Early Palm Pre Review: WebOS Off to Great Start But Bad Keyboard

[igorleandro]

As a VERY traumatized ex palm owner, I see a few things that are not being brought to the attention they need, in my humble opinion:

1 - Sync - One of the main reasons why I switched to an iPhone is the possibility to have calendars and contacts synced properly. That was never mentioned, and it still freaks me out to remember how poorly handled it was a couple of years ago. When you have an iPhone you're sure to have that information properly synced through iTunes, without needing a third party software or simply relying on a poorly designed Client UI which didn't export or import anything well.

2 - Multimedia - not only we didn't have any idea of how well the new device handles multimedia files, as there are still rumors of it being able to sync with iTunes. If that is Palm's approach to multimedia, it is a failure, because I'm pretty sure that apple WILL end that the next day it is released. I just wonder if they will go the "Psystar" way or if they will actually try to work on something TOGETHER Apple's iTunes. Really hoping for the second...

I won't give a number to this, but "Updates" is something that any previous palm owner knows that Palm doesn't care, or didn't in a not so distant past. The pain of not receiving software updates for either the client or the phone itself is indescribable. That lack of support made me dream of throwing my treo at the wall so many times...

Just hope Palm doesn't make enthusiastics turn into haters. I'm sorry, but I'm one.

 

[Earendil]

That is utter drivel -- that's what XML is there for -- defining things, not running them.

Look, anyone who thinks that an interpreted language running on top of a browser engine can in way, shape or form compete with compiled languages like C and Objective C, they are delusional. Until Palm produces a real, NATIVE SDK, (in a year or two, if they are still in business) the Pre will never be able to compete with the iPhone. And of course the iPhone isn't standing still. Over the next 12 months, with iPhone 3.0 I suspect that some extremely sophisticated apps are going to get written.

Quoting because:
You said it more clearly than I did, and
because I think it should appear twice in this thread

 

[kdarling]

That is utter drivel -- that's what XML is there for -- defining things, not running them.

Isn't that what he said? You can use XML to define a language.

For example, the XML Virtual Machine:

Write an app in C# or Java, convert to XMLVM, then convert again to Objective-C source for iPhone compilation.

Look, anyone who thinks that an interpreted language running on top of a browser engine can in way, shape or form compete with compiled languages like C and Objective C, they are delusional.

Yes, and no.

We have to define the competitive parameters. Seems you're talking about speed for heavy graphics apps? (Although with the right hooks and support, you can do quite well with Javascript. Ever write a SVG program? Ever make an ActiveX for system calls?)

For the majority of handheld apps, an interpreted language is fine. Speed isn't critical. And it is so much faster to write and debug, because of the instant feedback. Matter of fact, it gets easier with larger programs, because compiling and deploying native binary can take so long.

I can say this with utter confidence, having spent the past ten years writing and supporting a huge field web app written in Javascript, XML and XSL, in use by tens of thousands of people. Even better, it deploys and runs on anything from a small device to a full laptop.

Mind you, I started out programming in the '70s in assembly language in 256 bytes of RAM. I like tight, fast code. But devices are fast now, and interpreted languages can use far less memory than native compiled ones.

Until Palm produces a real, NATIVE SDK, (in a year or two, if they are still in business) the Pre will never be able to compete with the iPhone.

They might have something in the works, since it's claimed that a Slingplayer will be available at or near launch. And they obviously compiled their OS somehow.

But I think the sheer number of potential app programmers, without needing to buy a Mac or learn Objective-C, is going to be a huge advantage. Not everyone needs high-speed games.

 

[HiRez]

The review gave the phone a mediocre feeling at best. Definitely not an "iPhone Killer" so whatev.

No. Even assuming they'll get things cleaned up and bugs fixed for the final release, it seems at best to be not quite up to the iPhone, all things considered. And that's before Apple's iPhone refresh of both the massive 3.0 software update and new hardware, which it seems will probably be using the same CPU, so it should be similarly "snappy" while still having a lot of advantages (3D games, more mature SDK and app store, iTunes, etc.).

 

[QCassidy352]

I didn't really like the iPod touch's keyboard at first

But then I got used to it. I'm sure people won't ditch this because they can't type super fast for the first week or two

that's faulty logic. just because one keyboard (iphone) is hard at first but eventually gets much easier doesn't mean that another keyboard (pre) that's hard at first will eventually get much easier. There will be *some* improvement on any phone's keyboard, but IMO the iphone's virtual keyboard has a much steeper curve than physical keyboards. That is, it's very slow at first, but once you get good it's amazing how fast it can be. The change over time is a lot less with a physical keyboard, in my experience.

 

[kas23]

Each device in this field will have strengths and weaknesses. Its all about giving people a choice and not trying to be the best at everything because it will end up being good at nothing.

Excellent point. There are many people who automatically poo-poo the iPhone's on-screen before actually using it, so why should we automatically shoot-down the Pre. After all, why are we expecting a typewriter?

 

[vvebsta]

I dunno about you but all this makes me think, these truly are some great days for technology. How sweet is it that we live in a generation where all our info is at our fingertips and in our pocket! Any one of these devices makes our lives 10x easier than so many generations before us.

 

[CrackedButter]

Lets get some perspective here. The iPhone has a bad keyboard and loads of people came out and said so. Now the iPhone is 2 years old, there is hardly anything said of it.

Now a reviewer gets hold of a new device and will be unfamiliar with it, of course the keyboard isn't going to be great, its a new keyboard!

It is akin to switchers moving to the Mac and then complaining it doesn't work like windows.

 

[Ted13]

For the majority of handheld apps, an interpreted language is fine. Speed isn't critical. And it is so much faster to write and debug, because of the instant feedback. Matter of fact, it gets easier with larger programs, because compiling and deploying native binary can take so long.

Look, I don't want to get into a big debate about programming here, but Javascript is NOT quick to write/easy to debug for any kind of serious undertaking. I write (financial instrument) trading systems for a living, and our entire front end is in Javascript/Ajax. It is a freaking nightmare to debug and anything but quick to write. I do much faster work with the straight C back end, both in terms of writing and debugging. Compile times, given professional machines (like a Mac Pro) are a total red herring.

Yes, there are rapid scripting development environments like Ruby on Rails (which I'm working in right now) do fit the bill, but last I checked you can't write in Ruby for the Pre and in any event Ruby on Rails has all kinds of limitations.

The current Pre "SDK" is a shortcut -- there was no way they could come up with anything else and still deliver in 2009. There's a reason that Apple didn't release their SDK until a whole year after the iPhone, which had already been in development for 5 years at the time of release. It is no doubt a smart business move on Palm's part given the facts on the ground. But it simply can not compete with the iPhone SDK/API in its current form. Any time we start these comparisons we forget that the iPhone is a moving target and Apple in all likelihood has more programming resources and talent than Palm. The gap will only grow.

All that said -- I am very happy about the Pre -- it certainly will force Apple to innovate even more furiously than they already are, and hopefully will get them to fix some of their real problems like the iTunes STore approval process. Read Daring Fireball for a hilarious satire on the subject.

 

[HiRez]

I for one am impressed with all of your iphone typing skills. My last two phones had physical keyboards (sidekick 2 and samsung 740 flip thing) and I was able to type way faster than I can on the iphone. The virtual keyboard is nowhere near capable of keeping up with my finger taps. I am really hoping it gets better on 3.0. Because texting and writing emails is too damn slow right now.

I still agree the virtual keyboard is the future. But I think the tech is far from removing my want of a physical keyboard on my phone.

They could definitely do a better job making the text input smarter. For example, if I type "clamoed", I get no suggestion. It should be obvious to the phone that I was perhaps trying to type "clamped", where I fat-fingered the 'o' right next to the 'p'. It's really the only obvious word. And look for mistakes of more than one letter in a word. And it could probably use some contextual cues that span more than one word as well. There's probably a lot that could be done to minimize errors from where they are now, although just making the horizontal keyboard universal is going to help tremendously, because I'm at least twice as accurate on that as on the tiny vertical version.

 

[HiRez]

Most of this brouhaha over Pre seems to be people trying to rationalize there purchase of an iPhone over some other alternative their purchase of some other alternative over an iPhone.

FTFY.

 

[QCassidy352]

Lets get some perspective here. The iPhone has a bad keyboard and loads of people came out and said so.

I don't know who these "loads of people" are, but they're wrong. The iphone keyboard is the easiest smartphone keyboard i've ever used.

 

[MacFly123]

Too bad! I'm anxious to try one out though. Not that I would ever ditch my iPhone I'll be upgrading to the new iPhone! But I do actually try things and try to keep an open mind, I am not a blind fanboy.

Lets get some perspective here. The iPhone has a bad keyboard and loads of people came out and said so.

Total BS. I can type so fast on the iPhone people laugh giddily when they see me texting and say WOW lol. It is sooo easy to type on the iPhone. Everybody I know can type way fast on it and I know at least 75 people with iPhones personally. What you are hearing is a very vocal minority of fat people with fat fingers and they would have trouble typing with anything small like a mobile device!

 

[flux73]

I still prefer a real keyboard and I think the acceptability level will be subjective. It would've been helpful for him to give us a reference point for comparison. Like if he's used the Palm Centro and how the Pre compares. Some people complain the Centro's keyboard is too small. Others are just fine with it.

I will admit that when they first announced the Pre, the one thing I wished they'd done differently (hardware-wise) was build the keyboard to slide out from the side of the phone to give it more space.

 

[GenNovE]

You know I cant believe people are already saying FAIL FAIL.
Based on the assumption that the keyboard is bad?

Have any of you based your decision on actual play time? Or just allowing another human beings judgement control yours?

Remember when the iphone first came out A slew of people did not like the soft keyboard. I remember correctly reviews coming out saying it was hard and unattractive and look at it now.

MACFLY123 I congratulate you..

If some of you are so close minded towards anything not related to apple I cant imagine how you are towards life.

 

[rtdunham]

...The site gave the phone high marks for the operating system and screen but found both the keyboard and feel of the device to be poor....

a great OS and flawed hardware represents a much more formidable competitor than if it were the other way around, because the hardware can more easily be improved.

BTW, post #62 comments on what a remarkable technological time we live in. I couldn't agree more. I remember computer functions we thought were SO neat, working on them in hotel rooms at MWSF or COMDEX ten years ago: What we do today on our iphones goes way beyond anything we'd have ever imagined.

Week to week i tend to take for granted all that i do with my iPhone. Then something will trigger the realization of how truly remarkable it is. Shortcomings and all, these are great times.

Lastly, another poster mentioned the value of easy and comprehensive syncing. That's a huge benefit, one that's not touted enough. Apple should run ads to enlighten non-iPhone users of how easily we sync our calendars, contacts, bookmarks, preferences, emails, and so on. I was a treo user who wrestled with Palm desktop for years. Yes, apple's locked me into its integrated system. And boy, am i better off for it.

 

[tranceme]

That is utter drivel -- that's what XML is there for -- defining things, not running them.

Look, anyone who thinks that an interpreted language running on top of a browser engine can in way, shape or form compete with compiled languages like C and Objective C, they are delusional. Until Palm produces a real, NATIVE SDK, (in a year or two, if they are still in business) the Pre will never be able to compete with the iPhone. And of course the iPhone isn't standing still. Over the next 12 months, with iPhone 3.0 I suspect that some extremely sophisticated apps are going to get written.

Quoting because:
You said it more clearly than I did, and
because I think it should appear twice in this thread

I second that...and your post from earlier.

 

[tranceme]

Not sure if I missed it. But, but I didn't see anyone talking about the freezing problems encountered by the users from the Best Buy user reviews. This looked like their biggest complaint. Although, just guessing that the iPhone had it share of glitches when it launched. Looks like the Pre will need some time to mature.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

If you're telling me that I can go pick up and learn XML in and out, and do so as quickly (or nearly so) as I could, say, picking up Objective C or Java, and develop the same level of applications in a similar time frame, in similar environments, than I stand completely corrected.

But if you're saying that XML could someday be that great, than I stand by my original statement. As of right now, a C# or Java programmer can move to Objective C in a shorter period of time, in order to accomplish the kind of tasks they are used to, with an available fleshed out IDE.

I have not personally tried, naturally, to do both. But this is what I read, what I hear, and what I understand to be true. If XML has somehow progressed to the level of ObjC/C#/C++/Java/etc and it's just as easy both programatically and developmentally to create something like Enigmo or Dynolicious, I would love to hear it (or better yet, see examples).

XML is a meta language. It's not a compiled programming language. Get over yourself.

XML is structure only.

 

[pomus]

What about the dock on OS 3.0

People that complain about the iPhone's lack of a physical keyboard will soon realize that OS 3.0 will allow third parties to add keyboards, joysticks, etc. to the iPhone. Maybe Apple will never use physical keys for the iPhone, but I'm sure others will have those available in a couple of months.

It's a shame people still don't realize how robust OS 3.0 is and what possibilities it will bring.

 

[firewood]

Oh, come on! That's bordering on apologist drivel. Palm may have given developers some hooks into their system, but Javascript/HTML is hardly a replacement for a real development environment. Beyond all the obvious issues, it's not efficient or fast enough for anything but the most casual of uses.

It's all relative. Javascript is faster and allows one to write larger apps than using an optimizing C compiler, or even hand-coded optimized assembly... if you compare Javascript on a Pre next month with C and 68k asm on the original Palm Pilot a few years back. There are a lot of current PalmOS power-user apps that were written under that historical performance ceiling.

And as a programmer and Web developer myself, I have to wonder about the wisdom of retrofitting local storage and device access on to a language not originally designed with local system security in mind.

Yup. The use of the C language is certainly one reason why there are so many security problems on the net. Javascript has its own security problems, but it's probably safer than C in the hands of the average programmer.

 

[robindahlia789]

sk lx is where it's at
for now lol
iphone this summer

 

[robothero]

Just goes to show, leave the keyboards to the pros i.e. RIM and HTC.

 

[hazza.jockel]

I dont think many people change from iPhone to Pre. Particuarly those who have spent a lot at the app store. If you have bought a lot of apps why would change to another device and loose all that money?

Pre is just going to scoop up those who do not have an iPhone.

 

[SydneyDev]

For the majority of handheld apps, an interpreted language is fine. Speed isn't critical. And it is so much faster to write and debug, because of the instant feedback. Matter of fact, it gets easier with larger programs, because compiling and deploying native binary can take so long.

It's not just about speed though. People who buy one of these units, the first apps they play with will be the built in ones, and whatever paradigms and commonalities they find there, they will expect all apps to behave that way.

Even if they don't consciously expect it, subconsciously they will get annoyed when other apps don't behave that way, they just won't know why they're so annoyed.

So as soon as 3rd party devs can write their apps with the same libraries (especially UI libraries) as the built in apps overall device satisfaction should go up.

Also, with respect to speed, even a few tenths of a second can change a person's impression of an app, even if it doesn't change the usability significantly.