[Gene]

Congrats to Palm on taking a huge step forward. It's good for everyone if there is competition to make each other's products better. As a long time Palm/Handspring/Treo user who switched to the iPhone, I'm happy that Palm is going to live another day.

Pros
I really like the Card concept and being able to preview many cards on one screen. I also really like the notification methods. It makes so much sense to notify the user, but not take over the device. The touchstone is nice. Basing your OS on html standards is interesting. If it is as easy as they say, there are a lot of developers out there that know html/ajax. However, I wonder how much customization they had to do to make the applications do what they showed on the screen. That doesn't appear to be standard html/ajax/web 2.0 stuff! It appears Palm isn't going to be big brother! I think Apple's making a huge mistake by ticking off developers and not being responsive to them. The background notifications/multitasking is a huge plus.

Jury's still Out
Will the phone be stable and work? After going through 700p and 755p fiasco's I wonder if Palm can just get it to work? Ask Bob C! Will Palm support their users and not abandon them? The 755p was supported with 1 maybe 2 firmware updates and still left buggy before they decommissioned it a little over a year later. Apple has had 4-5 firmware updates, almost 1 a month for the 3G.

How long will it take to get garnet Palm apps support? From what I read Palm said it could be taken care of by third party software, however, it doesn't appear out of the box that your current apps will be supported. So, you will have to buy new versions of everything.

Can the webOS handle compex apps? I read that 3D gaming is out for now, so what other apps, will webOS not be able to handle?

Too late?
When Palm releases this device, it will be 2 years after the first gen iPhone. Did they miss the window? Even if the webOS proves to be a better technological solution that the iPhone, did they miss the party? See Microsoft and Apple. Windows dominates the market partly because they released first and improved their product. Currently, it seems like Apple has mastered marketing and is in the eyes of many consumers because of the iPod.

Overall, I'm glad their is more competition and more innovative ideas coming to the smartphone space. It will be interesting to see in the next several years how things play out. Right now the Pre appears to be the hot girl you see in the bar. Will she still seem hot in the morning after the beer goggles wear off?

[whatever7]

I only worry about the price. The smartphone market is much more fregment than 2 years ago or 4 years ago. I think most light weight 3rd party app are moving toward web centric approach.

Also, the QC problem with the 650, remember those?

[Merovingian]

The morning after Pre, eh....

[clevin]

honestly I was just "so-so" yesterday with engadget and gizmodo's live coverage.

But this morning after I read ars's article, I get truly excited.

Yesterday I had the feeling that "I support palm, even if this product is just about same as iPhone's quality, as far as I see it".

This morning I suddenly realized (after ars's article), "man, this is leap and bound ahead of iphone and anything in the market!"

The task centric multitasking, nobody done it at all.

It reminds me of the ubiquity addon of firefox, and previously saw concept video of future generation of firefox. They blur the idea of app, they focus on what users "DO", with a initial starting platform, no matter what app comes up.

This is CLOUD, this is beyond the idea of "individual apps", this is the future of not only smartphone, this is also the future of computer system.

Im deeply impressed, and I will get this thing ASAP.

[Kasracer]

Just don't think about it. Palm will release additional details later and you'll get a better idea for all of your questions rather than some forum users guessing at the answers.

[TomD]

My biggest regret is that I was so excited about the Pre that I forgot to buy some Palm Calls yesterday.

The stock is going bonkers since the demo.

[TomD]

clevin,

You need to watch all the TC videos. They cover a lot more than the Ars video.

[B-model#CB]

Good post.

And good question about Plam support. The 700P / 750P issue was really a killer for those of us who were willing to get the "higher end" palm stuff. I , for one, am only still using plam because the centro cost me 59$ to replace my buggy 700P.

They are deliveiring a new OS, Smaller phones, Wifi, ne wpackaging, new website, and some creativity (touchstone) but what about customer support ?

[mhconley]

My biggest regret is that I was so excited about the Pre that I forgot to buy some Palm Calls yesterday.

The stock is going bonkers since the demo.

I'm kicking myself, too...

Too late?

When Palm releases this device, it will be 2 years after the first gen iPhone. Did they miss the window? Even if the webOS proves to be a better technological solution that the iPhone, did they miss the party? See Microsoft and Apple. Windows dominates the market partly because they released first and improved their product.

You got that one backwards. Apple released the Macintosh and their mouse based GUI/OS well before Microsoft released Windows. Microsoft dominates because they took Apple's idea and improved upon it. Exactly what Palm is doing with webOS/Pre vs. Apple's OS X/iPhone.

As a side note Apple took Xerox PARC's mouse and introduced it to the mainstream by improving upon the original idea.

Proof the early bird may get the worm but the late bird may bet the bigger, fatter worm.

Martin

[Gene]

Yes, my memories of the 650 have slipped a bit. Having the 600, 650, 700, 755p, I can't exactly remember which bugs were in each phone. However, I do remember that the 700p was pretty much useless. I do have many memories of my 755p reseting when trying to pick up a phone call

It's a given that due to Apple's financial strength (how many billions they have just sitting in the bank - 30B or ??) and their customer base, 10M iphones in 2008? that they are actively supporting their cash cow. For Palm, no one knows if they will be able to do that since they aren't financially stable. Maybe Palm will be able to do a turnaround like Apple and do very well in the future.

I was typing too fast when saying MS was first out of the gate. However, MS did release their products quickly and kept on releasing new products to fix their mistakes. MS also kept their platform open while Apple insisted on a closed platform. I may very well be wrong, but I think Apple's 2 year head start may be too big to overcome. Apple will be releasing their 3rd iphone when the Pre is released. The iPhone OS will be 2 years more mature, tested, used, then webOS. For Palm's sake, the webOS better work as advertised. I believe all of us have had faulty bluetooth, stability issues, hardware issues, etc from Palm?

Either way, I'm glad there is another competitor to raise the bar. I haven't looked to much into Android and am not blown away with what I see. webOS has the possibility to be great.

One last thought - if your prefered vendor is partnered with Palm, then you'll be ok. I.e. gmail, facebook. However, if you use yahoo mail, hotmail, then will your data be as tightly integrated into the OS? Will there be push/calendar syncing for Yahoo/MS Live?

[EdCates]

One last thought - if your prefered vendor is partnered with Palm, then you'll be ok. I.e. gmail, facebook. However, if you use yahoo mail, hotmail, then will your data be as tightly integrated into the OS? Will there be push/calendar syncing for Yahoo/MS Live?

Yahoo! is listed as a partner, I believe.

Also, regarding webOS vs. OSX Mobile, read Ars' article about the limitations the iPhone has because of the OS choices Apple made, vs. Palm's OS choice.

Also see Ars' writeup about their anonymous chat with someone that has worked with the webOS SDK.

[gideon213]

I may very well be wrong, but I think Apple's 2 year head start may be too big to overcome. Apple will be releasing their 3rd iphone when the Pre is released.

I think you're seeing this wrong... Pre does not have to defeat the iPhone or even surpass it in sales, anymore than Mac's had to defeat PCs or surpass them in sales, in order to be profitable and survive. I would not bet a dollar that Palm will outsell Apple's offerings anytime soon, but I would bet money that they can move enough product to be profitable again and expand into the future. That's all they need to do, they do NOT need to beat Apple. They just need to move product.

The iPhone has many limitations that has kept a lot of people, including myself, from jumping on board. While some of these limitations remain in the pre(no removeable/upgradeable media), the core platform limitations seem to have been addressed in WebOS in general.

[Shadowhawk]

[snip!]
But this morning after I read ars's article, I get truly excited.
[snip!]

Ummmm, who or what is "ars", and where can I find ars' stuff?

Thanks!

[Kasracer]

Ummmm, who or what is "ars", and where can I find ars' stuff?

Here ya go!

[Shadowhawk]

Here ya go!

Thanks!

[Kasracer]

Thanks!

I don't think the article I linked to was the one clevin was talking about but I still found it interesting.

[meballard]

One factor on the stability issue is that Palm presumably isn't developing the entire OS. Since it is based on Linux, I'm sure they are relying on a lot of mature stacks in the background to handle a lot of the hardware functionality, and then writing the interface on top of that. With Garnet, they have had to maintain the entire OS code, making it do something that it wasn't originally built to do, and therefore considerably more likely to run into problems.