PalmInfocenter has been receiving a number of reader reports that several Palm devices are increasingly out of stock in brick and mortar retailers nationwide. Of particular interest is the fact that the LifeDrive seems be in especially short supply of late. However, readers are also reporting that the TX and E2 are out of stock in some major retail outlets.

Palm's own webstore is currently listing the LifeDrive as unavailable, despite a page listing for "LifeDrive mobile managers" (note the plural) still being linked to from the main Palm Store front page.

Pennovate has just released an update to Pennovate Notes for Palm OS. Pennovate Notes is a onscreen note taking paper replacement app. It allows you to take down notes in your own handwriting in a large paper sized format. The latest update features a few new improvements including new anywhere alarms allowing you to create handwritten alarms from your notes.

Pennovate Notes is available with a 15-day fully functional free trial and costs $19.95 to register.

CalenNotes uses the same digital ink technology in a calendar/time management format and has also been updated. It allows you to create, manage and schedule events on your device in your own handwriting. It costs $24.95 USD to register.

In what may be a sign of new Palm PDAs around the corner or just an attempt to clear out excess inventory, CircuitCity.com has the Palm TX and E2 handhelds on sale as web-only specials through January 27th 2007.

The Palm TX, featuring wi-fi, Bluetooth, 128mb of RAM, and a 320x480 screen is $224.99 after a $75 mail-in rebate.

The Palm Tungsten E2, in its rebranded "Bonus Pak" version, is $149.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate. The Circuit City-exclusive E2 Bonus Pak version offers a brown leather carrying case and Astraware's Sudoku game on CD, making this bundle quite a decent value for the money. The Palm E2's standard features include Bluetooth wireless, a 320x320 color screen, and 32mb of RAM.

While many aspects of the Palm OS market have seen a drastic cooling off over the past year, one area that is seeing increased activity is add-on multimedia software. 2006 was a transitional period for this segment of the Palm OS software sector. 2006 witnessed the arrival of the first “real” 3g-enabled Treo from Palm, the 700p. Coinciding with the arrival of the 700p was a surge in interest for quality streaming media solutions under our favorite mobile OS. In this article I compare and contrast two leading apps that provide multimedia streaming functionality on the Palm OS -- Kinoma 4EX and Pocket Tunes. Can Kinoma’s jack-of-all-trades effort usurp PocketTunes’ laser-sharp focus on music only? Read on for a head to head contest between the live audio-only streaming capabilities of both applications.

As seem on TamsPalm, Tapf, a member of the German Palm forum just recently tested out larger 2GB and 4GB SD cards on his Handera 330 PDA.

Turns out the 6 year old handheld was up to the task and worked fine with even the large standard 4GB SD card without any issues. Pretty funny that such an old model can handle a card that even recent Palm OS units have a tendency to choke on.

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Mo from SimToGo has released a small iPhone like launcher utility for Palm OS devices called iPhony. Mo writes, "Of course it is just for fun (Launcher app) and it is not completly done yet but the way I see it is that I have until June 2007 to finish the application! Of course it is FREE so enjoy!."

iPhony is a very basic launcher, you can assign any of the onscreen buttons to a Palm OS program and also navigate the icons using the 5-way. Right now it only supports 320x320 pixel screens.

Tech Center Labs has kicked off the new year with two new accessories for Palm devices. The first is a mini USB charge cable. This charger is ten inches in length yet quite sturdily constructed. It allows Palm devices to trickle charge from any PC's USB port, even if a Palm USB driver is not installed on the PC. The cable is compatible with all Athena/MultiConnector devices and includes its own plastic carrying pouch. It's available now for $12.95.

iambic has released a new launcher application for Palm OS. Propel is a multifunctional launcher replacement that supports launching apps, finding contacts, appoitments, memos, web bookmarks, digital audio and even files stored on a memory card. It offers a customizable search view and personal options. It also has enhanced launcher features including a toolbar, tabbed categories, background wallpapers and a favorites list. The professional version also offers voice dialing and app launching as well as mp3 capabilities.

Propel Professional edition retails for $24.95 and comes with a free trial version. A standard edition, without voice and mp3 features, is available for $14.95.

Visual Arts is a new utility designed specifically for the Treo 680. It allows you to automatically change the wallpaper for the Main screen in the Phone application. You can set to change the picture each time you Launch the Phone application or set a timer to change. You just assign the picture folder and then Visual Arts will cycle thru all the pictures in the folder. You can also assign a sound for each tab in the phone app.

Visual Arts v1.0 comes with a free trial. It is available for purchase for $5.95 USD. It is only compatible with the Treo 680 at this time.

How to define a surprise that isn't? Rumours have been floating around for years, but Apple finally laid them to rest today when they announced the long-awaited iPhone. It's a svelte, sexy little smartphone, with an impressively long spec sheet and unique new gesture-based touch controls, that appears to have ripped more than a few pages out of the Treo's playbook.

So, the big question: how do our beloved Treos stack up against this uber-machine? Is Palm dead and buried? Will this strange rash on my inner thigh go away with the liberal application of moisturising products, or should I try a heavy-duty burn ointment? [note: edit that last sentence out. I don't want to be seen as a shill for moisturising companies] Let's take a blowtorch to the hype. Read on for PIC's in-depth analysis...