For the first time in a long time, Macworld’s Apple releases (or lack thereof) were upstaged by several announcements at CES this week. One being the Sony P series (more on that later) and the other being Palm’s new Pre. Many had written Palm off, but I have to say, they’ve managed to turn things around significantly with a very impressive new OS that’s based on open standards, and sounds like a very easy platform to develop for. Now there’s the obvious comparisons to the iPhone, and the obvious round of mac macs complaining about this and deriding palm, because now that Apple makes a phone, no one else can.
The Pre looks very slick though, and far more polished than anything else out there aside from the iPhone, although there are a few features “borrowed” from Apple’s device (but then, who hasn’t). It certainly looks a hell of a lot better than either Google android or Windows Mobile. It’s great to see a once innovative company come up with something modern and forward looking and I wish them all the best (although you’ll have to pry the iPhone from my cold dead hands).
One of the interesting things about this too is that it has three features the iPhone lacks, namely a removable battery (not a big deal), copy and paste (a big deal) and multi tasking (another big deal). What’s more is that the demos show it to be fast and responsive, so it kind of puts Apple’s “mobile devices just aren’t up to it” excuse in perspective. At the end of the day this is good for consumers because it will encourage competition. Apple shook up the smart phone market with the iPhone and palm will put pressure on them to continue to innovate, while providing those not interested or able to get an iPhone (due to the network limitations etc) a viable alternative.
If you think this is all just a bit of hot air from Palms perspective, you really should check out the videos of the device from Engadget. It really does look sleek.
[UPDATE]
Just one additional thought. From reading all the other blogs and reports about this, i’ve noticed something I haven’t seen outside an Apple announcement. Genuine excitement over a technology demo. Could it be that the company, under direction from a former Apple honcho might have learned from the way Apple does things? I don’t know but I think many people are glad to see someone other than Apple doing something really cool for once
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