Sprint has announced that the Palm Pre will be available in the United States on June 6 for $199.99 (after rebate and service agreement).

MakaPalm learned about the announcement in an entry on the official Palm blog, which said the highly anticipated webOS-based phone will be available in the US in Sprint stores, as well as at Best Buy, Radio Shack, and select Wal-Mart stores.

01/09 Update: As expected, Palm launched today its new OS — the Palm Web OS — and Palm Pre, the first smartphone running on the new platform. The twin launch has been receiving great reviews. I’m sure you’ve read about it already, but just in case you haven’t, visit the official Palm blog for more details. Congrats, Palm!

It’s almost midnight here in Manila, Philippines, and by the time we wake up tomorrow morning, the World Wide Web would probably be full of reports and comments on the new operating system that Palm is expected to announce at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

Earlier reports from CrunchGear and other blogs say a new “iPhone-like” device running on the new OS called Nova will also be announced at the event. “The new phone will have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen,” the report says, adding that it could also play media and would of course have Palm’s calendar, email, and contact function.

I love my Palm Centro –  I got one while I training in Singapore for my new job with Yahoo! Philippines — but I wish it had WiFi capability and a better camera. It looks like “Palm’s newness” would satisfy such desires.

Mobileburn says the Palm Nova phone could also feature a high-resolution camera, which, along with Wi-Fi, is on the top of my wishlist for new features.  Hopefully, the new Palm phone would also be able to run old Palm programs and databases.

I’m one of those loyal Palm fans who would really be happy to see it on the top again with its long-overdue OS upgrade. I believe Matthew Miller of ZDNet is correct in saying there are “a ton of people that want to see Palm succeed.”

Palm is, after all, the brand that brought us the wonderful little handheld computer called PalmPilot, which eventually evolved into what I call an all-in-one device: a cellphone, personal digital assistant, alarm clock, portable MP3 and video player, digital camera, ebook reader and ‘game and watch’ rolled into one. And with the new OS, I hope Palm would resurrect Foleo.

With tomorrow’s announcement, I hope Palm could prove that it is, as I’d been insisting, “not a dying platform.” It’s Palm’s time to shine again.

Admob, a mobile advertising company, has included the Philippines in its July 2008 Mobile Metrics report. It cited “continuing strong growth in mobile web usage” here.

From sixth place last month, the Philippines is now fifth among the countries in terms of ad requests, with 2.8% of all Admob requests originating from mobile phones here.

Based on the reports’ Philippines Handset Data, the texting capital of the world remains a Nokia country, as 63.8% of all ad requests from the Philippines were from Nokia phones. With more than 4% share each, Nokia 3510i, Nokia N70, and Nokia N95 were the top handset models.

Just got this on a news subscription site:

Palm has unveiled a new mobile device, the Treo Pro smartphone. The new phone features a one-touch Wi-Fi button, GPS, Windows Mobile 6.1 and a high-resolution flush color touch screen.

Am still looking for more details as the official press release seems to have been pulled out.

Treo Pro — Palm’s still-unannounced Windows Mobile smartphone — has been the latest and hottest topic in many tech blogs since yesterday. It’s a “simple proof that Palm is not dying,” notes PalmAddict Asia Editor Andy J. S.

“Who said Palm is dying? Who said mobile users are not interested in Palm’s smartphones anymore? If it so, then why all the fuzz of this Treo Pro?” he added.

It would have been best if this new and high tech offering from Palm was Palm OS-powered. But still, here are Treo Pro’s reported features:

• 400Mhz CPU , but snappy response
• 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM
• Expansion card supports up to 32GB
• 320×320 screen
• WCDMA/EDGE/HSDPA
• WiFi
• GPS
• 2 MP camera
• microUSB connector
• 3.5mm earphone connector
• 1500mah battery
• Bundled apps: Adobe Reader LE, Windows Messenger, Java (Esmertec), Internet Proxy, Telenav, Streaming Media, Sprite backup

If the above specs are true, Treo Pro will be the second Palm device to have integrated WiFi, next only to Treo 800w.

How was this latest “leak” from Palm discovered? According to PalmInfoCenter, WMExperts member scottymomo “poked around Palm’s Learning site and found a[n] unposed flash tutorial of the unannounced new Treo.” In his/her WMExperts post, scottymomo attached some pictures — including the one posted with this entry.

Later, in TreoCentral, a certain nomad2000 posted more pictures and device specs. (Nomad2000 also posted this info at the Chinese forum Treo8.com). Scottymomo then posted additional features and screenshots of the Treo Pro at TreoCentral.

Treo Pro was appears to be the same product earlier called Treo 850 and Palm Drucker.

PalmAddict Asia Editor Andy J. S. wrote this development explains why Palm has reportedly placed orders of up to 5 million units of new different mobile phones to manufacturer Compal Comm: “So these whole shebangs are actually a solid news we can hope to become into a reality.”