Palm's Pre Gets Previewed at CES

As expected, Palm introduced both its new OS and a new smartphone, the Palm Pre, at CES on Thursday. The introduction was done by Jon Rubinstein, executive chairman of the board at Palm, who once, as he said, worked for some "cool company in Cupertino" (and helped with some gadget called the iPod). Oh, yes, and that Ed Colligan guy (president and CEO).

The new OS is called Palm Web OS. When Palm eschewed Windows Mobile (though they still sell WinMo devices), Symbian, and Android for this new device, they took a chance in several ways. First, they need a hit to stay in business. Second, will anyone want to write for the device with so many other platforms around (including the iPhone)?

Palm addressed the problem of having to learn a new platform, by stating:

"If you know CMS, HTML, XML, you can design for this platform. If you can do web development, you can design for this -- no new languages to learn."

Now that was a good move. Now, about that device: Palm Pre (which rhymes with "gee," BTW)

Specs:

• 3.1" 320 x 480 screen
• OMAP 3430 CPU
• 8GB
• Slide-out keyboard (portrait)
• Ergonomically curved when keyboard is slid-out
• Separate Gesture Area
• EVDO rev.A (possibly to attract those who want an iPhone but don't want AT&T)
• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth
• GPS
• 3 MP camera
• 3.5 mm Headphone Jack (T-Mobile G1, ahem?)
• microUSB
• USB mass storage support (interesting)

All this stuff about the Palm Pre's hardware jives with info I already had.

Oh, and Rubenstein made sure he got in a dig at Apple by announcing that "By popular demand... you can replace the battery." Another swipe: "When you want to jam out an email... you don't want a cheesy virtual keyboard."

For the OS, Palm has introduced an interesting paradigm: something like a deck of cards. Press the center button and all open tasks become cards that can be flipped, moved, etc. Data is saved automatically when a card is "discarded" by flicking upwards.

And then there's Synergy. Synergy merges multiple data sources, like contacts, and calendar. You can grab data from multiple sources, such as Google, Outlook and Facebook, and merge them together with no duplicates.

Now that sounds pretty slick. You can even pull your email into one place, or keep the accounts separate, if you want.

You can search from the keyboard for anything, whether on the phone or not. Palm Web OS will search locally for items that match. Once it stops finding matches on the phone, it will allow you to search Google, Maps, or Wikipedia.

The web browser was demoed and thankfully we are now without the creaky old Blazer. It is (what else) very similar to Safari, with multi-touch, pan and zoom. Safari is just about the gold standard today, anyway.

As an aside they managed to get a laugh by going to SFGate (the SF Chronicle's site) and bringing up (on the front page) an article on the "Joy of Vole Sex: The critters and lovin' feelings come from hormones they share with humans."

Planned? Unplanned. A good laugh, either way.

Palm didn't hold anything back; they showed off a wireless charger for the Pre they called Touchstone. Interesting, but too bad it doesn't ship with the device.

Who's the carrier? Well, CDMA kind of limits the choices, and Sprint came on to say they have the exclusive rights to the Palm Pre at launch. Of course, I would have preferred to see Verizon, as Sprint seems to be hanging on by a thread, but so is Palm, and that makes them good partners in this venture, I think.

Timeframe? 1H09.

As I indicated before, why would any developer want to work on this OS, when Android and iPhone are going great guns? And after all, Palm doesn't have much star power right now.

Well, Palm said that Pandora told them that it took only 3 days to port their app to the new OS. And since that development was done in CSS, HTML, or JavaScript, they might have a chance.

So, what do I think?

• The phone is nice-looking, no doubt.
• It actually tempts me, and I have an iPhone.
• I have always preferred real keyboards to virtual, though in general I hate slide-out keyboards.
• The OS, and Synergy, look great
• It would have been nice if they had some sort of emulation for old apps, so they could launch with a ready-made catalog, but I can understand that would have hamstrung the old apps anyway.
• Sprint? Bleh.

It has a chance, but it needs to be a hit, and an unqualified one. Palm's life literally depends on it.