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Today’s casualty is Caitlin Spaan, veep for Palm’s carrier marketing. It’s a comparatively small loss compared to when their Senior VP of software bailed two weeks ago, but it amplifies an increasingly obvious message: Palm is in a death spiral. More

Some healthy escalation in the Palm vs. Apple iTunes scuffle: Though Apple tried to block the Pre from syncing with iTunes, Palm has struck back with WebOS update 1.1, which un-breaks Pre-iTunes coupling and adds some great new features. There are a ton of minor fixes to the Pre, which you can read about in the changelog below. The big standout is re-enabled iTunes compatibility. As Palm says in their blog, “That’s right — you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).” How they managed to hold back from adding in “…Bitches!” at the end of that, we’ll never know. But there are a bunch of other sweet new features, especially ” person reminders ,” which let you set individual reminders for each person in your contact list (imagine a buddy calls, and a message pops up, reminding you to, say, congratulate him—or, if you’re like me, to ask him to pay you back the money he owes you). So cool! [ Palm ] Update : Confirmed. Version information * Version: webOS 1.1.0 * Release date: 23 July 2009 * Configuration: Sprint 1.7 New applications NFL Mobile Live from Sprint * Watch or listen to live NFL games right on your phone. Feature changes to existing applications Calendar * For Calendar accounts you create on your phone, the default reminder intervals are 15 minutes for timed events and one day for all-day events. A few notes: o This change applies only if software version 1.1 was on your phone when you bought it, or if you did a partial or full erase on your phone and signed in to your Palm profile again after updating to version 1.1. If you simply update your phone to software version 1.1, the default reminder intervals in Calendar do not change. o This change applies only to Calendar events you create on your phone, not to events that are synchronized to your phone from an online account. Camera * The Photos application opens more quickly when launched from the camera. Clock * Enhanced support for time zones in Clock. * When you set an alarm in Clock, an alarm icon appears in the notification area at the bottom of the screen. Tap the icon to display alarm details. Alarm details include the following: o If the alarm is set for the current day, the alarm time appears. o If the alarm is set for tomorrow, the alarm time and “Tomorrow” appear. o If the alarm is set for any day other than today or tomorrow, the day of the alarm appears. Contacts * Friends added and deleted in Facebook on the web are now correctly added and deleted in the Facebook account in Contacts on the phone. * As soon as you create or makes changes to a Google contact on the phone, the phone begins a sync to reflect those changes in Google on the web. Email * When you set up an Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) email account, you can enter the mail server name as an IP address. * Support for self-signed certificates with multiple common names has been added. * When you reply to an email in HTML format using an EAS account, the formatting of the sender’s original message is now retained in the reply. * Palm’s EAS implementation now supports several Exchange ActiveSync Policies, including the following: o PIN/Password Required. IT administrators can ensure a password is assigned to the phone. Administrators can also specify the minimum length of the password. o Inactivity timeout. IT administrators can ensure that an inactive phone goes into a locked state after a certain time period. You cannot set a higher timeout interval for your phone, but you can set a shorter interval. o Remote Wipe. IT Administrators can remotely erase all data on a phone from their Exchange console. IT administrators can also have the device wipe itself if an incorrect password is entered more than a specified number of times. Messaging * You can enter emoticons in new text, multimedia, and instant messages. Emoticons also display in incoming messages. * If you set the phone to use a 24-hour time format, the message times shown in a conversation appear in 24-hour time. * If you go into an IM account’s preferences, all the options are available even if you are signed in to the account. You can tap Remove Account to delete the account, enter a new password to update the password, or tap Sign In to sign in with your updated password. Previously, you needed to sign out of the account before you could use these preferences. * When you delete an IM account, a message now appears asking you to confirm that you want to delete the account. Phone * When multiple missed call notifications are displayed on the dashboard, the time of the most recent missed call is shown. * When you slide the ringer switch off, a bell icon with a slash is displayed. Previously, the icon was a speaker with a slash. * In Phone Preferences, the Show Contact Matches preference is now turned on by default. When typing on the keyboard in the phone app, the phone automatically displays both the numbers being entered and any contact matches for the characters entered. System * Improved functionality of person reminders. A person reminder is a notification that you create in a contact entry. The notification appears when you have a call or exchange an email, text, multimedia, or IM message with a contact. * Resolves an issue preventing media sync from working with latest version of iTunes (8.2.1). * When you enter a search term in Card view or the Launcher to perform a universal search, if you select the Wikipedia web search option, results are shown in the Wikipedia Mobile site instead of the Desktop site. Web * You can now use symbols from the symbols table (Sym Sym key icon + key) when you enter text into a web page dialog box. * If you have a page open at a certain zoom level, leave the page, and use the onscreen Back Web Back button button or the back gesture to return to the page, the zoom level is restored right away. * A new gesture is now available that works the same as the onscreen Forward Web Forward button button. To move forward through open web pages, make a short swipe left to right in the gesture area. * When using the Wikipedia drop-down search feature in the address bar, results are shown in the Wikipedia Mobile site instead of the Desktop site. * When you tap a link, the link appears highlighted to indicate it has been activated, even if it takes a moment for the linked page to open. YouTube * After you enter search text, you can tap the Search Search icon icon to perform a search. You still have the option of pressing Enter Enter key to perform the search.

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Palm Pre Fixes iTunes Sync! [Palm Pre]

Here’s something Palm execs can’t like to see: a listing for a Palm Pre holster on BestBuy.com that says “iPod sold separately” on its image.

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Oops! Best Buy Selling a Palm Pre Case with ‘iPod Sold Separately’ [Best Buy]

The Palm Pre can’t shoot video. But what if it could shoot something better than video, natively

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The Palm Pre Can’t Shoot Video, But Stop Motion Photography Is No Problem [Hacks]

Medialets is reporting that as of June 17th, a mere 11 days after its launch, Palm Pre users have downloaded well over 650,000 apps.

Excerpt from:
Palm Pre Nears 700,000 App Downloads in Less Than Two Weeks [App Catalog]

The spotlight this week may be pointed at the iPhone 3GS—and with good reason—but it’s not the only flavor of smartphone ice cream. Here’s a quick path to more info about all smartphones (and no dumb ones !) • The four big carriers, the four best smartphone platforms, the best information you’re going to get on the subject anywhere: Smartphone Buyer’s Guide: The Best of the Best • Got a few smartphones already in mind? We probably reviewed them: Palm Pre (WebOS) iPhone 3GS BlackBerry Bold BlackBerry Storm T-Mobile G1 (Android) T-Mobile myTouch 3G (Android) Samsung Omnia (WinMo) Note: There’s no Nokia Symbian smartphone on this list because at the moment in the US, there’s no handset we feel confident to recommend

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Hello! There Are More Than Just iPhones In This Universe! [Smartphones]

It could be the fact that the iPhone has been available for two years, or the fact that the iPhone is available in 3000 countries to the Palm Pre ‘s one, but Google Trends shows much more interest in Apple’s device. You do see a pretty decent spike there at the end of the graph, probably beefed up by the Pre launch.

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Palm Pre vs. iPhone in Google Search Popularity [Pre]

It’s the big question, isn’t it? Sprint vs. AT&T, Palm vs

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Palm Pre vs. iPhone 3GS: How To Make the Right Decision [Smartphones]

What’s the point in buying a new iPhone if it looks exactly like the old one? Because once you start using it, the speed of the iPhone 3GS will amaze you. There’s a reason why Apple called this the iPhone 3GS for Speed and not the 3GC for “compass” or 3GV for “video recording.” Speed is the central upgrade here, and probably is the single biggest reason you would upgrade to a 3GS from a 3G

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iPhone 3GS Review [Iphone 3gs]

Layar combines GPS, camera, and compass to identify your surroundings and overlay information on screen, in real time. It is available for Android now and it will be available for iPhone soon, but exclusively for the 3GS. The reason is that Layar needs a compass to work, as Maarten Lens-FitzGerald—from developer SPRXmobile—tells us: We are definitely going for the new iPhone 3GS because of the compass! We’re aiming for release after summer, but we depend on Apple accepting it

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Layar: First Mobile Augmented Reality Browser Is Your Personal Life HUD [Augmented Reality]