When I found myself at the beginning of May trying to come up with more information on the Palm Pre and finding the same old tired articles, with new twists. I figured that they would take the entire “first half” of the year before they got it done. Indeed that is exactly what happened. As of the 6th of June the Palm will be available from Sprint. But, you already knew that I am sure and have come here looking for some other information to aid in your decision to actually make a purchase.

Here are a couple of things that I have been able to ferret out. Essentially if you are a palm aficionado, you already know that the system of being able to operate on exactly what you want is the way you like to do business. Let me explain. My current phone is a Motorola “Moto Q 9c” this system uses “Windows Mobile 6″. Typical of windows mobile 6 is clunky difficult to navigate and generally time wasting. The “intuitive” feature is very frustrating, this feature bases it’s offering of programs on the frequency of usage so if I use the camera today it is the #1 Icon that I see when I open my programs. As the days go by, if I don’t use that program for a couple of weeks or months, the Icon will literally disappear from the programs area and I then need to search 3 more pages of icons, to find the icon and reactivate it. The scroll feature is equally frustrating in that to get to a certain link on a web page you must scroll down through the entire page from top to bottom and then back up to the link that interests you. If you passed a link on the way down that caught your eye and now want to go back you sit there and push the “up” button until that link is finally highlighted and then you can operate on it!

The palm system has always had a stylus that enabled you to go anywhere on the screen and operate on that portion of the screen. In the Palm Pre the stylus has been replaced by your thumb and fingers. (Years ago I got an add-on app called “Fat Finger” that used to do the same in my 515) Now you are able to open your favorite applications and keep them open in the background, available at the flick of your thumb, move up or down through your lists or pages and select the item you want… all with the motion of your thumb and fingers. You can use your thumb and index finger to expand and contract views, zoom in and out, and generally operate on everything you wish with a few new movements. The features you use the most are waiting in the background ready any time you need them. The Palm SDK has been available to developers for nearly 3 and a half months and there is talk that several legacy applications from previous versions of palm will be available.

The announcement today from Palm (May 28) is that they have indeed listened to a few of the suggestions made by the general public on the Facebook forums and elsewhere. Media Sync will be included to enable downloading your favorite itunes or pictures from your PC via USB (Wasn’t there at CES) the camera is now a 3 mega pixel (2.2 at CES). Twitter search has been integrated into their general search offerings and much much more. Here is the direct link to their announcement today.

Now as we know for the first six months the Palm Pre is going to be exclusive with Sprint.  The announcement above indicates that the phone will be available for $199 with a 2 year contract.  (I signed on with Verizon 6 months ago Ouch!) For those who have a challenge with Sprint, if you are willing to wait another 6 months the phone will be available from Verizon and perhaps others according to PC Magazine at this link.   Happy shopping and if you are among the “Gotta have mine now crowd”  I would appreciate any feedback you wish to give after you have had a chance to play with your new toy!

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