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Posts Tagged ‘Palm Phones’

Palm offering discounted contract-free phones to developers — too bad they’re carrier locked

Usually when we hear the phrase “contract-free developer phone” the words “unlocked” and “GSM” follow shortly thereafter, but apparently Palm didn’t get the memo — it just announced discounted hardware prices for its devices, but they’re carrier-locked to Verizon and Sprint. Yeah, that’s a big sad face out of us — it’s not like Verizon’s going to give you a cheaper plan if you show up with a contract-free device. In fact, you might be better off picking up a $79 Pre on a Sprint contract from Amazon and just canceling after a year or so — the ETF will have been prorated to $120 by then, putting you way ahead of Palm’s $439 price tag. So much for that dream — at least we still have our fantasy of driving to Mexico for an illicit Telcel Pre smuggling run.

Palm offering discounted contract-free phones to developers — too bad they’re carrier locked originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vrooooom! Start your car (and more) from your iPhone or iPod touch

Filed under: Accessories, iPhone, Holidays, iPod touch

TUAW reader Ethan pointed us in the direction of something new, cool, and available only for iPhone and iPod touch (take that, Palm Pre and Android phones!)

BestBuy has an exclusive on the new Viper SmartStart System, which can do a number of things for your wheels:

• Start your car with virtually unlimited range
• Warm your car in winter; cool your car in summer
• Unlock your car or truck
• Arm the alarm to protect your car
• Activate panic alarm to protect yourself
• Receive push-button status notifications

It uses a free iPhone app [iTunes link] to give you that remote love, like when you are visiting friends overseas and want to scare people by starting your car up while it’s sitting by itself in the airport parking lot. The developers also note that in the near future, a new release of the app will give you push notification if your car alarm goes off.

There are two versions available: a module (SmartStart VSM100 Module, US$299.99) for cars that are already equipped with compatible Viper starting systems, and a fully loaded package (SmartStart VSM4000 System, US$499.99) for the rest of us.

Some of the app reviewers have noted that you’re not only paying for the system and your iPhone bill, but there’s also a US$29 monthly GSM service bill that you’ll have to pay. However, if the money isn’t an object and you’re already clueless about what to get a loved one for Christmas, this might be an idea to consider.

TUAWVrooooom! Start your car (and more) from your iPhone or iPod touch originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm restores iTunes compatibility to Pre

Last week, Apple openly admitted to updating its iTunes music management software with a patch that blocks Palm Pre phones that attempt to connect to and sync with iTunes by identifying themselves as Apple iPhones.

Palm today responded by updating the Pre’s software to work with iTunes yet again. Gossip blog AppleInsider has confirmed that the Pre works yet again with the latest version of Tunes.

“As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players,” Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris told reporters last week. Palm head of PR Lynn Fox, whom Palm poached from Apple in early 2008, responded at the time, “People will have options.”

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