We are seriously not going to take credit for this, but holy crap, Palm just cancelled the Foleo, just like we asked them to! Palm CEO Ed Colligan just posted a message to the company's official blog stating that they've decided to cancel the Foleo mobile companion "in its current configuration" in order to "focus all of our energies on delivering out next generation platform and the first smartphones that will bring this platform to market." In a way we're sort of disappointed that we'll never at least get to play with one and put it through its paces, but it's definitely the right move -- Palm needs to focus on one thing right now, and that's coming out with a category-killing smartphone. Not that they're giving up on the idea for good; Ed says that they'll do a "Foleo II" based on the new mobile platform they're already developing for their next generation of smartphones

The hype over the iPhone is almost deafening right now, but there's an article in today's New York Times today that captures a rare moment of self-doubt from Apple regarding the impending launch:

"The anticipation, which is intense even by Jobsian standards, has led to some quiet, behind-the-scenes anxiety at Apple. Some Apple executives worry privately that expectations for the one-button phones may be too high and that first-generation buyers will end up disappointed."

They're right to be a bit nervous. We don't doubt that the iPhone will sell like crazy when it first comes out and be hard to find in stores for months, but it's rare for anything this highly anticipated to completely live up to everyone's expectations. The iPhone's on pretty much the most massive pedestal that any gadget has ever been on, and if there are any issues with it -- like with its touchscreen, battery life, call quality, or software stability -- you can expect the backlash to be severe.

Symbian-Guru has the scoop on not one, but two unannounced new high-end Nokia handsets, the N81 (pictured on the left) and the N82 (pictured on the right).

The slider-style N81 looks it'll be the successor to their N91 musicphone (except less, uh, busted-looking) and sport a full 8GB of memory, a 2.4-inch QVGA display, quad-band EDGE and 2100MHz HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The N82 has a more traditional candybar form-factor and'll have a five megapixel camera with Xenon flash and auto-focus Carl Zeiss lens, quad-band GSM (doesn't say whether it'll be GRPS or EDGE, but we're guessing EDGE), 2100MHz HSDPA, a 2.4-inch QVGA display, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, integrated GPS, FM tuner, and a microSD memory card slot.

Doesn't sound like either will be out until Q4 of this year.

[Via Ring Nokia]

Awww, don't pretend like you didn't know it was coming: Palm officially bounced out the long-rumored Treo 755p today. The 755p is only an incremental upgrade to the Treo 700p which came out about a year ago -- anyone expecting a full upgrade better keep waiting. Consequently, the specs aren't anything too surprising: 320 x 320 pixel display, 128MB of RAM, 321MHz XScale processor, EV-DO Rev. 0, miniSD memory card slot (up to 4GB), 1600mAh Li-Ion battery, Bluetooth 1.2, 1.3 megapixel camera, and runs on Palm OS 5.4.9. Available exclusively from Sprint -- at least for the time being -- in two colors, burgundy (yeah, burgundy) and blue. Retail price will be $279.99 with service agreement.

We'll have a hands-on for you soon.

Last time we sat down with you it was a few months before Helio had launched. A year later, how has it been? Where are things now?

Yeah, so when we had last talked, we had no members. It was just an idea. It has been an amazing ride so far. It is great to be here and be able to talk about Ocean for the first time. Something we have been working on since even before Helio was a company.

I remember you mentioning a year ago that you had a Sidekick competitor coming out.

We were coy for a long time. We were just so focused on building it and working really hard, with a lot of travel to and intense amount of work by our team, so it is great to be here and be able to talk about this.

Doesn't look like Palm will be busting out any new phones at CTIA, but they did announce a new GPS thingy for Treo 680 and Treo 700p smartphones. The GPS Navigator Car Kit is a GPS attachment designed to cradle your Treo for in-car use. Comes with TomTom NAVIGATOR software and a 1GB SD card preloaded with maps of the US and Canada. Retail price should be $299.

We got hands-on with the W580, Sony Ericsson's latest Walkman phone, at CTIA last night. Click on the gallery for a bunch of shots.

Yeah, Sprint unveiled the UpStage today, but the other sorta big news is that they officially took the wraps off of Pivot, the new name for their new quad-play service bundling up wireless, voice, broadband, and cable TV as a single package (they've been offering service in a handful of markets for a while now, they're basically just rebranding everything). Sprint's partners in Pivot are a handful of different cable providers, including Comcast, Cox, and our arch-nemesis Time-Warner Cable (which is owned by our parent company's parent company -- not that it's done a damn thing for the totally awful cable TV and internet service we get at Engadget HQ). All the big telcos are pimping these triple-play and quad-play packages -- they see them as a way to lock-in subscribers by offering them lower prices than consumers would pay for each service separately -- but Sprint's big selling point is that they're also promising some intergration across services, like the ability to program your DVR box from your cellphone (which we've already seen from AT&T), check home email and voicemail from a single interface, and make unlimited calls between your home VoIP line and your mobile phone. Anyway, Pivot is currently available in eight cities now, with another 40 more set to launch this year. Pricing will vary by market.

Click on for a few more shots of the cellphone/DVR interface.

So this picture of Steve Jobs supposedly using an iPhone in public got us thinking: what cellphone did he use before he had an iPhone? We know that Gates has carried a Windows Mobile device for years -- at one point he had an HTC Typhoon and then later switched to a Treo 700w -- but does anyone know what cellphone Jobs used to use? Did he even HAVE a cellphone before Jonathan Ive built him the handset of his dreams? We've actually heard from a couple of reliable sources that he didn't -- and you have to admit that it would be so like Steve Jobs to not even own a cellphone until he could build his own.

Anyone out there know for sure?

VoIP provider Vonage has already cut a deal with EarthLink to resell WiFi, presumably to go along with some sort of WiFi phone service, but could they have something way crazier (and more costly) on tap? BusinessWeek speculates that Vonage might be getting into the cellular game by launching an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator). It's not hard to imagine them offering something similar to T-Mobile's HotSpot @Home service, which lets you use a WiFi-enabled cellphone to make VoIP calls over WiFi and and then seamlessly switch over to cellular networks whenever you're outside WiFi range. The problem is that launching an MVNO is no small undertaking. ESPN shuttered MobileESPN last year after failing to attract more than a handful of subscribers, and Amp'd and Helio have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to carve out a slice of what is an incredibly competitive wireless market (Apple was working on an MVNO to accompany the launch of the iPhone, but scrapped the whole thing once it became obvious how difficult it would be to gain marketshare). Could they do it? Maybe, but not without spending a TON of money, which is why it's more likely that they'll introduce a more modest Voice over WiFi service.

[Via GigaOm]

Samsung's latest dual-hinged handset, the SCH-u740, hit Verizon this week and we've got a gallery full of hands-on pics for your perusal. The specs on this thing won't blow you away, but for $200 (with two year contract) you get a messaging-centric EV-DO phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera, a microSD memory card slot (the u740 supports playback of MP3 and WMA audio files), and Bluetooth (including DUN support). First impressions: the u740 is decently thing, but we're not really digging the champagne finish on this thing, it actually makes the u740 look cheaper than it should. Screen resolution is a disappointing 176 x 220 pixels, but we're pretty pleased with how solid the dual-hinge is, at least so far, and switching between modes is totally seamless. The QWERTY keyboard is nothing special, the keys are a little slippery and aren't very easy to type on. They have made a few (mostly cosmetic) improvements to the UI, but the u740 is most definitely NOT a smartphone, and so even though Verizon does offer wireless sync email this probably shouldn't be the first choice for anyone who is really serious about doing email on their phone.

Is Palm up for sale? There's been no official word from Ed Colligan and crew, but shares of the company jumped last week on speculation that they were quietly prepping themselves for acquisition. We've heard merger rumors before -- there was some half-baked chatter back in the day that RIM was after 'em -- and it does seem like Palm is at a crossroads. The future of its two OS strategy is murky at best, and while the Treo has been doing fairly well here in the US, they've definitely had trouble getting traction abroad and have seemed flat-footed in the face of stiffening competition from HTC, Nokia, Samsung, RIM, and Motorola (not to mention the looming threat of the iPhone, which threatens to peel off a good number of the prosumers and enthusiasts that were once Palm's bread and butter). Of course, all this has us wondering who would actually plunk down $1.6 billion to buy Palm. Main candidates are said to include both Motorola and Nokia, but Moto already seems to be doing just fine with the Q, and to be honest, it's hard to imagine Nokia snapping up a company that puts out phones running on Windows Mobile.

[Via the::unwired]

We don't know whether he was pushed out or left of his own accord, but the news has just hit the wires that Ron Garriques is out as the head of Motorola's mobile devices business. It's not totally shocking to see a change of leadership, Moto's cellphone unit has definitely been through some rough times lately. Profits have fallen as the company struggles to followup the success of the RAZR and they recently announced that they were laying off 3500 employees. Whatever happens, hopefully whoever succeeds him (Ray Roman, senior vice president, global sales, and Terry Vega, senior vice president, global devices, are filling in for now) will recognize that the cellphone game is way too competitive these days to think that rolling out the RAZR in new colors is an acceptable substitute for innovation.

UPDATE: He's off to Dell to head up their Global Consumer Group.