Mobile MP3 Streaming | Palm WebOS and Pre
With the latest announcement by Palm, Inc. of their new Web OS we felt it necessary to share with the public more information
about this major design change by Palm, much of which they will not disclose to current users for reasons
mentioned below.
- Web OS currently only supports running CSS and Javascript programs. This is a very limited set of tools to
developers. While Web OS is built on top of Linux, Palm is currently not saying if there will be a way to compile
native C programs on their device. By not allowing C compilation they will hold a monopoly on building applications
that utilize the built-in camera, that play sounds, that utilize the internet in useful ways, etc etc.
- The Pre is by far the best hardware device Palm has ever released. It's got everything the iPhone has and
an extra slide out keyboard. But if Palm is planning on being competetive they need to allow native
development for all those hardware goodies like Apple allows for iPhone developers. Although the iPhone does have this,
we do not endorse the iPhone because of Apple's ability to restrict users from putting applications on it.
Palm recentely announced doing the same thing so this is another negative point against them Palm Inc.
- Palm will not vefify if old Palm OS 5.0 applications will run on the Pre or not. It is possible if they ship
an emulater like Garnet VM, written by ACCESS, on the device. ACCESS bought the Palm OS from Palm Inc. in 2005 and
then Palm Inc. paid ACCESS for
a licensing agreement in 2006 for use of it in their smartphones. This leads us to believe that the 2 companies
do not have a working business partnership that would foster such a move. In fact it is our believe that Palm has
been trying to phase out the Palm OS for a number of years now. Evidence of this shows by Palm Inc. building devices that
run Windows Mobile immediately following the sale of Palm OS.
- We contaced Palm regarding their attempt to rebrand Palm as Windows Mobile and the confusion therein.
They would not comment on whether they wanted to see the Palm OS continue to thrive or not. Cobalt which was
suppose to be the next version of the platform never made it's way to the public.
- We recommend to anyone interested in buying a Pre to instead buy a Palm Centro. The release of the Pre is still as
much as 6 months away and will need quite some time after release to prove itself to developers and end users. Palm
still has yet to release an emulator or any development tools for the device.
- If you are a potential investor of Palm stock we suggest holding off. Palm stocks have dropped 90% over the past
few months and then came back up with the announcment of the Pre. This excitement will soon wear off unless
Palm takes serious steps in turning Web OS into something real.