Vito Technology has released a new version of their iWindowsMobile Communications Suite. The suite bundles 5 of Vito's bestselling apps for improving your Windows Mobile experience. The suite includes the mobile shell Winterface, ontact manager FunContact, SMS client SMS-Chat, Weather and soft keyoard ZoomBoard. You can also install Weather - free application to have weather forecast right on the icon in Winterface. In all its a great way to spice up your device and add a new layer of touch friendly functions and improved visual effects.

iWindowsMobile Communication Suite v1.8 is available now for $30.00 and comes with a free trial period. Customers save over $30 by purchasing the app bundle. It is compatible with most devices running Windows Mobile 5 and higher.

Sprint has posted a number of video clips of the Palm Pre webinar which was held last week. The main video is a 10 minute demo of the Palm Pre by Palm's Product Line Manager, Matt Crowley. Matt talks about the Palm Pre hardware, features and demonstrates a number of apps including the Calendar, web browsing, universal search, phone calls and the Touchstone accessory.

Sprint has also created a Pre focused Youtube channel and you can catch the video embed after the break. They've also uploaded the Q&A session that followed but have broken it up into 12 various clips, which can be found here.

RNS Software has released an interesting new app for Palm OS devices. Speedometer GPS is the billed as the first real-time GPS speedometer for Palm OS. The program works with any GPS accessory to provide fairly accurate speed readings based on the GPS data. It can measure the instantaneous speed of any moving vehicle and it displays them in a number of skinnable display gauges. In addition to the speed measurements, the app can also display comprehensive GPS information such as current coordinates, satellites in range, GPS date and time, etc. It also offers support for high-res+ displays.

Speedometer GPS v1.0 is available now for $9.95 and it comes with a free trial period. It is compatible with Palm OS 4 or higher and requires a GPS receiver.

The Sprint Treo Pro is now fully official and is available now online and on Sprint retail store shelves around the country. Palm.com has also been updated and now offers the Sprint and Alltel Treo Pro's starting at $199 with new 2-year contracts. The unlocked GSM model remains available at the unchanged price of $549.

The long awaited Sprint version of the device boasts several enhanced hardware specs in the CDMA version, including a needed CPU boost to 528mhz, and is also be one of the first devices to ship with the updated Internet Explorer Mobile 6.

PhoneNews.com has posted what appears to be an internal comprehensive set of slides which details Sprint's planned 2009 smartphone roadmap. The deck includes a couple of mentions of the Palm Pre and a number of other unannounced devices.

The Palm Pre's slides (posted after the break) list the launch date as TBD Q2'09, which unfortunately isn't any clearer than Palm's standard "first half of the year" response. There are some other interesting details to note though. A couple of code names for the Pre are potentially listed. The device itself is labeled the Palm P100 in one slide and WebOS is referred to as Linux Palm Neutron OS in another.

SelectCam is a improved video-camera application for Palm OS devices. It allows users to capture higher quality video with many more options than the standard Palm application. All parameters can be adjusted, yet it remains easy to use: a single control on the main form can select the best possible quality, the most compact file size, or anything in between. Videos are encoded using the MPEG-4 Part 2 codec, which is more efficient than the H.263 codec used by Camcorder on most devices. The latest version adds the ability to directly upload to YouTube and improves operations on the Centro.

SelectCam v1.2.1 for Palm OS is available now with a free trial period. It costs $14.00 USD to register and is compatible with most Palm devices with a built in camera.

PearMobile has updated their password/login keeping application for Palm OS devices. PearPrivacy works as a master personal information safe. It allows you to keep records of passwords for credit cards, bank accounts, web accounts and others on your device. The app offers a fast, Blowfish based cryptography algorithm in combination with easy to use interface. This latest version includes a number of interface improvements, more fields and templates, improved speed and the ability to export data into the memo pad.

PearPrivacy v1.2 is available now for $9.95. A free trial period is included. The program is compatible with most devices running Palm OS 4 or later and offers support for high-res+ screens.

Despite riding a strong wave of post-CES media and user buzz alongside several Best of Show awards, over two months have now passed since the initial unveiling of Palm's new Pre smartphone and WebOS at CES. Yesterday's highly-anticipated Sprint + Palm Webinar left many users, myself included, quite disappointed with the utter lack of new information presented about the device and its accompanying OS. US News & World Report now chimes in with their take on the situation.

Written by David LaGesse, "How to Kill the Buzz: Say-Nothing Briefings for the Palm Pre" gives a quick summary of the rampant disappointment online at the lack of new information or feature clarification during yesterday's webcast. LaGesse offers his own take on the quickly souring sentiment surrounding Palm's "hail mary" effort and offers some choice excepts from several industry analysts and media figures, including speculation from Tom Krazit at CNet that "…without revealing any of the important details, Palm is leaving room for skeptics to wonder if the Pre actually is far from finished".

In the fourth quarter of 2008, worldwide sales of smartphones to end users reached 38.1 million units, an increase of 3.7 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2007, according to Gartner's latest report. Global sales of smartphones for 2008 reached 139.3 million devices, up 13.9 per cent compared with 2007.

As a proportion of all mobile device sales, smartphones remained stable at 12% in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2007. Samsung entered the top five vendors ranking for the first time, replacing Sharp. RIM recorded an increase in sales both sequentially and year-over-year, while Nokia's volumes continued to fall.

Longtime Palm analyst Mike Abramsky from RBC Capital Markets has raised his rating on Palm stock to Outperform from Sector Perform and has increased his target price from $5 to $12. PALM is up today on the news and closed at $8.39 a share, up ~7%.

Abramsky is positive on the webOS platform and its future product potential. He remarked in his note to clients: "We believe [the Palm Pre] can offer a compelling alternative to iPhone, Rather than a one product Hail Mary, we see WebOS as a platform, spawning a family of devices addressing a broader market opportunity."

Sprint and Palm have just concluded a media only webcast today. The event itself was more of a demo and repetition of what most enthusiasts already knew about the Pre since CES. No new information on features, a release date or pricing was shared. They only bit of new info was that Sprint talked a bit about what service and data plans would be available with the Pre at launch.

Sprint reps remarked that not all of the usual Sprint service plans will be available for the Palm Pre. Sprint will structure the plans tailored for individuals, families and businesses. Sprint will primarily be pushing their simply everything plan which includes an unlimited voice and data package for $99 a month.