On April 19, 1998, I bought a Palm III organizer, and I was a happy user of Palm products from then until July 22, 2008 when I retired my Treo 650 for an iPhone 3G. Even though I haven't used Palm products in three years, after that decade of use, I always cheered for Palm from the sidelines. When the Palm Pre was announced, I thought it would be the first really good competitor to the iPhone, and when HP purchased Palm last year for $1.2 billion, I hoped that the resources of HP would allow the Palm Pre and the webOS to flourish. So it was with some sadness that I read the announcement from HP's CEO Leo Apotheker yesterday afternoon that HP is killing off the Pre and the TouchPad, and is likely to exit from the PC business altogether to instead focus on services and software, somewhat similar to what IBM did years ago when it sold off the ThinkPad line of laptop computers to Lenovo. It seems like it was just yesterday (2004) that HP was partnering with Apple to sell an HP branded iPod. With the Palm Pre dead, is there any chance that we'll someday see an HP branded iPhone? No, I didn't think so either. And now, let's wipe away the tears for what was once the great Palm brand, and move on to the iPhone and iPad news of the week:
- If you are a looking to read a good article on yesterday's HP announcements and what Apple had to do with it, I recommend MG Siegler's article at TechCrunch.
- Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs will be released on November 21, 2011, just in time for the holiday buying season. A great author and a colorful subject; I suspect it will be a good read. Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune has an article with a picture of the book cover and more information on the upcoming book.
- In the past, Starbucks has given out cards with each purchase that could be redeemed for a free song on iTunes. Josh Lowensohn of CNET writes that Starbucks is now giving away cards that can be redeemed for iPhone apps, starting with the fun Shazam Encore app that can identify a song just by listening to it.
- Mississippi attorney Tom Freeland discusses a way to bypass the iPhone's passcode requirement by using a computer with a program called PhoneVault.
- Peter Kafka of All Things D shares a video from 1994 in which newspaper publisher Knight Ridder predicts a future in which newspapers are available on tablet computers.
- Bob Tedeschi of the New York Times recommends apps for wine lovers.
- Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing shares screenshots of fake iPhone apps dreamed up by David Byrne of the Talking Heads.
- And finally, I have used FaceTime on my iPhone and iPad to allow an out-of-town relative join the rest of my family for things like singing happy birthday, but others have taken it much farther. Nicole Martinelli of Cult of Mac relates a story from the ABC affiliate station in Denver, Channel 7, about a woman who couldn't make her friend's wedding but was still able to be a bridesmaid by using an iPad to establish a virtual presence. A groomsman walked the iPad down the aisle and she experienced the ceremony and the reception using FaceTime. Here are some pictures from the news report, which you can watch here: