Originally Posted by meyerweb:
Palm's major differentiating factor is touch screen + keyboard. Why would they give that up? And why in God's name would they make a device with a non-replaceable battery? That's the one thing nearly everyone despises about the iPhone.
But the real issue has nothing to do with form factor. Palm needs to get the software fixed, fast. Still too many bugs, too few features, too limited cusomizability, and way, way too few apps. Making a clone of the iPhone with all the problems the Pre has would just point out all the more how weak WebOS is, today.
Completely agreed with the last point. They'll keep tweaking and getting things ironed out. Rubenstein already said that they're a software company. That's what they do now is webOS. Once they truly get the foundation laid for their software (i.e. - GPU hooks for the OS' animations)... then I can see large slabs being a very desirable device, maybe even commodity by the time Palm gets around to it.
I'd love to have a Pixi2 (with different name, of course) for a phone, but I'd also love a huge (5+") slab, possibly even up to 7" or 8". But I'm thinking thin with a huge battery that fills all the space, like Li-Polymer. I want a webSlab. It'd be iPhone-esque design with webOS.
I always wanted webOS on something with a tablet-computer hinge so that I could protect the screen and landscape keyboard. But the keyboard I might be able to give up for a device like this.
No, scratch that... I want a
Pepper Pad 2 with webOS. I always wanted that thing, but it was just a bit underpowered. Today, OTOH, this would be incredibly easy to reproduce and sell millions with an awesome interface, like webOS.
Of course, webOS does need a bit extra work, doesn't it?
But I'm going to invest stock in Palm knowing what I know now. They're a software company.