Palm Pre Plus Arrives on ATandT, Day After App Catalog Bogs

The Palm Pre Plus went on sale May 16 on the AT&T network, the day after the Palm's App Catalog store was felled by technical difficulties. The problem was said to be resolved in time for the Pre Plus' big debut.

The Palm Pre Plus is now available on the AT&T network.
 
As promised, the Pre Plus is priced at $149.99. While that's $100 more than Verizon charges for its version of the smartphone, the AT&T package includes the Palm Touchstone - its neat-o charger that, like an electric toothbrush, charges through induction - free overnight shipping and a waived activation fee.
 
The Pre Plus' details include a 3.1-inch touchscreen, a slide-out QWERTY keypad, backlit keys, 3G and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity, firmware that updates over the air, 16GB of internal storage and world phone capabilities.
 
There's also mobile email support, including Microsoft Direct Push, a 3-megapixel camera with video capture, text and instant messaging, a Web browser, a music player and of course the well-liked webOS operating system.
 
Pre Plus users also have easy access to the Palm App Catalog - though some may have had an awkward introduction to the app store, which experienced some technical difficulties over the weekend.
 
"If you've experienced any issues downloading or updating apps from the Palm App Catalog recently, rest assured that Palm is actively working to remedy the situation," Joe Hayashi, Palm's product manager, posted to the Palm Blog May 15.
 
"If you've purchased an app, the transaction has been properly recorded and as soon as this issue is resolved, you'll be able to access all apps you've purchased (or, in the case of free apps, requested to download)," Hayashi continued. "We believe the situation will be resolved soon, although some apps may begin working properly again sooner than others."
 
The post was updated later that day to say that the App Catalog is once again "fully operational." According to MyPre.com, there are now about 1,700 apps in the App Catalog - which trails well behind Google's Android Market, at approximately 38,000, and Apple's App Store, with its 185,000-plus offerings.
 
The Pre Plus' arrival on the AT&T network marks its third official launch - it's additionally available on Verizon and Sprint - though Palm says you ain't seen nothin' yet.
 
"We're just getting started. As noted at the unveiling of the Palm webOS platform at the 2009 CES, this platform was designed to evolve and scale to drive at least the next decade of innovative mobile devices," Jon Zilber wrote on the Palm Blog May 16. "But as Abraham Lincoln noted, -The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time." So if you've been waiting for the day you could pick up a Palm webOS phone on AT&T, the future arrived today."

Palm is in the process of being bought by Hewlett-Packard for $1.2 billion.