Sprint to charge $70 for Palm Pre’s Touchstone charging dock?
By Will Park on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 1:47 PM PST In Accessories, Palm, Palm Pre, Rumors, Sprint
The Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre leaks are coming hard and fast these days. Following on leaked internal Sprint planning schedules that indicated May 16 as the target-date for finalizing all Palm Pre launch preparations, an alleged screenshot of Sprint (NYSE: S)’s price lists hints at an $70 price tag for the Palm Pre’s wireless Touchstone charger. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past several months, the Palm Pre will launch with an optional wireless charging dock, known as the Touchstone charger. The magnetic-induction charger wireless juices the Palm Pre and will pave the way for more Touchstone-based products down the line.
Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) stirred up the iPhone-pot with their decision to stop bundling the iPhone dock with the iPhone 3G. And, despite criticism, Apple likely made off like bandits by charging iPhone 3G owners a couple dozen hard-earned dollars for the unassuming plastic dock – not even counting the hoards of Apple-certified iPhone 3G accessories that Apple peddles through its retail channels. Palm may be looking to cash in on the accessory market in much the same way. Palm Pre owners will likely want a piece of the Touchstone-action, and many will likely be willing to pay a premium for Touchstone. The only question is whether or not an $70 price point will be attractive enough to make money.
Here’s to hoping that Palm and Sprint offer some sort of new-activation discount on the Touchstone.
[Via: EngadgetMobile]
its $70 ($69.99)
May want to check your math there. $69.99 normally rounds up to $70.
Seriously? Are you a blathering idiot?
First, you are making your stupid article out of someone else’s article— which is lame BTW and not even reporting….. and second, you are plaigerizing someone’s work and getting it WRONG!!!!
I’m pretty certain that image says 69.99 not 79.99…. which you just fixed…. and also the date says 4/1/09…. April fools maybe? did you even catch that? I could create a stupid window like that in photoshop. Did you maybe think to be different and actually try and figure out if that code exists in the sprint POS terminal? Or look to see if the software looks remotely the same?
Probably not. We call this a product of an eye-dee-ten-tee error. Spell it out “IDIOT”
It sounds like everyone here is worried that the Pre might actually succeed? And who is defining success anyway? Is success beating the iPhone? I think not.
If the Pre is able to prove that WebOS is a good platform, the other phones they currently have in their pipeline will prosper with better features and a more finely tuned piece of hardware. Some smaller, others without physical keyboards and added other features. This is something the iPhone doesn’t offer— flexibility and variety(it’s the spice of life!) in the hardware.
Wouldn’t it be neat if there was a smaller iPhone? or one with a slide-out keyboard? How about one that had tactile buttons for more of a gaming phone?
Has anyone tried using the Nintendo emulator on their iPhone? It’s awesome! but it would be wayyyy more awesome if there were a directional pad (maybe slide out?) and a couple buttons on the opposite side with some other buttons on the edge of the phone similar to the ‘L’ and ‘R’ buttons on the super nintendo controller.
What I am trying to say here is that why not give more options instead of simply what the screen and OS have to offer—the shell in which all of that lives can offer more appeal for certain uses maybe one is more of gaming style case where the other is like a camera with shutter buttons built in— maybe one is really compact and it operates more like a flip phone where the screen folds in half on hinges….. its like Audi and Volkswagen– they take pretty much all of the same powertrains and put them in different cars to do different things.
The one thing Palm is great at, is making phones. The hardware on their previous phones are quite great but obviously using an old OS that is in dire need of a new polish. Management has had a wake up call and I think we will be seeing the next era in smartphones/computers in the very near feature from all of these companies including Palm(even Garmin!). This competition is healthy why do so many people on here hate on everything but Apple? It’s scary! Communist even!
If you think about it, aside from being able to write programs efficiently and run super intense graphic editing and animation/multimedia software— these smart phones can pretty much do anything you or I would typically do on a computer and probably accounts for what 99% of what the average person does on a computer. To have that power in your hands is truly amazing.
After Adobe flash implements the mobile versions adapted for the new OSes (iPhone, Android, WebOS, etc.) there won’t be much more to add when it comes to a browsing experience. That is pretty much all I do unless I am running Photoshop! (heck maybe even the new Photoshop express website could be accessed on the phone after the flash adaptation is done)
I wouldn’t be surprised if MS Silverlight is adapted as well.
So anyway, back to my original point. If the Pre sells a good number to existing Sprint users (like myself) who have been waiting for a phone that can actually do this stuff easily (better than WinMos and Palms OS and standard Ghettoberries) and also attract some people away from T-Mobile and Verizon (please… the Storm? that phone is sad) they will be in good shape. Roger McRetard spouting nonsense about every iPhone user leaving their phone is just that… nonsense, I’m glad he doesn’t work for Palm and is only an Investor…. That said, there will be a number of 1st gen iPhone users that will realize they can get a new phone for a lot less a month after being stuck in a 2 year contract with an outdated iPhone and go with the Pre, many will upgrade to an iPhone3G or whatever the new one will be.
For example, my wife and I have an Unlimited Data, Text, GPS, Video, and Picture plan through Sprint with 1600 shared minutes (we never get close to going over), mobile to mobile (obviously!), free nights after 7pm (isn’t everywhere else like 9pm?! geez I do most of my talking after 7pm but before 9pm) and free weekends. What do we pay? 110 per month total… not each, but total. After taxes it’s like 115— my buddy and his wife have iPhones and their bill is pretty hefty. The plan I have is indeed compatible with the Pre.
Just heard a new rumor on this and the wireless charger will be included with the phone. But if you lose that or want another, its $69.99 as the image suggests. I’m wonder when third party knock offs will begin.