Still more FCC filings from Palm.  The induction charging backs for the Pre and Pixi just passed through the FCC.  It’s interesting to see the innards of these induction charging products. 

Apparently the only real difference here is the charging coil and a few chips that are probably used to monitor charging.  It doesn’t add a lot of bulk to the device back, and it seems like this technology could be easily implemented on other devices.

Palm has been busy today, with the Palm Pre Plus passing through the FCC earlier this morning.  A few minutes ago, the company followed up with a new version of the Touchstone, an innovative wireless induction charging accessory for the Pre and Pixi.

Internal photos of the Touchstone show an interesting teardown of the device (above).  It appears that this version of the Touchstone may be a bit more compact than the first version, with a less dramatic slope.  However, it’s hard to get a good read on the dimensions of the device from the FCC photos.

Palm has announced that the new Palm Pre Plus will be released on January 28th, and we’d expect that this new Touchstone will be released at about the same time.

Palm formally announced the Palm Pre Plus last week at CES.  Among other things, the device will feature 16GB of memory and a standard induction charging cover.

Today, it appears that the device made an appearance on the FCC as the P101EWW.  The Permissive change notice from Palm (above) mentions an increase in storage from 8 GB to 16 GB, and an increase in RAM from 256 MB to 512 MB.  Both of these specs are in line with announced specs for the Pre Plus.

Additionally, the description of the P101EWW’s operation (below) mentions a sliding mechanism, confirming that this device is of the Pre ilk, not the Pixi.

Other specs in the test report confirm support for CDMA/EVDO, as well as 802.11 b/g and Bluetooth.

This filing confirms that the Pre Plus is indeed on its way, and on track for the announced January 25th release date.

Last month Palm released the Palm Pixi, the company’s follow up to its first webOS device, the Pre.  Unlike the Pre, the Pixi has a candybar design and a price in the sub $100 range with a Sprint contract.

While the Pixi won praise for its low price and slick design, the device was missing WiFi, a strange omission for Palm.  This weekend, however, Palm passed a new version of the Pixi through the FCC that includes 802.11 b/g WiFi.

Palm has already confirmed that it will release the Pixi for Verizon, and it appears that this will be that device.  It’s odd though, that Palm would release the Pixi for Sprint without WiFi, and a couple months later release the same device with WiFi for a different carrier.  The cost of a WiFi chip isn’t significant.  With so many Bluetooth/WiFi chips available now, it’s sometimes actually cheaper to manufacturer WiFi, than without.  Either way, I’d be upset if I just moved to Sprint for the Pixi, and I’m sure Sprint’s sales of WiFi-less Pixis will drop once the Verizon version is announced.

Palm passed the P100UNA through the FCC today.  The P100UNA is better known as the GSM/3G version of the Palm Pre, as Wi-Fi certifications on the Wi-Fi Alliance site show (from Pre Central.net).  FCC test reports confirm support for GSM 850 and 1900, as well as 3G HSDPA and EDGE.

There has been speculation that the Pre would make it to AT&T and Bell Mobility by the end of the year, and this filing seems to confirm those rumors.