After years of being behind the power curve, false starts, and major market share losses, Palm has introduced yet another new operating system for cell phones and related devices. Called webOS, the new OS described as task oriented rather than application oriented as other current competing cell phone operating systems are. Concurrent with the new OS Palm is also introducing a new cell phone called the Palm pré available in the first half of 2009.
The heart of the new OS is the simplified developer interface that requires only CSS, HTML, and JavaScript to develop applications. In short, there are no new programming languages to learn and almost all of the hardware is directly accessible through JavaScript.
The announced Palm pré has all the features expected of any modern Smartphone and will transition between communication sources such as Sprint EVDO and 802.11 b/g to ensure the best possible signal reception. The nearby picture of the new phone shows a very readable area for books. My first MobileRead eBook experience was PalmDoc on an old Palm OS equipped Samsung cell phone. This looks like the first real advancement since then.
Unlike some other prior Palm announcements that depressed the stock price, share prices rose 35% after the latest announcement. If the early enthusiasm is well founded then Palm is back and a viable alternative to Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s Blackberry.
Additional information is available from
ars technical and
Yahoo Financial. A Palm video of the pré is available
here. More information at the
Palm website.