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Verizon Plans To Launch a Palm Smartphone Later This Year (androidpolice.com)
Verizon is planning on launch a Palm-branded smartphone later this year, an anonymous source told Android Police. The rumor backs up what a TCL executive said last August, when they confirmed that the company would launch a Palm phone this year. From the report: Sadly, we don't know anything about the phone itself at this time (well, we know it runs Android), but the fact that TCL is working with Verizon is telling. The carrier was a longtime Palm partner, selling most of the brand's webOS handsets all the way through the Pre 2. Verizon had intended to carry the ill-fated Pre 3, but the phone was cancelled by Palm's then-buyer HP before it could be released in the U.S. TCL acquired the rights to the Palm name back in 2015, and it's starting to get something of a reputation for reviving dead and dying brands: the Chinese firm manufactures BlackBerry handsets, which have received a surprising amount of attention in the mainstream press.
Why anyone who has even a little knowledge and self-respect would buy a phone launched by a carrier in this era is beyond me. I will excuse people who cannot afford better or don't know better.
As public utilities, history (and experience) shows that carriers are nothing but businesses designed to get their cut of profit on a necessary service, with no sense of responsibility or care about the product, customer experience, or even technical interest in developing anything beyond the bare minimum necessary to carry the basic service without their network crashing (or customers complaining / shaming them above a certain level).
They are not paid to invest in good products, and it shows. Ever heard of an AT&T or Verizon chief product designer? No you haven't, because there is none.
And that's why you get phones that are unsupported 1 year after product launch, have the worst user interface ever conceived by humans, are ugly as fuck, and so insecure that you'd be grateful for Facebook to manage the privacy protections. Enjoy sending off emails with the signature "Sent from my 4G LTE Verizon Droid".
"What the fuck is a Palm device?", asked anyone born after 1985.
Please, people born after 1985 know what a fleshlight is.