According to mobile ad firm Smaato, U.S.-based Symbian users are 2.7 times more likely to click on a mobile ad than their iPhone OS using countrymen. The findings, based on 6 billion ads served up by 40 ad companies in the month of April, are quite puzzling when considering the infinitesimally small share of the U.S. smartphone market Symbian currently occupies. But GigaOm’s Kevin Tofel has what sounds like a very reasonable explanation for the stats: “Symbian is a more mature operating system in terms of age, and both advertisers and developers have used that time to optimize mobile advertising on the platform. Apple’s iPhone OS is a relative youngster compared to Symbian, having only initially launched on a product in June of 2007.” Kind of makes one wonder why the FTC is making such a stink over Google’s attempt at acquiring AdMob and the launch of Apple’s iAd. Moving on… Anyone else think it’s pretty incredible that feature phone users click on more ads than Android, BlackBerry, Palm and Windows Phone users?

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A lot happened in the US smartphone market from October 2009 to January 2010, but thankfully there are companies like comScore kicking about to help us make sense of just which platforms were the biggest winners and losers during this period. The biggest platform was not surprisingly Google’s Android which saw an uptick of 4.3% to a total of 7.1% thanks in part to the successful launches of handsets like the DROID, DROID ERIS and Hero. RIM’s BlackBerry OS, which faired second best with a gain of 1.7% continued to dominate the total smartphone market at 43%, but one has to wonder if RIM could have done just a little bit more. After all, it did launch the BlackBerry Bold 9700, Curve 8530 and Storm2 during these months. Apple’s iPhone didn’t do as well as many would have guessed, but its 0.3% increase makes quite a bit of sense when you consider the tradition of people holding out on iPhone purchases in the six months leading up the summer release of the devices later iteration. Nonetheless, it does hold a 25.1% stake in the US smartphone market. When it comes to market share, one’s success is another’s misfortune. Not exactly a stranger to losing ground, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile managed to shed 4.0% thanks in part to what can be politely summed up as a general indifference to its current platform (how things will change). After this, we saw Palm with a loss of 2.1%. In Palm’s defence a lot of this can be attributed to people finally getting around to ditching Palm OS, but the fact remains that thing’s aren’t going to well for a company that many felt was on the path to recovery just 15 months ago.

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Things are happening for Palm with news of its upcoming OS and the first of a family of new devices. Of course, how could its compete with the iPhone and BlackBerry without its very own mobile app store? After partnering with PocketGear, Palm now has an app store with over 5,000 apps, 1,000 of which are free, for its own OS (Palm devices with Windows Mobile has its own thing, of course). The variety of apps doesn’t look too shabby as Palm tries to keep up with the big boys and we’re hoping that the app store integration into the upcoming Nova OS will be seamless. Give us a killer device, an intuitive and attractive OS, top it off with the app store and tons of apps and you just might be a keeper, Palm. Don’t let us down!

Thanks Jimmie!

[Via GadgetsOnTheGo]

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There’s a lot of hype stirring in the rumor mill for Palm – this time it has been confirmed and comes in the form of a new OS and a device on which it will be featured (based on the rumors, it will be the first of a family of devices). With all the hype and secrecy surrounding the new products, one can only hope that it lives up to the mania and saves Palm from hurtling into oblivion. The name of the OS will be “Nova” and the project is spearheaded by Jon Rubenstein, current executive chairman for Palm and former SVP at Apple. The team under Rubenstein seems to be a formidable and ambitious bunch that hopes to give Apple and RIM a run for their money. Filling the space between the iPhone and BlackBerry is going to be a momentous task, so we’re keeping our reservations about the new OS and device until we see it for ourselves at CES. Palm isn’t suffering from any delusions when it comes to performance over the next few months after massive layoffs and a withering economy. Whatever it is Palm is unveiling, it’s going to have to be very big.

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Access has been working on v3.0 of its Linux Platform and it’s turning out to be pretty sweet. Taking a look at that shot there, and going off the buzz about the new OS, the UI will be more robust and the animations are going to be smooth. This is a very nice way to pull the Palm OS out of the dark ages and into the 21st century. In addition to ALP v3.0, Access is releasing ALP mini which is a similar OS for low-end smartphones or non-phone devices like PMPs, MIDs, UMPCs, Internet tablets, and the like. NTT DoCoMo of Japan has already taken interest in ALP and will be using the new platform as early as the latter half of 2009. There aren’t too many technical details but there is a very rich list of features for you as well as more screen shots after the jump!

Telephony and Communications

• Full-featured telephone application with speed dial,
  call forward/wait/hold/bar, & multi-party conferencing
• OMA Device Management v1.2
• Multihoming on GPRS and 3G networks
• IMPS, SMS, MMS, Cell Broadcast, IMAP4, POP3

Input and Navigation

• 12-key keypad with 5 way input and navigation support
• Stylus based touch screen input and navigation support
• Finger touch input and navigation
• Accelerometer support

Desktop Software and HotSync Software

• Manage personal information on a Windows XP or Vista desktop computer with the ACCESS™ Desktop or Microsoft Outlook to add, edit or delete contact records, calendar events, memos and tasks and synchronize using HotSync software, which now supports OMA DS v1.2 (SyncML)
• Backup and restore information between the device and desktop as well as install native, Palm OS, Java applications and media files with HotSync
• PIM synchronization over the air directly with operator synchronization services

Tools

• A complete and integrated suite of free application development tools are available to ACCESS Linux Platform application developers through the SDK provided as part of the ACCESS Developer Network program.

Wireless and Connectivity Protocols

• Telephony radios (including 3G) are easily integrated
  with the ACCESS Linux Platform telephony framework
• TCP/IP
• WiFi (802.11g)
• Bluetooth® Technology 2.0 + EDR Technology
• USB
• IrDA
• Serial

Application Environments

• Native application development for the ACCESS Linux Platform includes GTK+ and the Hiker Application Framework™
• Garnet™ VM allows properly written Garnet OS (formerly Palm OS) applications to run unaltered on an ACCESS Linux Platform mobile device
• Java VM, JV-Lite™2 Wireless Edition software, including popular JSR modules including JSR 179 (location), JSR 135 (mobile media), and JSR 185 (wireless profile)

Language Support

• English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese
  Additional locales and languages can be added

Security

• OMTP compliant security policy framework
• VPN framework

Media Framework Components

• Media selector
• RTP/RTSP streaming
• MP3, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AAC, MIDI, MPEG4-SP, H.263, H.264, WMA/WMV v9
• OMA DRM v1.0 Forward lock, Combined and Separate Delivery

Hardware Requirements

Performance

• 400 MHz ARM 9 or greater

Display

• 240 X 320 display QVGA (optimized for the platform)
• 320 X 480 display HVGA
• 800 X 480 display Widescreen (maximum)
• 65k color support (minimum)
• 256k color support (maximum)

Memory

• 128MB RAM (minimum)
• 128MB Flash EFIGS (minimum); two-byte localization
  or a 3G application suite may require more memory

Native Applications

• NetFront™ Phone
• NetFront™ Contacts
• NetFront™ Calendar
• NetFront™ Memos
• NetFront™ Tasks
• NetFront™ HotSync™ Manager
• NetFront Browser
• NetFront™ HandMail™
• NetFront™ SMS+
• NetFront™ iMessenger™
• NetFront™ Music
• NetFront™ Videos
• NetFront™ Photos
• NetFront™ Camera
• NetFront™ Document Viewer
• Utilities
  – NetFront™ Clock
  – NetFront™ Calculator
  – NetFront™ Recorder
  – NetFront™ Home Screen
  – NetFront™ File Manager

[Via Access]

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If you’re a die hard Palm fan, you might be be overjoyed with the news that you can now get your grubby mitts on a factory-unlocked Palm Centro. This isn’t for the CDMA-lovers, it’s for the GSM nuts. The unlocked model drops the puke green keyboard on the AT&T device for a white keyboard. Thank god. Price? $299. Not terrible at all. But for that price, you do have to put up with an outdated OS, constant crashes, and random resets. You can’t have it all, people! Also, a new Google Maps application will be available for all Palm Centros regardless of carrier starting tomorrow. The new application finally brings Google’s cell phone triangulation to the Palm OS.

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