Troubled Palm today launched its (hopefully) turnaround product, the Palm Pré, running its new Palm Web OS operating system.
There's a heck of a lot of Mac OS X and the Apple phone about the Pré - pronounced 'Pree' - with an animated application dock on the main view, Exposé-style app switcher, JavaScript widgets as applets, and …
'The hardware's nice but the OS is nicer' kinda implies that there was a demo or mockup somewhere to be seen... and noone from vulture central has a camera, or a camera phone?!
"EVDO = CDMA = No phone use on this side of the pond. Seems kinda silly to limit yourself to the american market for something like this."
Palm has done quite a bit with Sprint so it's not surprising. I'm sure once they get things ironed out you'll see other protocols. For example, it's not like the Treo is just CDMA : )
boo. can't get the real version on iTunes Store, the UK Amazon download store doesn't have it and I can't buy it from the US store. then again I read some stuff on Raffi's site and he's a bit of a tree hugger.
What's with these idiots locking their phones to a particular network? First they choose CDMA, which is laughable in the face of a world market, then they tie it even more to just the American market by locking it down to a sub-standard carrier.
It is pronounced Pre, as in or like... before. It rhymes with tree. There is no gruve over the e. And yes it appears to be an awesome device. Go Palm. The world needs you, if only to clam up the idiotphone phanbouys.
They've gone too far in trying to make it look curvy and hip - in making the sides curve outwards as well, it looks a bit tubby in the middle and nowhere near as sleek as its main competitors.
I've still to find something that matches using my old Palm III and Palm Desktop connecting to Mac OS 9. I could install apps and have them sync data back to applications on my laptop. Then Palm stopped updating Palm Desktop so I moved away to other things. Unless Palm are going to provide a nice new, plugin friendly, Palm Desktop application for OS X this is no good to me. If they are, and a 3G version comes out, I'll look at it when I need to change my phone.
Sadly I suspect that by the time Palm deliver Apple will have and their chance will have gone.
On the EVDO / CDMA thing, the Palm press release DOES also mention UMTS / HSDPA (see http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=358392). So perhaps the Pre is an exclusive to Sprint at the moment, with a UMTS version coming out later.
There are a couple of things that make the Pre interesting - one if the user interface idea of having application cards running side-by-side. It sounds interesting, it would be interesting to see it in practice. The other thing is that the software seems to be rather good at managing contacts and messages from all sorts of different sources into a unified system.
I really don't know if this can save Palm though - if it came out 12 months ago, then perhaps. At least Palm managed to secure some more funding so that they can give it a try..
You want "Missing Sync", available for several mobile systems including Palm, syncs using OS X sync services to your OS X data pools. So you can sync your Palm with iCal etc.
The one thing I've not seen in any of the coverage is even a hint of the battery life, which makes me think that it might be the Pre's Achilles heel.
I wouldn't be surprised at a low battery life, what with wireless, GPS, Bluetooth, a fast CPU and a phone in there it must eat power.
Shame, this is the first time for ages I've seen a pda phone like this that I wanted to buy. (I've got a BB Storm through work, it's ok but all the BB's I've ever used have felt sluggish and in need of a more beefy CPU)
Just shows people from Apple don't need supervision by Steve Jobs to make a decent product. But the current iPhone (essentially the same as launched 2 years ago) isn't the one Pre will be up against, and its shortcomings don't mean Apple can't fix them. (Apple simply doesn't play a card until it has to, an elementary lesson its competitors don't seem to have learned, which drives the Apple haters crazy when Apple prevails over "better" products).
I like the way they've put in multi-touch which the rest have been afraid to do. If Apple doesn't sue, they get away with it. If Apple sues and loses, Palm is suddenly worth much more; if they win, Palm can just pull the multitouch feature with little harm done.
There's no justification for the accute accent at all, it's just another attempt to make something sound exotic by adding an accent, cf. the ridiculous adulteration of Moben and Motley Crue.
Palm sold the most successfull PDA for years with no keyboard, they now seem wedded to nasty tiny qwerty keyboards just when Apple, Balckberry, LG etc are finally ditching them in favour of virtual keyboards on full touch screen. Not only is it nasty to use, but surley it costs more to manufactuer and is less reliable. Lets hoping that the OS goes onto a Propper (as in US Robotics Palm Pilot) Style PDA/Phone. I was waitiing on this, but now I think ill get a Storm. and Hope there is a non keyboard Palm in a year when contracts up etc. Still ove my TX.
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Palm to take on iPhone with web 2.0 banana phone
Troubled Palm today launched its (hopefully) turnaround product, the Palm Pré, running its new Palm Web OS operating system. There's a heck of a lot of Mac OS X and the Apple phone about the Pré - pronounced 'Pree' - with an animated application dock on the main view, Exposé-style app switcher, JavaScript widgets as applets, and …
This topic is closed for new posts.
Posted Thursday 8th January 2009 20:38 GMT
Iain Paterson
Banana Phone? #
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring, Banana Phone!
Those who know will have it stuck in their heads forever now.
Posted Thursday 8th January 2009 21:39 GMT
Matt
Photos??? #
'The hardware's nice but the OS is nicer' kinda implies that there was a demo or mockup somewhere to be seen... and noone from vulture central has a camera, or a camera phone?!
bad show!
Posted Thursday 8th January 2009 21:39 GMT
J
Pretty cool #
Apparently. Even better if it takes memory cards (does it?). Let's see how much it'll cost.
And could they please make one that has no phone, and plays music well? :-)
Posted Thursday 8th January 2009 21:39 GMT
Olof P
Not for Europe then #
EVDO = CDMA = No phone use on this side of the pond. Seems kinda silly to limit yourself to the american market for something like this.
Posted Thursday 8th January 2009 21:39 GMT
Matt
Noooooo! #
Damn you Iain Paterson! ;)
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:32 GMT
Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware
Re. Pics #
Photos in now, folks.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:32 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Foreign news #
Interesting - people in a foreign country are getting a new phone. How is this relevant to me?
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:32 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Perhaps not quite for Europe then, yet. #
Olof P wrote:
"EVDO = CDMA = No phone use on this side of the pond. Seems kinda silly to limit yourself to the american market for something like this."
Palm has done quite a bit with Sprint so it's not surprising. I'm sure once they get things ironed out you'll see other protocols. For example, it's not like the Treo is just CDMA : )
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:33 GMT
Chris Matchett
UTMS (Worldwide) phone in preparation #
according to Treo Central.
My Treo Pro looks poo now :-(
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:33 GMT
Alastair
re: Olof P #
Not necessarily. Plenty of manufacturers make CDMA and GSM models of their phones, no reason Palm wouldn't do the same.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:33 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Return of Palm #
Way to be cynical el Reg. Even usual Palm haters out there are loving this. And investors seems to be agreeing.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:33 GMT
Jeremy
@ Noooooo! #
Wasn't Ian Patterson, the bloody headline was all it took for me.
I'm off to shoot myself now...
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:33 GMT
John
banana phone #
superb song. I hope the Pre is as good.
/me goes to iTunes Store...
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:33 GMT
John
banana phone update #
boo. can't get the real version on iTunes Store, the UK Amazon download store doesn't have it and I can't buy it from the US store. then again I read some stuff on Raffi's site and he's a bit of a tree hugger.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 00:33 GMT
digibadger
@olof - GSM version is in the works... #
... according to Engadget
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/there-will-be-a-umts-palm-pre/
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 09:53 GMT
Rob Haswell
Think I just creamed myself #
Never thought I'd see another decent Palm phone. Finally something to replace my ageing Treo 680? Fkin hope so.
Any word on a 3.5mm audio jack?
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 09:53 GMT
raving angry loony
another one? #
What's with these idiots locking their phones to a particular network? First they choose CDMA, which is laughable in the face of a world market, then they tie it even more to just the American market by locking it down to a sub-standard carrier.
Bloody idiots. I might even have bought one too.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 09:53 GMT
dodge
Café. Décolletage. Attaché... Pré #
Surely it's pronounced "pray".
Which I guess is what Palm management is doing right now...
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 09:53 GMT
Jeff Holbrook
Don't Pray #
It is pronounced Pre, as in or like... before. It rhymes with tree. There is no gruve over the e. And yes it appears to be an awesome device. Go Palm. The world needs you, if only to clam up the idiotphone phanbouys.
Tux as this is a Linux OS Phone. W00t!
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 09:54 GMT
Andy Worth
Too far.... #
They've gone too far in trying to make it look curvy and hip - in making the sides curve outwards as well, it looks a bit tubby in the middle and nowhere near as sleek as its main competitors.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 09:54 GMT
Mick Sheppard
Software support? #
I've still to find something that matches using my old Palm III and Palm Desktop connecting to Mac OS 9. I could install apps and have them sync data back to applications on my laptop. Then Palm stopped updating Palm Desktop so I moved away to other things. Unless Palm are going to provide a nice new, plugin friendly, Palm Desktop application for OS X this is no good to me. If they are, and a 3G version comes out, I'll look at it when I need to change my phone.
Sadly I suspect that by the time Palm deliver Apple will have and their chance will have gone.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 09:54 GMT
Matt Linin
Semantics #
Shouldn't it be pronounced 'Pray' with the acute over the letter 'E'??
Maybe a bit Freudian that the pray it will turn their business around?
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 10:19 GMT
Andy ORourke
So will they ... #
Add an annoying "sent from my banana" auto signature to outgoing emails?
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 10:31 GMT
Conrad Longmore
Odd name, but.. #
Odd name, but nice device.
On the EVDO / CDMA thing, the Palm press release DOES also mention UMTS / HSDPA (see http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=358392). So perhaps the Pre is an exclusive to Sprint at the moment, with a UMTS version coming out later.
There are a couple of things that make the Pre interesting - one if the user interface idea of having application cards running side-by-side. It sounds interesting, it would be interesting to see it in practice. The other thing is that the software seems to be rather good at managing contacts and messages from all sorts of different sources into a unified system.
I really don't know if this can save Palm though - if it came out 12 months ago, then perhaps. At least Palm managed to secure some more funding so that they can give it a try..
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 12:33 GMT
James Pickett
Revolutionary #
Removable/replaceable battery? Yay! Who would possibly be daft enough to sell a phone without that..?
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 14:08 GMT
SImon Hobson
@ Mick Sheppard #
You want "Missing Sync", available for several mobile systems including Palm, syncs using OS X sync services to your OS X data pools. So you can sync your Palm with iCal etc.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 15:35 GMT
Tone
Looks pretty good #
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j6l0birqeig&feature=related
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 15:35 GMT
Anonymous Coward
Battery #
The one thing I've not seen in any of the coverage is even a hint of the battery life, which makes me think that it might be the Pre's Achilles heel.
I wouldn't be surprised at a low battery life, what with wireless, GPS, Bluetooth, a fast CPU and a phone in there it must eat power.
Shame, this is the first time for ages I've seen a pda phone like this that I wanted to buy. (I've got a BB Storm through work, it's ok but all the BB's I've ever used have felt sluggish and in need of a more beefy CPU)
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 20:54 GMT
sleepy
just shows #
Just shows people from Apple don't need supervision by Steve Jobs to make a decent product. But the current iPhone (essentially the same as launched 2 years ago) isn't the one Pre will be up against, and its shortcomings don't mean Apple can't fix them. (Apple simply doesn't play a card until it has to, an elementary lesson its competitors don't seem to have learned, which drives the Apple haters crazy when Apple prevails over "better" products).
I like the way they've put in multi-touch which the rest have been afraid to do. If Apple doesn't sue, they get away with it. If Apple sues and loses, Palm is suddenly worth much more; if they win, Palm can just pull the multitouch feature with little harm done.
Posted Friday 9th January 2009 20:54 GMT
Alex King
Stupid accents strike again #
There's no justification for the accute accent at all, it's just another attempt to make something sound exotic by adding an accent, cf. the ridiculous adulteration of Moben and Motley Crue.
Posted Saturday 10th January 2009 00:19 GMT
Anonymous Coward
too thick #
A 12mm thick version without the keyboard should be offered.
Posted Sunday 11th January 2009 18:24 GMT
Johannes
video #
check out http://palmone.r3h.net/downloads.palm.com/ces.mov -- the device appears about 13 minutes into the video, UI demo about 5 minutes later
Posted Sunday 11th January 2009 18:24 GMT
pctechxp
@J #
Simple, buy it SIM-free and engage flight mode and there you have a palm music player.
Posted Monday 12th January 2009 09:05 GMT
Giles Jones
Another OS #
'cus what the phone market needed was another OS!
WM
Symbian
iPhone OS
Android
Palm OS (I suppose this is called Palm Classic now)
and now Palm WebOS?
Posted Monday 12th January 2009 14:50 GMT
David Edwards
Why a keyboard #
Palm sold the most successfull PDA for years with no keyboard, they now seem wedded to nasty tiny qwerty keyboards just when Apple, Balckberry, LG etc are finally ditching them in favour of virtual keyboards on full touch screen. Not only is it nasty to use, but surley it costs more to manufactuer and is less reliable. Lets hoping that the OS goes onto a Propper (as in US Robotics Palm Pilot) Style PDA/Phone. I was waitiing on this, but now I think ill get a Storm. and Hope there is a non keyboard Palm in a year when contracts up etc. Still ove my TX.
This topic is closed for new posts.