Palm Pre Bits for the Week
Palm Pre Spec Sheet
* Palm’s Application Store won’t be the only game in town for the Pre. You’ll be able to “side load” third party software via USB or over the air. Here I thought there wouldn’t be any desktop software for the Pre; Sounds like it’s not total Synergy after all.
* Pre can be used as a modem and USB drive. Sprint officially says so on the updated Pre product page. If anyone would know, I’d say it would Sprint. Both wireless tethering over Bluetooth 2.1 and wired tethering with USB 2.0 are options. Native USB mass storage should be automatic on every smartphone these days.
* WebOS isn’t that small. The product page indicates that the 8GB phone will only have 7.4GB available to the user. I’m sure that not all of the 600MB is the operating system, but I’m curious how big software updates are going to be. Perhaps Palm will follow in Nokia’s footsteps and one-up Apple by implementing incremental over-the-air updates. If Nokia can manage it with the N80x Internet Tablets and some N-series devices, I think Palm can make it happen. That would give more meaning to the name “WebOS” too.
7.4GB will actually be available from the 8GB included, possibly implying the size of the OS is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 megs or so (though it’s still unclear what the relationship between the 8GB of storage and RAM will be, and whether or not the Pre will use Program Memory RAM/Storage ROM/Mass Storage like Windows Mobile or have a simpler RAM/Storage setup like other phones).
Also, MMS is CONFIRMED. So is Phone-as-modem via bluetooth or USB tethering.
February 23rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Tethering has since been removed, so the Pre MIGHT not support phone as modem. I’m hoping it does though.
http://www.weboshelp.net
February 24th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Thx for the update, Andrew.
July 18th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
I’ve had my Pre due to the fact shortly immediately after launch and am glad to discover (by means of this forum) that I can now set a ring tone on incoming text messages and can research by means of e-mails and such. Now is there any hope for an upcoming release in which I can seek my calendar? Would make my work a lot less complicated, acquiring dates of final appointments. No other complaints, except that yesterday I was in and out of Sprint assistance (not unusual). I consider I had been roaming, and looked at my calendar. Everything in the calendar was one hour earlier than what I had input. The clock was one hour early as well. I had been afraid to death–then, after we got back into Sprint support yet again, anything was normalized. Has this happened to anybody else?? Shopping forward to answers, but please keep in mind, I’m no techie and speak English instead of technospeak.