We thought we'd seen all that Palm intended to reveal about the magical company-saving
Pre at CES a few weeks back, but quality footage continues to roll in -- and it just gets even better when it's being shown off by an exec instead of your standard-issue PR type. Peter Skillman, Palm's design VP, does the honors here with a 4-plus minute overview of some of the cooler things the Pre has to offer, including a demo of the
Touchstone inductive charger at about 2:26 in (curious fact: it apparently uses the "same technology that are in gecko feet" to stick to the table). At the 2:06 mark, he puts down the
Nokia N95 for looking like a post-apocalyptic industrial design nightmare of exposed hardware and mechanisms (our words, not his), which is kinda funny since we'd never really considered the N95 as a Pre competitor. Finally, he wraps up with a quick look at the Amazon music store starting around 3:19 -- and at a first glance, it looks a heck of a lot prettier than the one we get on the
G1. Not to say we're going to let the prettiness of the store affect how much DRM-free music we buy. Wait, yes we are. See the full video after the break.
[Via
PreCentral]
posted January 29th 2009 10:57PM
awesome stuff .loved it cant wait go SPRINT
Wow he makes way too big of a deal about having the numbers on the QWERTY keypad. Just because you're the first doesn't mean you're the best.
I must say though that having seen the UI in action, I'm getting quite jealous of it. It actually looks more Mac-like than the iPhone I think lol.
kind of makes sense since the guy who designed the iphone and ipod is responsible for designing this as well. :)
@Talley
You're not talking about Paul Mercer are you? It was my understanding that he's been away from Apple for several years now. i know he founded Pixo, which created tools for the iPod's UI, but i don't think he was heavily involved in iPhone development.
Cant wait for the pre and bold to come out on sprint
Yea I would really like some news on the Sprint Bold...
did any one notice at the front of the video, how he unlocked the screen....knocking the ball out the circle. like when have to press the center key to unlock the phone on treos
Sync with iTunes. YES!
First time I hear somebody uses term "one hand UI" for a phone that you need two hands to use (one to hold, one to navigate UI). To me, the UI looked rather complex, so we'll see.
Pre looks nice. Too bad that the usability will be lousy because Sprint's network is the worst in the US.. not to mention lack of international roaming.
How unfair even comparing to N95, it was first announced sep 2006 and in its day was techically way superior to anything, 5Mpix cam, GPS etc
Funny how he keeps saying 1 handed UI, but it looks like you need 2 hands. I have used nokia 5800 and that is really 1 handed, much better than you might think.
Still think the UI is very promising. Hopefully it won't be laggy. I've seen some evidence of UI lag in the videos so far, but nothing too bad, and I'm sure they're still tweaking the software.
The inductive charger is very nice, hopefully other manufacturers will follow suit.
And it will be interesting to see what happens with the patent that Apple just got on multi-touch, and what they do with it.
I am a little surprised and disappointed about the lack of a microSD slot.
And I'm really excited to see what they're next devices on this platform and the evolution of this platform brings! The third-party software possibilities are endless too.
Good to see another really great device pushing some competition again. Android hasn't quite taken off as much as I thought it would, at least not yet.
Wierd to compare the Pré with a 2 years old phone. They don't have more ambition ??
USA please launch Palm Pre and G2 (keep price within $300-400) in India.It will help bridge the digital divide in India and it will help the USA overcome the recession in turn.
"" and its got uuuh uuuh a touch screen and uuhhh gekko feet and um uuuhh, cards.. uuuhhh""
Learn how to talk you boob.
Need to learn more about the SDK though. I mean for real? No gaming? No installable apps? Everything is basically a web page. Albeit a much nicer page since today we have the DOM and CSS and AJAX. But still...... its just a web page.
What about DB stuff? What about a fat client? And whats this I hear about 8 GB and no micro sd? Why is Pal shooting itself in the foot before the race even starts?
When did anyone say no games and no installable apps? The SDK isn't publicly available yet, but will be soon. Yes, 3rd party apps will be written in html5/css/ajax, but they are hardly just webpages. The SDK will have hardware access and software libraries making it a legitimate coding language-set.
For more details, check out: http://www.pikesoft.com/blog/index.php?itemid=204
funny way he shakes his head ...
i wonder why he is in DESIGN !! ;) ;) ;)
Quick correction: They're not the "first company ever to deliver the dial pad as part of a QWERTY keypad on a mobile phone" as the hiptop/Sidekick has had that feature for years.
I like "post-apocalyptic industrial design", its a style....honestly I'm not a huge fan of the way the Pre looks, resembles too much of the "VP of design"...
lol @ gecko feet technology.
OK, I've seen how he treat other phones, and I start to think this is an evil company.
The battery charger is the big news. It's the next wave of technology, look for a wireless version of of the charger in the near future.
MicroUSB? Not MiniUSB? I have 6 MiniUSB chargers and a couple dozen cables, but just one MicroUSB cable that came with a Runcore drive. Fun.
As for the Amazon MP3 downloader, I didn't see anything that much more attractive (or even different) than on my G1. It does appear that the media player is a lot better, but that's not hard.
I guess I'm lost on what's so special about this phone. I like the look of the keys, but I don't know how well I would be able to type on it (I loved my Dash, wasn't crazy about the Touch Pro, and I dig my G1) and I haven't seen much in the way of people using the keyboard. I would also like to see how content searching is carried out, as the G1 will stay within context (hit the key, it stays in YouTube when the app is up front and not default to the browser) and you can go all over the place with it. As phones get more storage (oops, my bad Pre, I guess searching isn't that important to you, yet) being able to find what you need and use it is also more important.
I am not a Palm hater (well, outside of how they tried to shutter the company for years with lousy products) but I don't see how this is so much better than everything out there, according to this blog. Hell, it's still being compared to a phone that can run only one app at a time...
Deriding the product of a competitor is not way to tout the virtues of your own--particularly since it still has yet to hit the marketplace.
I'm so used to tuning that out, but I see the point there. Why not compare to the N97, since that would be out at the same time, right?
Seriously, Palm? Reaching back 2 years and making the bold attempt at reaching the standards of the N95?
Talking up GECKO-feet and dialpad-within-the-QWERTY? Seriously, Palm?
This Pre requires the same TWO-handed controls to navigate that WinMo requires (for those actually paying attention to the video).
Seriously, Palm?
just because their vp of design is a boob and uses two hands doesn't mean it can't be used with just one.
what does he mean this is the first QWERTY keypad with numbers on it, hasnt he seen Nokia E71!??!
qwerty integrated dialpad on nokia e61 long time now