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Palm Pre
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1. Common myth.
Name one granted patent, I dare ya.2. What I don't understand, is why Apple didn't use the mini web page metaphor for bookmarks like Palm and Netfront and other browsers do. Seems like a perfect fit.
3. I like the application card deck metaphor. Reminds me of the HP Touchsmart tiles, and of the Xperia panels, only with more possible. It also looks like a lot of WinMo front ends these days.
4. I bet within a month, there'll be a slew of Palm Pre themes working under WinMo.
It is true, and was great for everyone while it lasted. I'ts gone now though, you can't sign up. The plans really are as good as they sound. You get it with a new year contract, regular subsidized phones usually, though no Blackberries.
Though you can't sign up yourself, anyone who already has it(plenty of people..) can add a line to their plan and then transfer the billing to you.
The reason they had it was because they were running out of money etc i believe.
1. Common myth.
2. What I don't understand, is why Apple didn't use the mini web page metaphor for bookmarks like Palm and Netfront and other browsers do. Seems like a perfect fit.
3. I like the application card deck metaphor. Reminds me of the HP Touchsmart tiles, and of the Xperia panels, only with more possible. It also looks like a lot of WinMo front ends these days.
4. I bet within a month, there'll be a slew of Palm Pre themes working under WinMo.
I don't check the patent offices. If you do God bless you! I would assume this because there was no precedent for multitouch on a handheld device previous to the iPhone. Every handset manufacturer does not use multitouch but suddenly palm does. The G1, among others, has the same capacitive touch screen as the iphone but they decided to leave multitouch out for no reason?
The G1 actually had them in the phone but deactivated them. I've seen hackers unlock though it dosen't work that well. There had to be some reason behind this.
I'm not trying to rain on palm's parade but it does strike me as odd. If there are no patents, then more power to 'em. That is the most beautiful os out that I've seen yet.
picking up what Apple left behind
There are lots of customers for a phone with a modern OS under a compelling UI experience. But Apple left at least 3 large groups behind, and Palm is cleverly aiming directly at picking up that large fraction of the customer base.
1) Potential U.S. customers who are stuck with Sprint (part of a family plan, corporate plan, only get CDMA coverage at home/work, etc.)
2) That fraction of potential customers who can't use touchscreen keyboards, or who are prejudiced against them strongly enough to never try nor buy one.
3) The 100X larger community of HTML/CSS/JS web designers who think they can design phone apps, but don't have a Mac or want to learn Obj-C/Cocoa. If only 2% of these are actually competent and buy into Palm's new WebOS/MojoSDK, that gives Palm a developer base larger than Apple's. Palm, historically, has provided excellent developer support and tools for handheld device development.
.
There are lots of customers for a phone with a modern OS under a compelling UI experience. But Apple left at least 3 large groups behind, and Palm is cleverly aiming directly at picking up that large fraction of the customer base.
1) Potential U.S. customers who are stuck with Sprint (part of a family plan, corporate plan, only get CDMA coverage at home/work, etc.)
2) That fraction of potential customers who can't use touchscreen keyboards, or who are prejudiced against them strongly enough to never try nor buy one.
3) The 100X larger community of HTML/CSS/JS web designers who think they can design phone apps, but don't have a Mac or want to learn Obj-C/Cocoa. If only 2% of these are actually competent and buy into Palm's new WebOS/MojoSDK, that gives Palm a developer base larger than Apple's. Palm, historically, has provided excellent developer support and tools for handheld device development.
.
patents
Apple has UI patents. Palm has UI patents. They will rattle sabers, threaten to sue, and eventually settle and cross-license.
.
Apple has UI patents. Palm has UI patents. They will rattle sabers, threaten to sue, and eventually settle and cross-license.
.
Vista gadgets, Yahoo widgets, Google gadgets, Opera widgets... and others... all built with XML, CSS and JavaScript. Very powerful and easy way to creat lots of neat apps... fast.. by zillions (technical term) of people.
Remember back when we all thought the iPhone was going to have the same basis? When we saw the gadgets like the Weather and Stocks from Yahoo/Google? And then Jobs said there'd be web apps? Alas, Apple dropped the ball and forced everyone to buy a Mac to program under a language that relatively few in the world know.
I betcha we even see easy creation software show up, so that many more casual users can learn to program.
I would say mostly because multi-touch makes so much more sense on a larger device like the Microsoft Surface table. A handheld phone is supposed to be usable one-handed.
This is also why even Apple put in one-fingered alternatives... like double-tapping for zoom/unzoom.
Multi-touch is not really that intuitive, anyway. (Multi-hands is.) If you handed someone an iPhone with zero instruction, they'd probably never figure out the pinch, or that you have to use two fingers to scroll in Safari within a div or textfield.
That's interesting, but I don't think this phone needs an App Store. Just think of all of the apps you truly use/need. There is probably only a handful. The rest of the App Store is garbage. And these apps that you really need are filling in holes Apple purposely left in the iPhone OS. The Palm Pre doesn't seem to have these same holes. Therefore, I don't think you're going to need as many apps for this phone to begin with. As for the apps that will provide you with services/content that don't come with the phone, it really isn't going to kill you to go to the developer's website and download the file. If you think about it this way, the App Store really is highly overrated (but not for the iPhone because it comes bare-boned).
Think about that statement a bit. Is that truly a failure? Prolly just another conniving way Apple dreamt-up to cause people to part with their money.
WTF! An actual keyboard!
I like the looks of it. buttons are always nice. My friend has had an iphone for about 3 months now and every time he types he has to fix every 3rd word. Too bad its not unlocked. I'd like one on AT&T if its priced right.
I like the looks of it. buttons are always nice. My friend has had an iphone for about 3 months now and every time he types he has to fix every 3rd word. Too bad its not unlocked. I'd like one on AT&T if its priced right.
lol And it worked
Steve Jobs: Gotcha again!
kdarling:
Competition is good. Personally, I'll stick with the iPhone given the large existing infrastructure as well as my substantial investment in to Apple technology (Macs, iTunes, AppleTV, etc.), but anything that forces Apple to improve is good.
The more I read and see about the Pre I like it! Of course I'll stick with my iPhone for likely years to come, but I'm thrilled for some good competitiveness among mobile devices.
Good for Palm!
Good for Palm!
Yeah, that was my reaction as well. I have an electric toothbrush that uses induction charging. But I still have to keep the charger plugged in and I still have to put the toothbrush onto the charger for it to work. I'm not saying it's not a good thing (I guess you can be a tiny bit more haphazard where you throw down your phone, within a few centimeters), but I don't think it radically changes anything, it's more of a gimmick than anything truly useful.Yup. Sounds like a great idea. "Charge without plugging in. You only need to PLUG IN the adaptor for the charger to work wirelessly"
As for the phone, it looks OK, maybe a credible iPhone competitor, but Apple has a huge lead and many advantages: more cash to spend on R&D and marketing, PA Semiconductor assets, iTunes/iCal/iPhoto/Safari/Address Book integration, Mobile Me syncing, App Store, developer tools that will be pretty refined within a year or so and experienced developers, Apple retail stores, and a large and growing user base, and of course the RDF. By the time this Palm is out, Apple will be on to another major revision, probably of both hardware and software.
So I'll believe it's great when I actually use one instead of just watching these demo videos because the magic as well as the frustration is in the details, which aren't always obvious until you actually use something for yourself. That said, I think it's great that other companies are trying to step it up because Apple needs to be pushed to keep innovating and add those features we think are missing (*cough* copy/paste *cough*).
This is amazing! This is why i was sooo happy when the iPhone finally came out. All these lazy ass cell phone people got off there asses and started making something worth buying. Gotta love free market.
I really hope this puts a nice fire under Apple's ass and they are gonna release something that blows this away this year.
If not I think i might jump on this bandwagon for awhile
I really hope this puts a nice fire under Apple's ass and they are gonna release something that blows this away this year.
If not I think i might jump on this bandwagon for awhile
For anyone interested in watching the press conference you can here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/pocketables
A few observations:
When I saw the cards UI, I was wondering where I saw that before and realized it looks exactly like the Safari Mobile Tabs implementation.. but just with apps. But never the less, its still a brilliant way of handling multitasking and I think will give Apple some things to think about.
The other thing that I'm just loving is the attention to detail with notifications, this is something that Android has done also. The iPhone just totally lacks any common way to alert a user in a way that doesn't either a. jump right on top of what they are doing or b. happen on the home screen were you will never notice it. Also if a bunch of things happen while your away from your phone they just pile up on the lock screen and oopps did you just unlock your phone? Well they are all gone now... go find what happened with all those dock badges. Now the iPhone UI itself does allow for the application content area to be resized on the fly (just go back to the home screen when on a call and open an app) notice the green call button at the top pushing everything down. So that area could be used for some type of constant notification area.. I hope.
The other thing is this Spotlight type search. Thats something that I can't believe isn't there yet on the iPhone. It isn't even in the iPod application while an iPod nano can search its contents. One thing that these phones with physical keys get to do is allow you to start typing when nothing is up on the screen so the phone can assume you want to search for something. On the iPhone you don't have this luxury and have to bring up a keyboard. They might have to do more work around that Home button and long holds and triple clicks.
On to CSS/HTML/JavaScript apps on the Pre I think that could very well be a large win for them. Like many others have pointed out there are a lot more web developers then Cocoa developers. Depending on what the SDK provides in terms of UI and controls it might not even be that hard to make an app that looks like the bundled ones. On the app side I did read that there won't be any high end graphics on the game front at launch, but this might change. Also it won't run any old Palm apps, which I guess could be a good and bad thing... depends who you ask.
This seems to be the most interesting thing out of CES.
http://www.youtube.com/user/pocketables
A few observations:
When I saw the cards UI, I was wondering where I saw that before and realized it looks exactly like the Safari Mobile Tabs implementation.. but just with apps. But never the less, its still a brilliant way of handling multitasking and I think will give Apple some things to think about.
The other thing that I'm just loving is the attention to detail with notifications, this is something that Android has done also. The iPhone just totally lacks any common way to alert a user in a way that doesn't either a. jump right on top of what they are doing or b. happen on the home screen were you will never notice it. Also if a bunch of things happen while your away from your phone they just pile up on the lock screen and oopps did you just unlock your phone? Well they are all gone now... go find what happened with all those dock badges. Now the iPhone UI itself does allow for the application content area to be resized on the fly (just go back to the home screen when on a call and open an app) notice the green call button at the top pushing everything down. So that area could be used for some type of constant notification area.. I hope.
The other thing is this Spotlight type search. Thats something that I can't believe isn't there yet on the iPhone. It isn't even in the iPod application while an iPod nano can search its contents. One thing that these phones with physical keys get to do is allow you to start typing when nothing is up on the screen so the phone can assume you want to search for something. On the iPhone you don't have this luxury and have to bring up a keyboard. They might have to do more work around that Home button and long holds and triple clicks.
On to CSS/HTML/JavaScript apps on the Pre I think that could very well be a large win for them. Like many others have pointed out there are a lot more web developers then Cocoa developers. Depending on what the SDK provides in terms of UI and controls it might not even be that hard to make an app that looks like the bundled ones. On the app side I did read that there won't be any high end graphics on the game front at launch, but this might change. Also it won't run any old Palm apps, which I guess could be a good and bad thing... depends who you ask.
This seems to be the most interesting thing out of CES.
I must say, I am much more impressed by that demo than I was two years ago with the iPhone introduction. That thing looks leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. And here I was thinking Palm was nearly dead.
I just wish it weren't only for Sprint... oh well two years from now I'll decide what new phone I need.
I just wish it weren't only for Sprint... oh well two years from now I'll decide what new phone I need.
Agreed.
It's also making me think back to 1.0 to now 2.2 and how little Apple has really done with the iPhone besides fixing bugs and adding a few features.
I really hope they blow us away with something new this year.
Steve Jobs got caught with his pants down. At last this will force Apple to stop needlessly restricting the damn thing in order to piecemeal out something every year for sales.
Jailbreaking iPhones greatly expands the device and even those look silly compared to the robustness of the Palm Pre aka the Palm Pimp. The multitasking and app integration is off the charts.
P1: Hardware specs and physical features of the phone: Bluetooth Stereo, removable battery, etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6l0birqeig
P2: Incredible UI (makes closing one app to open another on the IPhone look like a JOKE, and I've ENHANCED MINE with a jailbreak app called backgrounder). Even when you're navigative with Safari, and you zoom out to the cards, the data isn't running in any save the one you'e currently in. When you choose a new page you have to wait till that loads up. The Palm lets you do that with APPLICATIONS ACROSS THE BOARD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeKXksLEYo8
More indepth with the integrated Email/ Contants apps, taking the scrolling navigation one step further with the accordion foldout, being able to chat/ send multiple emails at once (normally on cell phones, you have to finish the email before doing anything else, copy and pasting simple by putting your thumb in the gesture area and scrolling with the other thumb (currently on jailbroken iphones you hold down an area for a couple seconds then scroll, or *SHUDDER* exit the Safari page and go in a submenu)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alhEZZ4-XP0
Universal search for navigation (start typing and it will start searching through your device and then off it AKA apps>>>email/ contacts>>> internet). So for example if you start typing Rocky 5, the app ROLANDO and ROBERT FREEMAN will show up in the search, followed by options to check Google, GPS Maps and Wikipedia.
On jailbroken iphones, the closest to this is Quickgold and it's nowhere this full featured: it only lets you search apps, and isn't as smooth.
Web Browser has multitouch), shows all page cards at the same time, you swipe to read but don't block your view with your finger due to the gesture area, is faster than other cell browsers, including Mobile Safari for iPhone. Engadget says it run flash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQriVan1Grs
Brower and app page cards switch from vertical to landscape view, incoming messages/ phone calls, music player don't interrupt what you're doing and appear below your app instead of over it, it's open source like the Google Android so you don't have to jailbreak it like the iPhone to get even more apps and plugins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfkAeXhfEs
Let's not even talk about the awesome extras that I'm still reading about on Gizmodo and Engadget, like the wireless charger. All they got to do is market it properly and give it out to more than ONE carrier by the end of this year, and Steve Jobs will be forced to get off his ass.
iPhone, Android and Palm Pimp, making other phones look retarded since whenever.
Jailbreaking iPhones greatly expands the device and even those look silly compared to the robustness of the Palm Pre aka the Palm Pimp. The multitasking and app integration is off the charts.
P1: Hardware specs and physical features of the phone: Bluetooth Stereo, removable battery, etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6l0birqeig
P2: Incredible UI (makes closing one app to open another on the IPhone look like a JOKE, and I've ENHANCED MINE with a jailbreak app called backgrounder). Even when you're navigative with Safari, and you zoom out to the cards, the data isn't running in any save the one you'e currently in. When you choose a new page you have to wait till that loads up. The Palm lets you do that with APPLICATIONS ACROSS THE BOARD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeKXksLEYo8
More indepth with the integrated Email/ Contants apps, taking the scrolling navigation one step further with the accordion foldout, being able to chat/ send multiple emails at once (normally on cell phones, you have to finish the email before doing anything else, copy and pasting simple by putting your thumb in the gesture area and scrolling with the other thumb (currently on jailbroken iphones you hold down an area for a couple seconds then scroll, or *SHUDDER* exit the Safari page and go in a submenu)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alhEZZ4-XP0
Universal search for navigation (start typing and it will start searching through your device and then off it AKA apps>>>email/ contacts>>> internet). So for example if you start typing Rocky 5, the app ROLANDO and ROBERT FREEMAN will show up in the search, followed by options to check Google, GPS Maps and Wikipedia.
On jailbroken iphones, the closest to this is Quickgold and it's nowhere this full featured: it only lets you search apps, and isn't as smooth.
Web Browser has multitouch), shows all page cards at the same time, you swipe to read but don't block your view with your finger due to the gesture area, is faster than other cell browsers, including Mobile Safari for iPhone. Engadget says it run flash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQriVan1Grs
Brower and app page cards switch from vertical to landscape view, incoming messages/ phone calls, music player don't interrupt what you're doing and appear below your app instead of over it, it's open source like the Google Android so you don't have to jailbreak it like the iPhone to get even more apps and plugins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfkAeXhfEs
Let's not even talk about the awesome extras that I'm still reading about on Gizmodo and Engadget, like the wireless charger. All they got to do is market it properly and give it out to more than ONE carrier by the end of this year, and Steve Jobs will be forced to get off his ass.
iPhone, Android and Palm Pimp, making other phones look retarded since whenever.