WebOS 2 Update Not Coming to Earlier Pre, Pixi, Pluses

Then when the original Zire came out I thought the exact same thing.

When the Treo 650 came out (and the 680 + 700 series) I was underwhelmed and said they should be making a smaller, sleeker 320x320 device alongside a large-screen "T3 smartphone". We didn't get a 320x480 Palm smartphone until 2009's Pre.

I said it yet again when they brought Hawkins back to push the Fooleo when Wintel netbooks were already hitting the market and positively set to demolish anything Palm could hope to release. I was so pleasantly surprised to see Engadget's open letter to Palm as well as the news of the Fooleo's cancellation.

I said it again when the Centro came out but I ended up being dead wrong, as the Centro (especially the superb 128mb version) was the (final) surprise hit from Palm and packed all of the smartphone "essentials" of the time other than stuff that had been traditionally absent from past Treos (big screen, 3.55mm jack etc).

But the Veer looks like the most pointless waste of $ I have ever seen. No one was ASKING for a Pixi in 2009 and certainly not for a Pixi successor in 2011. Furthermore, for the handful of people that DID want a Pixi-style device, the original Pixi formfactor is pretty solid. I have one and the keyboard is quite usable. Take the existing Pixi, give it a substantial CPU boost, and remove the gesture area and bump the screen up to 2.8" 320x480 or so. Put WebOS 3.0 on there. BINGO! New entry-level smartphone for chump change. The Veer reminds of of the very bad old days of Palm---a pointless connector change, no 3.5mm jack, a small screen, and a fixed internal battery. It's like HP gave the green light to resurrect all of the worst mistakes from the past decade at Palm.

HP already HAD a suitable entry-level device in the Pixi that just needed a mild spec bump. Heck, they should probably have just dumped the Pixi and never designed the Veer. Instead they could've pushed an 8GB Pre 2 as the entry-level device. Then had the 16GB Pre 3 as the midrange handset and developed a proper 32GB, 4"+ candybar, all-touchscreen WebOS 3.0 unit as the flagship device.

I feel horrible for Pat and the handful of the PIC faithful who use a WebOS device as their daily driver here. Yesterday's news makes me very glad I got out when I did and moved to Android. I got a new Pixi Plus a few weeks ago when they blowing them out new for $60 because I figured it would be good to have a backup VZW smartphone in case something bad happened to my Droid X. Besides, it helps to actually own a WebOS device when trying to cover PIC stuff. I figured with the forthcoming update, that Pixi Plus was the most affordable, foolproof way to get a taste of WebOS 2.x.

Of course, being a tried & true Palm Pessimist, I was HIGHLY skeptical last fall when they "promised" the update for existing devices. I was even more doubtful when I saw the rash of Pixi Plus blowout sales over the past month and when the leaked OS update roadmap emerged and no one made any official comment about OS updates. Now we all know why. Palm from about 2000 onwards looks like it truly is going to end up as a textbook case:

-Palm failed to capitalize on their near-monopoly of the handheld computing market from 1996 onwards and caused many users to jump ship to PPC or simply stop carrying a PDA.
-Palm pissed off all of their faithful PDA users when they went smartphone-crazy from 2004 onwards.
-Palm then pissed of all of the Palm OS users when they adopted their bizarre WinMob strategy in 2006-2008.
-Palm once again pissed off all of the Palm OS users (many for good) when they developed WebOS and jettisoned official backwards compatibility as well as so many of the positive Palm OS attributes(PIM, Hotsync, removable storage etc). The Pre delays and Sprint exclusivity didn't help matters either.
-HP then pissed off all of the Palm WebOS users when it decided to basically abandon "Palm WebOS" in favor of "HP WebOS".
-Throughout all of this time of alienating the user base, the developers have been REPEATEDLY trampled and given a fat middle finger by HP and Palm.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid + Verizon Palm Centro-> Verizon Moto Droid X + Palm TX

I think the Veer and the Pre were in the design pipeline. HP didn't have its own phone designs so it went with those. Carrier pricing might help, although I doubt we're going to see lines for either of those.

The TouchPad is the thing I want. But wtf is its price and available when? Based of Apotheker opening his yap, I really expected the TouchPad to be in stores in weeks, not frikkin seasons!

webOS 3.0 clearly isn't finished, just as webOS 1.0 wasn't.

With HP spending over a billion on Palm to get webOS, I don't think we'll see them going nowhere with it, as ACCESS did after buying classic PalmOS.

These are still very early days for tablets, despite the iPad being out months (and it has been months, not a year yet!). An $800 Motorola Xoom is going nowhere. I think HP has the same kind of muscle Apple has to put out a tablet at a reasonable price. I'd be shocked if the 16GB TouchPad was over $499.

As for talk of a September iPad 3, that's Tokyo Apple Gruber saying that. It could mean nothing.

Utter total, complete, embarrassing FAILURE. that's FAIL, as in more VAPORware. I was mortified that they even brought up the pre 2, what a total joke, totally stumped on the veer (vapor), excited for about 10 minutes on the pre3 (no gorilla glass?video out?awesome screen? list goes on), and just plain confused by the touchpad. I mean, seriously, why not buy an ios device at this point. Heck, that Atrix is looking sweet on the review at BGR review. THIS is what you come up with? THIS is what SHOULD have been at CES 2011, which they could have walked away with in the palm of their hands. Notice HP took the Palm logo off the PALM website? I hope this is because Palm is embarrassed by this Vaporevent. Sad, just Sad. they just can't get the hardware correct, ever. Nothing available now, don't even BEGIN to bring up the blah 2. Available in the Summer? umm, no thanks. Woulda been nice if nokia bought Palm.
For anyone that thinks this touchpad is "cool", truly compare it against the ipad. Worse screen resolution, no apps & no hardware top differentiate the two. Wow, the touchpad can share contacts and talk to a pre3. cool. that's SO think beyond. FAILURE!
Just remember: Duarte left Palm last Summer, and ALREADY he's made HUGE improvement in the Android. That's BEYOND!

HP you SUCK! I'll wait on Samsung at the MWC for the new Galaxy S2! I can't wait to ditch the HPalm name FOREVER! Hopefully your shares of stock fall and you stop making mobile products altogether because you have completely fallen off of your game! Ruby you should have known better than to show up with a "decent" product and not truly WOW us with carriers, prices, and drop dates...how are you guys still in business?

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according to this - they'll give you a $53 credit for your Pre Plus as a trade in -

http://www.bestbuytradein.com/bb/QuoteCalculatorCellPhones.cfm

Or are you just doubting that Duarte had enough time to work his magic after his arrival last year?

The Engadget Interview: Jon Rubinstein and Steven McArthur talk webOS on PCs, 'Music Synergy,' competition, and more
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/10/the-engadget-interview-jon-rubinstein-and-steven-mcarthur-talk/

Why the Veer and 3:

>>>Jon: The reality is... we missed a product cycle last year, so we're now focused on bringing these to market, and we have a lot more in the pipeline. Whether something's got 50 more pixels on the screen...

-- as I said. HP went with what was ready.

And:

====================

Engadget: And what OS version is the TouchPad running?

Jon: It's webOS 3.0.

Engadget: What about the Pre 3?

Jon: We'll issue an OTA update at some point so it'll get 3.0.

Engadget: What about the older devices?

Jon: Not the older devices. We wanted to add lots of cool new capabilities, and frankly the older products aren't powerful enough.

Engadget: Pre 2?

Jon: Pre 2 is okay.

Engadget: So the original devices... they're not getting an update?

Jon: No. But we're going to do something special for those people.

Palm rep: We want to support our existing customer base.

Jon: We'll do something. The older devices simply don't have the horsepower.

======================

Man, Sony faced this same thing with the Reader 500. It was too weak and its flash space too small to give it the ePub and PDF upgrade of the 505. They did all sorts of things for the early buyers: a trade-in allowance that went on for quite a while. Given that the 500 was well-used and *old* by the time of the trade-in, I think it was a damn good deal. Most other companies just say, Eh, that's life.

I'd say see what they're going to offer you before abandoning ship, especially if you like webOS.

They showed their true colors since the acquisition. Liars, deceivers, and out of touch with the market. This is NOT Palm anymore. HP took their OS and ironically (their crappy hardware, and is on another course altogether. Palm truly did die yesterday officially.

I've got a year left on my Pre +, but this rattletrap will never last that long. This summer, I'll make the switch. I'll start analyzing iOS, Android, BBOS, & even WP according to my needs. The first two have the highest interest, but up just not up to speed on their strengths and weaknesses enough to decide.

Taking Gekko's advice on the AT&T "evo" and checking it out. By summer even better options will be available. Oh, and HP will be trying to sell the also rans, that they announced 5 months before!
Pat Horne