In a rather surprising move today, HP's Todd Bradley told CNBC that HP was using webOS for all of its smartphones going forward. This leaves the current crop of Windows Mobile 6.x-powered iPaq smartphones and PDAs as HP's final Windows-based phone products. Additionally, Mr. Bradley shot down any speculation that Android would be employed for any smartphones. 


With the earlier confirmation of webOS devices in many form factors and HP's Windows 7-powered Slate only targeting an enterprise audience, WebOS looks to finally be poised to make a major push for market share thanks to the tremendous resources available to HP. This move is rather stunning, since HP and Compaq have been staunch supporters of Microsoft's mobile efforts over the past two decades ranging from Windows CE to Windows Mobile 6.5. However, with last week's news item that HP was mysteriously absent from Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 launch partner list, this shouldn't come as a complete surprise.

Thursday was one of the most news-worthy days thus far in the post-acquisition HP/Palm world. Taking the stage at the Fortune Magazine Brainstorm tech conference in Aspen, Colorado, Todd Bradley of HP and Jon Rubinstein of Palm discussed all things WebOS. Most significantly, Rubinstein made the first a public reference to the next generation of WebOS, saying that WebOS 2.0 is coming "later this year", with "aggressive" new hardware development currently in place. In fact, HP plans to dabble in nearly every current mobile formfactor with WebOS, as stated by Rubinstein:

We're working a wide variety, as Todd said, smartphones definitely, slates, netbooks, working with the guys in the printer group. webOS [...] will have a unified user interface across all of these, will have a unified developer environment, and it's all based on the foundation that we build in webOS from day one. When we developed webOS, we thought about making this scalable across a variety of mobile devices; that's what we'll be delivering going forward.

Bit by bit, day by day, we are learning more details about Aceeca's new PDA32 Palm OS Garnet OS handheld.  Today's tip comes courtesey of Aceeca's CEO ALex Topschij via Tam's Palm.   After the recent revelation of availability and pricing of the full line of PDA32 optional modules, some users may have been wondering if it would be possible to order a PDA32 for the $179 base price now and later purchase and install the add-ons themselves.  Unfortunately, this will not be possible, according to Mr. Topschij.  He states in his response to Tam:

No the add-ons are not modular. We would possibly consider a low cost exchange system if a users requirements changed. They give us their old unit we give them a replacement and charge them a small premium on top of the normal additional cost. That is just a thought of the top of my head it is something we would need to think about a bit more.

Also, due to the recent influx of news on this new device, we have created a special news item archive for all things PDA32 and Aceeca, accessible here.

 

Via his TamsPalm site, Tam Hanna has just chimed in with some brief but noteworthy pricing news for prospective Aceeca PDA32 purchasers. For the first time that I'm aware of, this is the first time that a Palm OS-based device with any sort of mainstream appeal is being offered in custom configurations.

As we reported yesterday, the base price of the PDA32 is $179.99 but a number of significant items remain optional extras; IRDA, 3.5mm stereo output, Bluetooth, and 802.11b/g wi-fi. Aceeca is keeping these extra-cost items optional for their commercial customers while still making them available to a consumer audience by request. The breakdown in the pricing of these optional extras direct from Aceeca is now available and is as follows (note that these are proposed prices and have not been finalized, so they may change as production ramps up):

Aceeca has quietly updated their website with a number of details regarding their PDA32 Palm OS Garnet handheld. The unit is now available for purchase from Aceeca's online store, with delivery promised for August (see FAQ after the break). Aceeca promises "Long Term Availability" on their site, which is encouraging news for anyone worried that this device was going to have a brief, limited production run.

The website update also brings up the first set of official specs. Some highlights include confirmation that the base price for the unit is USD $179 and the unit comes with a one-year warranty. No price is available yet for the add-on modules such as 801.11b/g wi-fi , stereo audio output & voice record, and infrared transmitter. It appears that the PDA32's various wireless modules have not yet received certification so this is a decidedly unconnected device at the moment. Also, a high-power IR option is promised on Aceeca's site, something we have not seen since the days of IR blasters, some of Sony's CLIE models and the OmniRemote Springboard modules.

One of the longest-serving Palm OS media apps is finally reaching the end of the road. Kinoma has just announced that effective August 1st, 2010, all sales will cease for the Palm OS version of Kinoma Player 4 EX. According to Kinoma, official support including security fixes will last until October 1st. Afterwards, all support for the product will be community-based via the company's official forums. It is worth noting that the Kinoma Producer software for Windows and Macintosh will also cease on the same timeframe as the Palm OS version. No word as of yet if the company's free Palm OS Kinoma Player 4 app will continue to be offered for download going forward.

Kinoma's official line for support of Palm OS and its related devices:

"As Palm OS fades into the sunset, we've had a lot of folks ask what our plans are. Today we're announcing that we'll be ending sales and support for Palm OS products in order to focus completely on current phone OSs"

The suits at Hewlett-Packard have certainly not been coy about their intentions for a webOS based tablet of some kind. Today brings word that Palm's new corporate parents already have a trademark in mind that could very well end up being the new brand name for such a device.

A blog called myHPmini is reporting that HP has submitted a new trademark filling on the term PalmPad. The mark is described as relating to a long list of mobile computing products, categories and terms including: computer, portable computers, handheld and mobile computers, PDAs, electronic notepads, mobile digital electronic devices.

The application was just filled on July 7th, just about a week after the Palm/HP acquition went official, so it looks like HPQ Holdings is wasting little time on the webOS tablet development process. Checkout the full USPTO docs here.

Things are remarkably quiet in Palm-land, especially concerning the initial plans in store for the combined HP/Palm group. However, All Things Digital is reporting that HP's Android-based tablet is delayed until 2011 at the earliest, if not cancelled outright.

So how should we read the tea leaves on this one? Perhaps we are going to see a new HP tablet as the first WebOS 2.0 device, possibly the Hurricane tablet mentioned in May. To add to the confusion, a Microsoft presentation earlier this week indicated that HP is still a Windows 7 tablet launch partner but is no longer a Windows Phone 7 launch partner.

BusinessInsider has just posted a rather interesting article quoting an anonymous source "familiar with the negotiations" updating the May rumor about a bidding war for Palm based on Palm's SEC merger proxy filing with the anonymous references to companies A,B,C, and D.

The BusinessInsider piece adds some choice fuel to the rumor bonfire regarding details about the list of unsuccessful bidders for Palm. According to the report, apart from the usual suitors such as Lenovo and Google, Apple was as an interested bidder, as was RIM. RIM, in fact, supposedly even managed to outbid HP initially and "had to work incredibly hard to blow it". No claims about HTC or any of the other players referenced in the past such as Huawei, Nokia, Dell, or Motorola.

After months of delays, the long-awaited (for some) Aceeca PDA32 appears to finally be a reality. Tam Hanna of TamsPalm fame has already begun posting a detailed multi-part review of a pre-production version of the device.

Aside from a brief first impressions post, Tam's first area of coverage and second relates to that physical dimensions of the PDA32. There's simply no avoiding the fact that this is a very large, utilitarian device. Utilizing a variety of comparable tech gadgets new and old alike, Tam has given us a very good idea of the PDA32's girth. According to Tam, the Nokia N900 smartphone is the only device that even comes close to matching the PDA32's dimensions and it far outclasses it in hardware and software capabilities. Other devices often criticized for their size, such as the nearly six-year old Treo 650, still end being distressingly thinner than the PDA32. I was expecting a chunky device with a rather bland, staid appearance but was in no way prepared for the PDA32 to be so much fatter than any other Palm OS device!

Access has just released a version of the classic Palm OS Graffiti for Android OS devices. Entitled, Graffiti for Android, the app brings the original Graffiti 1 character recognition system to Google's mobile platform.

The application enables Graffiti functionality systemwide on Android phones. It includes the original Graffiti strokes, complete with the familiar two-part silkscreen, as well as the Graffiti Help reference screen. Users can bring up the silkscreen for text input and use a finger or stylus to enter characters.

Graffiti for Android v1.02 is currently available as a free download in the on-device Android Market. First impressions and additional screenshots after the break...