News round-up: Pre eReader, RIM results & Comes with Music

eReader is in the process of being ported to the Palm Pre. A mobileread member received an email advising that it is being developed, but there is no time frame for release yet. Such a shame no one outsidethe US can buy the good books. There I go again…

RIM has announced its second quarter results and yet again they are impressive. Despite this the shares have taken a tumble because a couple of analysts feel that the threat from Apple is looming large. It’s very easy to discuss potential problems, but somehow I see RIM being able to react quite easily. When you have a user base as large as it has currently the advantages are clear. “Revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2010 was $3.53 billion, up 3% from $3.42 billion in the previous quarter and up 37% from $2.58 billion in the same quarter of last year.”

The price of the TomTom Car Kit for the iPhone has finally come to light and it is pretty hefty. At $119.99 / EUR 99.99 it is expensive when you consider that the software will be sold seperately. It may well be the only solution which improves the poor iPhone GPS antenna, but it is difficult to see the value compared to a standalone unit.

I received the following email from Nokia this week- “How time flies! It will soon be a full year since you signed up for our ground breaking Comes With Music service. We hope you have enjoyed the freedom of unlimited music downloads during your first year with us.

As a big thank you, we have some great news. We’re going to give you more. We are giving you another 90 days of musical freedom at no cost at all: your membership, due to end on 24/10/2009 will be extended until 22/01/2010.

You don’t need to do a thing (except carry on downloading and listening to even more of your favourite music). It’s our gift to you. We will also be in touch with some really cool new Comes With Music devices soon. So watch this space – and enjoy!” Looks like the whole Comes with Music thing is not doing as well as expected…

If you have not heard about the CyanogenMod ’09 scandal in the Android word, check out this post at mobility site. It is hard to know where this one is going, but it is an interesting twist for an open source platform.

i-mate is still trading. This is a bit of a shock, but it seems legit and the reasons for all of the previous news follows in a statement from the company- “As reported in the media the company has had to close its operations in Dubai after discovering that a financial fraud had been committed. This was uncovered in August 2009. Jim Morrison with the support of the bank, the auditors and employees set out to rescue the company but by September 17 this proved to be impossible. As a result the Dubai company will have to be shut down with the assistance of Dubai Internet City.

To safeguard the brand and assets of i-mate these have been acquired by a new company Hillfoot Limited which will continue to trade as i-mate with operations in Australia, Taiwan, the UK and USA. The new company will be led by Jim Morrison, Chief Executive who has committed to stay until normal trading is resumed and the financial infrastructure is established to take the business forward.. Other remaining senior management include John Bassachi, Director of Engineering, Majeed Salman, Director of Product Development.”