If you were to put the Pre on a scale of hacker friendliness from 1 to 10, where 1 is the iPhone (remember how long it took
for the first jailbreaks back in the day?) and 10 is, say,
OpenMoko, we're starting to get the impression that Palm's latest effort falls somewhere
way past the 5 mark. We got out first hint that they're being good sports about letting developers play with the
Konami code access to developer mode, and now we've got news that it's easy -- nay, trivial -- to run whatever firmware you'd like on the phone. It seems all you've got to do is hold down the volume up key when connecting the Pre to your computer via USB, then you can flash the phone 'til you're blue in the face; even better, the enterprising dev who found the trick says that it's mega simple to modify the stock build and he'd wiped out the activation check with minimal effort. This can only be good news for tweakers and anyone wanting to walk off the App Catalog's beaten path, and if this ultimately means we're a few solid steps closer to a Pre running WinMo 6.1, sign us up. Way up.
[Via
Daring Fireball]
posted Jun 12th 2009 8:14PM
I read that as "Hebrew Pre...", needless to say I am very disappointed in the actual article for it's lack of cultural diversity. Shame on you Chris
Nope, the pre dosn't have hebrew support yet, maybe someone could port maemo and an do it that way,
seriously, can someone now port maemo5? would you want to?
Wait, you *want* Windows Mobile on the Pre?
I'm still scratching my head after reading that...
The homebrewed firmwares are probably modified version of webOS and can be likened to the various WM6.x ROMs you'd see on XDA forums. Another possible alternative would be an Android port.
Hey, you got something against Windows Mobile?
Seriously, why on earth would you want to ruin a Pre by putting WinMo on it? Dual booting Android, yes please. But seriously, WinMo? Especially 6.1. Gag me
Its not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. (j/k)
Winmo 6.5 on that thing would be BEAST.
Are you kidding? WinMo on a Pre? Why would you ever replace a promising, user friendly, UNIX based OS for WinMo? That's insane. Android maybe. Moblie OSX maybe.
I'm a proud Touch Pro owner and lover of WinMo and its flexibility...and I agree...why the hell would you want WinMo on mediocre hardware? The main draw of the Pre is WebOS, which really I think would be cool to port to the TP just to play with :-) The Pre hardware is nothing special.
No kidding! That has to be a joke right? Even if windows mobile wasn't completely shit, WinMo compiles to an ancient form of ARM's instruction set and doesn't even support graphics acceleration of the UI.
@Kamokazi
The Pre's internals kick the ever-loving shit out of what's in the Touch Pro. And Touch Pro 2.
Hmmm... You guys don't get a joke unless it's spoon-fed to you by Family Guy, I guess.
"Wait, you *want* Windows Mobile on the Pre?"
Remember, this is Engadget. Pre == the Devil to the iPhone == must be Windows FRIENDLY.
Aside from that... Yes, XDA folks have been altering WinMo phones as well as the older Treo models. Considering Tero hacks to other WinMo versions and other OSes and that Palm has traditionally been with sprint, I see no issues in allowing folks hack the Pre into a WinMo, Android, LiMo ,etc... It's status-quo.
Now to get the iPhone OSX on it (then I ask why?) would never happen (unless the OSx86 folks have something to say about that).
@Lien
Please note, I never said the TP was better hardware...I said I would like to try WebOS on it, and implied that I like the TP hardware more, which I do (and I consider that a personal preference...I prefer 640x480 and portrait slider). I also think the TP is fairly mediocre, hardware wise, mostly due to it's age.
But I stand by my statment: the Pre is also mediocre hardware. Mediocre does not mean it's bad, it just means it doesn't do anything terribly special to stand out from the crowd. Maybe the OLED screen? Portrait Slider formfactor?
Also, how you said the "Pre's internals kick the ever-loving shit out of what's in the Touch Pro. And Touch Pro 2."...that's just flat out wrong. Unless you define 'kick the ever-loving shit' as 'it might be marginally better if we could find an equivalent CPU benchmark'.
The RAM is the same, so no point in comparing that. And built-in flash vs. MicroSD? Well I'd rather be able to swap it personally, so we'll ignore that too.
So you're left with the CPU. The OSes are too different to attempt to benchmark them against eachother (IMO we will probably see Android-based benches eventually), and you can't do much more than guesstimate from the paper specs. And nothing indicates the Pre CPU is any sort of a massive leap. Quite the opposite. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's just a standard CPU advancement. But it's not anything to write home about like the new 1Ghz Qualcomm or nVidia Tegra chips that will be hitting mainstream mobiles soon.
So the best conclusion is that the Pre CPU is probably a little faster than the one in the TP. But far from kicking the shit out of it.
mmyea... im going to take that as sarcasm
I hope that was sarcasm because WinMo 6.1 is about as bad as it gets for smart phones these days. I have a diamond and tried to make due with 6.1 until last month after throwing my phone out of frustration I loaded up mighty rom 5 (uses WinMo 6.5 as its core) and feel like I am in a completely different world. Not too many tweaks but enough to make it much less frustrating to use without a stylus.
However, I still feel like operating systems such as mobile OSX and Web OS that are built from the ground up to be touch friendly thoroughly spank winmo in every single way. My iPod touch feels like a palace compared to my Diamond.
All that said: WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU PUT WINMO ON A PRE?!?
um.. putting winmo on the pre would be like swapping the stock engine from a 911 with that of a model t ford....
@Kamokazi, the HD can't even play a 700MB XVID file without jumping all over the place. The HD / Pro 2 are both underpowered pieces of shit and you know it.
my first thoughts exactly,why on gods green earth would u want to put WinMo 6.1 on that...
not that i have anything against WinMo,i'm a diamond user after all
good god man! pre with windows mobile...go wash your hands...
Somebody make a wifi router and i'll reconsider purchasing one of these
I have a few Wifi Routers apps on my Touch Pro runnig winmo 6.5. Had em since last year.
Windows Mobile 6.1? Shall we call the firmware build the Preo Pro?
I am quite content with what the Pre offers today. I think I can wait to see what the developers come up with when the SDK is available as opposed to any sort of jailbreaking apps.
The caveat being if Palm waits till 2010 to start allowing devs to code to the hardware. But with this info out in the wild, I can't imagine full SDK access is far behind.
I assume that Windows Mobile comment is some kind of poorly executed joke, as Winmo doesn't currently support capacitive screens.
lol @ preo pro
good god though! why the hell would anyone want windows mobile on the pre?
Humor, people! It's a Friday night! Man, tough crowd...
It was way too subtle, Chris. Also, the shock distorted our funny bones.
I agree Chris. Far too subtle. I was shocked. Shocked I say. Shocked!
@ Joshtops,
Come on, you ain't helpin'...
I've gots to agree, I was waiting for the
purumpum ching!
Beyond the fact that it is impossible to put winmo on a pre (it has a capacitive screen..) everyone here should have seen the humor. Loosen up guys.
:)
I saw the humor right away... I just wasn't sure if it was intended. But now I know, and I'm pleased to say that my brief doubts regarding your sanity were quickly wiped away.
I was abducted by Spider-Man when I was a baby, and that's why my left knee is larger than my right knuckle.
Man, it'd be awesome if someone somehow managed to shove old-school Palm OS on the Pre. (Alright, so we do have Classic for that and it's already faster than a Treo, but imagine how fast it could run if it wasn't just emulated)
Palm OS 5 would not work because it cannot support 3G networks.
I've been using PalmOS 5 on Sprint's 3G network (EVDO) for the past 2 years....
errr.....my treo 700p is evdo capable(although it's rev0 only)
Palm OS supports EV-DO just fine... the reason it has trouble with GSM 3G (UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA or whatever acronym you want) is because you can have voice and data at the same time, and Palm OS' outdated networking system has issues with that.
Of course, it's possible- even likely- that there are no Palm OS drivers for the Pre's specific hardware, which would probably be an issue.
Sorry, I should have clarified. GSM 3G will not work on Palm OS.
I will assert my authority as a Palm expert to let you know that PalmOS will support whatever systems and standards you can code extensions for it to support. So long as you are running on ARM hardware, you are only limited by your ability to code drivers for the hardware.
This idea probably stems from the idea that PalmOS cannot handle multiple threads, which is not true. It just may happen that Palm didn't write their own applications to support this, which is scarcely a limitation of the OS.
That said, PalmOS is a dead operating system now, and I for one wouldn't install it on new hardware. Classic is great because Palm has the largest library of mobile software in existence, most of which will run fine in Classic.
@dcoaster
Why not? Bluetooth was not supported at first, Yet it was modified to work. WiFi was not supported at first, but was added in. Same goes for SD, SDHC, and many other things.
If people could hack their LifeDrive to support SDHC (Or can purchase an SDHC driver) than why can't someone modify it to support GSM 3G?
Kinda have to blame Palm for this, as the SDK isn't out yet, folks want to dive in and play. Actually it's fun watching the discussion on this on the precentral forum.
I think it would be awesome to be able to load up some sort of xwindows env. and have a linux workstation in my pocket :)
Honestly, I prefer the idea of a rich DirectFB environment.
Engadget, dont you mean "android" on the pre? That would be nice.
anyone agree?
Yea. But actually I'd rather have it the other way around. Put WebOS(best mobile OS) on better hardware. Like an the G1, of course in most ways that hardware isn't better, but it's GSM and has a trackball. Of course that's probably far away if not impossible, but you can dream, right? Till then I guess I'll keep my obsolete, frustrating, annoying iPhone 3G with evil monopoly AT&T and sickningly expensive plan.
wow just wait till the SDK comes out, there's going to be some major developing happening..
then once it gets to verizon it's going to blow up again
I think I would rather have some Android loving on the Pre...
I think... I prefer WebOS. I would love for them to open it up and merge the two projects, though. A common foundation, with everyone getting the option of the two UIs, maybe more as others build them.
Of course webOS would still be there. Maybe even a triple boot of webOS, Android, and WinMo 6.1. The latter is only really there for the times when I need to work with an Office document. Heck, if they could even make an app that allows you to boot a diff OS on the fly, that would be ****ing awesome.
I wonder what Sprint thinks of all this...
same way palm feels
This being somewhat of a savior for the both of them, I can see them turning a blind eye in favor of the user base. I would wonder how long that would last for, though, maybe just until they get an SDK out the door.
If the 3GS and the palm have the same processor, does that mean you could run mobile OS X on the pre?
Speaking of which, imagine quadboot (Web OS, Mobile OS X, WinMo, Android) on start-up :drool:
Though, iPhone OS would have no idea what to do with input from a physical keyboard, presumably.
The CPU might not be the hard part. Getting the cellular modem to work right could be a big problem. I don't know about CDMA, but different GSM modems have different deviations from the standard AT command set. And some modems are multiplexed in different ways.
Mickey Lauer (of freesmartphone.org) wrote up an interested blog entry about the challenges involved in supporting different modems in FSO (the gui-agnostic phone stack sponsored by Openmoko). It's a good read if you're into learning about this type of stuff: http://www.vanille-media.de/site/index.php/2008/12/03/ogsmd-and-its-modems/
Now figure out how to hack it so i can activate one on my SERO account!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's what I was thinking. It says he was ale to bypass the activation. Does that mean that SERO would be a possibility now?
I love this phone more every day. Resistance... weakening...
"and if this ultimately means we're a few solid steps closer to a Pre running WinMo 6.1, sign us up. Way up."
but I got the pre for it's WebOS...not WinMo
Heres something to give everyone a boner, Mac OS (iPhone) on the Pre...
uhhhh why? because of all the Amazing apps... No Thanks. I'd honestly rather have 6.5
actually that just made my balls jump back into my abdomen...
Mac OS (non-iPhone) would be even more awesome. (Er, though I suppose you might need some sort of magic ARM-to-x86/PowerPC transformation)
How about Windows. Has more apps than OSX.
Here's something even better: Linux!
Oh, wait...
Call me crazy, but I'd like to see the Pre running with X-Windows and the freesmartphone.org (FSO) phone stack, on Linux of course. And GSM. In other words, a Linux distro like Openmoko's on the Pre.
The thing about FSO is that it really doesn't care what gui toolkit you use. You get the same kind of flexibility you have on Linux desktops. In fact, there are already two different phone gui's for FSO, Paroli and SHR. And another one called Zhone that is really just meant for testing purposes.
Then you're not limited to just phone apps. For example on my Freerunner I've used Firefox 3. It was a little slow on the Freerunner's ancient CPU, but it wasn't Fennec or MiniMo or some watered down version, it was the same Firefox that runs on desktop systems.
I've watched videos of Firefox running on BeagleBoards which I think use a CPU from the same family as the Pre's, and it seems plenty usable on it.
I'm just using Firefox as an example. Running regular desktop apps (or at least light weight ones like Abiword instead of OpenOffice.org) on a phone with a physical keyboard is exactly what I want. This fantasy of mine could presumably happen once Debian is ported to the Pre which will probably happen sooner than later. Or if Nokia actually releases a Maemo phone, even though they're making Ofono from scratch instead of simply helping with FSO which already exists and is almost ready for everyday use.
Heres something to give everyone a boner, Mac OS (iPhone) on the Pre...
It wasn't funny the first time dude
wow who would ever want winmo 6.1 on their phone? i use juicy custom roms and everything with my touch pro and it still will be buggy. android port would be awesome!
crysler something.... phones blocking the second word.
Does this get us any closer to Pre on Verizon? That could be a big bag of win right there.
Even if it was unlocked so it could run on verizon, would you pay 800 dollars for it?
WIth the Pre being hacked at this rate... i think WebOS will be what Google Andoid was supposed to be to the open source community.
I don't care about the Pre and it's average specifications, I want to see WebOS flashed onto other phones with better specs and appearance, perhaps something like HTC designs.
Are there any other phones built on the same Architecture other than the iPhone?
If that's the case, then HTC better get some better chips, because the Touch Pro wont handle this for the life of it. HTC has been getting raped by Qualcomm, because they put out processors with no driver support for 3D acceleration either:
A) HTC didn't buy the license for it
B) Qualcomm is being sued so they can't distribute a driver.
Ohhh, Maemo Fremantle on the Pre actually sounds quite nice.
Will we ever get a Pre free Engadget feed?
I'm s sick of the Pre
Pre
Pre
Pre
Pre
Stupid fanboys.
It just came out, why the rush?
Miles @ May 31st 2009 3:43PM
@Jeff
Thanks.
Yes I'll admit I'm an Applefan boy, but that is EXACTLY what I wanted to know, if this thing can run OS X.
Just because I have strong opinions doesn't make me a troll, Engadget.
fanboys ARE stupid.
Pre +1, Iphone -1.
I want to see more emulation fun on this 600mhz beauty.
Thats just to funny, but well i would like to see how long this will last. Someone finds something good, then a post on the interenet is made about it, then everyone knows, then palm knows, then that like backdoor is closed. Time to find a new one.
More serious note, so many things better then winmo can be put on here... lol
http://www.iPhoneNewsStand.com
Even tho its a joke, I would love to have a dual boot winmo/webos in my phone just for kicks, I would so run touch flo on it just to piss people off
That would be pretty sweet if you can dual boot on a cell phone.
Since we're getting creative, why not port Windows 7 to the Pre.... kidding. kidding.
Homebrew is cool as long as it doesn't break the rest of the Pre. I doubt Palm is going to be like Apple. If they get people clamouring for these devices even if it's just to hack them up and load a bunch of other stuff on it it won't matter. You'll still have to buy the phone and activate it which means that Sprint and Palm will both be getting what they were looking for.
Chance Stevens
Editor, http://www.preappsnmore.com
Blah blah blah!
Physical keyboard and hombrew?
Please, the only thing the fucking investors headed by MacNamee care about is that you buy a new Pre every six months or whatever. No one on the investor side gives a shit about the keyboard debate. That is your geek bitch! This is capitalism. Buy often and shut up!!!!
It is got to be sarcasm lol WinMo 6.1 for real? Anyhow you got to give it to Palm for being cool. With this openness Web OS is destined to become better and BETTER! well played Palm.
Windows Mobile will never be ported to the Pre, G1, iPhone or any other non-microsoft branded device since the bootloader and source code are proprietary. I wouldn't be surprised if Android gets ported to the Pre though...
Glad it was a joke. One of the things I was most Pre-excited about was finally being able to kick Windows Mobile to the curb.
pathetic to think palm still way behind iphone, as far as firmware n development.
Palm been mking cells for 10+ years n apple 2.
Pre get up to date already 50,000 ain't too much to be proud of.
It's gonna take more to save u, u need to learn how to appeal to the masses on a global scale.
Oh shut up : )
I am pretty sure the Pre CPU is running at 500 mhz, not 600 mhz like everyone is saying, though it would be simple enough to clock it at 600 mhz, but I don't pay $7 for the phone insurance so I'm not willing to try it :)
From PreCentral
Default CPU Frequency 500Mhz (from /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh)
#
# Set default cpufreq (BUG: need to set twice!)
#
echo 600000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
echo 500000 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_setspeed
why would be there anyone looking to run win mobile on a pre ...
This looks cool, there will probably be some really nice hacks for the Pre soon
The Symbian hacking community never got past installing uncertified applications, changing the startup animation and removing camera sounds here and there. It seems like the Pre will be more hack-friendly :)
Well, how about this:! WebOS on an iPhone. ha!
Completely irrelevant to the post you say?
sure is.
Actually no, not totally irrelevant as this can be found in the novacomd section of the Pre ROM.
---
unknown-bootie
castle-linux
pixie-linux
castle-bootie
pixie-bootie
zepfloyd-bootie
zepfloyd-linux
marmot-bootie
marmot-linux
iphone-bootie
iphone-linux
---
fergie-bootie
mixalot-likie
Only a matter of time before somebody ports the OS to the iPhone 3Gs.
The only thing good looking about the Pre is the OS...the casing looks shit in comparison to iPhone and you sure as hell know what im talking about..a good reason to pay a heavy price for a phone would be if it had a good OS, hardware, casing and a similar ecosystem to apple.
I prefer the looks of the Pre, and ecosystem is NOT everything.
-10, Engadget, for the flame bait.
Anyhow, I would love to dual boot the pre for WM 6.1, so I could run Garmin Mobile XT.