Palm Pre Beta Tester: $299 w/contract and Tethering!

Back in February, Sprint removed "Phone as Modem" aka tethering from their Pre's Technical Specs. And that's when we all think the Pre will not support tethering. But guess what? Jim, the Pre beta tester, has came out and say that tethering works on the Pre! Not only that, he said the Pre with a 2 year contract will be $299. Which will be a great price point to compete with the iPhone 3G and maybe the next iPhone.

Jim's own tweets:

"It tethers, tho I'm going 2 try a BT hookup instead... "

'Pre linked right up with FiOS Wi-Fi, but doesn't seem 2like Presario' s BT adapter...Cam's ok, but I'm spoiled by 8mb res Canon #Palm Pre'

'BTW - heard frm source (not Sprint) that Pre price tag 2 be $299 with 2 year ctrct...bet it's $100 or so after all the hype wears off"

He is turning out to be a great source for new Palm Pre bits! Gotta love the power of Twitter!

Palm Pre beta tester on Twitter, says release date is 4/30

As I was questing for new Palm Pre news, I stumbled upon this interesting tweet from Jim Van, CEO of Logiccom. In his own words:

"Got Pre to work on Twitter, but it's a tad cludgy..."

It was a bit confusing at first so I took a peek at his recent tweets. It turns out that, apparently, he and a bunch of others are doing some beta testing for the Palm Pre. And today would be the 2nd day, since he first got his testing model.

According to his tweets:

• They're doing the "final testing" for the Pre. Could this mean that it's ready?
• Release date to be 4/30!
• Pre seems 2 work so well w/ Facebook. Can't seem to get it 2 play w/ Twitter yet.
• Battery's going strong after 8 hours of mixed use
• They do testing for Sprint and WiMax phones
• He got the Pre on 3/26

If what he's saying is true, that the Pre is in its "final testing" phase, then this may well prove that it will be out before the next iPhone does. And as for his release date of 4/30, it would work if Palm and Sprint ramp up marketing efforts before the end of April. Of course this could all be made up, until he posts some Palm Pre UI pictures, as promised.

[LogicommInc (Jim Van) on Twitter]

TealOS gets the axe (webOS likealike app)

Remember TealOS? The Application by TealPoint that gives Palm OS devices that sleek webOS look. Palm has apparently requested TealPoint to remove and stop selling of TealOS on Monday March 30. From TealOS page:

IMPORTANT! - A Palm's request, we will stop selling TealOS on Monday March 30. Copies purchased prior to this date, however will continue to function.

The TealPoint guys have been working hard on fixing bugs and improving TealOS from day one and will continue to do so by the 30th of this month. We're sorry that such an great application has to go...

Back in late Feburary, we had a short interview with Vince Lee, the President/Founder of TealPoint Software, about TealOS.

[PalmInfoCenter]

Still interested in Palm Pre? More than 85% say Yes

According to Complete.com, the Palm Pre's still standing strong in our minds, despite the lack of news about the Pre lately. Both Palm and Sprint's Pre pages had a huge spike in traffic after Palm Pre was announced in CES 09. Although that initial hype is calming down a bit now , and the traffic had dropped, they're still getting a "steady" flow of traffic to their pages, similar to what had happened to the Apple iPhone. 

The guys over at ZDNet, did a little poll on whether people are still interested in the Palm Pre. Roughly, 90% say "Yes".

[ZDNet]

Palm Pre Release Date: May or June (Not April)

 Yet another leaked Sprint internal info has surfaced. According to the screengrab above, there's no mention of a Palm Pre release for April. There's a chance that things are not set in stone yet and Sprint might possibly change their mind and release it in April. If not, then Palm/Sprint will most likely ramp up marketing for the Pre in April and hopefully release the phone in May. Either way, time will tell.

Chapter 2 of webOS book is now available!

Chapter 2 of webOS book is now available! This second chapter is titled “Application Basics” -- which will help developers in building their first webOS application. As expected the first chapter was free, the rest of the book will come for a low price.

"The second chapter of the Rough Cuts version ofPalm webOS: Developing Applications in JavaScript using the Palm Mojo™ Frameworkby Palm Software CTO Mitch Allen is now available from O’Reilly.

This chapter is titled “Application Basics” and shows the reader how to create their first application and discusses many of the underlying philosophies of programming in Mojo and webOS. This chapter includes the material on which Mitch’s recent O’Reilly webinar was based, but goes into more detail and shows more of the coding details of programming a webOS application."

Palm Pre being Assembled by CMCS

DigiTimes is reporting that the honored ODM for the Palm Pre will be Chi Mei Communication Systems. They're not well-know like the other Tawiness based OEM out there like HTC and Inventec. Best-know for their handsets for Motorola. Since 2005, CMCS has been part of Foxconn, interestingly enough the ones behind th production of reported 800,000 iPhones per week. The question is, could they keep up production with the demand for the Pre? We'll find out "soon".

Also reported that, "Shipments expected to begin in March at the earliest, indicated the sources." I doubt we'll see the Pre in March, more like April if they are getting close to release it to the Palm Pre consumers. Let's cross out fingers...

Sprint Palm Pre Webinar now on YouTube!

If you missed the invited-only Sprint/Palm Pre webinar held on March 12, 2009, you can now watch the webinar with Q&A session on YouTube! You can read our coverage of it in our previous post(Pricing Plans).