With the announcement of the new Palm Pre and the new webOS operating system there has been a lot of missed and misconceived information regarding what it all lintels and what its capable of. Here is a rundown of what the Palm Pre and webOS really is.
webOs is not set to be a Palm Pre exclusive operating system. The Palm Pre is not the only device that Palm has planed to use webOS, we will see more devices to come, though we are not sure what exactly they have planned. Palm CEO, Ed Colligan, mentioned that webOS is to serve as Palm’s platform “for the next decade.” Needless to say the Pre will not be their flagship phone ten years from now so there will be plenty of different devices to choose that from in the future that run webOS.
The Sprint version of the Pre is not a world phone. Two separate versions of the Pre will be offered, the first version will be the US Sprint exclusive CDMA and the second will be launched internally as a 3G GSM handset. Bad news for businessmen and those who travel a lot as the CDMA version does not have a secondary GSM radio so it will not be able to roam on GSM radio networks throughout the world.
The new webOS cannot run legacy Palm OS applications because natively it represents a complete separation both architecturally and philosophically. There is the possibility that Palm would offer some level of compatibility that allows Palm OS applications to run on webOS, but it would never work the other way around.
The Palm Pre was not designed for, nor will it ever become a gaming platform such as the iPhone has. The reason behind this is the web-based standards for its applications making it near impossible to create complex games. However unlike Apple did in the early days of the iPhone, Palm is providing developers with the tools needed to take advantage of the gestures, accelerometer and other features of the device that typical web-based applications would not be able to do.
Also the Pre is not manufactured by HTC, Palm has declined to say who does make the Pre, but we have heard its not HTC. Its not new to know that Palm has worked with HTC in the past, but they have also worked with several other companies including Inventec that would love to have landed the manufacturing contract for this device.
For those who have obviously not watched the videos or do not know how to read pronunciation symbols, its pronounced “pree.” Not “pray” or “pree-ay,” just simply “pree.” Call it what you want, but it could be a fate worse than death in some cases.
Who came up with the idea that there would be multiple colors? Out of the gate the Pre will only be available in black. Palm may offer different colors along the line as they have with previous handsets, but for now your choices are black, black and oh yes black.
[Via EngadgetMobile]
