Prepaid Globe customers will have to shell out P41,889 for an 8GB iPhone, according to Globe’s official website. A 16GB iPhone, on the other hand, will cost prepaid subscribers P48,899.

Post-paid subscribers could get the iPhone, which Globe will start offering on August 22 of this year, for a lower price. Subscribers to a P4,999 per month plan will get the 8GB unit for free.

Read the Globe press release and the iPhone 3G plans page for more details.

Reports and reactions from other bloggers:

• Tonyo Cruz: Whoa! Globe to sell iPhone 3G for P41,899!
• McBilly: Globe iPhone 3G Philippine Pricing
• YugaTech: Phone 3G Price and August 22 Globe release

Ebook version of the titles in Stephenie Meyer’s very popular Twilight Series are now on sale at eReader.com. The Twilight books tell the love story of Bella, a unique high school girl, and Edward, a perfect hunk who happens to be a vampire.

eReader, which describes itself as “The World’s Largest eBookstore,” is my favorite ebookstore. I bought my soft copy of “The Google Story” there. It also offers free downloads of the eReader software, which smartphone users may use to read ebooks on their Palm OS, Symbian, WinMobile,  Apple and other mobile devices.

“The newsletter says eReader offers 25% discount, but my computation — if I remember my Math correctly — reveals that the price cut is actually around 34%. Here is the list of old and new prices:

• Twilight (Twilight Series Book 1) from $10.99 to $8.21
• New Moon (Twilight Series Book 2) from $10.99 to $8.21
• Eclipse (Twilight Series Book 3) from $19.99 to $14.93 (34% off)
• Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga Book 4) from $22.99 to $17.17 (34% off)

A spokeswoman for Meyer said that in less than three years, the first three books in the series sold 6.5 million copies in the United States alone. According to a New York Times report, “Breaking Dawn,” the fourth and final installment, sold 1.3 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale.

NYT columnist Gail Collins read the first two novels and tried to search for the key to the series’ success. “The attraction is clearly the vampire hero, who is a perfect entleman, eternally faithful and — as the author points out repeatedly — quite a hunk,” she writes.  She then lifts some description of the vampire: “He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare … A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.”

Like Harry Potter — whose story captivated millions of children and adults in the world with its last book selling 8.3 million copies on the first day — the Twilight books encourages young people to read. Collins notes: “Before you make fun of this, I want you to seriously consider whether you’re interested in denigrating people who spend their leisure time actually reading books rather than watching ‘America’s Got Talent’”.

In its review of the first book in the series, Amazon.com writes that “the precision and delicacy of Meyer’s writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of [young adult] fiction.”

Read the first chapter of the first book on NYT.

Palm Centro users who want more than the manual that comes with a new phone may be interested in this new book entitled “Now You Know Centro”.

Written by Patrick Ames and published by Peachpit Press, the full-color book which is currently priced at $17.99 (around Php 783) promises tips, tutorials, and techniques not disclosed in the PDF manuals.

“Now You Know Centro is meant to be fast and simple, allowing you to practice on your handheld while you read. You’ll learn about the wireless capabilities, e-mail, media and streaming media, accessories, productivity, and more. In minutes, you can watch your skills improve and use what you learn immediately,” the book’s description says.

It adds that the book “is designed for immediate gratification, not for hour-long reads, the exact way you use your smartphone.”

PalmInfocenter’s article has info on similar books for other Palm devices.

More than two million Centros have already been sold, Palm announced on its blog this week.

“It seems like just yesterday that someone purchased the one-millionth Centro, and now we’ve sold two million of them,” the blog entry said.

On March 31 — or almost four months ago — Palm said Centro sales reached one million.

Reporting on the announcement on the sale of the two millionth Centro, PalmInfocenter (check out its new Twitter account!) added this info: “The Centro is on store shelves in more than 25 countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia Pacific.” (I wonder how many were sold in the Philippines.)

PalmInfocenter also noted that based on the latest Mobile Metrics report of Admob, the Centro is June’s No. 7 device worldwide, up from eight in May. This means that among all mobile phones worldwide that accessed mobile sites serving Admob ads in June, the Centro ranked seventh.

By the way, the Philippines remained on the sixth place with only 2.5% of all Admob requests originating from mobile phones here.

(Image from Palm.com)

Palm Philippines announced earlier this week that Palm Centro is already available in two colors: black onyx and glacier white. Palm Centro was only in white when it debuted here last April.

I still prefer the white one; it complements the white Asus Eee that I’d like to buy if and when I earn enough money.

Here’s the announcement that Palm issued last July 15:

It’s time to get connected and get the party started with the Palm®CentroTM, now available in black onyx and glacier white.

Get in touch with your friends and organize your social life in a breeze through email, text, voice, web and more. The full keyboard and touchscreen functionality gives an added ease to your needs.

What’s more, you can capture the moment in a snap and move to the music, all in the Palm of your hand. Don’t miss out on the action!

Meet up and live it up with the Palm Centro.