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Palm Announces Killer New Phone
Barence writes "At CES, Palm announced what promises to be the product that finally matches and even betters the Apple iPhone, and certainly looks to be the most important product announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. It's called the Palm Pre and it's based on a completely new operating system, called Palm webOS. Its key specs include a 3.1in 320x 480 touchscreen, 8GB of storage, UMTS HDSPA support (in the UK version of the phone), 802.11b/g WLAN, Bluetooth, and GPS. It also includes a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, 3.5mm headphone jack, and what Palm described as the 'fastest ever' Texas Instruments OMAP processor."
Older Palm OS phones are pretty open, as far as apps go. Can put pretty much anything on there.
For example, Duarte cattily said: "By popular demand we've allowed you to remove the back and replace the battery," which was greeted with much enthusiasm from the largely American crowd.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
From Ars: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090108-palm-launches-new-handset-pre-operating-system-at-ces.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090108-resurrection-on-video-hands-on-with-the-palm-pre.html
More details and analysis than the PCPro story.
I tried for some time last night to sift out Palm Pre details that Slashdot might actually find interesting, but no strong leads.
The PC Mag article was the only one I could find that touches on anything beyond the press release materials from CES:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338482,00.asp
FTA:
* Does it run Linux? Maybe, but only according to rumors.
* Will existing PalmOS apps run on it? Hard to tell from their mangled wording, but probably not. However, it seems like their new WebOS SDK /might/ make it somewhat simple to recompile for the new platform.
So, as a Palm addict, it seems like I still have a long time to try to keep my ailing TX working until I can find a suitable platform to upgrade to. (So far, the main contender for me is the Nokia N810, which runs Linux and actually has a Palm Garnet emulation environment available for it)
Yep, battery life on the iPhone is awful...
iPhone standby - 300 hours, talk - 5 hours 3G or 10 2G
Blackberry storm standby â" 300 hours, talk - 5.5 hours 3G or 6 2G
Nokia n96 standby 200 hours, talk - 2.7 hours 3G, 4 hours 2G
G1 standby â" 200 hours, talk - 5.5 hours 3G or 6 2G
Looks like the iPhone wins on every count.
The keyboard is a matter of opinion, personally, I'd rather type on an iPhone keyboard than any smartphone keyboard I've used.
The reception on the iPhone is excellent, and the problems in america with reception were quickly identified as being AT&T's fault (their 3G network wasn't up to having double the amount of data transfered over it).
The big difference here is that with webOS;
1) The apps are actually stored locally
2) Palm is apparently allowing access to the hardware via CSS, HTML, and JavaScript (details are scarce right now), something no one else does right now
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
From http://developer.palm.com/
The Palm Mojo SDK
Besides the Palm Mojo Application Framework, the SDK will include sample code, documentation, and development tools. An Eclipse-based IDE is included, and you will also be able to use your choice of tools to build WebOS applications. The Mojo SDK is currently in private prerelease, and will be available later this year as a free download from the Palm Developer Network.
I Don't Work Here
Damn dude, google. http://developer.palm.com/
Apparently, it's Linux underneath with all the apps written in web languages, like HTML, CSS, and Java.
"Though the demonstration was impressive, notable absentees from the demo were video streaming and any in-depth show of the music player."
PalmOS has had PocketTunes for years -- and Pandora already has a version for WebOS. Music player won't be a problem.
Video streaming? Don't know. Don't REALLY care.
It also has an externally replaceable battery, so one guesses the individual batteries won't last as long as an iphone or else it's thick as a brick. (they don't give the dimensions or show it in profile)
If you bother'd to look:
"Dimensions: 59.57mm (W) x 100.53mm (L, closed) x 16.95mm (D) [2.35 inches (W) x 3.96 inches (L, closed) x 0.67 inches (D)] " (link)
The iPhone not having a user-replaceable battery is just dumb. It's the one thing on a device that WILL wear out, and it's also the one that gets the most benefit from being user-replaceable.
No mention of the enterprise-like push apps that Rim and iphone now sport. No mention of corresponding desktop based easy-management software like itunes or me.com
1: Did you even WATCH the presentation? Yes, it can do enterprise-push. The darn thing screams enterprise in the OS.
2: If you think iTunes software is "easy", then I'm certain Palm won't be a problem for you. They didn't mention it because, quite frankly, they're not focused on desktopy sync.
and of course it is yet-another OS. is there an SDK?
It's HTML5, CSS, and javascript. And yes, there will be an SDK packaged with an eclipse-based IDE.
Um, no. The OMAP CPU is MUCH more energy effient then the ARM9 cpu, look at the difference between the Core and the Pentium 4. Plus the iPhone has TWO, one for the phone modem and one for the applications! (Arguably the Palm I'm sure also has two CPUs.)
Look at the beagle board, it runs a OMAP 3530, has USB, Ethernet, HDMI (with audio), runs at 600MHz, and can display full motion video on a HD display using 11% of the CPU. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_OHe-JfTyk
Oh, and it does all of this while drawing 2 Watts. I'd say that's pretty impressive, also considering the 3530 is the energy hog of the family. Palm is using the 3430, which is pin and software compatable with the 3530. And more effient.