Moving closer to a release date

May 16, 2009 11:09 GMT  ·  By

According to the latest news on the Web, Sprint stores all around the United States have begun to receive demo units of the highly anticipated Palm Pre. The wireless carrier seems to be preparing for the imminent launch of the device, though it hasn't unveiled the release date, while the demonstration units are reported to be under strict lockdown, and coming inside Palm Pre retail boxes.

The demo units that arrive in stores (also known as Palm Pre Advocate units) are one-per-store units that will get assigned to an employee, who should be the Pre expert for that location, or the Advocate, but will not be displayed publicly. In addition, it seems that the training for the Pre will start in the near future, though the lockdown status has been already confirmed by some of the stores.

Along with the news on the demo units, we hear that some more details on the Palm Pre have made it into the wild, along with some photos of a Sprint employee that has a Pre in his hands. The newest reports on the device show that the phone is quite as small as expected and that it feels very good in the hand.

Moreover, while the keyboard was already stated to be able to impress, it seems that the webOS platform is also “amazing” and “responsive,” though we are very sure that these things have been heard or read about already. As for the release date of the handset, it looks like the June 5 - June 7 time frame is shaping into the most possible launch window again, as employees reported that they would get through a couple of days of mandatory manager training before that week-end.

In related news, we learn that the Web applications that have been built for the iPhone could be easily ported to the Pre webOS platform, and there are about 4,000 such apps available on the market. In addition, it seems that native apps for the iPhone could also be ported to the Pre, though the process is a little more complicated. For what it's worth, Pre users will be able to enjoy some of the software solutions that are already available for the iPhone.