Just when I thought I could give up on Fantasy Football, something has lured me back in. Honestly, it’s probably easier for me to just donate my $50 entry fee than actually spend time and effort playing the game. No, I’ll be hooked again and it’s all Pre Central’s fault. They were tipped off that Sprint’s NFL Mobile service hits the Palm Pre on August 1. A Sprint support page confirms the info: The NFL Mobile app is slated for over-the-air delivery to existing Palm Pre owners, while all new Pre handsets sold after that will have the software pre-loaded.

There shouldn’t be an extra charge based on the NFL Mobile product page, as the service should work with Sprint’s Simply Everything data plan. That’s good, since I’m already contributing to my local league, not to mention the time, effort and anguish invested in sad results on a weekly basis. How could I have had the No. 1 pick last year and blown it on an underperforming LaDainian Tomlinson? Ugh. In any case, I’ll be watching live NFL Network games, listening to game audio of other games and getting Red Zone alerts right on my handheld. Maybe that will offset the pain and misery of my poorly performing team?

My daily check of the Palm Pre App Catalog didn’t turn up any new software, but there is a notable update today. I’ve been using the Tweed Twitter client, but for now I’m switching over to Spaz. The latest update, version 0.5, adds support for photo posting to TweetPhoto, yfrog, Twitgoo and TwitPic.

I tested the new function, and it worked fine, although it’s not exactly a native feature within the client. Instead, Spaz relies on sending an email to the Twitter photo services: Your text appears as the tweet, while the attached photo receives its own URL. I’d prefer a solution that works within the actual client, but the Pre’s easy-to-use multitasking allows this approach to work effectively.

I was playing around with the Palm Pre browser the other day, trying to come up with a way to get links to open in a new window. Sometimes I don’t want to leave the current window but want to click a link. I’m probably the only person on the planet who didn’t know how to do this, but I found a way that works consistently so here it is for those who might also need to know.

With the browser window open (and active), hold down the Orange key and press any other key without a SYM alternative. I just use the space bar for this. While still holding down the Orange key, release the space bar and tap on the link you want to open. Release the Orange key and a new browser window should open with the new link page active. That’s it.

This is a clumsy method, but it works consistently and I’m using it now. If you have a better method that doesn’t require playing Twister with your Pre, please leave it in the comments. 

The Missing Sync has long been the way for smartphone owners to keep their data synchronized with their Macs. The program has been available for most smartphones and now can add the Palm Pre to the list of supported phones. Version 1.0 of the Missing Sync for the Pre has some interesting features that take advantage of the special Synergy technology on the Pre.

Synergy is the Pre’s ability to have PIM information shared among the various apps on the phone along with info from the web. Missing Sync provides synchronization of iCal, Entourage, Address Book, iTunes and iPhoto on the Mac with the Pre. Using Synergy the Pre will then present Mac Address Book contacts with Google and Facebook contacts pulled from the web. Mac iCal calendars also appear layered into the Pre calendar app.

Proximity syncing is supported with this version of Missing Sync as the program can be configured to automatically sync over Wi-Fi whenever the Pre is near the Mac. The ability to sync Safari bookmarks to the Pre is coming soon via a program update when available.

The Missing Sync for the Pre is $39.95 and can be found on the Missing Sync web site.

Hello, my name is Kevin, and I’m a Peggle addict. I play it on my PC, my iPhone and my Xbox 360. Soon I might be able to play it on my Palm Pre, and so will you. PreCentral caught wind of an audio interview in which Garth Chouteau, the senior PR director of PopCap Games, said:

“We have plans to support the Pre, as well as Android. There are games in the works for those devices.”

Now I wouldn’t call these definitive plans by any means, but “in the works” sounds pretty promising to me. Of course, if you don’t like Peggle, Chouteau could be referring to Bejeweled, Zuma, Chuzzle or any one of the many games PopCap offers. As far as the timing for any games, Chouteau did say that the installed user base plays a part in planning development strategies. That’s to be expected of course, and doesn’t bode well for Palm Pre owners. There are far more Google Android handsets out there that Palm Pre devices, not to mention a new Android device outed just today. While I wait, I’ll just recite my mantra:  I will be a Peggle Master on the Pre… I will be a Peggle Master on the Pre…

Palm officially announced European availability of the Pre handset today, with a delivery time frame of “by the holidays.” As expected, O2 will carry the device exclusively in the UK, Ireland and Germany. Spain will see the Pre on Movistar’s network. Looking through the official specifications, I don’t see any major changes. That’s to be expected, although there are some regional differences. The slide-out keyboard on the German edition will be a QWERTZ layout, not a QWERTY like we have in the U.S. The handset won’t use CDMA technology, either. Instead, the radios will support HSDPA/UMTS with EDGE/GSM. Palm hasn’t stated what the 3G throughput will be for the EU model, but I know the networks in Europe currently can be much faster than what we have here.

Interested customers can hit up their regional Palm web site and sign up for notification on the new device. My question now is: Have we Americans scared off European purchasers or are folks across the pond still excited by the prospect of the Pre?

Another musing: How will the introduction of a new handset and platform shake up the European market share numbers? Specifically, will Nokia’s tumbling share continue at a faster pace? Others might suffer as well, but Nokia has a large handset presence in the EU area. The year end market share numbers for the past two years shows an alarming trend for the Finnish device maker. At the end of 2007, Nokia held 50.9 percent of the worldwide smartphone market. That same number a year later for Nokia? It was 40.8 percent, as Research in Motion and Apple roughly doubled their market share while Samsung gobbled up even more of the market.

You never want to fight a war on multiple fronts, but Nokia simply has no choice. Newcomers like Apple and Google Android are making it difficult, while RIM has successfully transitioned from the enterprise market to the consumer space. Does Nokia have what it takes to fight the Palm Pre army that’s marching towards the holiday time while facing the other combatants? Or will Palm not even make a dent in Nokia’s armor? I’d love to hear from our readers in Europe on this one.

Earlier today when pitting push notifications against background apps on handsets, I mentioned that battery life is one disadvantages of a multitasking operating system. With the original 1150mAh battery in the Palm Pre, many folks find they can’t get through a full day on a single charge. You can replace the battery in the Pre, but I personally find it difficult to remove the back case. It’s not something I’d want to do on a daily basis, although I appreciate the option.

Another option would be an extended battery, but I don’t want the Pre to be any thicker than it is. Luckily, Palm Infocenter noticed that Seidio is now shipping a higher-capacity power pack for the Pre, and it’s the same size as the original battery. At $44.95, the Innocell battery is rated for 1350mAh, or just shy of 20 percent more capacity than the 1150mAh battery that comes with the Pre. If you’re finding a low battery six or eight hours in your day, this replacement ought to last you between 7.25 and 9.5 hours on a single charge, all things being equal.

When Apple announced its push notifications for mobile software titles, I was skeptical. That’s not surprising, because I was raised in a multitasking world. In that world, you just run multiple apps at the same time and flip around from one bit of software to another. It’s the world that we all live in today with our computers. But the mobile world isn’t the same as the desktop world. Running multiple applications can hit the CPU and radios harder on our handsets, which, in turn, use more battery power.

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I should be working, I know it. Instead, I am having a good time using the HP Mini 1000 running Windows 7. I am in a terrible lighting situation, so I figured it was a good idea to compare the Palm Pre camera to the iPhone 3G. Note this is the older iPhone, not the spiffy new 3GS. I figured it’s a good test of the Pre camera with the flash, since the iPhone 3G lacks one. The verdict?  Both cameras pretty much suck.

Like I do every day, I hit up the App Catalog on my Palm Pre this morning. Instead of cruising around the store by category, it’s easier to just hit the Recent tag since there’s only 30 apps. Or is it 29? There were 30 titles for the past several weeks, but apparently one went missing and I’m not sure which one it was. Nor do I know why it’s gone. Luckily, it wasn’t one of the few I’m using since they’re all still there.

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