The buzz going into this week was the release of the Sprint Palm Pre which debuted on June 6 across the US. Early estimates for sales from the weekend were between 50,000 and 100,000 units. Palm had originally ordered 500,000 units for launch, but manufacturing problems left the company with about 30 percent of that total.
Monday brought us the Apple WWDC 2009 where we first learned about the iPhone 3G S which will be released on June 19. The main improvements of the iPhone 3G S over the existing 3G are support for 7.2Mbps 3G, a faster processor, more memory and a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus and video recording capability. Apple also announced that the iPhone 3.0 OS update which will bring MMS capability, Cut Copy and Paste, and over 100 new features will be available for all iPhone owners on June 17. Following the announcements At&t and Apple began taking pre-orders for the 3G S and by Saturday June 13, At&t retail locations had run out of pre-order units.
In the world of mobile web browsing, Opera announced that version 9.7 beta was now available for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Included in the upgrade was an updated browser engine called Opera Presto 2.2 which delivers faster surfing.
Just 3 days after the Palm Pre release, Palm issues the 1.0.2 software update which fixed bugs on many core applications. The update also added alarm clock capabilities and increased the speed of the capture mode when taking successive photos from the Camera application.
On Tuesday we contacted Garmin to see if there was an update to the delayed Nuvifone launch. We were told that the device would release first in Asia in the 2nd half of 2009. No specifics were given, but the device is still confirmed to be in production.
12 new applications were released for the Palm Pre on Wednesday, including the ever popular Missing Sync application by Mark/Space. Other notable applications were Fandango, Pandora and uLocate.
Verizon HTC Touch Pro customers received word of a pending software update that would unlock GPS features and add Visual Voicemail support later that day. The ROM is not currently available from either HTC or Verizon, but the changelog was exposed, showing that Windows Live Search and Google Maps would soon be usable on the Pro.
Samsung created a mysterious website where a device would be announced on June 15. All rumors point to the Samsung Omnia II / Omnia Pro / Louvre / B7610. The device features every top of the line option you can think of in a sleek package with a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard.
Verizon Wireless finally launched the QWERTY-messaging Motorola Rival and the indestructible Casio Exilim. Both devices became available on Verizon’s website and each was given instant web discount pricing. It looks as though Verizon is really trying to move some units and add new subscribers.
The Sprint HTC Snap which was expected to launch Sunday, June 7, never materialized until news came in that Best Buy was selling the device. For a contract-free price tag of $519.99 anyone hoping to have the HTC Snap early had a chance to order or pickup in several Best Buy locations across the nation. News also came in that Radio Shack would be launching the device and Sprint issued a statement saying the release date was now June 21.
At the Barclays Capital conference in New York, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam confirmed the BlackBerry Storm 2, BlackBerry Tour and that Sprint’s exclusive agreement for the Palm Pre is infact six months.
The week wrapped up with the rumored Samsung Bigfoot getting photographed in high resolution detail along with leaked press images of the Samsung Omnia Pro. The rumors and the leaked press images have most of us certain that June 15 will bring the Omnia Pro, but maybe Samsung is going to pull a fast one on us, however we doubt it.