We feel your pain: you love your BlackBerry at work and your iPhone for personal use, but as hardware goes, nothing gets your motor running quite like the Pre's pebble-esque shell. Trust us, we've all been there! Well, a new clone out of China seeks solve all your technological woes by combining an iOS-inspired user interface and the Pre's body -- with an iPhone home button thrown in for good measure, of course -- and when the time comes to throw on the suit and tie and head to work, you can switch the UI over to BlackBerry mode. As far as we can tell, it still functions like an iOS clone here, but at least the skin will remind you of the good ol' Bold days. Looks like you can't buy this thing online, but considering how well the software works in most of these things, it's probably for the best.

Palm Pre fake tires of waiting for webOS 2.0, takes up iOS and BlackBerry OS lookalikes instead originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A little backstory: HP has an annual in-house event for its employees called TechCon, and this year a challenge was issued to the engineers to make the best webOS app (free phones were offered as incentive). Got that? Good. This week, HP CTO Phil McKinney had a brief chat with Pre Central over Twitter, where he revealed that the contest culminated in about 500 produced apps, and that "[they] are in the final stage of selecting 'best app' winners." Does that mean we should expect a large bump to the current catalog of programs? We can't say for sure, but we wouldn't be surprised if many of these are already available to download. Additionally, we can't say anything as for the overall quality of submissions. Edging closer to the 4,000-app milestone is great and all but not if it includes 250 different Angry Birds clones. Still, we're ever-hopeful and can't wait to see what exactly it was that came from the internal coding challenge.

HP's in-house webOS competition yields about 500 apps, says CTO originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, the dream does live on. If we're being straight with you, we didn't exactly have the highest hopes for Aceeca's PDA32 to ever make it out of the dreamworld in which it was created, but apparently it's well on its well to commercialization. For reasons unknown, of course. The good folks over at TamsBlog managed to get ahold of a prototype device, powered by one of yesteryear's greatest operating systems and encased in a comically large shell. It's important to note that this isn't a finalized retail unit, but it's still fairly fascinating that an object like the one you're looking at above is actually about to ship in the year 2010 A.D. The overview is about what you'd expect, noting that the screen is above average, the enclosure itself is downright "fat," and the whole thing seems far more sensible in the enterprise realm than the consumer one. Sadly, there's no real talk of software performance, but we suspect that'll come when the final product ships out. Hit the source link for a fascinating look at a device you'll never buy.

Aceeca's PalmOS-based PDA32 gets reviewed, albeit in prototype form originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Aug 2010 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What with all the "battery optimization" excitement, we nearly forgot that Sprint's new webOS 1.4.5 update doesn't just empower the Pre; it also finally brings PDK'd OpenGL and SDL support to the Palm Pixi. On the off chance you don't speak developer lingo, that's short for 3D apps and games, and as it turns out the pint-sized Pixi doesn't play the latter half-badly. PreCentral fired up a copy of Need For Speed: Undercover on the freshly-upgraded handset immediately above, and found the game perfectly playable with "decent" framerates and only slightly sub-par load times. Watch their spiffy Nissan turn tricks right after the break, and pray companies get cracking on some Unreal Engine 3 apps soon.

Continue reading Palm Pixi shows off 3D gaming chops with webOS 1.4.5 release (video)

Palm Pixi shows off 3D gaming chops with webOS 1.4.5 release (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 18:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When our own esteemed Paul Miller cracked the mystery that allows the Motorola Droid to behave differently when docked than when in the hand, it took a little of the magic out the switch. However, that doesn't diminish from its utility, and it's a feature that could be coming to webOS. PreCentral.net received a screenshot from a developer highlighting two new options for webOS apps: Universal Search-enabled and Dock-enabled. The first surely means that apps can provide content based on Universal Search queries, and we're going to go ahead and guess that the second enables an app to look and behave differently when docked. The question is: what's the dock? Is it just the Touchstone, or are there more docks coming? Here's to hoping.

Palm enabling webOS apps to interact with Universal Search, dock mode? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hold on to your Foleos, folks, because it looks like Palm still hasn't given up on the idea of a little laptop that pairs with a phone for wireless communications. However, where that former (failed) experiment called for entirely disparate hardware, here the relationship between the two would be rather more formal. In a patent filed in April and just dug up by Unwired View, Palm describes a "compact removable voice handset" and an "integrated palmtop computer." The two can communicate wirelessly, but more interestingly they can be coupled such that "there is minimal increase to the overall size and weight" of the palmtop -- in other words, the "phone" bit isn't particularly large, making it more comfortable to hold up to your face in a conversation than your Streaks and the like. Is there actually any hardware behind this application or is this just Palm daydreaming about a Foleo 2? We'll all just have to wait and find out.

Palm creating palmtop computer with detachable, dockable cellphone? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, the Mark Hurd departure has given HP quite an interesting (if not tumultuous) place in the news cycle, but here's one that's gotta sting pretty bad on its own. TechCrunch reports -- and independent sources confirm with us -- that Peter Skillman, the man with 11 years tenure and the reported designer of the Pre, has left HP / Palm. He joins... sorry, we need to catch our breath here... Michael Abbot, Mike Bell, Lynn Fox, Matias Duarte, Rich Dellinger, and Caitlin Spaan. That's all the Senior VPs (and almost all the VPs) now gone. We hope CEO Jon Rubinstein isn't feeling too lonely with most of his one-time dream team having defected en masse. [Photo Credit]

Pre designer Peter Skillman latest to leave Palm, entire senior staff now in exodus originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's starting to look like the question isn't what HP will be using webOS for, but what won't it be using it for? Speaking at the Techonomy conference this week, HP's Chief Technology Officer, Shane Robison, said that "what Palm gives us is a modern, Web-oriented, connected operating system," which he suggests will be central to many of the company's products. In particular, Robison said that "most" of HP's printers will soon be web-connected, and that webOS will allow it to have a consistent interface across those and other devices. He did say that webOS wouldn't be replacing Windows on netbooks, however, noting that "we're not trying to wreck the market we've already got."

HP CTO suggests webOS integration will run deep originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We've been flooded with a deluge of tips about the HP Zeen ever since we posted those first FCC images of the tablet device this morning, and it's actually a little surprising at how perfectly everything aligns. We've now had multiple tipsters confirm that the Zeen is an e-reading-focused Android tablet with the unique ability to connect directly to an HP printer and function as its interface without the need for a computer. But that's not all -- here's everything else we know:

• The Zeen is a capacitive tablet running a HP skin on top of Android 2.1 -- it won't get shifted to webOS, and it's not clear if it'll get upped to Froyo before launch given the development time required. It has capacitive touch buttons, a SD card slot, video support, and at least some prototypes have cameras with a special webcam app installed.
• The goal is for the HP home screen and skin to be the only home screen available, but that hasn't been fully implemented yet.
• E-reading is a major focus, and the Zeen has "significant" integration with the Barnes & Noble Nook bookstore and ecosystem. Makes sense, as the Nook itself is based on Android, and being able to print e-books from the Zeen would be a huge differentiator -- and a great way for HP to sell more ink.
• The Zeen will come in two configurations: a $399 bundle with a new printer called Zeus and as a standalone unit for an unknown price. The Zeus has its own "basic" control setup, but when the Zeen is docked it provides a rich interface to the printing functions -- presumably a web-connected interface like the one HP's been moving towards with other printers.
• Despite the CQ model number, the Zeen is a straight HP product, with a laser-etched logo on the back.

So that's what we know about this enigmatic product. It certainly adds up -- HP has long said one of the reasons it bought Palm was to use webOS as a consistent interface to other connected devices like printers, and it only makes sense that the company was working on executing that strategy with an OS like Android long before Jon Rubinstein and company joined the team. Besides, how better to sell more ink than by making it easy for consumers to hit Facebook and print pictures without having to use a computer at all? It's certainly interesting -- we're waiting patiently to see when and where the Zeen next appears.

The HP eStation Zeen, the Zeus printer, and everything we know about them originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you recall, a few days ago we stumbled upon a cheekily-named concept app (which has since been renamed for obvious reasons) from Adobe that does video-calling on Android. This is pretty rad considering it's just Qik and Fring offering the same service for the green bot right now, so we trotted along to Adobe's London office to get a closer look at this demo. As with many things in life, not all went as planned as you can see after the break -- the video stream froze up on several occasions, but then again Adobe's Mark Doherty only spent three days cooking this simple app. Regardless, this should still help Android developers understand the beefed-up peer-to-peer capabilities in the forthcoming Air 2.5 runtime, which is now "feature-complete" and undergoing extensive testing ahead of launch later this year.

Things are less positive for Flash availability on other mobile platforms, though. While Nokia's just waiting for a Linux SDK before it can start porting Flash apps to its devices within 2010, Adobe implied that it's still waiting for two other vendors to respond -- Palm's already been shown a Flash build running on webOS devices, and it's just a matter of the company signing up for Adobe's device certification system; RIM, on the other hand, is a bit more vague, but we were told it's definitely interested in both Air and Flash. And here's the surprise of the day: no comment on Flash for iOS (not to be confused with its digital publishing tools for the iPad), but there's no stopping you from hacking it in yourself.

Update: Adobe's Mark Doherty has sent us a statement to emphasize the industrial backing of the Air and Flash platforms for mobile. We've posted it after the break.

Continue reading Adobe Air peer-to-peer video call concept Android app hands-on (video)

Adobe Air peer-to-peer video call concept Android app hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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