Palm Pre Hands on Videos Part 2

However, here's how I look at it:

I detest using my Garnet Treo for 3 main reasons:

1. It's bulky and uncomfortable to hold

2. It lags terriblly, especially when trying to initiate a 3-way call or look up a contact while on speakerphone or end a call.

3. It gets crummy receptions, constantly is dropping its signal and offers feeble audio quality.

By virtue of the impressive new CPU/chipset, the Pre should handily resolve #2 based on everything Ryan and I have seen firsthand. #1 is addressed by the nice "bend" in the body and the extra length afforded by the slide-down keyboard.

So that just leave #3 as a possible problem area. At any rate, I am quite certain this thing's gonna leave all of Palm's previous Treos/Centros in the dust as far as its phone performance.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

BT volume could be louder in some situations. Also, I get the lag a lot since "upgrading" to ATT 2.11 firmware. Thanks for eating all my execution memory with SPAMware ATT.

Pat Horne

#1 Palm HAD to go with a clean sheet. I share some of your fears, but remember how long it took M$ to create an OS for consumers that was not a "workaround" for the dreaded 1MB memory limitation of the original DOS? It's hard to break away from your "base", but if you don't you'll simply die. The Pilot platform had it's day, but it is increasingly fading into a less and less prominence as tech currents have drastically shifted. Cobalt was legacy and died. ALPOs is lagacy (kinda) and appears dead, unless that Russian iPhone killer arrives (it won't). Palm HAD to move forward in order to hit this home run. To be honest, I saw / see no way for Palm to hang on to any past restrictions and dig out of the hole they created. The T3, Zire, and Treo 650 should have been upgraded in a lot of ways since 2003/4 and it would not be so bleak today.

#2 Fear not. Among us in the Palm OS dinosaur crowd are certainly code-monkeys that will emulate much of what Palm moved away from. Yeah, hard buttons are tough to do with software, but I'm sure they'll come up with a quick and dirty way to get to month view etc. This platform is going to attract devs like corporate America to a Congressional bailout.

#3 I'm not sure about my data in the cloud either. Especially down here in the sticks. Data coverage in GA,AL, & FL where I travel is sometimes more like a clear day than a cloud. That being said, I totally see where Palm is going and am quite shocked that they seemed to have fulfilled all the past promises so fully. Hawkins & Ed have spoken of this vision of a "world with a super fast data connection" for a while. This IS where the tech "cloud" is moving (no pun intended). Palm is shockingly IN FRONT of the wave for the first time in years. While I'm not perfectly comfy @ the jump, I differ with the idea that it should be a different company. I'm glad it's Palm, because they are the only ones that could ever respect the roots of Palm OS. They alone have the people that care and I'm being positive in my hope that the PIM focus will not be lost. That is one area they still do better than the others. I think it's more than just a name, but a value system. From their many statements they see Web OS as the 2009 answer of the 1996 Palm OS.

#4 EP has got to be jumping for joy over this. IMO, they'll dump this baby like a box of rox if they can pump it to $15 or whatever. The EP dude over on CNBC was hyping the Pre today and answered the "why not own it all" Q, with "we want it to stay public". You're right it's pump and dump ... which is their perogative.

Keep up the good work.

Pat Horne

iPhone Nano?

It might pull up "Mike Cane" "Mike Collins" and "Lamike Calllahan" and tie in all of their relevant facebook, AIM, email, contact etc info as well as a thumbnail shot of them if you've added it. That IS impressive and a gigantic leap over the hideous old Palm OS "find" function

Re: Clipboard & memo size limits:

I was told "there are no limits, you'll have tons of memory to do anything"

Make of that what you will.

Also, they would not breathe a word on device memory, aside from the 8gb internal flash embedded. But I heard 2 non-Palm people tell me that the device has 256MB of program memory but Ryan heard 52mb or 56mb. I'd really be disappointed with <100mb, so i think it probably is 256mb. They are doing like with the Lifedrive back in '05 and talking about it's storage capacity instead of its actual program/executable memory space.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

Hmmmmm.

>>>Re: Clipboard & memo size limits:
>>>I was told "there are no limits, you'll have tons of memory to do anything"

*snort* Wait til *I* try it!

>>>Also, they would not breathe a word on device memory, aside from the 8gb internal flash embedded. But I heard 2 non-Palm people tell me that the device has 256MB of program memory but Ryan heard 52mb or 56mb. I'd really be disappointed with <100mb, so i think it probably is 256mb. They are doing like with the Lifedrive back in '05 and talking about it's storage capacity instead of its actual program/executable memory space.

Uh-oh. And did they give it adequate Heap?!

(...)

That said, I've sent off a flurry of emails to many of the longtime Palm OS developers and some of the companies listed during Colligan's partner announcements, so I'm hoping to put together an article of learned opinions in a day or two. One told me this is...

...a great strategic coup for Palm because the web is where most of the great innovation is going on in software today. JavaScript/CSS/HTML are standards, not proprietary APIs, which makes it so Palm is able to leverage alot of 3rd party software and developers almost right out of the gate.

Ars Technica, meanwhile, has someone saying that the Mojo SDK is a "joy" to use and way more developer-friendly than Apple:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090109-the-pres-got-mojo-a-developer-speaks-about-palms-new-sdk.html