Feeling pressure from its smaller, sexier, newer cousin -- and every other smartphone, for that matter -- it looks like the Palm Treo 755p has taken its final bow on Sprint. With the Centro stealing the overwhelming majority of the Garnet limelight as of late, it seems there may be little business justification for another Palm OS device on Sprint's network; ironically, Verizon's version just launched four months ago, so we wouldn't sound the final death knell for the devicejust yet. For what it's worth, the classic Treo form factor lives on Sprint thanks to the 700wx -- another Palm device that's getting just a little long in the tooth (like 2006 long in the tooth). We'll admit, we'll probably shed a quick tear or two when the old-guard Treo line finally takes a permanent vacation in favor of newer, more modern looking designs, but we're not really mustering much eye moisture for the 755p here.

[Via Brighthand]

Update: We've gotten word straight from the horse's mouth that the 755p isn't discontinued -- it's merely out of stock, hence the disappearance from Sprint's site. They're "addressing [the] temporary outage of inventory," though, so if you've got a hankering for the larger Garnet piece in Sprint's lineup, hang tight!

Turning our attention away from the unobtainable iPhone version for a moment, let's take a look at something far more real that StyleTap has in the cards: Symbian support. The Palm OS emulator is already a well-worn member of the Windows Mobile community (pictured), and seeing how Symbian's got a huge installed base, it makes sense that they'd want to attack it next. There's no word on exactly what models and flavors will be supported, but it certainly seems like having a touchscreen would be a good idea -- sorry, N95 owners! The beta program kicks off May 12 and StyleTap's soliciting applications now, so head on over to the site if you have some insatiable desire to be the first kid on the block rocking all your favorite Garnet apps atop a P1i.

[Thanks, Jason]

Seems a little bizarre that AT&T would choose to launch white and lime over this more conservative choice -- but they did, and our Mexican friends get to reap the benefits. The blue variant of the GSM Centro is available via Telcel and Movistar -- exclusivity's apparently not an issue here -- and offers specs that are otherwise unchanged from its international cousins. Eh, on second thought, we think we like the white better anyway.

[Via IntoMobile and Palm Infocenter]

We've gotten the inside track on a few dates on Verizon's radar for the next few months, and it looks like the boys and girls in red are prepping an interesting mix of exclusive and Sprint catch-ups to keep customers fat and happy. As handsets go, the Motorola Q9c is planned for April along with the TouchFLO-powered XV6900, LG enV2, and the CDMA rendition of the BlackBerry Curve (so much for exclusivity clauses on this one, it seems), while the Samsung Glyde is currently slated for late April or early May. Centro fans will be happy to hear that the diminutive Garnet phone will finally hit Verizon following Sprint and AT&T launches in the tail end of May or the beginning of June, followed shortly by the Nokia 6205, which apparently isn't either the 2505 or 7205 unless one of those flips have been renumbered.

As technology goes, Verizon looks to launch EV-DO Rev. A-based push-to-talk services -- Sprint folks will know this as Qualcomm's QChat -- toward the end of May. We've also caught wind of something called "Verizon Hub," which we're told will go head-to-head with T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home service. It's not known whether this'll be a WiFi setup (a la HotSpot@Home) or adopt Sprint's CDMA femtocell strategy, but seeing how Verizon and Sprint seem to be endlessly engaged in a game of cat and mouse, we wouldn't be surprised to see 'em go with femtocells. We don't have a date on Hub just yet, but it's targeting the second half of the year at the earliest.

Update: Commenters are noting that Verizon's do-all FiOS phone bares the "Verizon Hub" name, though it doesn't go head-to-head with HotSpot@Home -- and the Hub we're referring to is showing up on Verizon Wireless roadmaps. Weird. We'll keep a close eye on this one.

We've just received a fresh round of release dates on AT&T, and if we had to pick a single word to describe the theme here, it'd be "colors." Shades upon shades of phones -- both new and old -- will see a release on AT&T in the next couple of months, starting with the Sony Ericsson Z750a, the first 3G Sony Ericsson to be released by a carrier in the States (but not in North America -- that honor belongs to Rogers); it'll hit in your choice of gray, pink, or purple in early April. The now-ancient UTStarcom 5700 finally sees release toward the end of April more than a year after we first saw it in the FCC's business, giving a lower-end choice to the Windows Mobile faithful. Finally, May should bring about the LG CU720 Shine in black, following its initial offerings of silver and red.

Oh, and it looks like the Motorola Z9 and the black Centro should be widely available pretty much any minute now -- stay tuned. Strangely missing from the list is the Vu, though that doesn't necessarily mean it won't be released by the end of May, it merely means that AT&T's not sure yet. Surprise, surprise.

[Thanks, Kal]

StyleTap, the folks behind the CrossPlatform Palm emulator for Windows Mobile have built a proof of concept version of the software for the iPhone / iPod touch. They're not committing to releasing any such product, and aren't releasing the software as a beta or anything like that at the moment, but the video demo of the software in action is certainly promising. All the apps are rather responsive, the device benchmarks a good bit faster than the Tungsten | T, and Apple's keyboard is even integrated into the proceedings quite nicely. Video is after the break.

[Via TUAW]

We don't mean to harp here, because we understand how long it can take to get a phone through a government bureaucracy like the FCC -- not to mention that little issue of Sprint exclusivity -- but we were just a little shocked to see that the Centro 685 (the technical full name for the GSM Centro) was tested a hot minute ago. How long ago, exactly? Well, as early as May of last year, according to the test report documentation, though the label shows a first revision of December 11 of frickin' 2006. Ah well, nothing to get too worked up about; at least it's available now, right? Also notable is that someone in either Palm or the testing firm slipped up and made references to the Treo 800w in the label document, so yeah, we can pretty much gather that it's stone cold real at this point (as if there was any doubt).

Wow, sure enough, those green buttons are straight up legit -- who'd have thought? The long-rumored GSM cut of the Palm Centro is now officially available on AT&T in the wake of Sprint's expiring exclusivity, giving a whole new world of customers access to the freakishly small (yet strangely adorable) Garnet handset. Unlike Sprint's version, the GSM Centro tops out with EDGE data for a moderately less snappy browsing experience; otherwise, though, your $99 on contract is going to buy you a 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD slot, Bluetooth 1.2, support for AT&T's push-to-talk service, and a full (albeit miniaturized) QWERTY keypad. So who's liking this more than the white / gray scheme we'd seen before?

Boy Genius just grabbed himself one o' them newfangled white Centros for AT&T for a good, old fashioned unboxing, and guess what? The keypad's green. Yep, we can't believe it either. Body's white, keypad's green. Seriously, we couldn't make this up. Before you run down to the store to pick up this $99 fashion statement, though, don't bother -- they're not on sale quite yet -- it's still looking like the 19th is the date you want to circle on your calendar (or program into your 680, as the case may be).

Can't you just feel the excitement in the air? AT&T stores are apparently starting to spout off about white, $99 Centros being available starting next Tuesday, February 19, and it seems like a pretty plausible date. We've separately been told that the cute lil' Garnet handsets are expected to be shipping to stores some time this week -- just in time to make the 19th a reality for customers eager to get their paws on the latest tech Palm has to offer -- while previous intel had indicated that it'd definitely be available some time before early April. In other words: yeah, we believe it.

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Palm's GSM Centro has been about the worst-kept secret in the entire smartphone industry for the past few weeks, and indeed, it's now official -- for Europe, anyway. The unlocked handset features a quadband GSM / EDGE radio with nary a trace of UMTS in sight (this is still Garnet, after all), 64MB of user-available storage, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and a 320 x 320 display -- in other words, the same Centro we all know and love (or tolerate, or despise, depending on your point of view) with just a little bit less CDMA and 3G data to its name. It'll hit the British market on the 14th of the month and the remainder of Europe by the end of February for €299 or £199 (roughly $440 or $392); no word on when the official AT&T version will be available yet, but US folks desperate for one of these unlocked versions in the meantime shouldn't have a lot of trouble importing it, we'd imagine.

[Via Treonauts, thanks Andrew]

We wish we were kidding. Palm is sticking with its early-2009 projection for the upcoming Linux-based relaunch of the Palm OS -- possibly codenamed Nova. That means this date isn't exactly a surprise, but we've really been hoping that this 2009 business was some sort of bad dream, since it's abundantly clear that Palm needs a new OS yesterday. To clarify further, Palm's Stephane Mass stated that Palm expects to wrap the OS late in 2008, and get tool to developers in time for devices early in the next year. Palm plans to keep offering Windows Mobile and Palm OS devices, and to make Centro the heart of its 2008 lineup.

Yeah, it could be fake, but if you had to pick one handset to fake up in Photoshop, would this really be it? Seriously? Sprint's exclusivity agreement on the Centro is just about to expire, undoubtedly opening a floodgate of carriers rushing to pick up the low-end Garnet phone, so if neither Sprint nor AT&T are your carrier, we'd recommend you just hang tight for a bit.

[Via Palm Infocenter]

Remember the "any day now" claim slapped on that alleged Treo 680 update for AT&T back in October? Well, it's out now, which means that "any day now" works out to... oh, about 50-odd days in AT&T lingo. Fortunately, it may have been worth the wait; it seems every rumored feature has made the cut, meaning 680 owners are now entitled to goodies like push-to-talk, integrated IM, SDHC support, and the all-important AT&T branding (seriously, who wants to be seen walking around with a Cingular device these days?). Grab the update now straight from Palm's site.

[Via Brighthand]

Palm began life as a software company (anyone remember bailing out their Newton's testy handwriting recognition by installing Graffiti?), and who the heck knows -- perhaps a software company again it will be. Okay, okay, it's way too early to be sounding the death knell on Palm's hardware operations, but let's be honest, wouldn't a Motorola Q9 running Palm OS instead of Windows Mobile make for an absolutely fabulous device (read: Treo / Centro killer) for the Palm OS faithful? We think so, and this Sprint promotional site makes mention of a "Q2" that, by all appearances, seems to be the aforementioned Palm-based Q9. We can't verify the legitimacy of this thing for a couple reasons: one, we've heard nary a peep about a Q2 on Sprint's or Motorola's roadmaps, and two, this same site makes no mention of the Q9c, a device that we do know is coming to Sprint in the next few weeks. Who knows, maybe this is all some well-executed ruse by a Sprint staffer -- but if not, we say kudos to Moto, Sprint, and Palm (and ACCESS, for that matter) for putting together what may be the best Palm handset on the market come the holidays.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

Update: Sure enough, the detail view for the Q2 lists Windows Mobile 6 among its specs, so it seems the Q9c will be officially known as the Q2 when it hits; the 'shopped Palm screen is nothing more than a major league screw-up on Sprint's part. Thanks, commenters!