Engadget Cares: The state of Palm - checking in a year later is new at engadget from Mr Block- "Hard to believe, but it's been a year and a day since Peter, Josh, and I published our intervention letter to Palm, wherein we rattled off a number of (admittedly unsolicited) suggestions on how we thought they might best turn things around at a time when Microsoft, RIM, and Apple were really eating into their slice of the smartphone pie.

Palm CEO Ed Colligan took the time to publicly reply, letting everyone know that he "forwarded [our letter] to [Palm's] entire executive staff and many others at Palm have read it. ...We are attacking almost every challenge [Engadget] noted, so stay tuned." When the dust settled, we were cautiously optimistic, if not a little hopeful.

In some ways that letter inspired Engadget Cares. And since it's my last day here at Engadget as editor-in-chief and all, it seems only appropriate to check in on things and see whether Palm really did "attack every challenge" from a year ago. Read on.

So Palm, I'm going to go over each point from last year's letter, awarding a Treo 600 for every bit you've gotten right, and a Foleo for any (continued) misdeeds. At the end I'll add it up and see how you've been doing..."

There are many racing games available for Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian and the iPhone, but this one (which is in development) looks 'very' special indeed!

Slightly different question to complete the week and start the long weekend for those of us in the UK - What "Fantasy" feature do you wish your device could do?  (By fantasy I mean based on technology technically possible today :))

Project on a wall perhaps?  Be able to print?

I watched The Bucket List on my iPhone two weeks ago and thought it was a ‘good’ film. I watched it on my TV last night and thought it was a ‘great’ film.

I listened to Leonard Cohen last night on my iPhone and it was inspirational. I listened to him on my stereo in the lounge and it was remarkable.

I printed some pictures of my children that were taken with my Nokia N95 and they looked so cute. I printed similar pictures taken with my Canon 8MP camera and they looked so beautiful.

For the past few years I have tended to isolate my entertainment to my smartphones and as each year has passed so the quality has increased. The quality of photography has increased to the point that today’s smartphone cameras are better than standalone cameras of a few years ago and the audio and visual experience of phones like the iPhone is exceptional. It is only when you take out the headphones and let the atmosphere of real life into the experience that you realise that entertainment should not be this way.

Photos should be as crisp and clear as possible, music needs the ambient sounds of a room to come alive and a film requires a ‘big’ screen with audio that compliments, rather than dominates, the experience. A good quality smartphone is ideal for taking entertainment with you when you travel, but let’s not kid ourselves that they can replace dedicated non-portable systems that have only one job to do.

The exception, for me, is eBooks which I personally enjoy more than paper books. It is the words that matter and not the form that they are written on. Most of us love the look and feel of a beautifully bound book, but the end result is the same- a good story will be good no matter how you read it and the advantages of eBooks are numerous.

What are your thoughts on the entertainment value of smartphones compared to separate systems? Has your smartphone completely taken over one form of entertainment for you?

GTS World Racing was never a title I particularly liked on the Palm platform because I found it far too easy to play. It looked good, but the challenge and longevity were virtually non existent compared to the racing games I was used to. To see a new version released for the iPhone / iPod Touch caused a mild stir of excitement inside me, and probably only because Astraware is now involved in this new platform. Anyway, I paid the money for my copy and had a quick play on my iPhone- after a few minutes I realised that this version is very slightly different than before and that it requires more than a little bit of concentration to survive a lap at hard level and above. I skipped easy and normal because a few seconds with each made it clear that they were no good for me- I am not great with racing games, but only the blind will surely struggle with these levels?

I digress- the Apple version of GTS has proved to be my most played iPhone game so far and one which keeps me coming back for more. It is still too easy to pass cars, but on many tracks it is far from easy to stay on it and not let some of the cars overtake you in the blink of an eye. There are some corners that require some serious breaking and others that require pushing the acceleration to it's limit. When you go to fast, which involves tipping the iPhone forward, you are always in danger of pushing it too far and thus losing speed because the iPhone is too flat. You are warned when you are running too flat and even trying to race for long periods at just below 'flat' is not easy.

The number of laps in each race can be daunting so don't expect a couple of minute play on the harder levels- you will do best when you take the time to sit down and complete an entire race in one go. The graphics are stunning and add a lot to the gameplay, and the music soundtrack is also quite good. To be fair, the music is very good but when races take so long the background sounds can get rather repetitive.

GTS has enormous potential and some small tweaks could make it a truly great game, but in spite of that it still sits as the best mobile racing games I have played to date. The accelerometer adds a huge amount to the game play and is the first game I have played on the iPhone that is better than using hard buttone. Ignore the morons who constantly moan about any paid for application on the iPhone App Store- the retail price of £4.99 is excellent value and worth every penny.

More information at http://www.astraware.com/iphone/gtswr/.

I am sort of back from my holiday and feeling rested, so let's have a small promotion. You can use discount code 'rested' to claim 16% off ALL software in our stores until midnight on Monday 25th August. This applies to all software not already discounted.

Links: Palm Store, Windows Mobile Store, Symbian Store, Blackberry Store.

USB Modem (Palm) is currently discounted by over 60%! USB Modem allows you to use Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 680, Treo 700p, Treo 755p and Centro smartphones as a USB modem for connecting a desktop or notebook computer to Internet. To surf the Internet from your PC you will need only a USB cable and a Treo with GPRS/EDGE service or CDMA 1x/EvDO data plan.

• Support for Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 680, Treo 700p, Treo 755p and Centro smartphones
• Support for Windows XP/2000, Windows Vista, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems
• Support for USB and Bluetooth connectivity
• Support for background mode so it is possible to make outgoing voice calls or perform other activity on the Treo without disabling the modem mode (if supported by the phone)
• Small memory footprint (30 KB)

UPDATE: This discount appears to have now been removed.

Talking To 'Pirates' is a fascinating article which easily applies to mobile titles as well- "A few days ago I posted a simple question on my blog. "Why do people pirate my games?". It was an honest attempt to get real answers to an important question. I submitted the bog entry to slashdot and the penny arcade forums, and from there it made it to arstechnica, then digg, then bnet and probably a few other places. The response was massive. This is what I found:

Introduction

Firstly it's worth pointing out that there were LOTs of responses (and they are still coming in now), hundreds of comments on the sites listed, a ton of comments on the blog (despite it crumbling under the strain) and hundreds of emails made it through to me. I read every one of them. They were also generally very long. Few people wrote under 100 words. Some people put tolstoy to shame. It seems a lot of people have waited a long time to tell a game developer the answer to this question. Some people thought my name was chris, or that I developed Braid. But that doesn't matter :D It's worth pointing out that the original question was specific to MY games, because I already do the majority of what people complain about (free demos, easy demo hosting, digital distribution, original games, good tech support etc), but the majority of the replies were aimed at games devs in general, not me. Here is what they said..."

Starting Right With eBay is an eBook which will suit those of you hoping to make a million on it. Just be careful of the countless scammers that are there these days...

Chances are pretty good that you almost clicked away as soon as you say the word "eBay!" Be glad you hung in with us! This is definitely the last eBay Guide you will ever need. Shocking but true, the majority of marketers using eBay to create their online wealth rarely make enough money to cover their ad placement. You see, most of them have fallen prey to the enormous number of "get rich quick with eBay schemes" that are prevalent online. Most of these cite outrageous claims telling you that all you need to do is list your item on eBay and people will flock to your offer throwing you fists full of money. Ridiculous? Yes, but still, many people want so badly to believe that they jump at anything! All these outlandish claims do is sour the pot for legitimate eBay marketers. Yes, there is still money to be made using the eBay model. What's important, however, is that you need to know the right way to get started! "Starting Right with eBay" cuts straight through all the hype and ridiculous claims and earns the right to be a "coveted" online publication. Tim Swike gets right to the point in easy to understand language and blows away all the mystique leaving you with nothing but great ideas that you can put to work immediately!