New York Times: Palm Pre to launch in the first week of June
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted May 18th 2009 3:40PM
posted May 18th 2009 3:40PM
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Quit toying with me Palm. Make it official!
ive got ants in my pants for this phone!
hurry palm! my treo 700w is dying on me!
hehe just like my 700p it knows it's getting replaced
N97 FTW!
@ jonh: I've seen the specs and videos for the N97, very hot gear...no way it'll win here though...no carrier will carry it (no pun intended).
I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so....scared!!!! *crys*
@ chocolatethunder2000
on sprint? good luck with that...i'll wait for GSM at least. Till then, N97 FTW!!
if the keyboard slid out the other way i would soooo buy it.
I have been suffering with this piece of crap Samsung phone since January because I have been waiting for this to come out. I dont know how much longer I can wait!
And now all we need is a price... y'know... like every other consumer product.
299.99 with a 3 year contract and mandatory everything plan
@suburbwhite
u must b canadian... US doesnt do 3yr phone contracts
Fuck Canada's shitty Operators... 3 Year Contracts should be made illegal.
ive bene living under a rock... so excuse the question - will this be locked to a specific carrier?
Yes.
at least at first
Sprint
*looks to the right* *whistle*
YAY!!
Bye iPhone. You and your shitty service are the bane of my existence.
Let me guess, the iPhone was too complicated for you to figure out...the whole no manual thing really pissed off the geek in you didn't it...good riddance, Apple already has YOUR money, you are no good to them anymore.
Actually I agree with tweak. I have used iPhone Original and 3G now for almost 2 years and I hate it. Its a great concept crippled by apple's insistence on using it as they wish. I hate the fact that when I am in the middle of an apps i have to start from beginning because I dared to reply a text. Plus, from a radio prospective, iPhone has pretty weak reception. Thank you apple for introducing the world to an awesome product but your limitations break my heart. Time to give Palm Pre a chance.
I agree about ATT's crappy service, the amount of dropped calls per week is unacceptable.
The pre looks like it's going to be awesome, and I do believe it will live up to it's hype.
@Muhammad
Are you serious? Out of the 4 major carriers in the US, Sprint is the worst! And "let Palm have its chance"...? Are you kidding me?! Palm has been in the mobile phone market for years! How long did it take them to make a good phone? Apple's first phone set the bar so high for other cell phone manufacturers. It think Apple deserves to have a hyped up phone. And I don't think I've ever lost service for my iPhone. Can't say the same for my neighbor who has sprint. She has to leave her house to talk on the phone.
@Guy
If people gave up on Apple and didn't give them a second chance when OSX came out, after YEARS of mediocrity, they wouldn't have come as far as they have today...why does Palm not deserve to reinvent themselves...
I think i just jizzed in my pants
Over a phone? How pathetic!
WHAT'S PATHETIC IS THAT YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR
I jazz my pant when i saw this phone too! lol :)
Hopefully the WSJ rumor is true. We need facts.
come on i mean y dont they just tell us so we can start the countdown. i mean we all know that there gonna release it by june 7th and thell prb relese it b4 june 7th bc thay want ppl to grab on to it b4 apple annouce its new iphone so come on palm there nothing to hide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Can you please type in normal human English? I want to kill myself after deciphering your post.
LMAO @ No
Give him a break. You know how the iPhone keyboard is.
I can't wait to see what this phone can do. AT&T's service sucks. It's hilarious how many iphone fanboys claim they have no problems with AT&T's service. Verizon and Sprint blow AT&T's service out of the water. I love the iphone though. Glad I have it, but the PRE has got me interested.
My brother don't get service at his house and he has an iphone...and his wife too. My palm looses signal somewhere on the way home, it's on sprint, but atleast it works most of the time. I don't know who's better these days, they all claim to be better which must be bullshit.
Maybe they don't live at your house? I've never had a unique-to-ATT reception problem. My phone works for crap at my desk at work, but Verizon was exactly the same.
Anyway, Sprint sure isn't going to be an upgrade in coverage for most folks..
I've been a long time VZW subscriber, but after having used the Storm I was fed up with VZW poor phone selection. My work phone is VZW and I work outside and travel to a lot of areas and can swear by VZW coverage. I live in Southern California.
I went to AT&T got the iPhone and I'm extremely happy with the phone. The first day I got the phone some friends and I went to a comedy show in Universal City. After the comedy show we got separated. I tried calling my friends to no avail. Not only was I on EDGE, but the call would not go through. It took well over 5 minutes to get the call out. Now, you have to remember this is Los Angeles. The 2nd largest market in the U.S.! If AT&T network was up to snuff I should have been on 3G no problem. It's not the only time I've had this problem, but probably one of the most memorable. That and Coachella.
Sprint tied VZW in the western U.S... My service is great.. My business mentor has an iphone.. I cant even understand him, half the time he has to call me from a landline.. Im not kiddin..
@ Caveman
I can't agree with you more. I bought the iPhone 3G as soon as it came out and had on average about 3-4 dropped calls a day. I live in Los Angeles, CA. Needless to say I went back with my previous cell phone provider which was Verizon. I have had great service with Verizon since I started with them back in 2004. Too bad Verizon doesn't seem to care to much about updating their smart phone selection. Oh yea, got the BB Storm as well and I could not get use to the screen so I went back to the Curve 8330. Hope this comes out with Verizon in the near future.
anyone else thinking palm/sprint just wants to time this as close to the original iphone launch date as possible? a LOT of 2yr contracts are about to be up.
I would say that's a good timing strategy...especially for those people who have suffered poor 3G coverage.
I was really wainting for the HTC Touch HD (or at least Pro2) to come to Sprint, but I guess I have to settle for the Pre... I'm still not sure that this would be a better choice then the WinMo devices...
Originally I was going to get the touch pro but then I figure that the lanscape mode of the keyboard would require 2 hands to type so decided to go with the Pre...I'm not sure if this is a better choice since it's a new OS and all. Could be as crappy as my palm 755 if all I know...but they better release this soon or I'm bailing out and get the touch pro anyway.
I can tell you now that the Pre will be a better choice.
I own the HTC Touch Diamond on Sprint, and I have fallen out of love with it considerably. My phone may be a particularly defective model, but it slows up, glitches constantly, and generally is not the great experience I'd hoped it would be.
I have nothing against Windows Mobile per se, but the Diamond just makes things more confusing. Touch Flo 3d is really just a shiny cover, so it interferes with the overall experience when you have to go more than skin deep to operate programs or settings. I'd rather just have the whole thing windows mobile themed than have to navigate through inconsistency.
Plus, I've discovered that the lack of physical keyboard is REALLY a dealbreaker for me. While I can type reasonably quick on the virtual keyboard, I'm nowhere as effective as I am with the alternative -- plus its pretty much impossible to type while you're moving, which, as it turns out, is a huge annoyance. I have to come to a complete stop if I'm walking, anywhere, to get a message completely right without shouting expletives in public.
The Diamond's browser is top notch, and Sprint's service is excellent, but I won't go with another HTC touch model until they bring an interface thats more than a simple skin. The touch HD is certainly nicer hardware, but on analogy, its sort of pointless to get a supercomputer just to play doom.
The Pre looks revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, and I'm seriously considering it. I can't wait to give it a go in a Sprint store. It might be the only phone on my radar that I'd be willing to give up SERO for.
@nxp3
Flipping the phone on the side to type can be a pain. Half the time the sensor doesn't function correctly, or the software hangs. The only thing the Touch Pro has going for it is the browser, which is Opera anyway. I disagree with Sisyphus, however, in that without HTC's TouchFlo I'd hate this phone a whole lot more.
yawn
Not like we all didn't see this coming. Picking mine up the minute they open the doors (unless it's before 10 on a Sunday... I don't wake up early for anyone or anything).
Hey I guess engadget was wrong about the may 17th release and others. I guess the next date would be June 7th as the second expected date. Anyhow, if it's not out by the 7th, screw you Palm, you've lost me for good. I'll just get another phone then. I'm tired of your silly games.
Silly games? All they ever said was that they were targeting a release date in the first half of the year...
I predict June 7.
josh, lets play a round of F, marry, kill.
here are your choices: the palm pre, jimmy fallon, and a girl.
you have to f one, marry one, and kill one. what are your choices?
The pre, for sure.
You didn't answer the question correctly, idiot.
Anywho, this all depends on whether the girl still puts out after marriage or not.
@Matt, that's not how the game works.
Josh will have to pick something like:
f the girl, marry the Palm Pre, and kill Jimmy Fallon.
*(although those two seemed to get a long so he might just kill the girl).
Ive been told its offically June 6
A saturday?
yep
How sure are you?
Will you two just get a room?
i received this info from an inside source
and ryan room 208
I'm beginning to think that Palm is trying to steal some thunder from Apple! I mean everybody was worried that if Palm would launch the Pre too close to the WWDC it would be drowned out by Apples announcement, but I think they're looking at it from a different angle. I'm not sure it's the right angle for then though!
I hope they release the SDK for it very soon.
I really hope they don't for at least a good 6 months.
/s
Yeah right. Still boring me to death. Of note. I am not in favor of storing contacts and schedules on a company's servers. If you work in a field where you are concerned about corporate espionage or face the risk of being sued do not get one.
I'm pretty sure you can disable that feature.
You definitely do not have to store them in the "Cloud."
Actually, I absolutely LOVE having all my contacts on my Google Contacts, synced with my Blackberry. Everyone I show the feature to sans Blackberry is immediately envious.
Don't preach about a feature you have no first-hand experience with.
Palm playing cavalier with our patience. Not cool.
Hopefully Sprint won't be a bunch of dicks and will let me upgrade at the 2-yr renewal price about two months early... Come on, Sprint, don't let me down!
Why can't you just wait two months? What makes you think you deserve special treatment?
looks like a bloated iphone
Hahaha, iPhone, the joke of the industry! :)
why, because it sells well and inspires blatent rip-off products like the pre? i'd say thats less of a joke and more of a leader
when's the SDK going to be available? That's going to be the real sink or swim with the Pre.
It will be hard to rival Apple's app store if no one can get their hands into development until it's already on the shelves.
I applied for the early access and no response yet. Guess a freelance guy isn't a big enough player to get a head start.
Uh..why? No one's expecting it to rival Apple's app store straight out of the gate, and you develop apps with HTML. It's super fast.
I currently own the Palm Treo, and can't wait to check out the Pre. Of course the improved iPhone is coming out this summer too, so it's gonnna be a fun fight.
Jon
Newsflash: nobody cares about your silly, terribly designed and worse named me-too mac rumor website, so stop spamming it in barely relevant replies on here.
ok, I admit it. This phone is the hotness. But I'm honestly more interested in the OS than the phone itself... eagerly anticipating hands on reviews from real-world users.
"The Smartphone That Saved Palm" - Hmm, seems a little premature for that proclamation, no?
That's how freaking good this phone is!
[wipes foam from mouth]
Six months ago, people were laughing at Palm...that is, if they were even bothered caring anymore. Then the Pre and webOS happened. It's already put their name back on the map in a big way. It wasn't met with negativity or a "meh"...it's pure excitement. I think it's fair to say it saved Palm already, if their announcement was weak they would have been over then and there.
I like Palm as much as anyone, but I think they should wait and see if anyone buys their new phone before trying to sell the movie rights to their comeback story.
Personally I think it's too little too late - Palm and Sprint will be going down together.
yea im pretty sure everybody expected the treo to save palm last go-round... just another hype-machine within the geek community.
@TheSuburbanWhiteBoy
Try $200 on a two year contract. Sprint has never done three year contracts, and I don't see that changing soon.
Prepare for them to be 'dicks,' then.
Sucks to be you...
Wow this system sucks. That was for htowngator.
"By Q2 2009".... "By the first week in June"....
All this vague talk is really turning me off to the Pre. 3 weeks away and still no price/plan info.
Take note of this tidbit in the article:
"As soon as June 8, just a few days after the expected release of the Pre, Apple may introduce a third version of its iPhone at the company’s annual conference for software developers."
June 7th as per speculation is the "day before" June 8th, not "a few days" before. So it sounds like the Pre release will be sooner than June 7th. :)
My local rep told me May 30th - he could still be right...
Looking forward to Apples presentation - "We do allow background tasks too now: The total of 2 at a time".
That sure will blow the Pre away... =)
we have here another reason y pre will fail to break zero to 1 million iPhone sales record.
Giving the masses only a 7 day notice is a mistake. They shouldve already announced price plans term rebates,..fail all the way.
@Guru:"we have here another reason y pre will fail to break zero to 1 million iPhone sales record.Giving the masses only a 7 day notice is a mistake. They shouldve already announced price plans term rebates,..fail all the way."
If this phone does 90% of what has been claimed to be able to do from day one, it will not fail. That record set by iPhone sales is just that...a record. The Pre doesn't need to set records for initial sales. It will achieve or break records when the early adopters and tech geeks like us buy it, use it, and report back to the rest of the populace that it actually works like it's supposed to...which will help sell the phone out. Plus, Sprint offers better plans than AT&T. Beating records won't save either company, having a successful product that sells at a steady pace will.
As for the "7 day notice", that's all relative. The more technically inclined (meaning people reading & commenting on these Blogs) already know of its existence. The rest will learn about it when every Tom, Dick & Harry begins the inevitable comparison to the iPhone...and what people will discover at that point is that they have a real choice on their hands.
Are your posts automated?
Mycroft, are you referring to me or Guru?
@Guru
I don't think you'll see that sales record broken anytime soon. People have learned their lesson buying something on hype alone.
I can't wait for the mass exodus we will witness this June. Should be fun.
Well said Sweet Greggo...once bitten, twice shy...
GSM? International?
W
H
E
N
Did you all see that Walmart is going to carry it, too?
Wal-Mart Steps Up Its Game in Electronics Aisle
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260342750528573.html
"...Wal-Mart executives said their stores will soon carry Palm Inc.'s Pre smart phone, a highly anticipated gadget, contrary to bloggers who claimed it would be a Best Buy retail exclusive."
I swear I also read somewhere that Best Buy has a retail exclusive for the first 30 days, and that includes Sprint stores. Just saw it today although I was surprised about the Sprint stores part of it.