Palm webOS Preview

Before CES, Palm looked like an inevitable failure in the global recession. Since their peak with the Palm Pilot PDA, the world has since moved on to more modern, elegant and featured devices like the Apple iPhone and the Blackberry line of smartphones. Analysts correctly predicted that if Palm were to continue as a viable company into the new decade, they would have to react soon, and their CES announcement of webOS certainly didn’t disappoint.

Many people have focused their attentions of the first device Palm will be releasing webOS on, the badly named Pre, and its certainly understandable why. The device features a sleek, minimalist, dare I say it iPhone 2 look, a curved slide-out design, full QWERTY keyboard, GPS, and even a mirror on the back. However, perhaps what’s most interesting to me is the system running the Pre which at first glance looks extremely impressive and has the possibility of being extremely competitive against both the iPhone and the Blackberry OS’s. Ultimately the operating system will be the difference between consumers flocking to get the device, or the Palm Pre just being another standard iPhone killer like the scores of devices before it, and for Palm’s sake, the sure hope that webOS takes on the description of the first option. Here’s a first look at the device from CNET, who awarded the Pre the ‘Best of CES’ award.

In this article, I’ll be looking at five key areas that have emerged from the early look at the operating system.

• Web Focused: Given its called webOS, you’d expect Palm to deliver a strong internet experience, and it definitely does for both users and developers.
• Intuitive Multitasking: We’ve had this available to us for ages on our computers, but I’ve never seen anything as intuitive on mobile devices until now.
• Universal Search & Cut-And-Paste: While Blackberry’s business-orientated market has been enjoying these features for a while, webOS does a good job implementing these features in intuitive ways.
• Applications & Media: Nothing special for a post iPhone device, but it certainly looks like Palm have set up the infrastructure for a wealth of good applications and download songs via the Amazon Music Store.
• Lack of Syncing Software: Probably the main downside of webOS so far; hopefully third-party developers can step in.

Web Focused: Let’s first take a look at the stuff you’ll probably be using day in, day out with this device. Firstly, webOS is designed to leverage the internet in a development standpoint, as well as in day-to-day use. When you view the Address Book or Calendar, people and events will be drawn from a variety of sources automatically including Facebook, Google, Microsoft Exchange, and the plethora of IM clients and bring them all to a single person/event page. This allows you for example, to chat with someone via IM, and then just as easily slip into SMS chat while they’re away from the computer, and as well as that receive that person’s Facebook updates while they’re on the run. Leveraging the status updates available in these dominant internet sites seems both in the interest of Palm and the respective sites, and the ability to directly sync with them in itself is a killer feature not found commonly on other mobile devices. webOS is powered by Webkit, the same browser engine as featured in Safari and Google Chrome, so this means that you’ll find the same snappy performance as these browsers whenever you surf the web.

The Webkit foundation allows webOS to live up to its namesake.

Developers will also have a fairly easy time programming for the device since they can use conventional web technologies like CSS, Javascript and HTML to write programs for webOS. This has some limitations, in particular 3D applications which require a stronger programming language like C++, but the power is available in the first device, and presumably all future devices, to create these more intense type of applications, so hopefully this will be something which will be allowed by Palm in the future.

Intuitive Multitasking: As I will mention in an upcoming article regarding the future of mobile computing, the key I see for mobile devices is for them to become more like our desktop computers. webOS’s most compelling architectural feature for me is the sleek application multitasking that the OS is able to handle. Multitasking certainly isn’t anything new; smartphone operating systems like the Blackberry OS, Google’s Android, and even Palm themselves in their previous operating system have had the ability to run multiple applications. The real difference in webOS is the ease of use with which this technology is able to be delivered. By leveraging a ‘gesture bar’ which is found below the screen on the Pre, swiping up will bring up a screen which presents a live preview of each application, and allows you to scroll along to the appropriate program. Tapping on the screen then opens the application. While this seems simple to the point of being almost elementary, that’s the genius behind why webOS is looking so promising. If the iPhone and Macs have told us anything, being able to perform the same tasks in easier, more intuitive ways mean people will find, use and abuse the same features more frequently than if the same task required a large number of clicks or taps. Multitasking on the Pre is definitely appearing to take something away from Apple’s playbook, and it means that perhaps I may actually be willing to utilise the full functionality my phone more often like on an actual computer, rather than just listening to music on the go, or perhaps worse for a smartphone, simply take calls.

Everything from bookmarking to application switching are just a swipe or two away.

Universal Search & Cut-And-Paste: Another feature which is found on the Pre which takes a swipe from computers at the moment are the universal features, like search and cut-and-paste. The ability to find any image, video, music file or document found on my mobile device, as well as being able to shift text from place-to-place via cut and paste are features that we have taken for granted on our computers, and is one of the reasons behind the success of Blackberry’s OS for business where ‘real work has to be done’. Providing these features on a mobile device is really important, and Palm has done a good job in integrating these relatively straightforward technologies into webOS. For instance, to activate cut and paste, all you need to do is hold your thumb on the gesture bar and drag the text to the bottom of the screen. Keeping it simple will allow users to access files on the Pre and other webOS devices as easily as on their computers at home, which is a big plus for future success of the operating system, putting it head to head with Blackberry.

Applications & Media: Palm are continuing the post iPhone requirement of ensuring that consumers have an application store and music store are available via your phone. While it difficult to judge the quality of how this will all work prior to its release, hopefully the positives of the Amazon store as we’ve seen on Google’s Android will extend to the Pre, and the quality of the hardware behind the Pre will mean that we see a good array of third party applications launch on webOS.

So far, DataViz, the same company behind the successful [Office Application]-To Go as found on the Blackberry have made available free Word, Excel and PowerPoint viewing abilities on the Pre, demonstrating that Palm along with several other business oriented features are hoping to take on Blackberry’s core market. Unlike the iPhone, the webOS will definitely allow turn-by-turn GPS, which at this point is probably one of the biggest selling points needed by Apple killers. One possible down side of the new operating system is incompatibility with current Palm OS applications. Make no mistake, webOS is not in any way connected with Palm OS, and all of these programs if you’re using a Treo or other Palm device, will not natively work on the Pre or other webOS phones without emulation software. The good news here is that many companies have the ability to develop this type of software, but personally I think that the fresh start and the power behind the web-based development tools mean that old-time Palm users who have admittedly had it tough over the past years will be treated to some really solid applications in webOS.

This alone is a compelling reason not to get an iPhone and instead get a Pre: turn-by-turn GPS!

Lack of Syncing Software: One of the negative things I have seen so far about webOS is the fact that Palm are not planning on having any syncing software with the device, which is extremely ironic considering that Pam were the company which popularising and arguably launched the mainstream PDA market on the notion of syncing. In an series of interviews which PC Magazine had with “top executives at Palm” (found here), the Pre (and for the foreseeable future all future webOS smartphones) will not come with any desktop software – music can be transferred via drag-and-drop from your computer or by purchasing them over the Amazon music store on the device. Furthermore, Palm at this time are only saying that “there will be solutions for people to get their Palm Desktop or Outlook info, and info from earlier Treo and Centro models”. Initially I thought that this was a really dumb decision by Palm. Without sync, like is done so elegantly on the iPhone, the only way to move around your stuff between your computer and phone is manually which is a real pain, and as I mentioned previously, simplicity and ease-of-use goes a big way to ensuring people utilise the full capabilities of the device. However, after a little thinking, their assertion that “there will be solutions for people” gives me and others hope that the door will be open for third-party developers to fill this void and to provide us with more robust syncing solutions than are currently available today. While iTunes does a fine good job of making sure that everything on my computer and iPhone are synced up, I don’t really have an alternative. While I still think Palm themselves should come up with a native solution in order to assist less computer-savvy users, I feel that as long as the operating system, webOS is strong and Palm allow it, developers will fill this void and unlike the iTunes-iPhone monopoly, provide us with better solutions that will be more beneficial in the long run.

Not having an iTunes like syncing capability won't sell units, but so long as Palm have an open policy for third-party developers, we should see someone develop a solution soon.

So as you can probably determine, I’m really optimstic about the future of Palm with webOS. As we’ve seen with the countless iPhone copycats, there’s a lot more to creating a smartphone than slapping a touch interface onto a phone that would otherwise function perfectly with a trackpad. Also, the Blackberry has shown us that by ensuring that features found in your desktop computer like search and cut-and-paste are present in your mobile device, you’ll actually be drawn to doing more work on your mobile device. If webOS’s potential says anything, it could be the double wammy that has the chance to draw in both iPhone and Blackberry diehards and restore Palm to its former glory. I have to admit, that’s a really big call considering I personally haven’t touched any webOS-based device, but that’s how much confidence I have based on early impressions thus far, and I hope that Palm live up to their potential on one of their most promising product the company has ever created.