Reading the Tea Leaves for webOS Updates
That shaker of salt you keep by your desk? Grab it and extract a grain or two, because it's rumor time.
Consider this: We know that the Pre is due out on Bell in Canada on August 27th. Palm isn't likely to want to keep 2 separate ROMs for the device and the Sprint version we currently know and love probably needs some tweaking to 'just work' with Bell's settings. So we might see a minor update to our Pre phones come the 27th, when Canadians finally can get their Pre on. That's the speculation we've heard from a couple of sources, but we haven't been able to confirm anything yet.
From what we've seen, nothing looks too new on the Bell version of the Pre - unless you count the crazy landscape mode for Google Maps that we're still chalking up to an overzealous ad producer. One thing we will note that's "new" is that the Amazon MP3 Store is missing in action on the Canadian Pre, much like the full version of the Amazon's MP3 Store for Canada is missing in action. We're chalking that one up to Amazon's dirty, empty promises.
One thing we're not expecting on the 27th is webOS 1.2. However, a little birdie has whispered what we'd already suspected: webOS 1.2 is out there in test-land, getting put through its paces. We don't know what the features are - but we do know that there are plenty we're hoping for.
Palm Eos En Route to Palm in October?
An anonymous source has provided PreCentral.net with information that appears detailed enough to be worth reporting. The gist: shipments of the Palm Eos to Palm are indeed set to begin in October, which increases the chances for a 2010 release.
Earlier this week an analyst had speculated that the Eos would be delayed until 2010, only to be rebutted by a DigiTimes report that Palm would receive 400,000 units of the Eos in October. Based on our source, it appears there's a little grain of truth in both reports.
Apparently, Palm is set to receive 80,000 units or so in October, an order size that is reduced by two or threefold from the original order. Palm is set to receive similarly-sized shipments in the months after.
The Eos has yet to appear in two more traditional pre-release sources - the FCC or carrier testing leaks, so guessing at a release date is still difficult. The device is still expected to hit AT&T first (although we've heard from people claiming to have seen the Sprint version).
In addition, we are told that to-date, Palm has received shipments of around 800,000 Palm Pre phones -- though of course how many of those have made their way to consumers is an open question. The good news is that Palm has been steadily ramping up production month over month, and so the coming months should see unit shipments to Palm increase.
As always, take silly-season, pre-release rumors with a grain of salt (or more). The Eos, if you don't recall, is rumored to be a slightly lower-end device running webOS, with 4 gigs of internal storage and a slightly smaller screen than the Pre.