Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totalled 314.7 million units in the first quarter of 2010, a 17 per cent increase from the same period in 2009, according to Gartner, Inc. Smarpthone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units, an increase of 48.7 per cent from the first quarter of 2009. Among the most successful vendors were those that controlled an integrated set of operating system (OS), hardware and services.

"In the first quarter of 2010, smartphone sales to end users saw their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "This quarter saw RIM, a pure smartphone player, make its debut in the top five mobile devices manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage points. Android's momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010, particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones increased 707 per cent year-on-year.

Sprint's CFO Robert Brust has gone on record stating that the companies huge push for the Palm Pre launch was a disappointment for the carrier. At an investment conference covered by the WSJ, Mr. Brust apparently told analysts:

"The Pre didn't work out as well as we hoped"

He went on to acknowledge the phone struggled since its debut and even claims that part of the issue was an unspecified lack of supply. A rather curious remark considering there were very few reported supply issues at and following the Palm Pre launch. When asked about the iPhone, Brust said "we'd love to have it."

Palm's new AT&T Palm Pre Plus has not even been on the market for more than a week, and its already seeing large discounts via the usual online channels.

Amazon.com is now selling the AT&T flavored version of the Pre Plus for $49.99 after the usual 2 year service agreements and discounts. This represents a $100 discount from AT&T's current sticker price and $49.98 more than the going rate on its domestic CDMA brethren.

Palm, Inc. today announced that the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones will be available in the UK on O2 from 28 May. They will be available from free, depending on tariff, in all O2 stores and online at www.o2.co.uk.

During HP's earnings conference call today, HP CEO Mark Hurd spoke a bit on the Palm acquisition and some of HP plans for its new assets. During his opening remarks he mentions a bit about how HP will utilize webOS saying (via CNET) also tweeted by HP:

"In order to enhance our intellectual property...in the connected-mobility space. We expect to leverage webOS into a variety of form factors, including slates and Web-connected printers, […] "With a whole series of Web-connected printers, as they connect to the Web, they need an OS."

HP's Todd Bradley already strongly hinted at webOS on tablet like devices from the beginning saying HP would "invest heavily" in webOS technology. In the financial department, HP had an impressive second quarter with net revenue of $30.8 billion, up 13%, or $3.5 billion, from a year earlier with strong double digit growth across all regions.

Classic Palm OS 5.x (aka Garnet OS) fans are going to have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on the first new Palm OS PDA since 2005's Palm TX and Z22. The Aceeca PDA32's preliminary release date of April 10th has unfortunately come and gone with no additional news of availability. Tam Hanna, who has done a great job of keeping us all abreast of Aceeca news, reported on May 9th that he should hopefully know a bit more about Aceeca's status in a "few weeks worth of time!".

In related Palm OS news, programmer hero Dmitry Grinberg is still plugging away at his Palm OS-compatible OS, DGOS. His most recent blog post is nearly two months old but as of last month Dmitry did indicate that he is still working on DGOS but is sadly pressed for time due to his new employer. The full plans for DGOS are discussed in our past coverage.

With the recent confirmation of the AT&T version of the Pixi Plus release date, fixed keyboard webOS fans now have something else to anticipate. An anonymous tipster sent word to PreCentral that the forthcoming WebOS 1.4.5 update will indeed support PDK apps and 3D-accelerated games on the entry-level Pixi.

No word on a release date but it is expected in the "several weeks". Of course, the usual display resolution and performance differences may hinder Pixi gaming in comparison to the Pre, but it's still good to see Palm bringing as many titles to both devices as possible.

An interesting new report has been posted by Engadget giving a plethora of hints as to the drama leading up to last month's Palm acquisition news courtesy of the recent SEC filing. HP is the only company named but anyone with a bit of imagination and familiarity with recent Palm history can likely surmise most of the other suitors.

Some of the highlights from the story include a rather abrupt timeframe leading up to the close of the deal. Likely spurred on by the upcoming grim earnings announcement and the dismal Verizon webOS launch, Palm commenced efforts in early February to investigate strategic partnerships, webOS licensing, and an outright sale of the company. By early March, the ironic 10-year anniversary of Palm's hotly-anticipated IPO a decade ago, Palm's board determined that a sale of the company was the most favorable move, despite CEO Jon Rubinstein's proclamations otherwise as recently as less than a week prior to the HP acquisition.

Verizon Wireless' support staff have Tweeted that a fix for the aggravating AGPS bug that afflicts only the Verizon version of the Palm Pre Plus is indeed in the works. The exact Twwet said:

"Yes there is [a fix in the works], right now there is no ETA. The steps I gave you are a temp fix."

While the VZW Navigator app works fine, other location-aware 3rd party apps such as Google Maps have issues determining a precise address or suffer from lengthy delays when establishing the user's location. The Verizon Pre Plus is the only current WebOS model to suffer this issue, as it does not afflict Verizon's Pixi Plus or any of the other WebOS devices currently on the market.

After a seemingly endless wait, the AT&T version of the Palm Pre Plus is now officially available in the USA, cementing webOS' availability on the three leading domestic wireless carriers. Fortunately, AT&T's offer of a free Touchstone charger is indeed valid and applicable to both retail and online orders.

A few questions were lingering about the status of its little sibling the Pixi Plus and whether or not it was even coming to AT&T. Thankfully, AT&T has just confirmed the Pixi's release date as June 6th. It is still being depicted with the nifty blue Touchstone cover we discussed in March. The Pixi's pricing will go for $49.95 with a 2-year contract, a bit higher than the current "free" Sprint Pixi or Verizon's $29.99 Pixi Plus.

The Palm App Catalog is now thankfully back in action after some major downtime over the weekend.

Beginning Saturday, users were reporting troubles ranging from outright unavailability to apps failing to install. Users were manually setting their devices' clocks to an earlier date (ie bypassing "network time") to work around the issue, which obviously wreaks havoc with calendar appointments and general PIM functionality.