So we heard from a very reliable source that mobile user interface guru Matias Duarte -- who you may know as the man behind the Sidekick and Helio UI / user experiences -- actually left Helio late last year to join up with Palm. Although no announcement was made, we hear he and his gang of designers jumped ship (well before Helio completely flooded) to take on the monumental task of designing the UI for Palm's next-gen mobile OS (aka "Palm OS 2.0 or II"). His resume online now lists him as "Senior Director, Human Interface and User Experience" doing "Something new..." since September 2007; we got in touch with Palm, who confirmed that he's now under the company's employ.

Of course, expectations should be pretty high -- Palm's only been promising this supposedly game-changing OS since around 2004, and the company's reputation and pedigree is (or at least it used to be) in groundbreaking mobile UI design. But this news also kind of makes us wonder: if they didn't have a killer UI and user experience team already in place and long-since working their asses off by late 2007, exactly how far along are they on this thing, anyway?

Palm continued to flaunt its almost inexplicable boost in health in an earnings call yesterday. According to reports, honcho Ed Colligan boasted of a 29 percent gain in smartphone sales year-over-year, largely in part to the stellar performance of the company's budget-priced (with contract) Centro. In light of the recent negative outlook from investors, retail store closings, a constantly delayed OS update, and fierce competition, it's a pretty impressive feat to not only stay afloat, but manage some small victories. Now if they can just deliver on those OS and device promises we keep hearing about, they may stay in this game yet.

[Via Palm Infocenter]

Come on, T-Mobile, all we need is you to get on board now and that'll make a perfect Yahtzee! for Palm with its surprise hit, the Centro. Thanks to Verizon's expected announcement today, the top three US carriers now carry the diminutive Garnet device, which Palm actually says is "off to the strongest start of any smartphone in Palm's history" -- quite a statement, considering the Treo line's rich tradition. The Centro is also the first Palm phone to be eligible for the big V's "unlimited" E-mail and Web for Smartphone plan, which runs you a thrifty $29.99. After the full, delicious menu of rebates and discounts have been applied, Verizon's version will run the same $99 on contract that the boys and girls on Sprint and AT&T pay, and we can look for it to be available through all retail channels starting tomorrow.

Update: Palm also has a brand new Facebook app launching with this phone (which will be available for the AT&T and Sprint models as well).

In a move of unsurprising proportions, StyleTap announced today that it will be bringing its Palm OS emulator to the iPhone and iPod touch... officially. This basically means that every one of those precious Palm apps you couldn't live without will now be easily accessible via Apple's devices, thus seriously threatening the argument for keeping your Treo 600. Gregory Sokoloff, CEO of the company, said that the response to a video posted in February of a demo version of the software convinced them to take the plunge. Palm, now might be a good time to stun us with your new OS.

While Palm's CFO Andy Brown wasn't exactly forthcoming with details about its elusive next-gen OS, a recent interview with top dog Ed Colligan revealed quite a bit about codename Nova. As if it wasn't official enough already, we're told that Palm OS 2.0 (which is also not the final moniker) will indeed be Linux-based, and Ed continued to say that it would be "driven around the internet and web-based applications." Of course, a Palm interview wouldn't be a Palm interview without at least some mention of the now-defunct Foleo, and the bigwig left a crack in the rumor drawer by stating that he "still believed the idea would be vindicated some day." Trust us, there's way more where this came from, so head on down to the read link if your interest is piqued.

StyleTap, the folks behind the CrossPlatform Palm emulator for Windows Mobile have built a proof of concept version of the software for the iPhone / iPod touch. They're not committing to releasing any such product, and aren't releasing the software as a beta or anything like that at the moment, but the video demo of the software in action is certainly promising. All the apps are rather responsive, the device benchmarks a good bit faster than the Tungsten | T, and Apple's keyboard is even integrated into the proceedings quite nicely. Video is after the break.

[Via TUAW]

Wow, sure enough, those green buttons are straight up legit -- who'd have thought? The long-rumored GSM cut of the Palm Centro is now officially available on AT&T in the wake of Sprint's expiring exclusivity, giving a whole new world of customers access to the freakishly small (yet strangely adorable) Garnet handset. Unlike Sprint's version, the GSM Centro tops out with EDGE data for a moderately less snappy browsing experience; otherwise, though, your $99 on contract is going to buy you a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD slot, Bluetooth 1.2, support for AT&T's push-to-talk service, and a full (albeit miniaturized) QWERTY keypad. So who's liking this more than the white / gray scheme we'd seen before?

Boy Genius just grabbed himself one o' them newfangled white Centros for AT&T for a good, old fashioned unboxing, and guess what? The keypad's green. Yep, we can't believe it either. Body's white, keypad's green. Seriously, we couldn't make this up. Before you run down to the store to pick up this $99 fashion statement, though, don't bother -- they're not on sale quite yet -- it's still looking like the 19th is the date you want to circle on your calendar (or program into your 680, as the case may be).

Can't you just feel the excitement in the air? AT&T stores are apparently starting to spout off about white, $99 Centros being available starting next Tuesday, February 19, and it seems like a pretty plausible date. We've separately been told that the cute lil' Garnet handsets are expected to be shipping to stores some time this week -- just in time to make the 19th a reality for customers eager to get their paws on the latest tech Palm has to offer -- while previous intel had indicated that it'd definitely be available some time before early April. In other words: yeah, we believe it.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Palm's GSM Centro has been about the worst-kept secret in the entire smartphone industry for the past few weeks, and indeed, it's now official -- for Europe, anyway. The unlocked handset features a quadband GSM / EDGE radio with nary a trace of UMTS in sight (this is still Garnet, after all), 64MB of user-available storage, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a 320 x 320 display -- in other words, the same Centro we all know and love (or tolerate, or despise, depending on your point of view) with just a little bit less CDMA and 3G data to its name. It'll hit the British market on the 14th of the month and the remainder of Europe by the end of February for €299 or £199 (roughly $440 or $392); no word on when the official AT&T version will be available yet, but US folks desperate for one of these unlocked versions in the meantime shouldn't have a lot of trouble importing it, we'd imagine.

[Via Treonauts, thanks Andrew]

We wish we were kidding. Palm is sticking with its early-2009 projection for the upcoming Linux-based relaunch of the Palm OS -- possibly codenamed Nova. That means this date isn't exactly a surprise, but we've really been hoping that this 2009 business was some sort of bad dream, since it's abundantly clear that Palm needs a new OS yesterday. To clarify further, Palm's Stephane Mass stated that Palm expects to wrap the OS late in 2008, and get tool to developers in time for devices early in the next year. Palm plans to keep offering Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices, and to make Centro the heart of its 2008 lineup.

Palm began life as a software company (anyone remember bailing out their Newton's testy handwriting recognition by installing Graffiti?), and who the heck knows -- perhaps a software company again it will be. Okay, okay, it's way too early to be sounding the death knell on Palm's hardware operations, but let's be honest, wouldn't a Motorola Q9 running Palm OS instead of Windows Mobile make for an absolutely fabulous device (read: Treo / Centro killer) for the Palm OS faithful? We think so, and this Sprint promotional site makes mention of a "Q2" that, by all appearances, seems to be the aforementioned Palm-based Q9. We can't verify the legitimacy of this thing for a couple reasons: one, we've heard nary a peep about a Q2 on Sprint's or Motorola's roadmaps, and two, this same site makes no mention of the Q9c, a device that we do know is coming to Sprint in the next few weeks. Who knows, maybe this is all some well-executed ruse by a Sprint staffer -- but if not, we say kudos to Moto, Sprint, and Palm (and ACCESS, for that matter) for putting together what may be the best Palm handset on the market come the holidays.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Update: Sure enough, the detail view for the Q2 lists Windows Mobile 6 among its specs, so it seems the Q9c will be officially known as the Q2 when it hits; the 'shopped Palm screen is nothing more than a major league screw-up on Sprint's part. Thanks, commenters!

We expected just as much, but now it's in writing: Palm sent us an official response to our gently-worded "assimilate or die" editorial. It goes as follows:

"Palm has always been committed to open platforms for developers. And Palm has the added differentiation of being able to tightly integrate the software platform with our hardware design, which we believe gives us an advantage in delivering a great user experience.

Palm customers have benefited from the availability of Google services on Palm's platform, such as Google Maps for mobile on Palm OS. And we look forward to further collaboration with Google to offer great user experiences on Palm products."

While we're glad they responded, we really hope we don't have to wait a year and a half for Palm to prove us all wrong here.

Make no mistake, Google dropped a bombshell all over the mobile industry today with today's Android announcement. Since the dawn of the handset we've seen little more than one proprietary device, system, and application environment after the next; when we're lucky, maybe some of those systems deigned 3rd parties worthy of developing something more than Java code for 'em. Even despite the endless promise of Linux and years of tilting towards open source cellphones has resulted in effectively nothing for mainstream wireless customers -- but all that changes today with the announcement of the first free, open, standard (and standards-based) mobile OS.

It's no surprise that Apple, Microsoft, Nokia, and RIM were absent participating in Android and the OHA; each of those power-players has built its mobile business around its own separate mobile platform: OS X, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and BlackBerry, respectively. But the cellphone company we expected to be first in line for Android and the Open Handset Alliance, the one manufacturer that is truly desperate for a powerful, pre-developed, open Linux mobile OS, is nowhere to be found. We are, of course, talking about Palm.