By now, you know precisely what the
Palm Pre is capable of. You know the
ins and outs of the user experience, and you've probably got a solid idea of whether or not you'll be lined up come June 6th to claim one as your own. But here's a side you probably haven't heard: the voice of the design team. At long last, the masterminds behind Palm's comeback phone have finally sat down to talk about the build process and what drove them to create both the Pre and webOS. Not surprisingly, most of it came from the desire to truly revolutionize the mobile experience, one that's been generally poor for far too long. In separate (but equally awesome) interviews, Michelle Koh and a gaggle of design engineers (including Matias Duarte, Mike Bell, Peter Skillman and Michael Abbott) have opened up to spill their soul on rejuvenating the company with a single product. We won't issue any spoilers here, but we'd argue that the read links below are required reading if you're even remotely interested in this handset.
Read - Michelle Koh interview
Read - Design team interview
posted June 5th 2009 9:21AM
This phone is a piece of sh#t.
That's the trolling spirit!
Apologies for the grammar written on a certain virtual keyboard.
I like that "geek becoming chic" line. Nicely done.
I am willing to take a step back from the iphone fandom and see that the Pre has a lot to offer, no question. The issue is that Engadget is all ready hailing it a success and not one has been sold, not one design award won. An interview with its amazing designers? Come on let the accolades come after its come out. Even the iPhone hype wasn't this huge here before IT came out. Give it a rest.
PS - 1 negative, that screen is going to get so scratched up.
If the screen is anything like my Creative Zen V plus, then no, it probably won't scratch very easily. My iPod Touch on the other hand, has some very nice scratches in it.
Have you guys seen the browser comparison video? Here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dewMwv4eQIk , now what do you say? iWhat?
thanks that was prity cool
I fail to see the attractiveness of background processes on the pre without a robust sdk. I will admit that the limited current applications available (pandora and fandango) come to mind are attractive over the iPhone. Being able to stream pandora while browsing or sending an email is awesome. But in regards to the build in Palm made apps, what functionality do they offer over the iphone. I believe that Mail, iPod, Notes, and SMS do run in the background, and at least will save your state if you need to go to the web for some data. To be clear im not showing blind love to apple, I am wondering if I have missed the huge appeal of this feature of the Pre. Any thoughts?
I think the main appeal is that you don't have to completely exit out of programs and restart them all the time like on the iPhone. Imagine a desktop experience where you have to keep closing programs and reopening them instead of just switch between programs. Sure the Pre is limited to how many programs it can have open at once but it sure beats only having one open at a time.
This feature seems like a no-brainer and most WinMo phones can already do it, but WebOS is a nicer mobile OS than WinMo and to have this feature is just icing on the cake.
One of the biggest appeals for the Pre is synergy. That means it is able to flow through multiple programs seamlessly (although we'll see how it handles on release).
The other part of the synergy is the consolidation of all your contacts and their information from various sources. It is designed that once you pull your contacts from Outlook, google, and Facebook (just the ones i've heard mentioned) you wont have 3 of the same contact; instead you will have one contact with all information from the 3 sources.
The final part of synergy from what I've been reading and understanding is that it will also allow continuous conversations through different IM systems. If your talking to someone on AIM, and then they text you, all of the conversation will be on 1 screen instead of seperated by application and SMS. You will receive headings for when they switch between services but that is the only break between conversations.
As far as the SDK, since the pre apps will be made using web languages, from my understanding, you should be able to write an app just like you would for the web, just designed for the Pre. It's what Palm has been blasting. They want developers to know that they don't need to learn a new language to jump into developing things for the Pre.
I think in terms of built-in apps, there's no real advantage to background apps. Because Apple already breaks the rules for themselves, allowing their music player to keep playing when it isn't the frontmost app.
The advantage is that 3rd parties can write apps that can run in the background. For example, look at the situation with IM on the iPhone. Apple didn't add it, and 3rd parties can't make an app that can receive your IMs at any time (only when the app is in front).
You're right, a weak SDK from Palm will slow the development of background apps, but not as much as a prohibition on them does.
@why not
I think something that Palm needs to do as soon as possible is allow a little deeper access to the hardware. From what has been said, it seems Palm has closed off a lot of the hardware from developers. That will be the biggest issue as far as the SDK goes. Also your example of the music player is the only instance i've seen from Apple that allows background apps. From the information on the Pre, everything on the Pre will be able to run in the background.
The design inspiration for the Pre was an ostrich egg. Ruby and his posse now "pre" they didn't lay an egg. We'll soon see.
Palm Pre unboxing ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSbgMOCzn6w
Mike Bell has only been there a year, Pre has been designed longer than that. Looks like the high ups are stealing the credit of others. Sounds normal, especially from Rubenstein, who would like you to think he invented the iPod.
I can't wait till the complaints come rolling in about how the Pre's battery doesn't even last a full day. Maybe then people will understand that when you do a whole bunch of stuff on your phone, it drains the battery faster, since most people didn't seem to understand that about the iPhone.
No, that happens when you hack together a desktop OS to run on a mobile.
My Symbian phone happily runs tens of apps in the background for 2 days.
So the real question is why is Pre better than the iPhone as you fanbois claim? When WebOS is also tied down to Palm's own devices...
Too bad the hardware is so cheap and flimsy and that they are on Sprint. Verizon would have been a much better launch partner and a GSM version would have had more ability to be marketed in Europe and elsewhere.
Says the guy whose never seen or held one.
I really like these insider interviews on product design, and I think the Pre and WebOS designers/developers did a great job. But this would have been really great had it come out at the same time as iPhone OS 2.0 and iPhone 3G, as opposed to iPhone 3.0 and iPhone Video (or whatever it will be called.)
One thing that caught my eye in the last article was the Pre being able to sustain a fall. That's one of three thing holding me back from even considering the iPhone. I don't like having to buy a case for my phone; I generally find them intrusive of the phone's design and/or of poor design or quality that allows the phone to be ejected from the case in a drop defeating the purpose of buying it in the first place.
Second on my list that the Pre has is a physical keyboard. I'm very tactile in nature and I prefer to feel what I'm pushing. I can presently touchtype on my Moto Q9c; I'd like to see someone with an onscreen keyboard do that without typos. Plus as the lady in the first article said, the onscreen keyboard takes up too much real estate.
Third on my list is the carrier. When the Pre is available on Verizon, it will fulfill this. AT&T's service in my location really sucked for a while and may still suck. Every time I talked with someone who was using AT&T/Cingular, the call would get dropped; when one of us called back, I would always ask if they were on AT&T/Cingular and they would respond with "how did you know". T-Mobile's just doesn't have the coverage I need. I was on Sprint for the longest time until their Customer Service pushed me over the edge and the fact that their service lacked in some spots; I don't think I'd switch back even if they've improved their CS due to their questionable 4G road map and their stability as a company.
I can't say for sure I'd get the Pre when it came to Verizon. So far everything I've read about it makes me want to. It will really all come down to it's ability to sync with Exchange ActiveSync, function as a PND, play movies, stream music, a great UI, have an SSH client, and have plenty of storage or expandable storage. The iPhone is a really cool device with some really cool applications. The cool apps that I've seen on the iPhone and Android, I hope will make their way in some fashion to the Pre and I think it would be good as sold in my book.
Wow, so much Apple cock blowing around here...