The Palm Pre was relatively elusive this week in the news, but there were a few critical releases from Palm and Sprint that offered new information, confirmation of some speculations and some affirmation of documented facts. In this week’s review, we’ll take a look at what we learned, and what we already knew.
A new Sprint phone road map was leaked and on those slides was the Pre, slated as Sprint’s high-end consumer and business phone. There were a few details confirmed, most notably that the Pre is still on track for a Q2 launch, but the date is still unknown.
Chris Davies offered up some fantastic insight and opinion after the news of the iPhone 3.0 software announcement by Apple. Many speculated Apple would make such a move with new phones such as the Palm Pre getting poised to make a notable dent in the year old device’s market share. Will the Palm Pre be as successful as we all hope, or will the new iPhone OS 3.0 cut into the Pre’s potential market?
Upon the announcement of the Palm Pre, there was much speculation on the identity of the manufacturer. It has now been confirmed that Chi Mei Communication Systems (subsidiary of Foxconn), based in Taiwan, is the manufacturer for Palm’s innovative new Pre.
In a not-so-unexpected move, Palm has released slides detailing its plan to use the same subscription based accounting for the Palm Pre that iPhone users enjoy. This means free major software updates in the future for Pre owners, and it means stable growth and revenue earnings for Palm in the long run.
Upon the release of some bad earning numbers, Palm is appearing shaky in a time where their flagship devices are running outdated operating systems. Newer smartphones from Apple, RIM and the like are taking their toll on Palm, and it’s showing in the dollars and cents. Is the Palm Pre going to live up to expectations and become Palm’s savior? Or will it meet a lukewarm reception and doom Palm to harder times ahead?
There’s good news, and bad news. The good news is we know that the Palm Pre is on track for a Q2 launch date, but the bad news is that we won’t be seeing our Pre in the month of April. A leaked Sprint phone roadmap details the brand-new phones consumers will be seeing in April, but the Pre is not among them. I’m starting to think the codename for the Pre is “Unicorn.”
Finally, in the most exciting news for me this week, MyPre.com has a new contributor. That’s right, yours truly is brand new to the MyPre.com and R3 Media family, and I’m terribly excited to write all these fantastic articles for you to read. If you have any interest in learning about me or my dry sense of humor, go ahead and read my short self-authored introduction.
That’s your Palm Pre week in review for now. Here’s to hoping we’ll catch our unicorn soon.
