Wednesday News Roundup – AT&T and Tablets Edition
A number of interesting things have occurred over the last week. Chief among them was the release of the Palm Pre Plus on AT&T. Next, we’ll cover HP’s CEO Mark Hurd’s comments on the future of webOS. Finally, We’ll delve into the other stories from this week in the Roundup.
AT&T Gets Pre Plus, Pixi to Follow
On the 16th the Pre Plus arrived in AT&T stores around the US. With the addition of AT&T webOS is now on all three major US carriers. We’ve heard mixed reports about the launch on AT&T. On the plus side, AT&T is giving all new Pre Plus owners a touchstone for free. On the minus side, a few stores opted out of the training on webOS and were un- or under-prepared for the launch. So far, the phone has been very well received on AT&T’s site, receiving an average rating of 4.9 out of 5.0. For those new readers from AT&T (or other carriers!) we suggest you check out our tips and app reviews.
If you’re more interest in the Pixi Plus, it is expected to arrive on AT&T on June 6th.
HP CEO Talks Tablets and Printers
During HP’s second quarter 2010 results conference call on Tuesday CEO Mark Hurd went into more detail on the future of webOS. According to Mark we can expect to see webOS show up on tablet PCs (which we had been expecting) and Web-connected printers (which was news to us). Apparently HP is bring more Web functionality to its printers, including the ability to download apps. From this perspective, perhaps an easy-to-use touch interface that would allow for printer-specific apps would make sense. It’s good to get some confirmation that we’ll be seeing a slate soon. I’m quite excited to see how webOS matures.
Source: CNET.com
Roundup
- Preware 1.0 was released last week to the pleasure of homebrew and patch aficionados.
- The WebOS Internals telethon was a rousing success, raising over $5,000 for homebrew app and patch developers.
- If you’re not quite as excited about AT&T getting the Pre Plus you could always unlock it.
- It leaked that webOS 1.4.5 is out for developer testing and that it will include PDK support for the Pixi.
- Palm experienced a failure of its App Catalog over the weekend, leaving users unable to download apps.
- Those in the UK will be pleased to know the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus will arrive May 28th.
- If you’re interested in developing webOS apps and are located on the East Coast you’ll want to check out the Baltimore PreDevCamp, scheduled for June 5th. Register here. I’ll be there!
