I never thought I'd say this past 2003, but it looks like Palm could be a contender. Last week, Palm threw its hat in the mobile web-enhanced smartphone ring with the Palm Pre.
There are a lot of touchscreen phones out there competing with the iPhone and Google G1. Believe it or not, the Palm Pre was the talk of the town at Las Vegas' Consumer Electronics Show conference last week. The big news? The entire software stack is a bundle based on HTML 5 and JavaScript.
That's right. Forget iPhone's Objective C or Android's Java. The entire thing is based on something most developers know like the back of their hand already.
This is a platform stack Webmonkey can really get behind. No word on how integration with hardware, such as the built-in camera and GPS. The browser is built on Webkit (same as Android and iPhone). Web pages and applications will be built into the operating system. "Cards" will provide direct links to web applications. Messaging will be built-in to the address book. The prospect looks to be a promising leap forward for the mobile web and as a mobile access point to the web.
The hardware is impressive, of course. However, the big news here is the WebOS it is built on. Similar to the iPhone and Android competition, the ability to actually use the phone on devices far into the future is the big win here. For instance, I would love to see this WebOS or the iPhone and Android OS on a netbook.
Of course, anything this exciting would forego something so tangible as a launch date. On the bright side, the phone is bound for months of speculation and opinion. Welcome back to the limelight Palm.
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