Palm: Pre, webOS & app discussion

[editor]

And the Palm site says "Requires Palm Pre back cover for Touchstone charging dock, sold separately."

Does that mean you have to buy the Touchstone and then buy a new back for your phone so that you can use the charger?

I'd imagine they'd come bundled together. Palm have said that it's not going to be that expensive, but it is an interesting development that helps crank up the 'wow' factor of the phone.

The integrated address book is 100% win too. What a brilliant idea.

 

[Lazy Llama]

I'd imagine they'd come bundled together.

The page for the charger (http://www.palm.com/us/products/accessories/dock.html#tab2) says the back is sold separately. I would guess that's so you can have one charger and multiple phones.

I assume the back is too expensive to bundle with every phone.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Pricing has been announced:

Palm Europe VP of Sales, Mr. Paul Ghent has confirmed the unlocked Palm Pre will cost $500-$550 in Europe while Sprint customers will get it for $399.

How much will it be in the UK unlocked? £500? £450? £400?

 

[Sunray]

Pricing has been announced:



How much will it be in the UK unlocked? £500? £450? £400?

Currently 500usd is 330gbp, so perhaps 399 inc vat unlocked, which is a fair price.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

It would make it cheaper then the iphone and touch hd, which would have to be an advantage.

 

[editor]

As a pointer, the Centro is currently $299 unlocked from Palm's US website while the Centro is priced at £146 in the UK (direct link from Palm's website to Amazon).

The Palm Pre is now featured on the UK website too:
http://www.palm.com/uk/en/products/smartphones/pre/

 

[kropotkin]

I want it.
I'm going to get it.

Well done palm. Shame about the screen reolution- apparently the same screen type as the Tx, just a little smaller.
Is the "microSD" section of the features list a microsd slot?

 

[editor]

I want it.
I'm going to get it.

Well done palm. Shame about the screen reolution- apparently the same screen type as the Tx, just a little smaller.
Is the "microSD" section of the features list a microsd slot?

No SD card slot sadly, but you can hook it directly up to your PC and drag and drop files over.

I reckon the screen res is just fine for the device - don't forget it's physically smaller than an iPhone yet packs as many pixels - and that gesture area at the bottom will make it a lot easier to use.

 

[Sunray]

8Gb is one of the flaws and I don't think it takes any external memory? Not for apps, but for music and video. I've got over 8Gb music on my iPhone, which is why I got the 16Gb iPhone. Its not like flash ram is horrendously expensive. I can see bigger versions appearing in time.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

It seems such an obvious thing to miss of! Flash memory keeps getting cheaper, so it won't be long till we can pick up 32gb for peanuts. If your taking a phone on a 18 month contract, its a bit limiting.

 

[editor]

It seems such an obvious thing to miss of! Flash memory keeps getting cheaper, so it won't be long till we can pick up 32gb for peanuts. If your taking a phone on a 18 month contract, its a bit limiting.

More memory would have been good, and the lack of an SD card is a serious omission but I guess compromises had to be made and the entire package of the phone still looks better than anything else out there.

I reckon 8GB will be OK for me at least for a while - I've been using a 4GB card in my Centro and it's nowhere near full (I never watch movies and there's hundreds of tunes stored on there).

No doubt they'll be offering larger capacity phones in the future too.

 

[kropotkin]

A very odd omission. Hardly takes up any space- could have gone next to the SIM. Doesn't add much in terms of cost. Weird.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

The lack of micro sd card doesn't bother me, i'll just buy another iPod in the meantime until they release a higher capacity version...

 

[Sunray]

The lack of micro sd card doesn't bother me, i'll just buy another iPod in the meantime until they release a higher capacity version...

Not having to cart two devices is the number one reason I bought an iPhone. My iPod mini now languishes at the bottom of a draw somewhere.

I was looking at the demo of the music player on it, its very slow, presumably because its pre production, but it needs to be of iPod quality. It looks passable, but the combination of the memory size and OK player means it not the phone for me right now because those things are the sole reason I own the phone I do (and put up with its foibles)

 

[editor]

I was looking at the demo of the music player on it, its very slow. It looks passable, so its not the phone for me right now because that is the reason I own the phone I do.

Well, you are looking at an alpha version of the phone, and I'd very surprised if the final player isn't vastly improved on.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Not having to cart two devices is the number one reason I bought an iPhone. My iPod mini now languishes at the bottom of a draw somewhere.

Yeah I'm all for convergence too, but I already carry around an iPod and a Centro so continuing to do that wont be that big a hassle. Real convergence to the level I'd like is still a little way off so I'll just have to wait.

 

[paolo]

Not having to cart two devices is the number one reason I bought an iPhone. My iPod mini now languishes at the bottom of a draw somewhere.

I was looking at the demo of the music player on it, its very slow, presumably because its pre production, but it needs to be of iPod quality. It looks passable, but the combination of the memory size and OK player means it not the phone for me right now because those things are the sole reason I own the phone I do (and put up with its foibles)

On a similar tip, I'm curious to see how easy it will be to find and download media. I grab lots of podcasts from iTunes, and the range of content there and ease of access is great. Loads of BBC stuff, and the background download queue works really well, hoovering very large files up as and when it detects open WiFi.

In other areas webOS looks fantastic, but I do so much 'media stuff' with my iPhone, I'd be reluctant to give that up.

 

[jayeola]

Hope at last for the solid, intuitive and reliable OS that is PALM. Thanks Ed for bumping into me and telling me about this F2F in RL.

Guess who's going to be plugging this in the next hardware review meetings? over and over until we get them ;-)

 

[editor]

On a similar tip, I'm curious to see how easy it will be to find and download media. I grab lots of podcasts from iTunes, and the range of content there and ease of access is great. Loads of BBC stuff, and the background download queue works really well, hoovering very large files up as and when it detects open WiFi.

In other areas webOS looks fantastic, but I do so much 'media stuff' with my iPhone, I'd be reluctant to give that up.

Seeing as the OS is written in HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc, it surely should be fairly simple for developers to knock out useful media apps.

 

[paolo]

Seeing as the OS is written in HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc, it surely should be fairly simple for developers to knock out useful media apps.

That's the rendering & interface model, not what the OS is written in. That has little bearing on media functionality or content availability.

 

[editor]

That's the rendering & interface model, not what the OS is written in. That has little bearing on media functionality or content availability.

You've lost me here. Someone could write an app that locates online media, podcasts, streaming radio stations etc etc., but if you're looking for an all-in-one service that then iPhone may be a better bet for now.

I read that the Palm will also provide over-the-air downloads from Amazon's MP3 service.

Here's an excellent preview of the new OS.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zaSw1r8U32M

 

[paolo]

The tech stack of HTML/CSS/JS is what the apps use to render things to the display, and manage some (all?) aspects of user input.

The OS will be written in a conventional language (e.g C++).

Not that any of that necessarily affects the potential for someone to write a good media player. Early days.

 

[editor]

At least one developer is very excited by how Palm is advancing:

Thursday Palm announced its next-generation foray into mobile computing with a one-two hardware/software punch at CES 2009. The company talked about its new mobile phone platform called prė that combines impressive hardware and a new operating system, called WebOS, that runs on the device. The name is appropriate; all the software running on the device is a combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Friday, Palm revealed a little more information about how developers will build applications on the phone, covering local storage and how messaging between applications and data stores will happen on the device:

• By leveraging the local storage capabilities of HTML5 so that data is available even when users are offline
• By using a JSON-based message bus to tap into a wide range of device services, including contacts, calendars, and location

On Thursday, we were contacted by a developer who has used and is familiar with the Mojo SDK; he had a lot of good things to say about how Palm is handing the extremely nascent developer community and his hopes for the future of the platform. The developer told us that he has explored mobile development on Apple's iPhone SDK and found much of the company's position towards their community to be "developer-hostile"—an obvious reference to their insistence on enforcing a pointless NDA well past its expiration date and their strong hand in regulating what can and cannot be developed for its platform.

In stark contrast, it seems that this developer's experience with the Mojo SDK has been a joy. The platform will allow developers to access most of the phone's capabilities, including calendaring, contacts, music and video playback. It would appear that Palm is very open to allowing developers nearly full access to the device's capabilities. pre: the anti-iPhone

Our developer also tells us that Palm is open to things Apple usually frowns upon, including running notification and periodic tasks in the background, providing direct access to the phone's text messaging (SMS) system, and more.
Perhaps the part our anonymous contact was most excited about was Palm's extensive use of open standards throughout the entire development stack. This is yet another point where Palm's development model appears to be the antithesis of Apple's iPhone model. Palm's inclusion of the Mojo MVC framework is one of the developer's favorite features—perhaps even better is that it's optional and you can build your own from scratch if you prefer. According to our contact, the Mojo framework is extremely nice, well thought out, and significantly improves the speed and efficiency of developing mobile applications on the prė.
All of this, paired with Palm's excellent new UI and the impressive hardware specifications, has seemed to help people forget about Palm's troubled past and has, at least for now, put them back on the road to delivering a successful mobile product.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...o-a-developer-speaks-about-palms-new-sdk.html

 

[editor]

More details of the Palm webOS SDK:

For starters, everything is tested and previewed in the web browser (our shots are of the Mac version, so Safari), which bodes well for Palm’s “anyone who knows how to program in Javascrizzy can write an application”, line. We’re told that even in Safari, apps work just like they would on the actual device, and much like the iPhone Simulator, just in the web browser.

This means scrolling and rubberband-man bouncing. Very cool and very sneaky. The SDK operates as a local server that serves up the web pages (applications), and you can hook into it from your local browser

Screengrabs galore:
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/gallery/handsets/palm-webos-sdk/

 

[Sunray]

I must point out that JavaScript is a horrible language to use to develop large applications. If the web browser did one thing badly that is it and partly down to people at Microsoft. Its caused developers to go back 10 years in code structure development.

 

[editor]

There's rumours of a 'Centro2' running webOS in the works, although it all seems a little early for a Feb 2009 release.

While the timing of this latest Palm rumor is likely way off if the company’s history is to be considered, the subject matter seems fairly obvious: A WebOS-powered Centro-alike is in the works. Citing “a seemingly reliable firsthand source,” Palm Infocenter states that Palm will deliver a Centro 2 in Fall 2009.

The handset will maintain much of the current Centro’s styling and will also be headed to Sprint. While it is very difficult if not impossible to imagine Palm releasing two new handsets so closely to each other, could this be part of Palm’s new strategy as it positions itself for a comeback? Yeah, we think not.

There is no doubt that Palm will eventually issue a new handset powered by WebOS that uses a form factor similar to the Centro, but it is most definitely not going to hit the market a few short months after the Pre is released. A move like that would be ridiculously cannibalistic and Palm has shown us that it means business this time around. Besides, Palm will already be plenty busy dropping GSM Pre models around the world this coming Fall, leaving precious few resources to be allotted to a new Sprint handset launch.

Other rumors that have surfaced in the past few days indicate that the next Palm handset to sport WebOS will be a touchscreen-only candybar. Really? After all the little digs Palm reps gave the iPhone during CES? Just to be safe, maybe someone should start a rumor that Palm’s second WebOS-powered handset will be a clam shell so all the bases are covered…

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9680/centro-2-running-webos-in-the-works/

 

[Crispy]

How are they going to fit it all into the small screen? The interface would have to compromised, or the phone would have to be larger...

 

[editor]

I can see the point of a low cost webOS smartphone but as you say, I can't see how they'd pack all the UI goodness into something as small as the Centro's screen.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I can see the point of a low cost webOS smartphone but as you say, I can't see how they'd pack all the UI goodness into something as small as the Centro's screen.

Centro 2?

 

[editor]

Good piece on Engadget about the Pam webOS:

The announcement of a wild, revolutionary new mobile platform with potentially far-reaching implications for the industry (and our hearts) is bound to generate some twisted buzz and some outright fallacies in this minefield we call the interwebs, so we wanted to circle back, catch our breath, and do our part to help dispel some of the myths that are cropping up around webOS and the Pre.

The Pre is not the only webOS-based device planned.
During the Pre's fanfare-packed intro, Palm CEO Ed Colligan mentioned that webOS would serve as Palm's platform "for the next decade." So unless the company plans to offer nothing but the Pre for the next 10 years (hint: they don't), there will be plenty of hardware variations from which to choose -- just like the Palm OS of old.

The Sprint version of the Pre is not a global phone.
Two versions of the Pre will be offered, a CDMA version that will launch in the US as a Sprint exclusive and a 3G GSM version that will launch internationally. The CDMA version doesn't have a secondary GSM radio for use outside the States, so you won't be able to roam on GSM networks around the world. Businesspeople, frequent flyers, beware!

webOS can't run legacy Palm OS applications.
Natively, webOS represents a complete clean break, both architecturally and philosophically, from the legacy Palm OS we're all too acquainted with. It's possible that Palm could offer a compatibility layer that allows Palm OS applications to run on webOS -- we haven't heard anything in that regard -- but they won't "just work" out of the box.

The Pre won't be the gaming platform the iPhone has become -- at least, not initially.
Because webOS is relying on web standards for its apps (sound familiar?), it'll be easy to code up simple games, but likely difficult or impossible to create complex, visually engaging, highly interactive ones. We wouldn't be surprised if Palm ultimately caved and provided a true machine-level SDK, but to start, this is all devs will have to work with. Unlike the early days of the iPhone, though, Palm is providing some libraries that will allow webOS apps to take advantage of gestures, accelerometers, and other features that typical hardware-agnostic web apps wouldn't be able to.

The Pre is not made by HTC (and we don't know who does).
Palm hasn't said who makes the Pre, but we've heard that it's not HTC. While Palm has worked with HTC in the past, they've also worked with Inventec -- and we're sure there are several others who'd love to have landed the contract.

It's pronounced "pree."
"Pray" and "pree-ay" have been offered as alternatives, so if you want to sound uninformed or pretentious, be our guest. Otherwise, stick with "pree" and you'll be solid.

You can have any color Pre you like, as long as it's black.
The shape and style of the Pre certainly seem to lend themselves to Palm offering a whole spectrum of colors, but out of the gate, the only Pre you'll be able to buy is black. Neither Palm nor Sprint have given any details on whether we'll eventually see others.

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/01/12/palm-pre-and-webos-lies-damn-lies-and-statistics/