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Another Palm smartphone announcement, another spotlight stolen by a much-more-ballyhooed (if much less substantive) Apple event. Palm, you just can't win, can you, even with a hot new smartphone called Pixi?

In case you missed it -- and given the hype around Steve Jobs' return to the Apple stage and myriad iPod price cuts and technology updates, you may have -- Palm Wednesday unveiled a new smartphone, the Pixi, that comes with a range of enticing features and is designed as a complement to Palm's already released Pre.

According to Palm, the Pixi sports a full keyboard, a 2.63-inch multitouch screen, an integrated GPS and 2-megapixel camera. Like the Palm Pre, the Pixi incorporates Facebook, Google and Exchange ActiveSync, but also includes LinkedIn and Yahoo contacts, calendar and IM capabilities, plus Palm Synergy, which aggregates those social networking tools into one feed.

As Palm Chairman and CEO Jon Rubinstein emphasized Wednesday, Palm Pixi moves the needle on Palm's webOS (whose version 1.2 was said to have leaked late last week).

"Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style," Rubinstein said in a statement.

The only thing Palm didn't disclose about Pixi was pricing, although various reports previously suggested it would come in at $350 before rebates. Palm also Wednesday lowered the price of the Palm Pre to $150.

Neither announcement, however, did much for Palm's stock, whose shares skidded by $1.23 (an 8 percent decline) to $13.75 in Wednesday afternoon trading after a lukewarm reaction from analysts.

Among the more vocal critics was Credit Suisse's Deepak Sitaraman, who lowered his rating of Palm to "neutral" from "outperform," blaming Palm's choice to make Sprint the exclusive carrier for Pixi.

Others thought Palm was hurting its own interests by coming out with two new smartphones that are so much alike. Morgan Joseph's James Moore said in a research note that Pixi "is a nice device but threatens to cannibalize Pre sales given a large number of overlapping features and the expected lower price point."

Palm needs a winner if it expects to stay in the always-intensifying race for smartphone dominance -- a race in which Apple, with iPhone, and Research In Motion, with BlackBerry, are well ahead.

An upgraded iPod Nano -- with video camera, FM radio and other niceties -- in a slimmer, flashier package is the highlight of Apple's new product lineup.But the fact that it's an upgrade is telling -- Apple Inc. revealed no brand-new products at Wednesday's long-awaited unveiling. The rumored tablet-style computer that's supposedly in the works was not mentioned.

"We didn't see anything bleeding edge or real 'out of the blue,' " said Gartner Inc. analyst Mike McGuire. "We saw logical extensions."

Still, the product "extensions" showed off Apple's trademark innovation, which has in many instances captured the public's imagination, even at premium prices.

And speaking of prices, they're going down on some products as the Cupertino, Calif., company strives to head off competition in the portable music field.

Here's a look at the changes in the Apple lineup:

* iPod Nano -- The diminutive Nano that debuted in 2005 as a flash-memory, discount version of the iPod has become a monster in the marketplace to the point of being the world's best-selling portable player. At the event, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said that more than 100 million Nanos have been sold.

The most dramatic addition to the new Nano, which went on sale online right after the Wednesday morning announcement, is the built-in video camera that can record action in portrait or landscape orientation. A built-in microphone captures the sound.

The video clips it takes can be downloaded to a Mac or PC computer, from where it can be e-mailed to family and friends or uploaded to popular social networking and video sharing websites such as Facebook and YouTube. (If the new Nano is a hit, expect a flood of new vacation, pet tricks and dorm antics videos to hit these Web services).

The new Nano also marks the first time that Apple has embedded an FM radio in its iPod. And in TiVo-like fashion, the radio will have a live pause mode to allow listeners to halt listening and then resume at the same spot later.

The player will also have a bigger screen, a thinner profile and a pedometer to count steps.

The new iPod Nano is priced at $149 for the 8 gigabyte storage size and $179 for the 16GB (that's $20 less than the previous 16GB Nano).

* iPod Touch -- The big news about the Web-browsing, game-playing Touch, which essentially has all the features of an iPhone except the phone, is a reduction in price.

The 8GB model now goes for $199, the 32GB version is $299 and the 64GB model is $399.

This puts the iPod Touch in a better position to head off Microsoft Corp.'s new Zune HD player, which is set to debut Tuesday. The Zune HD 16GB will be $219; its 32GB model will be $289.

Hardware-wise, the main enhancement to the iPod Touch is faster processing for the 32GB and 64GB models.

Also, video game makers announced that several new titles would be coming to the platform, including Madden NFL 10.

* iTunes -- The online store and audio/video organizer is getting several new features for music lovers.

In a retro move hearkening back to the album era, the new iTunes offers more information, photos and graphics. And it provides video features on some artists.

The new iTunes also allows for the sharing of music among as many as five computers on a home network. And it allows organization of iPhone apps in the same handy format as music.

Not part of the announcements -- the Beatles. The Fab Four is still not available on the iTunes store. It seems the long and winding road to getting that deal done has a ways to go.

There also was no mention of a music subscription service for iTunes to let customers access a near-unlimited selection of songs for a monthly fee. These type of services have sprung up elsewhere, but Jobs has said that he's not in favor of them -- and it seems that he hasn't changed his mind.

The problem with quoting your “insider” at Apple – or any company for that matter – is that somebody else can come along and quote their own, seemingly higher-placed insider back at you. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has taken Gizmodo’s Brian Lam to task on some of the Apple Tablet “leaked details” published this week, and the phrase “So Lam’s source is an “insider” but has no idea what the OS is and has the ship date wrong. Sure” gives a good indication of how legitimate he thinks it is.

Gruber’s key complaint is that his own sources are telling him it won’t be until 2010 until the Apple Tablet arrives, which doesn’t tally with Lam’s insider. That timescale is also shared by Jim Dalrymple, as we reported yesterday.

That given, and considering Lam’s source also doesn’t know what OS the tablet is running, is enough for Gruber to write-off the information. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Gizmodo’s insider might have little or nothing to do with the hardware side of the tablet, and instead be on the marketing or design side of the project, in which case the gaps in knowledge might be more readily explained. Still, we’re unlikely to find out until late in 2009 at the earliest and – if the current mood pans out – more likely early 2010.

It’s been a few months since we last heard Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s opinion on Apple’s much-rumored tablet, so happily the always-opinionated man is back with not only some pricing, sales and hardware predictions, but a slick render too. According to Munster, his sources in Asia have tipped an unnamed manufacturer winning the contract from Apple to produce the touchscreen device, with fulfillment at the end of 2009; that, he says, underscores his previous assertions of an early 2010 launch.

As for sales, Munster is buoyant about the Apple tablet’s success. He expects – like most other people – it to cost between $500 and $700, and to sell better than the Apple TV did in its first year. He also tips an integrated 3G modem, with either A&T or Verizon the likely carrier partners and potentially subsidizing the device. In fact, Munster predicts it will sell around two million units in its first 12 months of availability, generating $1.2bn and adding around 3-percent to Apple’s revenue stream in the 2010 calendar year.

That’s strong performance for something Gene describes as similar to an iPod touch, only larger, although he does suggest that it will have access not only to most of the existing 70,000 App Store titles but “a new category of apps designed for the bigger screen.” He also believes it will compete with netbooks – being primarily for internet, email and digital media access – but not actually be a netbook, thus not contradicting Apple’s various enthusiastic denials that they have any intention of entering the budget ultraportable space.

Next Monday Apple kick off their 2009 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and first thing on the schedule is one of the most eagerly anticipated keynotes of the year. Apple is expected to announce a new, third-generation iPhone, and SlashGear will be live-blogging the whole keynote from 10am PT on Monday June 8th 2009.

Amid the speculation there’s talk of a front-facing camera for video calls, an FM transmitter for squirting music through your car stereo, and a higher resolution camera. We’ve just seen what are purported to be leaked photos of the new iPhone, which show off the tweaked casing and shifted headphone port; there’s also talk of three different iPhone models, with varying degrees of data connectivity tailored to different markets, in multiple colors.

Whatever gets announced, SlashGear will be there when Phil Schiller takes to the stage on Monday and we’ll be using our homegrown no-refresh-needed Live Blog system to bring you all the details.

Is this a photo of the new iPhone? It’s a question we’ve asked surprisingly few times over the past couple of weeks, given the proximity to Apple’s WWDC on Monday (which SlashGear will be live-blogging at http://live.slashgear.com/) and the spate of rumors throughout May. Now, a Spanish site has released what are claimed to be shots of the upcoming model, complete with shifted ports, new controls and a tweaked chassis.


As well as a different shape to the casing, and an apparent matte finish as has been rumored, the “leaked” photos also show a fascia redesign with two slots at the top of the handset. There’s also a discrete LED indicator embedded in the front panel.

The headphone socket has also seemingly moved, from the top edge of the handset down to the bottom as on the iPod touch, and there appears to be a button on the lower right-side edge of the handset that, given similar controls on other cellphones, could be a camera button. The lower slot on the fascia could be front-facing camera, its been suggested, with the LED an indicator as on the iSight webcam embedded into MacBook notebook displays.

When iPhone 3.0 is released it looks like TV shows, movies and music videos will be available for purchase and viewing directly on the new device. Three mobile ads from Apple were found in the latest version of TwitterFon that linked to "iTunes Movie Rentals," "iTunes Movies" and "iTunes TV."

When touched, the ads led to a video area in Apple's mobile store that was under construction. Screenshots of the portal show various genres and featured items, however video content is not yet available.

The screenshots were verified by a further discovery of direct links to the iTunes video store-in-progress that worked in iPhone OS 2.2 and 3.0 beta, but were later made inactive by Apple.

iPhone 3.0 will feature the 802.11N Broadcom BCM4329 Wi-Fi chip, making possible wireless downloads of up to four times the speed of 802.11G. To save bandwidth for carriers, it's likely that Apple will restrict video downloading to iPhones that are connected via Wi-FI.

The devices already features iTunes for music purchases and the AppStore for software downloads. Apple currently allows free video podcast downloads to the iPhone and iPod Touch when connected via Wi-Fi.

Expanding the video options available for purchase will increase profit for Apple as they deliver even more content to mobile devices.

The D-Day is not very far but new iPhone claims are coming thick and fast these days. John Gruber, recognized for nailing Apple rumors in the past has come out to confirm a few things. According to him, the next iPhone will get a 600MHz processor, 32GB storage (which was also confirmed by T-Mobile Austria), compass and a camera capable of shooting videos. Couple of things he wasn’t sure but said can happen is the RAM upgrade as well as improved battery life despite of new features in the iPhone.

Other Apple related tidbits from him: No tablet PC will be shown at WWDC, a branding modification for Macbook Pros and Macbook and an iPhone Mini is under construction but won’t be released in July.

Macrumors caught hold off a couple of job listings that hints about the few features that will possibly make it to the iPhone 3.0. The first job listing is for a low level programmer who understands processor architecture, specially ARM and its NEON vector unit.

The current and the previous iPhone and iPod Touch models use ARMv6 processors and NEON, which is an architectural extension to ARM processors specifically gains from ARMv7 Cortex procs. ARM NEON’s official page also mentions that NEON helps to achieve 2x of performance than ARMv6, somewhat confirming yesterday’s rumor.

Apple is also hiring a highly skilled engineer who can deliver cutting edge embedded video processing technologies. Well, whatever that means, this could be something iPhone can benefit of. The job includes working on real-time media and networking apps that uses Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

Ken Brinkman was a proud owner of his unibody Macbook Pro until this happened. His notebook’s MagSafe cable went kaput by burning itself as well as damaging the notebook. Thankfully, he was not injured but Macbook Pro’s resurrection looks doubtful. He does not even know if Apple will give him a replacement or not.

Apple has listed a topic in its support pages claiming that the iPod or iPhone earbuds can give a quick shock to one’s ears by discharging small amount of static electricity. Though Apple does not take the responsibility for such a shock, they do mention that any hardware or earbud is capable to produce a charge which is similar to “dragging your feet across a carpet and receiving a static shock by touching a door knob.”

The dry air is to be blamed that builds up on the device eventually releasing it through the earbuds. To avoid such shocks, Apple has also listed some solutions.

Legitimate Mac owners are obviously elated with yesterday’s 10.5.7 update but there are other bunch of people who feel the same. Yup, it’s the hackintosh users who run Mac OS on netbooks. Apparently, the new update is being blessed by users as they are reporting an improvement in netbook’s battery life. One user’s netbook battery life seems to have gained 33 percent, more from 3.45hrs to over 5 hours on his 6-cell 4400mAh battery. Another user also reported an extra hour of battery life from the previous 3.30hrs gig.

The topic isn’t populated with replies, so its difficult to confirm this. However, you can give it a try if you use a hackintoshed netbook. Do let us know if you get lucky like these chaps.

Apple is discussing the option of developing a customized iPhone for Verizon, sources close to the negotiations said.
The device would be the first iPhone developed for a code division multiple access wireless network, which allows phones to maintain their independence while operating on the same bandwidth. The AT&T system uses a GSM (global system for mobile) system, USA Today reported Monday.

Vodafone, co-owner of Verizon Wireless, already sells iPhones for Apple to the European market, the newspaper said.

Sources said the goal was to introduce the CDMA phones into the U.S. market next year. AT&T, meanwhile, has exclusive distribution rights in the United States through 2010, but details of that agreement are not public.

."Breaking the exclusivity with AT&T is a huge thing," said Roger Entner, a telecommunications research specialist at Nielsen.

"That would send shivers into AT&T's stock and senior leadership," he said.

With 80 million customers, Verizon, however, could be a big boost to Apple. But customers would also gain, Entner said.

"They could pick the network they wanted to use: AT&T's or Verizon's," he said. "It would finally give consumers choice, and choice is a good thing." (c) UPI

Thanks to Verizon-RIM’s BOGOF promotion, Blackberry Curve has zoomed past Apple’s iPhone. The report released by NPD Group makes Curve the undisputed king in the US smartphone market for Q1 2009.

RIM managed to snag a good 15 percent of the smartphone market while Apple and Palm lost 10 percent of it.

The top five selling smartphones in US for Q1 2009 were:

RIM BlackBerry Curve (all 83XX models)
Apple iPhone 3G (all models)
RIM BlackBerry Storm
RIM BlackBerry Pearl (all models, except flip)
T-Mobile G1

What the heck is this? If crazy App Store approval process was not enough, Apple is listing now QuickPWN on their website. The description however reads “for fun games, iPhone and iPod touch news, and important site updates”, which turns out to be the description of an unofficial QuickPWN site. Even though the site is not official, it still publishes content related to jailbreak which Apple is promoting on its own turf.

Whatever you say it – Apple’s sudden change of mind or to clear out the inventory in wake of a newer model, this is some good news for iPhone users. Apple is now offering a replacement to users who have damaged their devices because of some liquid. The program applies for out of warranty customers who can exchange the damaged phone with a refurbished one for $199.

Sure, they are late by a few days but here it is. The 10.5.7 version is available now from the Software Update and brings in lots of fixes and other improvements.

Changelog:

General
- Includes latest security fixes.
- Includes additional RAW image support for several third-party cameras.
- Improves performance of video playback and cursor movements for recent Macs with NVIDIA graphics.
- Resolves an issue with Dvorak keyboard layout in Mac OS X 10.5.6.
- Improves the reliability and accuracy of Unit Converter, Stocks, Weather and Movies Dashboard widgets.
- Addresses a situation that may cause issues when logging into Gmail.
- Improves reliability when syncing contacts with Yahoo!.
- Expansion Slot Utility for Mac Pro now reports the correct PCIe slot configuration.
- Improves network performance when connected to certain Ethernet switches that have Flow Control enabled.
- Improves stability for network home directories hosted by Mac OS X Server v10.4.
- Improves Finder search results for network volumes that may not support Spotlight searching, such as Mac OS X Server v10.4, Time Capsule, and third-party AFP servers.
- Includes several improvements to Directory Service and Client Management, which are described in the About Mac OS X Server 10.5.7 Update article.

iCal
- Improves overall reliability with CalDav.
- Improves reliability when automatically syncing with MobileMe.

Mail
- Addresses reliability and sync issues with Notes.
- Addresses an issue that may cause the BCC field to populate incorrectly when redirecting a message from the Sent mailbox.

Parental Controls
- Improves consistency with Parental Controls and application restrictions.
- Addresses an issue in which time limits may not work properly with full-screen games and Fast User Switching.

Printing
- Resolves an issue that may cause certain third-party printers to print to the incorrect paper tray.
- Non-admin user accounts can now be allowed to add and remove printers by enabling Parental Controls and selecting “Can administer printers”.
- Includes other printing reliability and stability improvements.

Apple's financial results for its second-quarter of 2009 were very favorable despite a few dark spots. But though the company may have posted its most successful non-holiday quarter ever, there are still some signs that Apple is scaling back on costs in order to combat the effects of the current economic situation.

Apple's 10-Q form filed with the SEC noted that the company had 14,000 full-time retail employees as of the end of the past quarter. That number stands in sharp contrast to the 15,600 employees the company reported in the same document filed at the end of the December 2008 quarter.

Did Apple lay off 1,600 retail workers? There are other possible explanations, including shifting workers to part-time status or cutting excess personnel employed during the busier holiday quarter, but given that the figure represents more than 10 percent of Apple's retail workforce, it seems likely that a number of those employees were let go.

That jibes with other figures that Apple's disclosed about its retail segment, too. For example, the company said that it opened only one store in the second-quarter of 2009, compared with four in the year-ago quarter. In looking forward to the rest of the year, CFO Peter Oppenheimer said that Apple planned to open a total of 25 stores in fiscal 2009, half of which would be outside of the country. That's just half of the 50 stores Apple opened in 2008. Retail revenue was down year-over-year as well, going from an average of US$8.5 million per store in the second quarter of 2008 to an average of $7 million per store in this past quarter.

Retail is an expensive segment for Apple, as it requires not just hiring more workers than the company would otherwise employ, but also necessitates long-term investments like property leases and expenses like store construction and maintenance. In an environment where consumer spending has dropped off, that could make the retail segment particularly vulnerable.

Despite that, Apple has yet to close a single one of its retail outlets in the almost eight years that they've been operating. By all accounts its retail stores have been an incredible success in that time, attracting millions of customers and generating substantial revenues for Apple. However, the company's investments there are not without their risks, as Apple notes in the same 10-Q document, saying "The Company would incur substantial costs if it were to close multiple retail stores and such costs could adversely affect the Company's financial condition and operating results."

It seems that Apple has instead focused its cost-cutting measures on personnel to help avoid closing stores, but it's not inconceivable that we could see our first Apple Store shutter if the economy continues in the direction that it's been going.

Think about what you could do with Photon for iPhone and 100 FREE prints! You can finally send Grandma that birthday picture you took with your iPhone. Maybe you’d like to ave hard-copy prints of that anniversary party shipped to your door. Or, if you’re like us, you’re going to order a year’s worth of those party pics you uploaded to your iPhone.

Each of the 10 randomly selected IntoMobile readers will receive 100 FREE photo prints from Phanfare, including free shipping within the US. The contest is open to our non-US readers, but international shipping will be the responsibility of the winner. You don’t have to have an iPhone to enter, but it sure makes the process a whole lot simpler!

Winners will be randomly selected from the comments section as well as Twitter mentions . You may enter the contest twice - once in the comments section and once in Twitter. You can choose to enter the contest via Twitter or comments alone, but you’ll be getting half the odds of winning.

It's now officially been "confirmed" by "people close to the situation"... two of them in fact. Apple will release a touchscreen netbook by Fall 2009. Doing so would go against everything they've stated publicly to date, but I think I've figured out how they'll get around that.
Digitimes got this party started on Monday by reporting that the Commercial Times said "Wintek will supply touch panels for Apple's new netbook, and shipments will start in the third quarter this year". Dow Jones got in on the party soon after, confirming the story with anonymous sources who they assure us are quite friendly with the "situation". The "monitor screens" will be "between 9.7-inches and 10-inches" and Quanta will be making the computers.

Of course, there are a few problems with this. First of all the second "close source" is either contradicting the first one or just being useless, having yielded up the telling quotation "specifications and functions are still under evaluation." Also, although this doesn't necessarily mean the story isn't accurate, Dow Jones is not where I go to get my reliable Apple news. But the biggest reason this doesn't make sense is Steve Job's famous line, "we don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk." Those are pretty strong words and Apple hasn't really backed off them since day one.

My conclusion? Netbooks are hot and Apple knows it. Just like Sony caved, so too will Apple in their own fashion. Now Jobs is right about that price point but I think I've guessed their workaround, and I'm putting my $799 off to the side now so I don't spend it before September.