Centro 2 Running WebOS in the Works?

Quake Live runs at 1280x1024, 60fps inside a browser.

""" (Of course, Palm may get into legal trouble over this; the Linux license requires them to make the source code for the kernel available.) """

They will surely provide source code for the kernel. What they are not required to do is to provide the means to replace that kernel for another; this means they can design hardware that runs only a linuk kernel that is signed by them, so removing the restrictions that it imposes should be difficult.

The lingo for this is "Tivoization" because Tivo were the first to discover they could lock their flavor of linux onto their machines, thus getting Linux for free without having to yield control on what their users could run.

Rivers of bad blood have run on this subject, and it is the main reason why the GPL license Version 3 was designed. But Linux is GPL V2, and intended to remain so.

Sooner or later the protection will be broken, and you will be able to load a custom linux distribution, but the point is, that does not really matter, because it will be a marginal activity, apps will not integrate with webOS proper, and all of webOS (do I really have to say that?) apps will be jailed with Palm's restrictions.

Still, not everything has been said yet about huevos, and I would not be surprised in the slightest if there were bindings for languages other than Javascript; in fact, I would if there weren't, because there MUST be some intelligent people at Palm that just know their next shot in the foot would be the final.

"They will surely provide source code for the kernel. What they are not required to do is to provide the means to replace that kernel for another"

People don't have to replace the kernel in order to put applications on top of it. The fact that they have to publish the kernel source means that the ABI and device interfaces are open.

Theoretically, Palm could try to design the hardware and software such that it is impossible to load binaries on top of it. Almost nobody has succeeded in doing that yet, and I doubt Palm has the discipline to achieve that.

WAYYY too early to make assumptions like this guys. I'd be willing to bet the farm that they'll come up with some tiered level of core lib access for "approved" partners. And honestly, I don't blame them one bit! I've been a PalmOS user for 6+ years now, and the biggest stability issues in Garnet are based around shitty apps, or apps that have a low-level driver that quite honestly the coder did have have the skills to write. If you're a long-time PalmOS user, you definitely know what I'm talking about.

Coming from a software development company, I can vouch that finding a balance between protecting stability and providing open access for developers is a delicate dance, and I don't blame them one bit for erroring on the side of stability in the beginning.

- Jeff

Tungsten T -> Palm TX -> TX & Centro (Good combo so far!)

"""People don't have to replace the kernel in order to put applications on top of it. The fact that they have to publish the kernel source means that the ABI and device interfaces are open.

Theoretically, Palm could try to design the hardware and software such that it is impossible to load binaries on top of it. Almost nobody has succeeded in doing that yet, and I doubt Palm has the discipline to achieve that."""

You can show all the world how your kernel only loads signed binaries and that won't do you much good if you don't have the appropriate keys.

As for nobody succeeding, it does not really matter. It might be satisfying to jailbreak your phone and installing one of the three available Forbidden Apps, but 99.99999% of the users will be out of that market, which will keep it sadly unsupplied, which will keep 99.99999% of the users out of it.

And I agree with others here, low-level access will surely be coming, when it's done. Tiered or not, I don't know.

Why would Graffiti be dead? Anyone who has ever used Graffiti Anywhere or the older NewPen utility knows that Treos continued to ship the Graffiti libraries on their devices long after Palm (actually Handspring since I am talking about going all the way back to the Treo 180, 270, and 600) eliminated the Graffiti area. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that there is some sort of Graffiti 3 hidden in the bowels of the webOS as well. Palm might not have told anyone about it because it's not ready for prime time yet or because they want to avoid confusing users whatever the reason that they had for not telling anybody about the hidden Graffiti support on Treos. It is absolutely possible that Graffiti or some sort of son of Graffiti library is alive and well on webOS.

Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

I hope a Graffiti subsitute, be it an official Palm release or a 3rd party add on is available for WebOS. I think that being able to 'draw' graffiti characters on the touch screen with your finger to enter text might actually work quite well. On my old LifeDrive I actually enter graffiti characters with my finger nail rather than the stylus quite a lot of the time and can do it pretty accurately.

** in order to maximize the available screen real estate necessary **

This is why the rumor does not sound credible. Since when has Palm cared about the greatest lost opportunity in Palm design history. Gosh, just the thot that rumors are being tossed around like this makes me want to pinch myself. Therefore it must be a dream. Wow.

I for one could live with a VK on a screen optimized device. A Centro FF could work, but I'm actually hoping for a larger device filling a Treo like frontal area with display. Or my dream is a T3,T5,TX (credit card) sized screen in a device only fractionally larger than the screen itself.

Ahhh well, since were dreamin' ...
http://tinyurl.com/87ph5a

Pat Horne

** I don't see the problem as a screen real estate one. **

Not on the Pre. They actually did quite well there. It's the other 693 designs that they have released since the pilot. All most all waste 50%+ of the device frontal space forcing the user to do business in 50% or less of the remaining space.
if they
The Pre is encouraging, and a candybar Centro with HVGA and VK would work too. Actually the same FF of the Centro could remain with the HVGA if they would get efficient with the wasted space and oversized app keys. Check this crude example @ only about 10% longer. Pretty easy it would seem.

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa125/livefaith/CentroHVGA.jpg

Pat Horne

When it existed, the "new" management page for Andy Brown, CFO, showed some type of small laptop in front of him.

i'm pretty sure that's a Dell Latitude, silly. i have the same one.

Colligan has a Dell PC sitting on his desk, silly. and there was nobody on the grassy knoll either.

http://www.netix.ro/images/dell-latitude-d430-l.jpg

While we're on the rumor mill, have you guys heard the rumor that there are very few Windows Mobile Treo's used on the Palm campus? Heard that observation from an insider about a year ago, not sure if it's still true with the release of the Treo Pro. I always hoped it was true since it was evidence that they were holding out for the next Palm-based OS.

Tungsten T -> Palm TX -> TX & Centro (Good combo so far!)

>>>Yes, netbooks are big, but again you've got the essential problem of how do you compete with devices running desktop Windows or Linux?

Apple does it. iPod Air/iPod Touchbook in Fall.

(Oh shut up, lefty. ACCESS is FAIL. Give it up!)

An ALP device actually available for sale. WOW.

Yeah, I normally would've immediately called B.S. on such a rumor but the tipster was quite confident of it and appeared to not be an easily excitable type. After seeing the PCMag piece from the always-credible Sascha Sagan, we decided to post it.

Now, that said, the Pre's single front clicker button is pretty small. I'm thinking that Jeff's hit the nail on the head if there's any truth to this rumor. It would not be hard to remove the Centro's entire hard button/d-pad area to make room for slightly larger LCD and a small gesture area + button. The gesture area is more reliant on sideways motions than any major vertical motions.

Or they could keep the same basic Centro size but make it slightly taller to accomodate a small 320x480 LCD.

P.S.

Another question I asked of the Palm reps and they confirmed: WebOS WILL have scalable system font sizes. Though they didn't understand what I was saying when I asked about "anti-aliasing" or "Font smoothing such as ClearType". But I'm glad to see that all text looked very nice, with no apparent jaggies or anything like RIM's horrid skinny fonts. Everything on WebOS looked approporiate for the scren size/res, much like iPhone. Aesthetically & legibility-wise, onscren text seemed an enormous step above anything by RIM or Microsoft mobile platforms. Icon-wise, though, I'd like to have seen more use of color to alert the user to "hot" areas onscreen that can trigger actions. There was a lot of dark grey/light grey/black areas or onscreen buttons whose function didn't clearly jump right out at me (the calendar app & photo app stood out for this in particular) but being extremely familar with the Palm OS I assume that Palm has just gussied up existing PIM app functions so it won't be too hard for any of us. It might be a good idea to brng the "tap counter" back into the fold at Palm, as I do worry that some functions that can be quickly executed under Garnet via 1 or 2 hard/soft button taps may take more taps, strokes, jabs and swipes under WebOS.

P.P.S.

So my initial WebOS impressions in a nutshell after having a few nights to sleep on it:

Less clutter & less imtimidation for n00bies? Yes.
More efficiency for longtime Palm OS power users trying to multitask (look up someone's addresss while composing an email to someone else, for example)? Yes.

More speed and efficiency for longtime Palm OS users needing to very quickly pull up a piece of critical info? No.

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->?