Sprint and Palm are surely very positive about the success of the Palm Pre, and their optimism certainly is not baseless. The Palm Pre is yet to be released, but some of the developers of applications for the phone have already started singing serenades for the Palm Pre.
NetworkWorld has interviewed several app developers working on the Palm Pre's operating system, called webOS and the companion software development kit, Mojo. NetworkWorld has found that some developers are really excited about the phone, but some iota of developers are not at all interested in developing for the Palm Pre and webOS.
According to the developers standing for the Palm Pre, there are three things that make the phone stand apart from the others; the three things are that the phone based on the well-known JavaScript language, it can run several applications at once, and thirdly, it is easier to use.
"It's a completely new way of thinking about an OS on mobile devices. webOS has fully embraced the notion of applications running at the same time, as PCs do. You can now write applications that are more complex," says Christian Sepulveda, vice president of business development at Pivotal Labs.
Tom Conrad, Pandora's CTO, says, "It's the combination of these kinds of capabilities that excites developers. Palm started with a clean sheet of paper. Everything about the Pre feels like it's 'future-oriented,' not an iPhone-inspired knockoff."
"Your application is running as though it were a kind of series of dynamic Web pages in an embedded browser. It's not compiled into 'non-Web code.' It executes within a true Web environment," Conrad adds.
"With Mojo, we were up to speed in weeks. The barriers for entry for developing on Mojo are very low," says Agile Commerce: Partner Eric Marthinsen.
Palm webOS is Linux-based operating system developed by Palm for the Pre smartphone. According to NetworkWorld, "The potential power of webOS lies in three capabilities that Palm has brought together into a coherent whole. First, mobile applications are written entirely in JavaScript, HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, which are technologies that an army of Web developers has been using for years. Second, webOS was designed from the outset to run multiple applications at once and, these developers say, to minimize the well-known potential problems that arise when doing so. Third, the application model is designed in turn to fully exploit both these features, creating, these developers say, a simpler, far more intuitive user experience."
From topnews.in
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Palm takes next steps on webOS, Pre smartphone
Palm Inc. has revealed new details about its developer plans for the webOS operating system, the heart of the upcoming Palm Pre smartphone.
The company has extended its "early access" program for the Mojo software development kit, making it accessible to more developers, but still stopping short of general availability. Palm also announced plans to deploy the first of a series of branded "cloud" services, in this case a subscribe/publish messaging service. Finally, it unveiled an emulation program from MotionApps, that will let the Palm Pre load and run hundreds of applications written for the legacy PalmOS platform.
The announcements were made Wednesday night by Michael Abbott, Palm senior vice president of application software and services, during a speech and demonstration at the Web 2.0 Expo, in San Francisco.
Among other things, Abbott stressed that webOS applications run natively on the Palm Pre, so they"re available to users even without a network connection. But those applications are built with widely-used Web technologies such as HMTL, JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets. The new platform, which replaces the declining PalmOS, is critical to Palm"s future.
Since shortly after the sleek, multi-touch Pre smartphone was unveiled in January, the Mojo SDK has been available only to a select group of software application partners. Starting now, developers can apply for access to the toolkit at http://developer.palm.com. Not all applicants will be accepted at this point. Mojo will be generally released "later this year," according to Palm.
The smartphone, initially available only on the Sprint network, is due out by the end of June at the latest. You can check out a slideshow that compares Palm Pre with Apple iPhone, based on their specifications.
The new cloud service, dubbed Mojo Messaging Service (MMS), undoubtedly will find fast and broad adoption among webOS developers. According to a Palm statement, the service will enable the automated replication of new or changed data and content to users and applications.
MMS uses a subscribe/publish model: users and applications "sign up" for data or content. When changes are published on the cloud servers, they become available automatically via notification to the subscribers. MMS relies on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), a set of open, standards-based technologies that can be used in such applications as instant messaging, presence, multi-user chat, content syndication, and general routing of XML data. XMPP was originally developed in the Jabber open-source project as an alternative to proprietary messaging services.
The new emulator, dubbed "Classic," from San Francisco-based MotionApps, will let existing Palm users move many of the 30,000 or so legacy PalmOS applications to the Pre. The vendor"s Web site has little in the way of detail, but claims, "Compared to Treo 700p your PalmOS apps will run approximately twice as fast on Classic."
There is a drawback at least initially: the PalmOS applications will not be able to exploit core elements and features of the new webOS. In a statement, Palm says it is "working with partners to ensure that popular PalmOS applications ... are optimized to take advantage of everything [webOS] has to offer." But it gave no details about what that actually means or how or when it will be possible.
[Originally posted at computerworld.com]
The company has extended its "early access" program for the Mojo software development kit, making it accessible to more developers, but still stopping short of general availability. Palm also announced plans to deploy the first of a series of branded "cloud" services, in this case a subscribe/publish messaging service. Finally, it unveiled an emulation program from MotionApps, that will let the Palm Pre load and run hundreds of applications written for the legacy PalmOS platform.
The announcements were made Wednesday night by Michael Abbott, Palm senior vice president of application software and services, during a speech and demonstration at the Web 2.0 Expo, in San Francisco.
Among other things, Abbott stressed that webOS applications run natively on the Palm Pre, so they"re available to users even without a network connection. But those applications are built with widely-used Web technologies such as HMTL, JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets. The new platform, which replaces the declining PalmOS, is critical to Palm"s future.
Since shortly after the sleek, multi-touch Pre smartphone was unveiled in January, the Mojo SDK has been available only to a select group of software application partners. Starting now, developers can apply for access to the toolkit at http://developer.palm.com. Not all applicants will be accepted at this point. Mojo will be generally released "later this year," according to Palm.
The smartphone, initially available only on the Sprint network, is due out by the end of June at the latest. You can check out a slideshow that compares Palm Pre with Apple iPhone, based on their specifications.
The new cloud service, dubbed Mojo Messaging Service (MMS), undoubtedly will find fast and broad adoption among webOS developers. According to a Palm statement, the service will enable the automated replication of new or changed data and content to users and applications.
MMS uses a subscribe/publish model: users and applications "sign up" for data or content. When changes are published on the cloud servers, they become available automatically via notification to the subscribers. MMS relies on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), a set of open, standards-based technologies that can be used in such applications as instant messaging, presence, multi-user chat, content syndication, and general routing of XML data. XMPP was originally developed in the Jabber open-source project as an alternative to proprietary messaging services.
The new emulator, dubbed "Classic," from San Francisco-based MotionApps, will let existing Palm users move many of the 30,000 or so legacy PalmOS applications to the Pre. The vendor"s Web site has little in the way of detail, but claims, "Compared to Treo 700p your PalmOS apps will run approximately twice as fast on Classic."
There is a drawback at least initially: the PalmOS applications will not be able to exploit core elements and features of the new webOS. In a statement, Palm says it is "working with partners to ensure that popular PalmOS applications ... are optimized to take advantage of everything [webOS] has to offer." But it gave no details about what that actually means or how or when it will be possible.
[Originally posted at computerworld.com]
Monday, March 30, 2009
Beta Tester "Confirms" Palm Pre Launch Price and Release Date
We're all getting pretty excited about the prospects offered by the Palm Pre and what it may bring to the cell phone market, but when will it finally be released to the public? A beta tester has leaked that info.
Naturally, you'll want to take this report with a huge grain of salt, but it apparently comes from one of the beta testers for the Palm Pre. The beta tester happens to be on Twitter and he recently said that he spoke to the account manager regarding launch info for the Palm Pre.
In his tweets, this Sprint beta tester says that the Palm Pre will be launching on April 30th and that's the "line in the sand, according to my acct mgr there...he's usually right on #Palm Pre." An April 30th launch date puts the phone slightly ahead of schedule, which is good news for fans of the touchy-QWERTY phone.
But how much will it cost? The same beta tester reports that he has a source (not Sprint) marking the Palm Pre's price tag at $299 with a two-year contract. That's the same price as a 16GB iPhone 3G from AT&T, so while it sounds pricey, it seems competitive. That said, the beta tester bets that it will be "$100 or so after all the hype wears off."
Ah, the price of being an early adopter.
[Originally posted at mobilemag.com]
Naturally, you'll want to take this report with a huge grain of salt, but it apparently comes from one of the beta testers for the Palm Pre. The beta tester happens to be on Twitter and he recently said that he spoke to the account manager regarding launch info for the Palm Pre.
In his tweets, this Sprint beta tester says that the Palm Pre will be launching on April 30th and that's the "line in the sand, according to my acct mgr there...he's usually right on #Palm Pre." An April 30th launch date puts the phone slightly ahead of schedule, which is good news for fans of the touchy-QWERTY phone.
But how much will it cost? The same beta tester reports that he has a source (not Sprint) marking the Palm Pre's price tag at $299 with a two-year contract. That's the same price as a 16GB iPhone 3G from AT&T, so while it sounds pricey, it seems competitive. That said, the beta tester bets that it will be "$100 or so after all the hype wears off."
Ah, the price of being an early adopter.
[Originally posted at mobilemag.com]
Saturday, March 21, 2009
What if the Palm Pre Bombs?
Palm has a lot of prestige and funds riding on the success of the Palm Pre smartphone. Advance buzz for the device has reached a fever pitch, but in the face of such enormous expectations, not to mention competition from the Apple iPhone and RIM BlackBerry mobile and wireless devices, the question remains: What if the Palm Pre fails in the market?
Palm plans on releasing its new smartphone, the Palm Pre, during the first half of 2009, and has managed to build considerable buzz for the device over the past few months.
The company is betting that a blockbuster project will not only boost its revenue, but pull it out of what Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, called a "challenging transitional period" in a March 20 statement.
In one sign of how dire the situation has become, news reports on March 19 stated that Palm had remarketed 18.5 million common stock-shares, worth roughly $103 million, in a bid to raise more cash. Sales of Palm's older smartphones have been declining at a steady pace.
Palm sees the Pre as a potential rival for the Apple iPhone, with Roger McNamee, a partner in Palm investor Elevation Partners, boldly predicting on March 6 that current iPhone users would promptly switch smartphones upon the Pre's release: "Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later."
McNamee's confidence at least partially stemmed from the Pre's much-glimpsed design, which includes a 3.1-inch multitouch screen and a real keyboard, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS and a built-in 3-megapixel camera. Much of the Pre's "look" can likely be attributed to the influence of Jon Rubinstein, who left Apple in 2006 after contributing mightily to the development of the iMac and iPod.
Three days after McNamee's statements, on March 9, Palm filed an SEC document describing the investor's claims as "exaggerated."
Nonetheless, the company doubtlessly hopes that the device, for which no price has publicly been set, will succeed wildly, especially given Palm's financial difficulties. On March 4, Palm announced its sixth consecutive quarter of losses, with Palm revenues for third-quarter 2009 falling to around $90 million.
With all that at stake, what will it mean for Palm if the Pre only performs at an average level—or worse yet, bombs?
"If it tanks, that's a lot of R&D that's backfired," Ramon Llamas, an analyst at IDC, said in an interview. In between that ultimate negative prospect and blockbuster status, he added, is a middle ground with "a whole lot of gray."
However, Llamas reaffirmed that Palm needs the Pre in order to succeed. "The Palm OS as we knew it fulfilled what we needed it to do, but it was aging in the face of other technologies from Apple and RIM," he said. High sales will allow Palm to "re-establish itself as not an also-ran."
The Pre's degree of success is also something that will likely be clearer over the medium term, if history is any indication. "Let's not forget, when the Apple iPhone came out in its first and second generation, in the first weeks it was panned for bugs and glitches," Llamas said. "Those problems were addressed, and you don't hear about them anymore."
The implication is that, even if initial buzz about the device post-launch is less than ecstatic, Palm shouldn't be written off just yet. Another potential complication, however, is Sprint Nextel, which has exclusive U.S. rights to the Pre through the end of 2009.
Sprint has offered a variety of individual, family and business plans for the Pre, with pricing for the individual Everything Data 450, 900 and Unlimited plans starting at $69.99 per month, according to reports.
But, "Sprint is having its own challenges," Llamas suggested. If Palm wants to succeed in the broader market, then "the key with distribution is that you want to be in as many channels as you can; Sprint can't be the end-all-and-be-all."
If the smartphone doesn't succeed, things will look truly dire for Palm, said Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Research. "If it's not game over, it's down to the 2-minute warning with them needing to come up with two touchdowns from their own third-yard line," King said.
No matter how innovative the Pre, the device enters an economy in recession and a market crowded with other smartphones. "Palm needs the Pre to be a blockbuster to show they deserve a place at the table when other companies have been delivering truly innovative products," King said. "People think Apple and iPhone are the product to beat, but the dominant player in the business market remains RIM and BlackBerry."
But can the Palm succeed? According to King: "It's always possible."
[Originally posted at eweek.com]
Palm plans on releasing its new smartphone, the Palm Pre, during the first half of 2009, and has managed to build considerable buzz for the device over the past few months.
The company is betting that a blockbuster project will not only boost its revenue, but pull it out of what Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm, called a "challenging transitional period" in a March 20 statement.
In one sign of how dire the situation has become, news reports on March 19 stated that Palm had remarketed 18.5 million common stock-shares, worth roughly $103 million, in a bid to raise more cash. Sales of Palm's older smartphones have been declining at a steady pace.
Palm sees the Pre as a potential rival for the Apple iPhone, with Roger McNamee, a partner in Palm investor Elevation Partners, boldly predicting on March 6 that current iPhone users would promptly switch smartphones upon the Pre's release: "Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later."
McNamee's confidence at least partially stemmed from the Pre's much-glimpsed design, which includes a 3.1-inch multitouch screen and a real keyboard, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS and a built-in 3-megapixel camera. Much of the Pre's "look" can likely be attributed to the influence of Jon Rubinstein, who left Apple in 2006 after contributing mightily to the development of the iMac and iPod.
Three days after McNamee's statements, on March 9, Palm filed an SEC document describing the investor's claims as "exaggerated."
Nonetheless, the company doubtlessly hopes that the device, for which no price has publicly been set, will succeed wildly, especially given Palm's financial difficulties. On March 4, Palm announced its sixth consecutive quarter of losses, with Palm revenues for third-quarter 2009 falling to around $90 million.
With all that at stake, what will it mean for Palm if the Pre only performs at an average level—or worse yet, bombs?
"If it tanks, that's a lot of R&D that's backfired," Ramon Llamas, an analyst at IDC, said in an interview. In between that ultimate negative prospect and blockbuster status, he added, is a middle ground with "a whole lot of gray."
However, Llamas reaffirmed that Palm needs the Pre in order to succeed. "The Palm OS as we knew it fulfilled what we needed it to do, but it was aging in the face of other technologies from Apple and RIM," he said. High sales will allow Palm to "re-establish itself as not an also-ran."
The Pre's degree of success is also something that will likely be clearer over the medium term, if history is any indication. "Let's not forget, when the Apple iPhone came out in its first and second generation, in the first weeks it was panned for bugs and glitches," Llamas said. "Those problems were addressed, and you don't hear about them anymore."
The implication is that, even if initial buzz about the device post-launch is less than ecstatic, Palm shouldn't be written off just yet. Another potential complication, however, is Sprint Nextel, which has exclusive U.S. rights to the Pre through the end of 2009.
Sprint has offered a variety of individual, family and business plans for the Pre, with pricing for the individual Everything Data 450, 900 and Unlimited plans starting at $69.99 per month, according to reports.
But, "Sprint is having its own challenges," Llamas suggested. If Palm wants to succeed in the broader market, then "the key with distribution is that you want to be in as many channels as you can; Sprint can't be the end-all-and-be-all."
If the smartphone doesn't succeed, things will look truly dire for Palm, said Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Research. "If it's not game over, it's down to the 2-minute warning with them needing to come up with two touchdowns from their own third-yard line," King said.
No matter how innovative the Pre, the device enters an economy in recession and a market crowded with other smartphones. "Palm needs the Pre to be a blockbuster to show they deserve a place at the table when other companies have been delivering truly innovative products," King said. "People think Apple and iPhone are the product to beat, but the dominant player in the business market remains RIM and BlackBerry."
But can the Palm succeed? According to King: "It's always possible."
[Originally posted at eweek.com]
Friday, March 20, 2009
Palm Sales Plummet as Pre Waits in the Wings
Palm's revenue plunged in its most recent quarter as the struggling company, preparing for the release of its next-generation device, sold 42 percent fewer smartphones than in the same period last year.
The 72 percent fall in smartphone revenue, to US$77.5 million, underscores the importance of the upcoming Palm Pre and WebOS to the company's future. Palm announced the Pre and its brand-new operating system at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and has said the current Centro phone will be the last device to run the original Palm OS. The Pre will begin shipping on an undisclosed date later this year.
In its fiscal third quarter, ended Feb. 27, Palm lost $98 million, or $0.89 per share, wider than its loss of $57 million, or $0.53 per share, a year earlier. Excluding special items, such as stock-based compensation and restructuring charges, the company lost $94.7 million, or $0.86 per share. That was worse than the consensus forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who expected a loss of $0.59 per share.
Total revenue was $90.6 million, compared with the analysts' forecast of $105 million.
"We're proceeding through a challenging transitional period, however our current results shouldn't overshadow the tremendous progress we've made against our strategic goals," Palm President and CEO Ed Colligan said in a press release.
The Pre will have a touch screen plus a physical keyboard, as well as built-in Wi-Fi, a 3-megapixel camera and 8GB of storage. It will also have some software features found in Apple's iPhone, such as gesture-based "multitouch" controls. In fact, comments by an Apple executive in January hinted that the company might sue Palm for stealing features.
Palm sells devices based on Microsoft Windows Mobile, such as the newly introduced Palm Treo Pro, in addition to Palm OS products. But for the operating system that built Palm's business and spawned more than 100,000 applications from 30,000 developers, it has been a slow death. A new, Linux-based Palm OS has been in the works for several years. Applications written for the current Palm OS won't run on the WebOS that succeeds it.
Late Thursday, Palm's shares on the Nasdaq (PALM) were down $0.42 to $7.29 in after-hours trading.
[Originally posted at pcworld.com]
The 72 percent fall in smartphone revenue, to US$77.5 million, underscores the importance of the upcoming Palm Pre and WebOS to the company's future. Palm announced the Pre and its brand-new operating system at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and has said the current Centro phone will be the last device to run the original Palm OS. The Pre will begin shipping on an undisclosed date later this year.
In its fiscal third quarter, ended Feb. 27, Palm lost $98 million, or $0.89 per share, wider than its loss of $57 million, or $0.53 per share, a year earlier. Excluding special items, such as stock-based compensation and restructuring charges, the company lost $94.7 million, or $0.86 per share. That was worse than the consensus forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who expected a loss of $0.59 per share.
Total revenue was $90.6 million, compared with the analysts' forecast of $105 million.
"We're proceeding through a challenging transitional period, however our current results shouldn't overshadow the tremendous progress we've made against our strategic goals," Palm President and CEO Ed Colligan said in a press release.
The Pre will have a touch screen plus a physical keyboard, as well as built-in Wi-Fi, a 3-megapixel camera and 8GB of storage. It will also have some software features found in Apple's iPhone, such as gesture-based "multitouch" controls. In fact, comments by an Apple executive in January hinted that the company might sue Palm for stealing features.
Palm sells devices based on Microsoft Windows Mobile, such as the newly introduced Palm Treo Pro, in addition to Palm OS products. But for the operating system that built Palm's business and spawned more than 100,000 applications from 30,000 developers, it has been a slow death. A new, Linux-based Palm OS has been in the works for several years. Applications written for the current Palm OS won't run on the WebOS that succeeds it.
Late Thursday, Palm's shares on the Nasdaq (PALM) were down $0.42 to $7.29 in after-hours trading.
[Originally posted at pcworld.com]
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Cost of Palm Pre - Sprint
Palm Pre phone first made its appearance over the web, mesmerizing users with its elegant design and superior features. However, the shipping date and price were the big questions to be answered. Now, Palm is riding a wave of momentum with Sprint planning to launch the Pre Phone in various plan options.
At the webcast conference, Sprint and Palm have confirmed the release of the Pre phone in the first half of 2009. Moreover, the companies also revealed “Everything” individual and family plans for the interested consumers, reports Gizmodo.
People who are looking forward to buy the Palm Pre phone can choose from various plans like 450 minute ($69.99), 900 minute ($89.99) and unlimited plans ($99.99). The network provider also offers schemes for Families that starts from 1500 minutes ($129.99), 3000 minutes ($169.99) and unlimited plans ($189.99). The company even offers five different plans for business customers as well.
It is believed that the Pre phone will come with a user replaceable battery. Sadly, both the companies kept their mum on the actual cost and the availability details of the phone.
[Originally posted at techgadgets.in]Palm Pre Still Beats iPhone in Multitasking
webOS comes with backgrounding, iPhone OS 3.0 doesn't
As soon as Palm unveiled Pre, its new high-end mobile phone, most of the market watchers and industry analysts considered the device a great competitor against Apple's iPhone. The handset looks good, has a lot of capabilities, and also includes a brand new operating system, webOS, which is reportedly capable of doing a wide range of things.
Since the Palm Pre was so acclaimed, it was certain that Apple would come up with some ideas to compensate for the popularity the still unavailable handset enjoyed, and the newly announced iPhone OS 3.0 seems to be one of the steps the company took in this direction.
Enthusiasts from both sides have certainly jumped on the news right away, so as to make sure that things are indeed as reported, namely that the iPhone is back with more power and that the Palm Pre won't be able to outpace it after all. And we already saw that the new OS 3.0 for iPhone comes around with a lot of improvements and new features, around 100 of them, as Scot Forstall, senior vice president, iPhone Software, said recently.
When announcing Pre and its OS, Palm said that it offered “a rich open development environment that's familiar to tens of millions of web developers,” and about the same thing is what Apple says about its new iPhone OS, “iPhone SDK for iPhone OS 3.0 beta provides you with an amazing range of technologies to enhance the functionality of your iPhone and iPod touch applications.”
Among the new capabilities brought by the iPhone OS 3.0, we can also see cut/copy/paste, MMS, and push notifications, which is a service that should run in the background to alert the user whenever he/she receives a message on a third-party application such as IM. This new feature is meant to offer the device some sort of multitasking capabilities, something that other devices, including the upcoming Palm Pre, already have.
According to Apple, it chose to add the Push Notification Service to iPhone so as to offer an extended battery life. Compared to other smartphones and operating systems, says the company, this approach won't drain as much power from the battery as expected. On the other hand, undoubtedly, this solution does not solve all the problems the iPhone has with notifications.
At the same time, it seems that it is not exactly the solution that users were expecting to see for applications that require multitasking. And we already know that Palm's Pre is able to run more applications at the same time, allowing users to change the focus between them, and send apps like the IM to the background.
Furthermore, the new Push Notification Service could see some problems when having to notify users about several things at the same time. Not to mention that it would rely heavily on the third-party apps that it would notify about, and they should also be able to provide enough power efficiency to back Apple's statements about the battery life.
When it comes to Pre's webOS, the multitasking capabilities, as well as backgrounding functionality are all there, and it seems that they are a little more advanced than what was already available on the Palm OS until now. And that card-based UI that would allow us to shift between applications looks more than appealing as well.
For the time being, Apple hasn't released the new iPhone OS 3.0 to users, and it won't do so for the next couple of months either, at least not before Palm Pre is already available on the market. And while this time we can only talk about what the two will offer, in the summer we should also be able to see both of them at work. Yet, considering the current state of facts, Pre might still prove itself an iPhone killer.
As for backgrounding capabilities, Apple is aware of the fact that other mobile platforms include the feature. And given the fact that Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Google's Android and Palm's webOS have it, it might after all reconsider its position on the matter and offer its users a solution able to meet their needs.
[Originally posted at softpedia.com]
As soon as Palm unveiled Pre, its new high-end mobile phone, most of the market watchers and industry analysts considered the device a great competitor against Apple's iPhone. The handset looks good, has a lot of capabilities, and also includes a brand new operating system, webOS, which is reportedly capable of doing a wide range of things.
Since the Palm Pre was so acclaimed, it was certain that Apple would come up with some ideas to compensate for the popularity the still unavailable handset enjoyed, and the newly announced iPhone OS 3.0 seems to be one of the steps the company took in this direction.
Enthusiasts from both sides have certainly jumped on the news right away, so as to make sure that things are indeed as reported, namely that the iPhone is back with more power and that the Palm Pre won't be able to outpace it after all. And we already saw that the new OS 3.0 for iPhone comes around with a lot of improvements and new features, around 100 of them, as Scot Forstall, senior vice president, iPhone Software, said recently.
When announcing Pre and its OS, Palm said that it offered “a rich open development environment that's familiar to tens of millions of web developers,” and about the same thing is what Apple says about its new iPhone OS, “iPhone SDK for iPhone OS 3.0 beta provides you with an amazing range of technologies to enhance the functionality of your iPhone and iPod touch applications.”
Among the new capabilities brought by the iPhone OS 3.0, we can also see cut/copy/paste, MMS, and push notifications, which is a service that should run in the background to alert the user whenever he/she receives a message on a third-party application such as IM. This new feature is meant to offer the device some sort of multitasking capabilities, something that other devices, including the upcoming Palm Pre, already have.
According to Apple, it chose to add the Push Notification Service to iPhone so as to offer an extended battery life. Compared to other smartphones and operating systems, says the company, this approach won't drain as much power from the battery as expected. On the other hand, undoubtedly, this solution does not solve all the problems the iPhone has with notifications.
At the same time, it seems that it is not exactly the solution that users were expecting to see for applications that require multitasking. And we already know that Palm's Pre is able to run more applications at the same time, allowing users to change the focus between them, and send apps like the IM to the background.
Furthermore, the new Push Notification Service could see some problems when having to notify users about several things at the same time. Not to mention that it would rely heavily on the third-party apps that it would notify about, and they should also be able to provide enough power efficiency to back Apple's statements about the battery life.
When it comes to Pre's webOS, the multitasking capabilities, as well as backgrounding functionality are all there, and it seems that they are a little more advanced than what was already available on the Palm OS until now. And that card-based UI that would allow us to shift between applications looks more than appealing as well.
For the time being, Apple hasn't released the new iPhone OS 3.0 to users, and it won't do so for the next couple of months either, at least not before Palm Pre is already available on the market. And while this time we can only talk about what the two will offer, in the summer we should also be able to see both of them at work. Yet, considering the current state of facts, Pre might still prove itself an iPhone killer.
As for backgrounding capabilities, Apple is aware of the fact that other mobile platforms include the feature. And given the fact that Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Google's Android and Palm's webOS have it, it might after all reconsider its position on the matter and offer its users a solution able to meet their needs.
[Originally posted at softpedia.com]
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