“Palm impressed CES attendees this year with the unveiling of a new smartphone OS and prototype hardware called the Palm Pre. Given the low expectations set for the firm, the demos drew applause. But why?” Daniel Eran Dilger asks for RoughlyDrafted.
Dilger writes, “Imagine a company announcing a new smartphone that blew away the current state of the art and ushered in a totally revamped user interface with intuitive touch control. That would merit applause. Now wait two years and duplicate the same demo, with missing functionality and lots of important details still unreleased, including the phone’s price.”
“Palm simply showed up with a copycat iPhone interface two years late. But that isn’t the most egregiously lame part of the Pre’s introduction. Imagine now a different scenario: a new phone with a radical new approach to UI and mobile software is given an open, web standards-based SDK and developers are invited to write cool new applets for the device. Everyone groans and registers a wintery volley of discontent, complaining that without a native SDK, they’d rather develop for other platforms,” Dilger writes. “That of course was the iPhone in the fall of 2007, before Apple released its Cocoa-based development tools that allowed developers to write actual apps, not just Widget-like JavaScript applets.”
“So now Palm scrambles out a demo of a Linux phone running what is essentially a Dashboard layer of browser widgets written in HTML and JavaScript, and CES pundits hail the project as a phenomenal wonderful development, even though the company hasn’t released any details on how to actually develop those supposedly wide open apps outside of a small, closed subset of developers,” Dilger writes. “This is just another gagging example of how the tech media can complain about the downsides of getting Christmas ponies from Apple while marveling at the potential of diamonds from the chunks of coal thrown at them by other tech companies.”
There’s much more in the full article – highly recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last Thursday in response to Palm’s Pre, “Been there. Done that; and better, too. In 2007.”
Gosh, I wish some of you would just stop whining. Palm has released a beautiful phone and a worthy contender to the iPhone. I have an iPhone and bought it because I found nothing, out there that could compete with my Palm Lifedrive until it came along. Now, if they had released this before, I would have definitely thought twice about buying the iPhone.
However, for many Palm enthusiasts, the love affair may finally be over. I do not see Palm making concessions to please the millions of people presently using Palm OS 5.0. This is where there will be a major problem for Palm. They have thousands of Apps that will need to be re-written. If they’re running the platform on Linux/Unix, they may get away with emulation, but that is going to be very slow.
In regards to multitasking. I really feel that you’re asking for trouble here. I always want to know what the heck is going on in the background. What if something nefarious is running in the background without my knowledge? And can I finish a Bagel and Cream Cheese before the battery runs out at breakfast during my Multitasking endeavours. (And will it have the same battery management nightmares that the Lifedrive had if you left the machine off, but left the wifi and bluetooth set to ‘on” with wake on bluetooth and wake on lan? —- 3 hrs tops)?
But onto pragmatics. Palm thus far has not really given us an indication of 3rd party applications. If that is coming then great, but just telling us that html, java, css etc. are all supported developer tools, begs the question, what else is there? And are we going to be seeing very intensive software design with database management based on the above? Java has never been fast, so there are many questions to be answered.
But for the love of technology, I do applaud Palm for providing a real competitor to the iPhone. Choice is what will drive Apple to lower prices and compete. It will also force them to make the most powerful handheld device since the introduction of iPhone come June. I bet you a latte that you will see COPY AND PASTE during the next software update. Heck, you might even see MMS, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. I bet you’ll also see a better camera, with real zoom and better close up focusing.
So stop your whining and support Palm. Without them we would see Apple stagnate (Remember Amazon’s music program? I bet you a bunch of donuts that’s why they got rid of DRM and introduced variable pricing).
/rick
Bagels, lattes, donuts…what’s with all the food references? Hungry, rickw?
i am sad to piss on the parade, but the pre excels in some respects where the iphone lacks:
– copy & paste
– camera
– web integration
– search
– messaging
– email
of course the iphone is superior in many other fields, but i hope apple comes up with 2.3 soon to adress some of these shortcomings.
sorry folks, once again, here is kind of a reality check: the pre is an amazing device and in many respects ahead of the iphone, especially ui und usabilty (i never though i would one day say that about a non apple product).
see for yourself:
http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/palm-pre-ces.html
@hipcheck Yes, I was freaking hungry when I wrote that last night
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />.
@ralph Very good points. As I said I think that version 2.5 or infinity or whatever has to be excellent. I am happy that Palm is raising the bar, because it will mean a better product and force Apple to tackle these issues that have remained ear fodder for the past 8 months. I think we’ll see cut and paste a lot sooner than you think. My prediction: June or a few weeks before Palm releases its Pre.
My pet peeve is the camera. For the type of device that this is, I would like to see at least a 4 mpx camera and focus with attention paid to getting close up shots. All of the bar scanning programs are useless because of the inability to focus at these short distances.
I’d give a bagel for that
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />:).
/rick.
@ralph
” ahead of the iphone…” er, let’s not go that far! If it weren’t for the iPhone, Palm would have had nothing to base their new phone on. I would bet you a can of green beans that the model that they dreamed of with Linux had nothing to do with what eventually came out due to the iPhone. I would also bet you a beer that it was the release of the iPhone that caused a significant delay in the phone being put out in the first place.
/rick