Palm Pre: Is Palm back from the dead?

Everyone has heard about the Palm Pre and how it wowed everyone out there at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) including tech geek blogger Robert Scoble. Scoble says how Palm did what Nokia, RIM and Microsoft couldn't do, and that is build a user experience better than Apple. Palm overhauled their previous UI and interface and developed WebOS, it's web-based operating system, where everything is web-based.

The Palm Pre was shown by Engadget's Joshua Topolski on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon:



But don't count Apple out, apparently Apple's iPhone 3.0 software is supposed to be due out for preview on March 17th (tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day) and is going to have a lot of Palm's webOS features. The race is heating up with iPhone 3.0, Palm Pre and webOS, Google Android, and Nokia Symbian. But I'm still looking forward to the Nokia N97.

On Technorati: Palm Pre

Technology summary for August 28, 2008

Today, I'm going to start a new thing, writing a technology summary of the news that I have read for that day and writing my own comments. Hopefully, it will be easier to read than having to post so many posts a day and inundating people reading my blog.

The first news to share is that of Palm. People know that I have a Palm Zire 71 and I haven't upgraded it. It's actually not in use right now since I have found out that the Nokia N82 is serving my needs quite well for now. It seems that Palm is coming out with the Palm Treo Pro, and by the looks of it, it's getting some good reviews and looks really sleek.



It's been a while since Palm came out with a good device, Palm has lost its PDA and smartphone marketshare to Apple's iPhone, RIM and Windows Mobile. This shows that Palm is still not dead yet. In fact, in this article, Palm has a plan to come back into the game. They just hired Jon Rubinstein to help them out with their design and save Palm. Jon Rubinstein apparently is noted in the industry, he helped Apple get back on its feet with the hit iMac and iPod designs. In fact, Jon has hired a bunch of other employees previously working at Apple, to reign the ships at Palm. I think this is really good news for Palm. And Palm is working on their next generation OS, Palm OS 2.0 which features stuff from BeOS that Palm bought a couple of years ago. Let's see how this goes, having many competitors boosts great value for customers.



The second news is that an Android phone maybe coming to market this year. Android is the software from Google for creating a mobile phone OS that is open source. There has been talk about Android for a while now, but no actual phones that are powered by Android. There are rumours that T-Mobile in the US is going to come out with an Android phone called the HTC Dream later this year. More details can be found here. Latest news that I've found is that the date for launch of the HTC Dream is October 13. I think this will spur great innovation and customer choice in making the phone become more open source and allowing developers to develop easily for phones as they can now for PCs. I can see great momentum and excitement in the mobile arena. Can't wait to see how the Android phone will look like. I wonder how many will buy the Android phone and how the numbers will compare to Apple's first launch of the iPhone.



Third bit of news is that Japan is planning to open up their technology for wallet phones that uses a computer chip called FeliCa for allowing you to pay for goods using a reader installed at cash terminals. I think it uses NFC communications. I've been waiting for a eWallet like this, I carry so many cards (as I'm sure many of you do as well) it would be nice to loosen my pants (not physically of course!). And how many times you can't find the right credit card or loyalty card because you left it at home!

Anyways, this sounds something similar to RF tags like Esso's SpeedPass or the Dexit tag which I've tried back in Canada. I would love this on my phone. Of course, one thing to make note of is that if I were to lose my phone, there needs to be an option where others wouldn't be able to access my credentials. Maybe something where the phone automatically erases all the information when an attacker tries to get in or the phone explodes. Kind of like a sci-fi scene.

Palm Foleo: what?

Just read today from Engadget that Jeff Hawkins unveilled a new product from Palm, and no it's not a Palm handheld or a Treo. It's something totally different, it's what he calls the Palm Foleo mobile companion. You can see it below.



The Foleo is meant to complement your Treo smartphone, in the sense that if you want to read your e-mail on a large screen, you can just press a button on the Foleo and it will transfer the e-mail via Bluetooth to the Foleo and you can read it there. So, when I read about this, I thought so what? What's so cool about this? I mean we already have 10-inch laptops which can do more, we have Ultra Mobile PCs that Microsoft unveilled whose size and form factor lies between a handheld and a laptop. What does Palm add that makes it so exciting, and why is Palm adding it to its lineup, rather than focussing on making a better Palm handheld, something like one similar to iPhone that can do video, MP3, cell phone, handheld?

I really am not quite sure what Palm is thinking, I mean most executives have a laptop and a smartphone or RIM or Treo, so why would they need a Palm Foleo? The only thing I can think of is that to transfer the data from the Treo onto the Foleo, so you can see it in a bigger screen. You could probably do that with a regular laptop although it probably wouldn't be that easy or seamless. For e-mail, you would probably have to connect to the Internet on the laptop and then download the e-mail but there may not be Internet or wireless on the train for example. Then, that might be a reason to use the Foleo. But other than transferring documents over to see at a bigger screen, I don't see any other benefit.

On Technorati: Palm Foleo, Palm, mobile companion, Jeff Hawkins

Windows Mobile 6 released

Microsoft's Windows OS for mobile devices called Windows Mobile, has been upgraded to Windows Mobile 6. It was just announced at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. Palm's Treo 750 will be upgraded with the new OS as is shown in these pictures below. The pictures come from the Engadget blog:







According to Treo Central,

The new OS also brings with it new naming conventions, gone are "PocketPC Edition" and "Smartphone Edition." Instead we have the more simplified:

* Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition - for non-touchscreen smartphones
* Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition - for touchscreen smartphones like the Treo
* Windows Mobile 6 Classic Edition - for non-smartphone, touchscreen Pocket PC devices.


Many people feel that this is an evolutionary upgrade rather a revolutionary upgrade, that it should be called Windows Mobile 5.5 because it fixes some stuff from Windows Mobile 5. But apparently it does add some new features listed below (also coming from TreoCentral):

* Built-in Windows Update(!) - Will the carriers stand for this? I know that Palm spends months testing the most minor of bugfixes so the carriers won't have a bird.
* Built-in memory card encryption and the ability to do remote-wipes.
* HTML-formatted email (I don't want this, but others do).
* A neater feature is "SmartFilter," which automatically filters your emails as you type just like most contacts applications filter your contacts. SmartFilter also works on your music collection.
* Better Live Mail (nee Hotmail) integration, including contact integration.
* 320x320 Screen Resolution support - Palm, I expect a new WM Treo yesterday with this screen resolution.
* Windows Live goes out of Beta and will be built-in
* Direct Push now standard (has been for awhile on WM5, but I know some of you are still stuck without it)
* 3rd party software should still work fine - just in case you were wondering.
* Microsoft Office Mobile updated - now full edits documents on all editions of WM6!
* Pocket Internet Explorer to be faster, they're saying 30% faster - let's hope! Also new, "Mobile AJAX standards"
* Better Vista integration
* Enhanced Calendar, including a "ribbon."
* Improved Security
* Built-in VOIP(!) - no, not really, but they added support for it "under the hood", according to cnet.
* A ton of smaller tweaks, changes, fixes, improvements, etc.

Vista integration and Microsoft Office integration, along with Windows Live Mail (now to be renamed Windows Live Hotmail to not lose the current Hotmail branding), and of course Windows Mobile media player, it's part of the Microsoft ecosystem of the Windows family. First, Microsoft conquering the desktop, now they want a chunk of the web. And why not, right now Google is beating the pants out of them!

On Technorati: Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft, Treo 750

Palm Train

I was waiting for the GO train at Union Station on platform 3B, when I saw this train car coming near me. It was an advertisement of Palm on the train car. So, naturally, I had to sit in it. I took a picture of it with my Palm (of course, the Palm and gadget geek that I am), while passengers were boarding the train.

Then, I took a picture of it again after I arrived back in Oakville. Yes, it's these things, that I have to take, it's in my gadget blood!



On Technorati: Palm train,Palm