Palm Pre - phenomenal UI!!!

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

Anybody following this new handheld device's release? It's the first of the iPhone-esque devices that has really made me sit up and take notice (I own an iPod Touch).

I was unimpressed with the T-Mobile android G1 and the blackberry storm and the samsung instinct... but this device's UI sounds incredible from the information and photos i'm seeing. The first time I saw one of these competitors and say "Wow, that software is actually better than the IPhone)

It does multi-tasking in ways that the iPhone and Android can't dream of, and it has copy and paste, and has a really neat feature: The touch/gesture area extends below the screen to a black area under the screen, so you can control onscreen things by also making gestures below it..., drag your finger up from the gesture area onto the screen at any point and a "quick launch wave" App switcher comes up (a la alt+tab in windows or osx)! Instead of seperate apps for everything, it pulls in information from other apps in some pretty impressive synergy. Like you can read SMS messages onscreen without switching apps, open up contact cards that pull in information from SMS, facebook, and phone, without having to "switch apps". tons of stuff like that... great multitasking. You don't open and close apps to go to different features, it's all intertwined. i suck at explaining stuff like this but I am very impressed by the UI. The videos show this really well
It also has WIRELESS CHARGING (!)... along with the natural other features (webkit browser, accelerometer, etc). Also has a slide out physical keyboard. I can't stress how cool and sleek the UI looks though

http://live.gdgt.com/2009/01/08/live-palm-keynote-coverage-from-ces-2009/#more
VIDEO: http://i.gizmodo.com/5126752/palm-pre-full-video-tours

Sprint-only at release, with eventually being released for other carriers.

Nice job resurrecting yourself Palm. At the very least, someone actually producing a superior UI will motivate Apple to one-up their existing UI for the Iphone 3.0!

 

[CaptJimboJones]

Wireless charging, really? I honestly didn't think that technology existed.

 

[backstept]

I guess Palm is finally in the 21st century
their previous UIs looked like Windows 3.1

 

[Ptrope]

^^

Inductive charging - essentially, the same thing the GM EV1 used - a magnetic field collapses over a coil, creating an electric current inside, which is stored in the battery. They must have shielded the internals so the programming and memory aren't affected.

Still has the headphone jack in the worst place, though - I've had Treos for years, and they all have the jack on the bottom, where you can't get to them when it's docked. Not a problem with the Pre on the desktop, but I doubt a car holder will use that system, instead having a normal 'pocket,' making it impossible to plug in a cable to connect it to the car audio system. Now, if they build a plug into the car holder, then great, but so far, I haven't seen that with any other holder for a Treo. Oh, and they finally used a 3.5 mm stereo jack instead of a 2.5 mm mic jack, so you won't need an adapter for headphones or anything else.

Otherwise, it looks like a pretty sweet device. I just wonder whether it's too little, too late to save Palm. This should've been out a year ago to do them any good, and it's still 6 months away even now. (Needs a better camera, too ... )

I guess Palm is finally in the 21st century
their previous UIs looked like Windows 3.1

Why change what works? Windows Mobile is a cumbersome OS for a handheld device. Even OSX is to much for the iPhone. Desktop OS makers are idiots for putting their desktops on mobile devices, period. PalmOS needed updating, but that was internally - I'll take the UI on my Treo over Winblows Mobile any day.

 

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

The full keynote is here:

http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/palm-pre-ces.html

I can't stress how awesome WebOS looks... this is actually closer to "real OSX on a mobile phone" than the iPhone's UI. The way it uses gestures to navigate applications, get rid of them, threading, multi-tasking, is phenomenal.

 

[Ptrope]

Thanks for the link! Just watched the video - really impressive! I just hope Palm's lateness to the party doesn't seal their doom, because as OSes go, WebOS looks to have it all over the competition. They've done a really outstanding job of utilizing the real estate of the Pre's 'face', and the synergy between the apps and the user's various data stores out on the Internet is impressive - I love the ability to integrate SMS with IM, to integrate all of my mailboxes or contact lists into a single location (and still be able to segregate them when I want!). The multi-tasking is a long-awaited feature that could really improve the experience, as well, and the fact that one can write new apps using only HTML, Javascript and CSS should make this a killer developer platform.

And with stereo Bluetooth, it looks like my concern over the jack placement is gone . I can finally use my Palm as my car's audio store without having to plug it in and then lay it on the seat where I can't easily control it! Yayyy! With 8Gb, I won't need a card like my current Treo 680 and I'll still have 4x the available space. I can live with that!

 

[Trekker4747]

Can't say I've ever had a "phenomenal" urinary infection, but I also don't own a Palm so maybe they offer some medicinal value I'm not aware of.

 

[firehawk12]

Hah, well... we'll see if Palm manages to get back into the game after this one.

 

[JoeZhang]

Lots of whining from palm OS old-timers about this - oh well I look forward to this phone!

 

[Sheep]

Lots of whining from palm OS old-timers about this - oh well I look forward to this phone!

The Palm OS old timers can whine all they want, as their OS is ridiculously outdated by today's standards. I say this as a Palm TX owner whose gotten plenty of use with it on his travels who thinks once a decade is a little too infrequent for updates. Considering PalmOS's lack of meaningful updates for the better part of this decade, it's about damn time they started updating it if they actually want to continue to exist as a company.