Could there be an upside to the Pixi not having WiFi?

While we’re not entirely stoked about the lack of WiFi in the upcoming Palm Pixi, we can understand Palm’s reasoning behind the move. They need someway to differentiate the Pixi from the Pre, and dropping WiFi, using a smaller screen, and throwing in a slower processor are definitely ways to make it clear which phone is the ‘better’ device. But not having WiFi on the Pixi does open up an interesting door, which PreCentral reader and Twitter user Ah_Itz_That_Guy noted:

"No wifi on Pixi good for pre users? Prevents "wifi-only" app restrictions (a la slingplayer on iPhone, Amazon mp3 on Pre)?"

Indeed, that does seem to be the case. The leaked webOS 1.2 change log on Sprint.com actually does point out that the Amazon MP3 will no longer be limited to exclusively WiFi downloads. While at the time we heralded the change as just more gooder, we can now look at the Pixi and say, “Ah, now it really makes sense.” Since webOS has been designed to work on multiple devices with different hardware, it’s now going to force Palm to not limit applications based on their connectivity loads. Limiting an app to WiFi only would also prevent it from working on the Pixi, and that should be the last thing that Palm wants.

See, there is a silver lining to every cloud. Just not necessarily WiFi access.