pull off and was on the verge of "changing the world". Facebook has hired several former Google execs since then.

Read on for the full article

I read an interesting article over at Big Tech (via Palm Infocenter) in which the author Jon Fortt talks about "Why Palm needs Android". Fortt talks about how things aren't going well for Palm lately as it gets 80% of its sales via the troubled U.S. market, and that Palm's Treo smartphone has given up market share to the popular BlackBerry. Plus Palm losing profits and their revenues dipping.

Fortt notes that Palm has been promising to launch its own new Linux-based platform which has been delayed, and that Palm already licenses and will contine to license Microsoft's WM for its corporated smartphones.

Fortt says that the smartphone world has changed a great deal since Palm started working on their new OS and that Palm might be better off scrapping the new OS plans and joining Google if Android turns out to be all it's cracked up to be.

Read on for the full article

I read over at Palm's Official Blog that Palm is participating in a comprehensive survey being conducted by research firm Basex. Basex is analzying how much information we all try to manage every day and how people deal with it.

According to Palm's blog, everyone who completes the ten-minute survey will be eligible to win one of five Treos. I looked at the survey site and the Treos being given away seem to be Treo 750's with WM 6. Nice!

Go here to participate in the survey.

GPS Business News is reporting that Masternaut today announced that its navigation software Webraska is pre-installed on the new Palm Treo Pro in Europe.

The Treo Pro, which is the first GPS-enabled smartphone from Palm, will be sold by two wireless operators in the Netherlands and in Italy and available unlocked in the rest of Europe.

Palm is the first handset manufacturer signed up by Webraska. Webraska navigation is a hybrid turn by turn naviagation software which both works with off-board and on-board map data. Webraska is provided as a 14 day trial, and then is sold at €59 with one country map or €79 with pan-European maps for a one year license. According to the article, the map data is from NAVTEQ and a pan-European speed camera database (AlertesGPS from GPS Prevent) is included within the one year subscription.

You can read more here.

If you have a Palm Treo 750 on AT&T and you haven't updated your phone to WM 6 yet, don't wait too much longer. According to Palm's support site, availability of updates that include Windows Mobile 6 for Treo 750 smartphones will expire as of 10/31/2008. Looks like you've got until Halloween to get WM 6 on that 750!

Palm's support site has information on the update, including restrictions/important user information and installation instructions.

If you've been putting off updating your Treo 750 to Windows Mobile 6, now would be a great time to head over to Palm's support site and download the update (updater 2.25).

If you're a tech junkie like me, you probably love following all the latest technology news. MobileInfocenter has issued a press release this week letting us know about how to follow the latest tech headlines. We have three new resources to follow with the debut of TechNewsTube.com, MacHash.com and the newly redesigned MobilityBeat.com.

• MobilityBeat: Ryan over at Palm Infocenter and MobileInfocenter has relaunched MobilityBeat this week. MobilityBeat provides up to the minute tech news headlines from the web's best sources in one convenient place. Ryan says that it works as an online aggregator giving you one place to check in on the latest news.

MobilityBeat has dedicated sections for Palm OS, Windows Mobile, iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian news, plus there is a handy mobile optimized version too.

• Tech News Tube: Provides up to the minute technology news headlines. The site is best described as a series of news. (It is not a dump truck.)
• Mac Hash: Covers the latest Apple news and rumors from all over the web. You can also get your Mac news fix on the go with the iPhone optimized version.

Read on for the full article

What a nice early Fall surprise! Dieter has just let me know that Celio and the TreoCentral Store have reduced the price of the REDFLY to $199.95. It's a temporary price reduction through the rest of September and October and Celio is telling us that the deal will only last as long as they have supplies of “seed units.”

Dieter says that Celio is aiming at getting the REDFLY into the hands of users. They mentioned at CTIA that they really feel that once they get enough of the devices into the users' hands, the gadget's popularity will sell.Celio says:

Celio has found that a REDFLY device in the hands of media, developers or mobile enthusiasts has tremendous viral marketing benefit. Therefore, we have budgeted a limited amount of REDFLY devices for placement at $199 until October 31, 2008

Read on for the full article

eReader sent out some surveys recently, and many readers told them that they didn't want to add coupon codes each time they bought an eBook at eReader.com. And now eReader has just introduced a new eReader Rewards Program.

With the new rewards program, when you buy an eBook, 15% of your purchase comes back to you as Rewards Dollars. Then, the next time you buy an eBook, those Reward Dollars are automatically deducted from your total.

eReader is kicking things off by making every eBook at eReader.com 10% off this week only. No coupons are needed. Hey, that sounds pretty good to me! I never did type in those coupon codes, but copied and pasted them from my emails as that was easier for me. But having the 15% come off my purchase as Rewards Dollars each time I buy an eBook makes it even easier. Sweet!

To earn eReader Rewards you just need to sign up for eReader's newsletter. I really enjoy getting the eReader newsletter. With the newsletters, I'm always informed of what's new at eReader and what kind of special offers eReader is having at the time.

So head on over to eReader.com and start taking advantage of the new eReader Rewards Program! You can learn more about it here.

Looks like the Palm Treo Pro is available in Singapore and has been for about 2 weeks. I just read that forum member GFONG drove over to a shop back on September 12th and picked one up.

Evidently, the Treo Pro went on sale in Singapore on September 11th according to Crave/CNET Asia.

The Palm Singapore website states that you can buy the Treo Pro without a plan for S$938, which is US$659.26. And as to "Where to Buy", here's a link for all the Palm resellers listed on the Palm Singapore site.

GFONG said in the thread that when he bought the Treo Pro, he talked to the sales staff. He said, "She told me a lot of users want to buy the HP iPaq 912s (just launched in Singapore) but ultimately bought the Treo Pro." Hmmmm.... that's interesting to know! ;-)

I reported on KeyToss v2 Beta last month. To refresh your memory, KeyToss is a powerful, personalizable, mobile portal for smartphones and it's Free. Looks like you can really find all the information you need with KeyToss as it's packed with ways to search. KeyToss allows you to use over 50 different mobile-friendly search tools - including Google, Amazon.com, Dictionary.com, eBay, Flickr, PriceGrabber, UPS Package Tracking, Wikipedia, Yelp and YouTube. You select which tools you want in your menu and access the rest using keywords.

Today, KeyToss announced the release of major features to its powerful, personalizable smartphone portal.

For the first time in a full-featured, mobile portal, users will be able to add virtually any link to their personal web pages, and share them with others.

Read on for the full article

Well, today is the big day for Android. Unless you've been under a rock for the past year, you know that Android is Google's much talked about software platform. And it's not just any platform; Android is the first complete, open, and free mobile platform.

Today, the T-Mobile G1, aka the HTC Dream, is coming out! This is one sweet looking device my Friends! Talk about drool city! Oh yeah! Now if you'd like to check out the news about the T-Mobile G1, head on over to our new baby sister site, Android Central. Android Central is covering the news in rapid blog post styling.

Dieter recommends a great article by PC Mag by Sascha Segan for your reading pleasure. In the article, Segan says:

Android's true target isn't the 19 percent of phones running OSs, like BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Mac OS. It's the other 81 percent of phones, which aren't smartphones and run operating systems you've never heard of like Nucleus and P2K.

Anyway, head on over to our new little sister site Android Central and check out all the news on Android and the new T-Mobile G1.

I was reading through the tech news yesterday during lunch and came across an interesting item over at GottaBeMobile.

Check out these Dot Gloves that you can use for touch screens during cold weather. Dot Gloves are inexpensive gloves that have metal dots on the fingers that enable use of the iPhone, iPod and iTouch without direct finger contact.

The smooth, curved surface of the metal dots makes them completely safe and scratchless to use on your touch screen.

I looked at the compatibility and the Dots Gloves website states:

Compatable with iPhone, iPod, iTouch, Nintendo DS, notebook trackpads, atms, kiosks, point of sale systems and other touch screen devices.

So I'd say that the Dots Gloves would be compatible with our Palm smartphone screens as well. If both metal and plastic tipped styli work on our screens, I don't see why the metal dots on these gloves wouldn't.

Read on for the full article

Right on the heels of the Verizon Treo 700wx getting the WM 6 update, Dieter got word via a fellow named Scott that Verizon will probably be carrying the Treo 800w. Seems that Scott had some talks with Verizon reps, and a rep told him that a new Treo is coming in the next month or so, and that it will be the Treo 800w. Sweet, huh?

We had seen the Verizon sightings and the leaked presentations and were wondering if it was really going to happen.

As Dieter says in his WMExperts article, if the 800w were released on Verizon next month, that would be about right for the usual 3 month exclusive with Sprint. So we might just be seeing the 800w on Verizon in October!

I hope this turns out to be true so that you Verizon folks can get a hold of the latest CDMA WM Treo like the Sprint folks did. Thanks to Scott for prying the information out of those Verizon reps!

Head over to WMExperts to read Dieter's article.

WMExperts reported recently via Mobile Burn that Google has added localized search capabilities to Google.com for Windows Mobile smartphones. The Official Google Mobile Blog says that Search with My Location is "a new way to make searching for nearby businesses on your Windows Mobile phone faster and easier."

According to Mobile Burn, the system makes use of the same cell tower information that the Google Maps app uses to provide local results for most any search term.

Go to Google.com from any mobile browser and look for the "My location link". Nick at WMExperts says to make sure that you have Google Gears installed first.

Read on for the full article

Check out this sweet looking (and probably sweet tasting too) Treo 755p cake that Lisa Aiken made. The Official Palm Blog posted a couple of pics of the cake, one including Lisa with her cake. Lisa runs a pretty awesome artisan soap business out of Santa Barbara, and it looks like she's a pretty handy baker too.

Lisa sent her story about making the cake by going to Palm's "Tell us your story" page. You can go tell your Palm story too.

That cake looks fantastic! I'm sure it took a looooong time to decorate it with all those keys. I'm glad that Lisa decided to share her story with Palm because I was very happy to read about it and to get to see the pics of that cool Treo cake!

Hey, slice me off a piece of that QWERTY keyboard! It looks yummy! ;-)

the::unwired is reporting today that Vodafone will be the first German telecommunications provider to offer the Palm Treo Pro. The Treo Pro is the Treo 750v's successor, and Vodafone's biggest selling WM phone ever.

According to the::unwired, Vodafone Germany will begin selling the Treo Pro by the end of September. We reported yesterday that Palm's U.S. website is now taking pre-orders for their unlocked Treo Pro. It looks like it'll be near the end of the month before any of us putting in our pre-orders will receive our Treo Pro's. On the pre-order page, it says, "Release Date: Buy now for shipping by 09/23/2008"

We told you last week that the Treo Pro was available for pre-order in the UK. I was just looking at Palm's Eurostore site and it says there: "Order fulfilment will commence week beginning 22nd September for France, Germany and Switzerland, and week beginning 15th September in other countries."

So it looks like Palm will be set to begin selling the Treo Pro around the globe in no time. And if you'll recall, we mentioned in the UK pre-order article that Barrons.com had reported that analyst compnay Cowen said that Windows Mobile will help push Palm's value up by 30% over the next 12 months.

Looks like some of our TreoCentral forum members have already put in their pre-orders for the Treo Pro.

I just read a Reuters article about the four major cell phone companies text message rates rising. It seems that Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the U.S. Senate's antitrust subcommittee, sent a letter to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc, Sprint Nextel Corp and T-Mobile expressing concern about "what appear to be sharply rising rates your companies have charged to wireless phone customers for text messaging." Kohl wanted an explanation as to why the price of text messages had doubled in three years.

Kohl noted that the cost of sending or receiving a text message had doubled since 2005 to 20 cents on all four carriers.

Read on for the full article

According to a Handmark press release, Handmark today announced the debut of the first Sony-branded titles for smartphones, including Wheel of Fortune Deluxe, JEOPARDY! Deluxe, and Q*Bert. These games are available through Handmark distribution channels for BlackBerry(R) smartphone, Palm(R), and Windows Mobile(R) users.

"Sony stands out as a leader in entertainment with some of the most admired, timeless television game shows in history," said Paul Reddick, Handmark CEO. "It is an honor to have the opportunity to take their vision and translate it into new, exciting mobile gaming experiences for smartphone users."

Read on for the full article

Note: Click on pic to fully enlarge.

I just read over at ReadWriteWeb that according to the latest data from mobile advertising company AdMob, traffic from Apple's iPhone on AdMob's advertising network almost doubled in August. Also, the iPhone saw the fastest growth of all smartphones worldwide, with the Samsung Instinct coming in second.

According to the ReadWriteWeb article, Palm's Centro, a major boon for Palm, was only trumped by the Blackberry Pearl when it comes to traffic volume. The Centro is among the top 5 smartphones generating traffic. Even though Nokia's devices were responsible for just over 62% of all smartphone traffic worldwide, none of Nokia's smartphones ranked in the top 20 in the U.S.

Read on for the full article

I just read over at Palm Addicts that TopNaviText, by RNS::, now supports the Centro.

TopNaviText is a Preferences panel, which means its icon is not displayed among other applications (in a launcher), but it shows up as a new panel in the Palm OS preferences (the "Prefs" application). This product was created for Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 680, Treo 700p, Treo 755p, and Palm Centro.

According to Sammy's article, normally, there is no way to quickly move the blinking cursor around text without removing the stylus or struggling with a fat and/or stubby finger. Now you can do it!

Use the following Option and 5-Way Navigator combinations to move the cursor faster:

• Option Left
• Option Right

TopNaviText is a FREE app so check it out!

iambic has announced the release of Health & Diet Manager version 3.0, which in addition to the Windows Mobile (Pocket PC and Smartphone) version, is now available also for Palm OS and Windows Desktop PCs. And best of all, both the Palm OS and Windows Mobile versions synchronize with the Desktop.

Health & Diet Manager is an indispensible assistant allowing to easily track food intake, calorie consumption, and exercise regimen. The software has been designed with ease of use and mobility in mind, and at the same time allows for a through tracking of every detail surrounding the individual's health.

It comes with an extensive food database that includes menus from popular eateries (such as McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, etc.). This database is customizable and offers a straightforward way to add food items as well as whole meals. For those on diet programs such as WeightWatchers, Health & Diet Manager provides a convenient way to track point balances and map points to meals.

Windows Desktop users can take advantage of two way synchronization introduced in version 3, allowing data exchange between the desktop and the mobile versions.

Health & Diet Manager sounds very useful. Probably an app I should put on my Centro. I'm sitting here eating doughnuts and drinking coffee for breakfast. Hmmm... and I wonder why I need to lose about 40 lbs. Sheesh!

We've got a couple of Palm news blurbs this morning. First up, Palm said last Tuesday that it would announce its first-quarter fiscal year 2009 financial results on Thursday, Sept. 18, shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. Pacific), followed by a conference call for the public at 4:30 p.m. Eastern (1:30 p.m. Pacific).

And of course TreoCentral will be listening in on the conference call and will be reporting on what goes on. So stay tuned.

In other Palm news, Palm has announced their environmental philosophy over at their website.

Palm defines its environmental stewardship as the assumption of responsibility for its impact on the environment and natural resources.

Read on for the full article

I reported yesterday that Sprint was getting two new colors for its Centro lineup. Looks like a photo of the Rose and Green Centros have popped up today.

I just read a short article over at Morninpaper.com and they have posted the pics of the new colors.

The pics came from forum member r0fl in this SprintUsers.com forum thread.

I'm sure glad to see those pics so I can rest my spinning mind about what the colors would look like. The Rose is more of a deep rose color compared to the Sprint's "dusty rose" pink Centro. And the Green is a pleasant light green. Nice! And nice for Sprint customers who get more choices of Centro colors soon. ;-) I'm assuming that the release date is still to be October 19th as I haven't heard anything different.

I reported on Tuesday that Australians with Telstra would probably be getting their hands on the Treo Pro, and that those who didn't want to go through the expensive carrier would be able to get an unlocked Treo Pro in shops in November.

Today Telstra confirmed the Treo Pro as the first smartphone on the Next G network to be accredited with Telstra's Blue Tick of approval, showing that it's recommended for handheld use in metro, rural and regional areas.

According to Geoff Booth, Telstra's Country Wide, Group Managing Director, Telstra's Blue Tick accreditation is based on thorough device testing and sets Telstra apart from its competition in terms of customer education.

Read on for the full article

Palm Infocenter is reporting that according to a SprintUsers forum thread, Palm is about to release two new Centro colors on Sprint. Looks like our own TreoCentral forum member heberman had spotted that thread and posted about it on Monday.

The two new colors are said to be "Rose" and "Green". There aren't any photos yet of these new Centro colors. I can't imagine what the "Rose" would look like because to me, the "Pink" Centro on Sprint has a Rose color; like a "dusty rose". And I sure can't think of what a "Green" Centro would look like unless it's going to be the wild green like the keys on the AT&T White Centro. I can't wait to see these new colors.If the new colors are nice, Palm will most likely sell a lot more Centros, and be closer to adding another million units being sold. Palm has already sold 2 million Centros.

According to Palm Infocenter, a reported release date of October 19th is given with no additional details if these colors will be in-store or web-only.

Stay tuned because as soon as we see any pics of the new colors, we'll be sure to post them. ;-)

I gotta say that I'm still in love with my "Electric Blue" Centro!

I have a couple of Treo Pro news blurbs this morning. First up, I read that Palm is going to retail the Treo Pro in Australia starting November 16th. According to istartedsomething, Australians who aren't the biggest fans of the expensive telephone operator Telestra, will be able to get their hands on a vanilla unlocked Treo Pro in shops on Sunday, November 16th for AU$900.

From the article:

At the same time I also asked about why hasn't Palm developed or customized the Windows Mobile shell much for the device - the "bread and butter" of HTC. The representative said that this decision was on purpose and believes that fancy shells usually consume too much memory resources slowing down the user experience, whereas the Treo Pro idles at only around 30-40% memory usage compared to as high as 70% on a HTC Touch Diamond. Whether or not this tradeoff between fanciness and resource usage will pay off for Palm remains to be seen.

Next up, I read over at wmpoweruser.com that Palm is holding a Treo Pro launch today in London. wmpoweruser.com says that since the Treo Pro is being sold unsubsidized in the USA, the phone will sort of become more an international than US-based phone like the Treo 500v, and that the London launch may be much more important than it appears.

I just read in our TreoCentral forums that Palm has released a patch for the Treo 800w USB and Battery Charger. Forum member aixguru found the update today. Great find aixguru!

Palm's support site states that the Treo 800w USB and battery charging software update is designed to address the following:

USB

Battery charging

According to Palm's support site, "This update is highly recommended for all Treo 800w devices."

You need this update if your software version is Treo800w-1.03-SPNT.

You can read more about the update and download it here.

Update: Canada rumor. Read full story for update.

I read over at our sister site WMExperts about a hopeful rumor that HTC is working on a CDMA version of the Treo Pro for Verizon and/or Sprint. Let's hope this will pan out to be true. I know that many of our forum members favor the looks of the Treo Pro over the Treo 800w, and some weren't too happy that the GSM crowd will be getting the Treo Pro. If the rumor is true, the CDMA crowd might just get to grab a Treo Pro too.

We found out via WMExperts last Friday that HTC is the ODM for the Treo Pro. According to WMExperts, Cens.com (a Taiwanese news economic news site) is reporting that fellow ODM partner HTC is also working on a CDMA version of the Treo Pro.

From the Cens.com article:

Palm Inc., a global vendor of handsets under own brand, has placed its contract order for the newest Treo Pro series 3.5G phones with Taiwan`s High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC), a handsets supplier, according to company sources...

Read on for the full article

AWright over at Brighthand has gotten a hold of Palm's new Treo Pro smartphone. He's done a nice unboxing and comparison video of the Palm Treo Pro. He unboxes the Treo Pro and seems impressed with Palm's efficient and stylish packaging.

Antoine talks about the overall look of the Treo Pro. He mentions the glossy back of the device and says that he doesn't think it'll be a fingerprint magnet as of yet. I'm sure that he'll see later on that the back of the device really "is" a fingerprint magnet as Dieter's unboxing shows. I believe someone in our forums even said something like "Holy fingerprints Batman!" after watching the video ;-)

Antoine seems to like the stylus which he refers to as a "funky little ordeal" as it's small. He talks about the stylus being metal and more in line with styli shipping with other PPC devices out now.

Antoine takes a look at the Treo Pro compared to the Nokia N95 and MWg Zinc II, two smartphones that are similar in function. He talks about the Treo Pro's keyboard compared to the other two device's slide out keyboards. He says that the Treo Pro is a very pocketable device compared to the Nokia N95 and MWg Zinc II.

You can check out Antoine's video here.

Yesterday I reported on The New York Times article about Jon Rubinstein. Remember this quote from the story about when Stephane Maes first met Rubinstein?:

Mr. Maes had loaded his backpack with about 30 different devices to show Mr. Rubinstein. And for three days, Mr. Maes said, Mr. Rubinstein questioned the team on the devices. After listening to their explanations, Mr. Rubinstein canceled several Treos in development. It was a tough session because Mr. Rubinstein thought there were too many products. He demanded design changes in phones only months from release.

Boyhowdy, I'd love to have been able to see those 30 devices in that backpack, wouldn't you? Some could have been prototypes of the Centro. We know that Rubinstein ordered that changes be made only days before its release. Now the most interesting thing in that quote is:

Mr. Rubinstein canceled several Treos in development.

Hmmm.... very interesting indeed! I wonder what Treos got canceled that we never heard about? And out of 30 devices, I wonder how many of those were Treos? Could one of the devices in there have been the Treo 800w that is now out? Could one of them have been the Treo Pro that has yet to be released? If so, those two made the cut out of all those devices.

Discuss this in our forums.

Palm just announced their newest Windows Mobile (6.1 Pro) Treo today, and Engadget Mobile has already gotten their paws on one. WooHoo! So y'all might as well go on and pull up your drool buckets!

Yep, Joshua Topolsky got to spend some time with the Treo Pro and has the proof in Engadget Mobile's juicy gallery of unboxing and hands-on pics. You can see one of the pics to the right.

So far, the guys over at Engadget Mobile seem to be liking the flush screen, HTC-licensed task manager, and the "extremely slick packaging". They even said that "Palm might have one up on Apple with the presentation this time around."

Yep, sweet packaging! And it's really no surprise considering that Palm now has some very talented, former Apple folks on board. ;-)

Engadget Mobile also noted the new modular power adapter, nice earbuds, and no install CD - it loads when you hook the Treo Pro to your PC.

Head on over to Engadget Mobile to see all the pics.

Update: Something that I totally missed in the article is that according to Brodie C. Keast, a senior vice president for marketing at Palm, Ed Colligan is scrapping the use of numbers in product names. We already saw that with the Centro, and now it looks like the Treo Pro is the first Treo to come out without the numbers in the product name.

Laura Holson of The New York Times has posted a very interesting article about Jon Rubinstein and how he's been working towards resuscitating Palm. Jon Rubinstein's presence at Palm is a great asset. If you'll recall from this TreoCentral article:

Before Rubinstein joined Apple in 1997 as senior vice president of hardware engineering and a member of its executive staff, Apple had just lost $816 million, and their profits were waning along with their reputation as an innovator. At Apple, Rubinstein was responsible for hardware development, industrial design and low-level software development. He contributed heavily to Apple's technology roadmap and product strategy. Finally, Rubinstein embarked on an extensive cost-cutting plan that axed both research projects and engineers. Expenses were cut in half.

Holson mentions in the article how Palm has lost its way and how it has tried to innovate beyond the five-year-old Treo with little effect.

From the article:

Mr. Rubinstein, the executive chairman, said he is convinced he can bring Palm back. “Everyone is trying to make an iPhone killer,” he said. “We are trying to make a killer Palm product.”

Read on for the full article

Larry Dignan over at ZDNet.com is reporting that the NPD Group today announced its second quarter handset sales tally. According to the report, 28 million units were shipped to consumers, down 13 percent from a year ago.

NPD says that second quarter handset revenue was $2.4 billion, down 2% from last year.

From the NPD press release:

“Quarterly unit-sales of handsets fell to their lowest level, since NPD begin tracking the category in 2005,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD. “Even so, most major manufacturers picked up market share that was lost by Motorola.”

Dignan says that what is notable about NPD's figures are the market stats.: He says that Motorola has 21 percent market share and Samsung and LG each have 20 percent. So, looks like it’s a three way tie. Nokia trails with 9 percent and RIM’s BlackBerry has 7 percent.

Read on for the full article

Update: Brighthand is reporting that CENS.com (China Economic News Service) makes it clear that the smartphones Palm ordered via Compal will be running Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. So no new Palm OS smartphones in that huge order after all.

Everything Treo is reporting that according to DigiTimes in China, there might just be several new Palm smartphones on the horizon. Seems that Copal Communications has received ODM orders for "several models of smartphones from Palm" and the order volume is for like 5 million units.

According to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report, Palm's orders will be the growth driver for Compal in 2009. Hmmm, 2009 is when Palm is supposed to start shipping those new Palm OS products, so this is sounding mighty interesting, huh?

Hopefully, the large volume of orders for several models means that we'll be seeing a Treo 850 soon, a new Centro device, and possibly a new Palm OS 2.0 smartphone. The possibility of a new Palm smartphone on the new Palm OS is especially exciting.

The Centro has been doing great and selling like hotcakes. The new Treo 800w seems to be doing pretty well also. But Palm needs their next generation Palm OS and the new devices running it to get here soon.

MarketWatch is reporting that IBM today announced it has expanded its relationship with AT&T, Inc., Sprint, and other wireless carriers to provide broader e-mail access to their customers who use IBM Lotus Notes and Domino software on their hand-held devices.

AT&T and Sprint have certified IBM's Lotus Notes Traveler software for use by their customers. Lotus Notes Traveler enables wireless replication of Lotus Notes e-mail, calendaring, and personal information management (PIM) data on select smartphones.

The Treo 750 from AT&T has the capability to run the IMB Lotus Notes Traveler software. The software can be loaded with all the set up info pre-configured, meaning it is now "wireless replication-ready" as soon as the customer starts using the device. Standard data usage charges apply.The Treo 700wx and Treo 800w on Sprint also have the capability to run the Lotus Notes Traveler software.

Read on for the full article

I was just reading in our TreoCentral forums and spotted a post in which someone said that they received an e-mail from Palm yesterday. Below is what the e-mail stated:

We would like to advise you that on August 15, 2008, Palm would end E-mail support. After this date, Palm will no longer provide any incident support via email. Effective August 18, 2008, we recommend that customers who prefer this type of support option to use our Live Chat support that which can be found at palm.com and you may refer to the Support pages in your specific region for more information.

Hmmmm, so is Palm going to end e-mail support and go to phone support and Live Chat only? Just recently, Palm announced that they were ending the MyPalm Beta website on September 1st.

I haven't received an e-mail like the above from Palm. Has anyone else? Discuss this in our forums.

Astraware has just released Insaniquarium Deluxe, which is a separate game from the originall Insaniquarium game released a few years ago. Insaniquarium Deluxe is based on the highly acclaimed PC game by PopCap Games, Inc.

Insaniquarium Deluxe is the craziest aquarium game ever - tend to your fish and keep them happy and they'll reward you with precious coins and jewels. Use the money you earn to buy upgrades for your tank or egg parts which hatch lots of different in-tank pets with special powers. These pets can help you feed your fish, collect coins, or even protect against the aliens that will invade your tank and wreak havoc. You can also use the money you earn to buy better weapons to see the aliens off quicker!

Insaniquarium Deluxe includes 3 fun ways to play:

• Adventure - keep your fish healthy and protect them from aliens through 4 fun aquarium stages each with multiple levels of mayhem;
• Time Trial - feed your fish and fight off the alien invaders to make as much money as possible against the clock. A new time trial is unlocked as you complete each stage in Adventure
• Challenge - once you've mastered Adventure, face the ultimate challenge as you feed your fish and try to protect them from ever increasing alien attacks. The challenge ends when the last fish is zapped!

Insaniquarium Deluxe is available for Palm OS 5 smartphones and PDAs with at least a 320x320 screen, and for Windows Mobile smartphones 2003 and later. Sounds like a lot of fun! You can check it out here.

I read over at Palm Infocenter that June Fabrics PDA Technology Group has updated PdaNet for the Palm Treo 700p, 755p and Palm Centro. Version 4.12 is now available.

With PdaNet, your computer (Windows only) can go online by connecting to your Treo or Centro through the Hotsync USB cable or Bluetooth. If you have a data plan with your Treo or Centro, preferably unlimited data, PdaNet can make it your wireless Internet Connection for your laptop/desktop computer instantly, with no extra hardware or setup being necessary.

PdaNet version 4.12 for Treo 700p, 755p and Centro supports high-speed data. In the PdaNet settings, there is a box you can check for EVDO Boost. This can potentially double your download speed.

PdaNet is also available for the Treo 650, 680 and Windows Mobile devices too, including the Treo 800w.

You can download PdaNet for free but the cost to register the product is $34.00.

I've seen countless iPod and iPhone clones. They're pretty much a dime a dozen, and it's like, "another day, another iPhone clone". But I hadn't seen a Palm Centro clone until this morning. Engadget posted the Centro clone as part of their "Keepin' it fake" series, with this Centro clone being "part CXXVII". The phone is an OQO G900.

Engadget notes that the OQO has raised the bar from the phone it's appearing to copy by having more bells and whistles like a 624MHz CPU, 128MB memory, quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, a 2 megapixel camera and Wi-Fi.

Not a bad looking phone and it has some nice features as well. Very interesting. I'll be on the lookout for more of those Centro clones.

Pic via 139yes.com

HeroCraft has announced the upcoming release of the unique geographical quiz game Travel Genius for PDA & Smartphones.

Travel Genius sets out to prove that learning can be fun.

Travel Genius helps you test your world knowledge, get to know more about our planet and make the whole world seem like a smaller place.

This ingenious new game puts you, the intrepid explorer, through your paces as you navigate your way to capital cities, oceans and seas, mountain ranges, famous battlegrounds, landmarks and much more.

Play a simple game, progressing level by level through exotic locations or test your mettle in a timed game where speed is of the essence as you track down those hard-to-find places. Perform well enough and you’ll be able to access the frantic finger flexing bonus game!

Read on for the full article

I just read over at TamsPalm about a video by PdaParts of a Centro being disassembled for a screen replacement. I hope I never have to see my Centro taken apart like that for anything. Of course the guys over at PdaParts are pros and have been doing this for years. They sell lots of PDA parts, although TamsPalm notes that their stock seems to have dwindled recently:

industry insiders tell us that parts are no longer available for the latest devices

Well, I wasn't aware that their stock had dwindled since I've hardly ever had to buy spare parts for any of my Palm devices. I once had to buy some tiny screws for my Tungsten T3's slider, but that's about it. I've been fortunate over the years and my Palm's have been in great condition.

If you're curious about the inner workings of a Centro, head on over and watch this interesting video. Of course I wouldn't advise anyone to attempt repairing their Centro because as the video warns, this will void your warranty. LOL, ya think? ;-)

Kevin over at our sister site CrackBerry.com has posted a great hands-on review (part 1 of 2) of a yet to be officially announced or released BlackBerry smartphone, the 8220, codenamed "KickStart". Kevin and the CrackBerry team were the first to get their hands on a KickStart. Way to go Kevin!

The KickStart will be the first BlackBerry clamshell flip phone made by RIM. The KickStart will most likely be an introductory smartphone like the Centro, targeted at first time smartphone users.

Kevin noted that the leaked images of the KickStart back on April 30th pushed RIM's stock up nearly 5%:

...and for good reason - it showed the world and investment community that RIM wasn't afraid of reinventing and targeting opportunities outside their norm. No, the KickStart doesn't feature the same high-end hardware and all-in-one functionality of the Bold nor have the same allure that a touchscreen BlackBerry proposes, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't get excited about this device. It may not be something that existing BlackBerry or other smartphone users will flock to, but if it hits store shelves at a reasonable price it should be a top pick for flip phone lovers and feature phone upgraders, which should mean CrackBerry nation is about to get a whole lot bigger, and that is exciting.

Read on for the full article

We reported yesterday on Opera Mobile 9.5 Beta for Windows Mobile being released. Let's not forget about Opera Mini for our Palm OS Treos.

I read an interesting article over at Palm Addict this morning in which one of Sammy's readers wrote in and talked about installing the latest Opera Mini 4.1 on his Palm Treo 680.

Unfortunately, Scotty had some problems when trying to open the app:

When I tried to open the Opera application, after it started the initial launch setup, all I got was crash, reset, crash, reset, crash, reset...All my excitement was dashed!!!

But Scotty found the answer to getting Opera Mini to run on his 680 after a little help from WALL-E and Google.

You can find out how Scotty got Opera Mini to work on his Treo 680 by reading the full article.

TreoCentral forum member unclejung also gives instructions in this thread on how to get Opera Mini running on your Palm OS Treo/Centro. Looks like you'll need Java Virtual Machine software to get Opera Mini working properly. Head on over to the forums and read unclejung's tips. You can download Opera Mini here.

Ryan over at Palm Infocenter has gotten his hands on the new "electric blue" Palm Centro. Mmmmm, nice! I believe I'm starting to like that electric blue more than the cobalt blue.

Ryan says that the electric blue color is very vibrant and really "pops" in person. He also said that the color has a subtle sparkle finish that isn't overwhelming with sparkle. I've always thought that a little sparkle looks great and is a really nice touch.

Ryan points out that the included stylus matches the electric blue Centro. That's good to know. I just wish that the styli of late weren't so flimsy. Remember those nice metal styli with some heft to them? Ahh, those were great! I especially loved the telescoping metal stylus on the Tungsten T3! And the Tungsten E stylus was a great one too. But I can understand Palm wanting to save some money. I'd rather have a flimsy stylus anyday than a flimsy Treo or Centro body. My Black AT&T Centro feels really solid and I love it!

Ryan has lots of juicy photos of the electric blue Centro so head on over there and get a look! They are definitely drool worthy. My favorite one is the pic I included here showing the backlit keyboard in the dark. Now is that sweet or what? Thanks for the look at the electric blue Centro Ryan! ;-)

Palm and AT&T announced today a limited price promotion for the AT&T Centro, including the new electric blue.

You can get the AT&T Centro, the electric blue, glacier white, or obsidian black, for as low as $69.99 after a two-year service agreement and a mail-in rebate. This price promotion runs from July 11 through September 20.

The new electric blue Centro is available today, July 11 at www.palm.com/centro.

So go get your Centro for this low price while you can!

Update: Looks like 16 or more forum members have already gotten in their order for the 800w! Some folks have been told that the device is "backordered". Maybe because orders are processed at local stores? gr2gztch mentions that as a possibility.

Malatesta over at WMExperts reported just a little while ago that Sprint is now taking orders for the Palm Treo 800w via Telesales. WooHoo!

You can call Sprint Telesales at (877-639-8351) and place your order today. The product ID is PTR800HK.

Malatesta reports that the previously stated price is still the same: $599.99 with $75 or $150 off for 1 to 2 year upgrades, plus a $100 mail in rebate.

He's also reporting that some folks on SERO are being asked for a verification email from a Sprint employee, but that seems to be the exception for now. And SERO customers don't have to switch plans to get the 800. Good to know!

Malatesta expects to receive his new toy tomorrow, and when he gets it, he'll have a sweet un-boxing! Now that'll be some good gadget porn, huh? ;-)

Looks like our sister site WMExperts has yet another 800w leak story to tide us over while all the iPhone 3G hoopla is going on and we await the Treo 800w.

Forum member Darth Pooh met with his local store rep who had some promotional materials straight from Palm, and Darth Pooh was able to get a couple of photos and then scanned them.

Malatesta says that these data sheets don't tell us very much more than we already know but that there are lots of new glamor shots, some cool shortcuts, and you'll also learn exactly what Sprint reps will tell you when they attempt to sell you the 800w.

Malatesta let's us know that we do learn:

• "... it will ship with a standard and extended battery due to beta feedback"
• RevA enabled out of the box
• Qualcomm MSM-6800a chipset
• GPS is standalone and assisted (noyce)
• Talk time is "up to 4 hours" with 200 hrs standby
• 1150 mah battery (same as the Centro)

You can download the full 12 page sales guide here (while it lasts).

Those of you on the fence about getting an iPhone 3G would probably be interested to know that iPhone 2.0 is now Live! Yep, you can now download a crap load of cool apps via the App Store. Of course you'll need an iPhone or iPod touch in order to do that.

The iPhone 3G went on sale this morning in New Zealand so lots of lucky folks already have one in hand. Tomorrow is the big day for us here in the states.

Anyway, our sister site the iPhone Blog has an avalanche of iPhone 3G news today, so head on over there and read all about it!

Remember the MyPalm Beta site? I reported on the site last year. It's a new Treo owner resource site that gives registered members access to wireless delivery of software and services, 24/7 members-only phone assistance and interactive learning tools, a personal MyPalm account and homepage, and more. The site never came out of "Beta" and it's going to end on September 1st, 2008.

From the MyPalm Beta website:

The MyPalm Beta will be ending on September 1, 2008. Palm product and support offerings will be available to customers through alternative channels after that time.

My guess (and that's just a guess) is that there will be a newly overhauled program since we now have the Palm Centro and will be getting a couple of new WM Treos soon. Plus the fact that Palm is working on their new Palm OS - Nova.

Palm's Official Blog is reporting that beginning this Friday, AT&T will make available a new Blue Centro - Electric Blue - to join Glacier White and Obsidian Black.

The Electric Blue Centro will be available starting this Friday in AT&T retail stores, or online at www.att.com and www.palm.com/centro. Sweet! What a wild looking color!

Palm's blog says to be sure to check back there on Friday to find out how they'll be making these eye-catching Centros more affordable than ever for back-to-schoolers from July 11 to September 20, 2008.

Dieter lets us know over at WMExperts that the Treo 800w will launch on Sprint first for $249 with contract on July 13th (or 10th for those willing to hunt it down early thru backchannels), then eventually come to Verizon.

Phone Arena reports that they learned that the 800w might be a Sprint exclusive for the first 2-3 months of its life. They've obtained documentation indicating that the 800w will launch 60-90 days before it launches on Verizon.

Someone asked Ed Colligan during the Quarterly Conference call about carrier exclusivity. Colligan replied:

You know, each one of the different launches will have a little different dynamics and -- but in general, they will be pretty broadly distributed early out the gate, and so I wouldn’t -- you know, they are not going to be exclusive for any period of time, you know, in any particular region.

You can read more over at WMExperts.

Astraware has released an updated version of their popular FREE Astraware Fireworks application. Astraware Fireworks is a simple FREE application, showing sequences of fireworks flying and exploding into the air. This is a really cute app and I had it on my Treo 680 last year. Astraware Fireworks features a selection of patriotic backgrounds including the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore and the Stars and Stripes, and offers a choice of stirring tunes including the Star Spangled Banner and Stars and Stripes Forever! I prefer hearing Stars and Stripes Forever as it has the upbeat tempo.

Astraware created Astraware Fireworks for their friends here in the United States to help us celebrate our Independence Day holiday! Thanks Astraware!

Astraware Fireworks is available for devices running Palm OS 5 and later and Windows Mobile 2003 and later. And this year Astraware has also made a version for the BlackBerry which includes the backgrounds and firework effects but doesn't include music.

If you want to put some fireworks on your Treo or Centro, head on over to Astraware and download the app for FREE! The app is available for a limited time only so grab it now as the 4th of July is almost here. I'm sure your family and friends will get a kick out of Astraware Fireworks!

I had a Google alert letting me know that Jaunted, a travel website, is having a Layover Nation Contest.

Looks pretty simple to enter. You just think up a cool thing to do at any airport and then post a comment. The best of the best of ideas will win someone a free, 3-day trip to the Turks & Caicos. Runners up will win Palm Centro smartphones.

I know people who are stuck at airports all the time during layovers. I don't even fly, but if I did and had to stick around during a layover, I'd certainly have my Centro in hand and we all know the hundreds of things we can do with that little wonder.

I guess if the layover was extended, you could head out and see some local scenery. Anyway, the contest sounds like fun. I'd rather win a Centro than a trip myself. ;-)

To enter the Layover Nation Contest, head over to Jaunted.

Jay reported yesterday that the Google Maps for mobile for Palm OS update would be available today. And sure enough, the updated app is now available.

My Location is compatible with Palm Centro smartphones running on the AT&T and Verizon Wireless networks. According to the Official Google Mobile Blog, if you have a Sprint Centro, you must first upgrade its operating system to Maintenance Release 1 for My Location to work. Palm Centro for Sprint will have the My Location feature available through a software update expected this summer.

Note that older Palm models such as the Treos don't have the APIs needed to get the cell tower data, so My Location is not available on these models. All Palm OS phones will be able to enjoy the other features of this release.

You can get the latest release of Google Maps for mobile here.

According to an article in the New York Times, Palm said on Thursday that it was on the way to shipping 2 million Centros. Palm hit the million Centro sales mark back in March.

The Centro launched on Sprint in September of 2007, followed by AT&T's GSM Centro launch back in February of this year. As of today, Verizon will also be carrying the Palm Centro. Shares of Palm jumped 9 percent in early trading after the company announced that the Centro would be sold through Verizon.

According to the NYTimes.com article, Brodie Keast, senior vice president of marketing, was asked when Palm expects shipments of the Centro to reach 2 million. Keast replied that Palm was confident that they'll get there in 2008. It's very possible that could happen by the end of 2008 since that would allow Palm to sell the Centro for another 6 months. I feel pretty confident that Palm will succeed in selling 2 million Centros. They sold their first million within 6 months.

The Centro sells really well due to its low price. I would think that Apple's new iPhone 3G could be a threat to the Centro since it too will sell at a low price. However, the Centro, selling at $99 after rebates, is half the cost of the iPhone 3G (8GB version), which will sell for $199.

VITO Technology has released a new version of SMS-Chat. SMS-Chat has the popular threaded messaging, and the new version has cool animated smiles.

A feature in the previous version of SMS-Chat that was very popular was the ability to click hyperlinks to open in the browser, clicking a phone number to place a call, and clicking e-mail to send a letter. However, you needed to click SMS to get to the menu buttons to then choose the desired action. In the new version of SMS-Chat, you only need to click the highlighted text and SMS-Chat will automatically detect the desired action of placing a call, sending an e-mail or opening the link in the browser.

The updated version includes two skins, a bright skin and a dark skin. Plus minor bugs from the previous version have been fixed.

Read on for the full article

Hmmm, Engadget Mobile got hold of an interesting powerpoint presentation which details Verizon's roadmap for the upcoming months. The glossy Verizon presentation revealed the Treo 800w and the Samsung i770.

Of special interest to Treo folks, the Treo 800w will arrive in Q3. Dieter guesses over at WMExperts that the Treo 800w will arrive in late Q3 so Sprint can have a little exclusivity after their July 22nd release.

The Treo 800w doesn't look too shabby in this photo. Not bad at all. Sure got my drool glands going. ;-) I love the charcoal color. Note the smiley keyboard and the black number keys.

Check out the gallery of slides here.

Thanks to forum member seanandcara for sending in the tip!

I'd like to shout out a Happy 9 Year Birthday to my Friend Sammy McLoughlin and the Palm Addicts website!!! Congratulations Sammy and gang at Palm Addict! I've been reading the website for many years. It was my first Palm related website I found after discovering the world of Palm devices, and there was always so very much information at hand. The site has grown a lot over the years and still looks great and is still going strong! Cheers to you Sammy, and I hope to see Palm Addict continue to grow over the following years!

OK so we just did it, we have just turned 9 years ago. 9 years ago exactly we sat on the rooftop at White Street Tribeca with a bottle of beer, it was a scorcher that day and decided, ok lets give put together a website, posting stories on how people use their Palm handheld devices. We did it and have updated the site every day since then. So that's it we are now on our way to our 10th Birthday which we will celebrate next year. I want to thank all the writers and editors over the last 9 years who write for the site on a voluntary basis, thanks to all of the readers who come and visit my site on a daily basis with many of you having been with my site since 1999. Thanks to all the well wishers, readers, writers from other gadget sites and of course our own writers here at PA.

Here's to 9 more years and many more Sammy! ;-)

AT&T announced Wednesday that it plans to boost the speed of its 3G wireless network to speeds of 20 megabits per second in 2009, paving the way for over-the-air downloads that are more than five times faster than what customers are achieving today.

According to an AppleInsider article, AT&T's mobility chief Ralph de la Vega spoke at the Morgan Stanley annual Communications Conference on Wednesday and said that engineers already have a version of AT&T's HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) 3G network up and running in the labs at speeds of 7.2 megabits per second, which is approximately double the theoretical throughput of its existing network.

AT&T plans to transition to HSPA release 7 in 2009, delivering even bigger speeds exceeding 20 megabits per second. de la Vega said that the upgrade will require few if any hardware modifications to the company's infrastructure and will instead be a smooth transition achieved largely by a software upgrade to its electronics.

Well, bring it on AT&T! As I've said before, I'll be happy to even get 3G in my area. I'd really be happy to have those upcoming new and faster speeds! Right now with EDGE, Blazer is just crawling along on my Centro like a snail stuck in molasses.

Palm, Inc. announced today that their Chief Financial Officer Andrew J. Brown will be present at the 36th Annual JPMorgan Technology Conference in Boston on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 3:40 p.m. Eastern Time.

Palm invites investors to listen to the live webcast at http://investor.palm.com/events.cfm.

In other Palm news, I read today over at Tech Trader Daily that UBS analyst Maynard Um cut his rating on Palm to Sell from Neutral, with an unchanged $5 price target. Palm today is down 18 cents, or 3%, at $5.76.

According to the article, Um says that Palm is on track for some new Treo products in the August and November quarters, but they face an increasingly competitive landscape with the pending arrival of the 3G iPhone and the expected July launch of the 3G Blackberry Bold by RIM.

Um also said that a Palm turnaround still relies on the success or failure of its new Linux product (Nova) which won't be launched before the first half of 2009 "at the earliest."

Momail has just launched support for all major email accounts including Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and other ISP mail. So all of the most popular vendors' email can now use Momail as their "Mobile Postman".

Momail is very easy to set up and use, and all emails are automatically optimized to the user's specific mobile model. The Momail user only has to select which email accounts will automatically be transferred to the mobile. And before the email reaches the mobile, an immediate and automatic optimization plus a spam and virus control will be performed.

With Momail's "Dynamic Sender" feature all replies will automatically be from the email address that the original email was sent to. All the emails from different accounts will arrive into the Momail "Superinbox" on the mobile. With Momail there is no limit of the number of email accounts that can be aggregated in the mobile.

"Mobile Postman continues our commitment to bring the best features to people on the move," said Roger Grönberg, CEO of Momail. "Momail is the only email where complexity and frustrating moments are taken away. We've done all the hard work on our side. There shouldn't be any for you."

Momail is free of charge and works on all mobiles with built-in email support. The service is available in the UK, in all Nordic countries, Austria, Italy, Germany and Poland. Many more countries will be added this year, beginning with the BeNeLux countries. For an updated country list please visit www.momail.com. I checked and you can try the beta test Momail in the United States.

phone different and the iPhone blog have merged! The site is "the iPhone blog". From the new iPhone blog website:

It's with a lot of excitement and perhaps just a little pride that we're announcing the merger of the iPhone Blog and Phone different! Now all new, the iPhone Blog's excellent history of covering the iPhone is now fortified with all of the great content originally found at Phone different. Now and during the run-up to the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 2.0 software release, the iPhone Blog features the latest iPhone news, accessory reviews, editorial, commentary, and more.

In celebration of the two great sites, the iPhone Blog will be giving away great prizes to its readers! They'll continue the very popular iPhone 2.0 Wait-a-Thon plus they'll be giving away an iPhone 3G when it becomes available! Sweet! They'll announce the contest details later this week so watch that space.

Most importantly, though, the iPhone Blog is now the premiere site for you to find all of your iPhone news, tips, how-to articles, and reviews. We have an incredible team of writers - just check out all the posts from Phone different that have been added to the blog to see what we mean. We’ll also feature a bi-weekly iPhone Podcast. Of course, the Phone different iPhone accessory Store isn’t going anywhere, it’s still your best source for any iPhone accessory you could imagine.

Jay reported on Kinoma giving away free copies of their Kinoma Player for Palm OS when you buy Mom a Mother's Day gift through TrialPay. Well, iambic is also having a Mother's Day Special.

Yep, if you buy something for Mom via TrialPay, you get a free copy of Agendus Professional as iambic's gift to you!

Through TrialPay, you can choose from a wide variety of gifts and services, including flowers, jewelry, event tickets and wine tasting packages. I'm sure your Mom would love any of those gifts!

So, wanna get something nice for Mom for Mother's Day and get yourself a great piece of software in the process? Head on over to TrialPay and start shopping! Go to TrialPay and sign in, and then follow the steps to shop and get Agendus Professional free!

Update: Get Agendus for Pocket PC Professional Edition FREE with TrialPay here.

Get Agendus for Smartphone Professional Edition FREE with TrialPay here.

Get Agendus for Palm OS Professional Edition FREE with TrialPay here.

NoviiMedia, software developers for handheld computers, announced back on April 14th that their NoviiRemote Deluxe was compatible with the Palm Centro.

Today NoviiMedia announced their latest invention, the NoviiRemote Lite for Treos, Palm Centro and Palm PDAs. This new NoviiRemote software boasts all the great features of the NoviiRemote solutions: simple installation, navigational tips, pre-installed infrared codes and an increased infrared range. But the Lite uses less memory than previous NoviiRemote Classic version while still providing enough juice to operate all of your home theatre equipment.

In addition, the NoviiRemote Lite offers hard button programming with 16 predefined button layouts plus any that you may have created with the NoviiRemote Deluxe. If the infrared code for a specific piece of equipment is not already in the Lite, Novii's download center will provide it for you.

NoviiRemote Lite is available for purchase from NoviiMedia's website for $24.99. To test a free trial version of NoviiRemote Lite, visit the NoviiMedia website. Additional details and upgrade information are available at this web address.

I've heard of NoviiRemote for years but have never tried it. I think I'll give this new Lite version a whirl on my new Centro!

I just read over at Palm Addicts that O2 has announced the launch of the Palm Treo 500 that was previously only available as the 500v on Vodafone.

Palm Europe Ltd. and O2 today launched the Palm® Treo™ 500 smartphone, which combines multiple forms of communication with high-speed 3G/UMTS mobile Internet access.(1) Aimed at large- and small-business users, the Treo 500 smartphone is available across O2’s top 100 stores as well as through its direct sales teams and online shop. Running on the Windows Mobile® 6 Standard platform, the device offers business users viewing and editing capabilities for Microsoft Word and Excel documents, a full keyboard for quick and easy messaging, a large full-colour screen and a comprehensive multimessaging functionality covering email, IM, SMS, phone, and contact and calendar capabilities -- all in a compact form factor.(1) The device, which comes in charcoal grey, is available free from O2 on select Pay Monthly tariffs, dependent on the tariff taken.

The Palm Treo 500, which looks very much like the Palm Centro in Black, is aimed at business users.

“Business users today are looking for compact devices that offer not only business functionality, such as email and access to documents, but also multimessaging capabilities and high-speed Internet access. The Treo 500 smartphone provides everything you need to manage your work and personal lives whilst on the go,” said Roy Bedlow, vice president, Palm EMEA.

I'd love to get my hands on a Treo 500. Doesn't look like we'll be getting the device over here in the states though.

HeroCraft has announced the forthcoming release of an amazing logic game Hexxagon Labs for Palm OS, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Hexxagon Labs is a classical puzzle game which will provide not only fascinating entertainment, but will also give much interesting information. The game suggests launching intellectual battles on 17 various arenas. The main goal of each party in three different game modes is to occupy as many cells on the field as possible by repainting opponent's chips and not losing your own. Rules simplicity turns unlimited profundity of tactical manoeuvres and artful tricks. At that you can play both against a computer and also the two or even three together on the same phone device!

Game Features:

• Play with one or two friends
• 17 complicated levels / 3 bonus tutorial levels
• 3 game modes
• Original set of amusing facts from the scientific world
• Stylish music
• Attractive and bright graphics

Sounds like fun! Hexxagon Labs will be released on May 8th, 2008. Until then, check out the screenshots and an animation of Hexxagon Labs here.

Update: Rumor has it that AT&T is about to hop on board the device testing for customers to own a device to enhance their cell phone coverage at home...

Sprint has a device that provides enhanced and reliable phone coverage in your house or office.

Read on for the full story!