Is there still one more thing palm has yet to announce?

[fry8]

I remember palm saying they still have something "big" to announce for the plam pre. Was the big thing that palm announced the release date and price, or do they still have yet to announce this "big" thing?

[Xyg]

I listened to the Buzz Out Loud podcast on Cnet the other day, and one of the journalists said she had another briefing with Palm later that afternoon to talk about features. I haven't heard an update since...

[Gameboy70]

There's only been speculation. Some have thrown out 4G as a possibility. The most common speculation is cloud-based mass storage -- e.g. Google, Amazon or Palm itself offering more gigabytes of data to extend the device's 8GB through Synergy. I think that's a reasonable possibility.

But there's one thing that's been puzzling me since Day 1: the lack of a native PIM platform from Palm. Everything about Synergy is based on third parties, which I find extremely odd. It makes sense that Palm's Windows Mobile phones would lean exclusively on Outlook and Exchange, but why hasn't Palm introduced its own platform for webOS, especially after a false start with MyPalm? I think the "big announcement" is the launch of a MyPalm replacement that delivers -- not only for PIM data, but for mass storage.

We also don't know the details of how the Pre is supposed to handle voice messaging. Right now, we're lead to believe that the Pre lacks VVM, but the patent Palm applied for that's usually reported as a "call filter" suggests something more ambitious. Consider the autoresponder functionality implied in the abstract of the patent:

The mobile phone compares the call priority with the threshold priority to determine whether to block the incoming call. If the mobile phone blocks the incoming phone call, it may transmit a message to the caller suggesting a time for the caller to make the phone call again.

Another possibility (entirely my own speculation) is partnership between Google and Sprint for a carrier-branded inclusion of Google Voice. Instead of having to forward calls to a separate number for voicemail management and transcription, Pre owners would have the service available directly on their Sprint number. If this is true, the "late" launch of the Pre would explain the "late" public launch of GV.

One last possibility is the announcement of a ton of widgets, similar to the ones demoed on Sprint's "Meet the Palm Pre" page.

[Gekko]

my guess is Ruby's still got something up his sleeve. "always leave them wanting more" and "don't blow your load all at once" come to mind.

[TopTongueBarry]

Originally Posted by Gekko

my guess is Ruby's still got something up his sleeve. "always leave them wanting more" and "don't blow your load all at once" come to mind.

As the rest of the world waits for a GSM Palm Pre release date to be announced.

(And the few of us in the USA willing to shell out the big bucks to buy one from Europe or Asia)

[miles4000]

Originally Posted by Xyg

I listened to the Buzz Out Loud podcast on Cnet the other day, and one of the journalists said she had another briefing with Palm later that afternoon to talk about features. I haven't heard an update since...

I posted an update here -
http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pr...podcast-2.html

She is basically under NDA again! So I guess we will find out soon.

[Aridon]

I think Gameboy has some pretty good ideas as to what, if anything, the surprise could be.

It certainly is not 4g as we already have the FCC information

It certainly is not another future handset announcement as that would cannibalize current Pre sales. We all know that other handsets are coming it just isn't going to be announced nor will anything be announced that will jeopardize the US CDMA release. Any GSM dates we have right now are about as accurate as the original Pre release dates I do not put much faith in any of them.

The Cloud mass storage does have some merit. Lots of companies offer free online storage and that could explain why Palm decided to put a paltry 8GB in the Pre. I certainly hope that is what they plan and if it is the case then great. If not then the 8gb is a huge bone head move on Palm's part. I think most of us can agree there probably should be at least 16gb for marketing purposes.

Google voice integration is also a possibility and perhaps why we do not have a visual voice mail option. I think it is pretty obvious that Google and Palm are in bed together on this release given how much of the syncing options for layman center around Google services. I give this a higher probability of happening than mass cloud storage.

Naturally the other possibility is there is no surprise. Probably the most likely scenario is they release some specifics on the app store, show us Docs2Go, third party sync and announce some goodies as to what could come (virtual keyboard, visual voice mail) essentially giving users unlimited possibilities in future application capabilities. I believe this has the highest probability of being the surprise.

[cardfan]

Like to see a car dash mount or how exactly do they expect you to use Sprint Nav?

[crogs571]

ProClip Padded Adjustable Holder. As soon as I get my Pre, I'll let you know how it fits.

Originally Posted by cardfan

Like to see a car dash mount or how exactly do they expect you to use Sprint Nav?

[nerdtalker]

I seriously doubt they'd risk adding anything at this point instead of focusing solely on software. It could be Flash (uncertain, and unlikely though), but it won't be anything hardware. There's virtually no point to 4G considering how small the markets are, and the fact that the radio stack is already finished and sent off to the FCC.

That said, the improvement might be an OTA software upgrade, or the Twitter functionality that was rolled out over OTA this morning. Unless you really consider that another earth-shattering feature, you're likely to be disappointed if you expect more.

I want them to keep this thing feature locked and focus more on speed, stability, and making sure the cloud services can take the load on the 5th/6th more than anything. That will really be the make or break point for this thing.

[dave75]

Originally Posted by nerdtalker

I seriously doubt they'd risk adding anything at this point instead of focusing solely on software. It could be Flash (uncertain, and unlikely though), but it won't be anything hardware. There's virtually no point to 4G considering how small the markets are, and the fact that the radio stack is already finished and sent off to the FCC.

That said, the improvement might be an OTA software upgrade, or the Twitter functionality that was rolled out over OTA this morning. Unless you really consider that another earth-shattering feature, you're likely to be disappointed if you expect more.

I want them to keep this thing feature locked and focus more on speed, stability, and making sure the cloud services can take the load on the 5th/6th more than anything. That will really be the make or break point for this thing.

I don't think the OP was talking about adding anything two weeks before launch. I think he was saying what secrets have Palm kept from us that we are going to find out soon? No doubt there will be no changes between now and launch.

[Gameboy70]

Originally Posted by Aridon

Google voice integration is also a possibility and perhaps why we do not have a visual voice mail option. I think it is pretty obvious that Google and Palm are in bed together on this release given how much of the syncing options for layman center around Google services. I give this a higher probability of happening than mass cloud storage.

I was wrong. It looks like SpinVox is going to be handling the Pre's voicemail transcription, not Google Voice.

Back in February, at Mobile World Congress, yours truly was given a fantasically in-depth walk through (I took some nice photos), of the handset in question and, as I did back then, I can again - exclusively reveal that the Palm Pre will be *completely* SpinVox ready out of the box.

You simply just have to enter in your usual SpinVox activation code and you’ll be away!

Just like the Treo before it, the Palm Pre is going to be able to use the only voice to text service available in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German - with the sophistication to deal with individual accents and regional variations such as US, Canadian, Australian and South African English.

Read more about it here.