Palm today announced at CES the introduction of the Palm Pre. It is a beautiful looking machine. I was very pleased to read that Palm will introduce multitasking to the device and incorporate true wifi. Of course, not many have had the chance to either play with or see the device in person, so I, like you, am relying on 3rd party reports, pictures and videos.
The form factor looks good, but it would appear that the iPhone has been emulated in many parts. Palm has done away with the Stylus and opted for Thumb swipes. Additionally, the swipes are truly "liquid" with no staccato type movements. Second, the Apple Apps store will have some competition, with Palm literally following in the footsteps of Apple to create its own Apps store. The question of course will be, will Palm allow independents to directly put their products on the device or will it be locked down like Apples'?
I did not see any video playbacks and have a few questions. First, will there be legacy support (ie. Smartlistogo)? Additionally, will everything be Web-Centric? What happens when the web goes down? Will it continue to work? Particularly with the combined email accounts.
Anyhow, I think that Palm is moving in the right direction (by the way does anyone know if this really Linux renamed?) and I commend Ed Colligan for coming out swinging. Now, they will have to get this thing on a GSM platform also.
I cannot wait to see a true review of this device and to see this thing in action. I am also interested to see which developers have actually signed on for this device.
LDD.
