Comments on: February US Mobile Market Numbers

First, eliminate the Gesture area on ALL models. That was just a cheap gimmick intended to try and mask Palm's cheapness and refusal to spec a large, high-res screen on their Pre & Pixi. Also add removable memory card support, even if it's just for media. Develop a good onscreen keyboard but don't dump physical keyboards unless absolutely necessary--trump your "real" keyboard experience as a major trump card over iPhone and 95% of the Android competition. Use the increased space gained from the gesture area elimination to increase screen/keyboard size. All gestures can be done onscreen with a capacitive touchscreen. A dedicated "anything" area is sooooo 1990s. Finally, keep plugging away to improve PIM quality, the offline experience, and performance + battery life!

#1 Entry-level Centro successor. Basically, take the existing Pixi Plus (not a bad little device in all honestly) and squeeze in a faster CPU & a proper 320x480 screen (we do not need any more platform fragmentation with screen resolution, especially as downgrades). or a slimmed-down, beefed-up spec Treo Pro would make a decent entry-level device as well. Use the space regained from the gesture area elimination to accomodate a slightly larger/taller LCD and a larger keyboard. Shoehorn in a microSD slot if at all possible.

#2 For a midrange device, borrow the Devour/Droid formfactor & build quality as FJH recommends. Go for an improved keyboard over the Droid (similar to the Touch Pro 2 or the Moto Devour if possible). Otherwise, specs can be pretty similar to the existing Pre Plus aside from a higher capacity battery, a microSD slot, and a faster CPU. 3.7" 320x480 at MINIMUM for screen size here, though it might start to get a little coarse at that resolution. 800x480 (or better) would be ideal but we start fragmenting the platform again but at least it's an improvement, not a downgrade.

#3 The HTC Evo/HD2 formfactor would be perfect for a flagship device. Go OLED if at all possible. Have all of the critical features for 2010 onboard: 1Ghz snapdragon, 720p video capture, 802.11N wi-fi hotspot etc. And make sure that WebOS has a bulletproof virtual keyboard. Perhaps license Swype as well? Reintroduce some kind of 5-way navigator (optical d-pad?) b/c, from my time with the HD2, precise navigation & text selection using the touchscreen alone is quite clunky. WebOS' card metaphor would be a dream on such a big screen. If possible, trump Android and up the screen res from 800x480 to an iPhone 4-like 960x640 (there we go down the fragmentation path again but at least it'd be a class-leading pixel count).

I of course expect NONE of this to happen and HTC & Apple will continue to own the high-end smartphone market.
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

I of course expect NONE of this to happen and HTC & Apple will continue to own the high-end smartphone market.

Well said, hkklife. But two phones is likely all Palm can realistically support right now. The Centro 2/improved Pixi and HTC EVO form factors would give them 2 SOLID webOS smartphones. A non-phone webOS device is also sorely needed to give people who want to upgrade their old PalmOS PDAs (or who want a gaming/browsing device) without the expense of a monthly cell phone bill something to upgrade to. Selling a webOS iPod Touch is such an obvious decision that it's shocking that Palm thought they didn't need it. Rubenstein et. al. arrogantly assumed they could force everyone into buying phones as their PDA "upgrade" path and took Palm's PDA business behind the barn and shot it dead. The success of the iPod Touch shows how horribly wrong he was. Newsflash, Rubes: not everyone wants or can afford a smartphone. Shocking, isn't it?

FJH
Foleo Guru, Brain Scientist, Father of the PalmPilot, Visor, Treo and an underpowered, crippled netbook that had no apps

Also well said. I call it like it is, and to be quite honest, I NEVER expected such gaming prowess from WebOS or, honestly, any future device with "Palm" branding. I mean, Palm was singin' a decidedly non-entertainment tune at CES '09 and then all of a sudden this past January-WHAM-here are some white-hot, as good as iPhone and almost as good as PSP 3D racing/shooter/action titles. One little Need for Speed demo at CES or Mobile World Congres in Barcelona could have left a lot of naysayers slack-jawed. Sure, there's no decent input method for these games but that's par for the course on all smartphones these days and Palm still has a hard keyboard which opens up a lot more possibilities that most of the competition doesn't have.

Regarding a non-phone device: Yeah, the need for a "WebOS Touch" device is still there but it's not as critical now as it was a year ago during the Pre launch.

I still maintain that Palm's #1 mistake (aside from the Pre hardware quirks & OS bugs) was to not hit the ground running with a non-phone WebOS device OR an unlocked GSM Pre alongside the Sprint Pre. I didn't jump ship to Sprint for a Pre but I would've gladly bought a WebOS non-phone device had one been available for $200ish in the summer of '09 just to get a feel for the OS.

Other than BlackBerry, every current smartphone OS has some kind of non-phone device available for users who can't/don't want a costly monthly service bill: Apple has iPod Touch & iPad, Google has several Android PMPs/tablets (Archos etc), WinMob has a few legacy HP iPaq PDAs for the old stuff and the Zune HD to offer a glimpse at WP 7. Palm & Ruby really missed the boat big-time on this one. You called it right--Ruby & McNamee assuming everyone had $100+ per month to splash out on a new wireless plan w/ contract was VERY arrogant indeed as the economy continued its downward spiral from '08 into '09.
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

I realize the spirochetes are in charge of what's left of the mush inside your skull, but do you REALLY think that giving away $50 Centros to a handful of fanboi TreoCentral bible thumping blogger nerds would help Palm sell anything? Mmmmmkay? Palm needs to get NEW customers the way Apple's iPhone brought in the kind of people who never would have considered a smartphone until they saw the iPhone trinket that Becky-Sue brought to cheerleading practice last night. Like, OMG!!!

The geeks will always want the latest and best hardware - Pre doesn't tick any boxes there. Palm needs to make their phones COOL, the way the Palm V was 10 years ago, the way the Motorola Razr was 6 years ago, the way the iPhone is now. Broken display Pres and tattered signs in Sprint stores talking up "Synergy" ain't gonna sell Pres to Becky-Sue and the other cheerleaders.

FJH
- Foleo Impressario, Becky-Sue Watcher

Centros?! Do you have the same brain rot as your ex-lover, Idi Amin? That campaign was for the Pre, you goofball.

And when the pre-Rubinstein Palm did that with the Centro, they actually got some traction with it that I *saw*.

For the Pre? Zilch.