Pre puts Palm back in front
ALL it did was turn my Palm V’s greyish screen black. That’s it.
Called “Mirror”, that’s what it did: turn the screen into a mirror — using the age-old trick that a dark surface is reflective.
But this little downloadable application (app) for my black-and-white Palm about eight years ago epitomised what I loved about these original personal digital assistants (PDAs) in the pre-smartphone days.
The Palm was a device ahead of its time. The world never really knew what to do with these novel hand-held computers, and Palm’s leadership never knew what to do with their head start in what would become the smartphone race.
Palm’s clever touchscreens and handwriting recognition (of a sort, you had to learn their simplistic, capitalised version of the alphabet) took a long time to be bettered and lived for a long time in the memory of the early adopters.
It began with the first PalmPilot, as it was then known, in 1996. Founded by Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky in 1992, they sold their company to networking giant 3Com then quit after a dispute with the new owners in 1998. They started another company, Handspring, using the Palm operating system and innovated a new generation of handsets. Palm bought them again, and their then-US market leader, the Treo handset, but still failed to get ahead.
At one point, in May 1999, Palm had captured 73percent of the US hand-held computer market and 68percent of it globally. By 2004 that was down to 38.5percent. I gave up my latest Palm — the colour-screen, WiFi-enabled M515 — for a Sony Ericsson P900 with great reluctance, but it was clear that the age of stand-alone PDAs was over.
There were failed attempts at running Windows Mobile on Palm PDAs, and other blunders, that eroded market share and device confidence. Palm seemed buried.
Until January that is, when the Pre premiered, running a new OS called WebOS. Palm is back and the Pre is one of the best devices I saw at Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona last month.
It takes all the gestures and touchscreen innovations of Palm to a new level. WebOS is a startlingly mature and intuitive operating system (with the limited exposure I’ve had to it). It was a kind of home-coming to play with a Palm again — although, bizarrely, the guy demonstrating it was ordered to hold onto it at all times.
Apple is being credited for the success of its App Store, a web- based way to buy mini programs that perform clever tasks. Use the easy iTunes Store for browsing and buying apps (many are free).
All the other operating systems now have similar services: Nokia’s Ovi Store (Ovi is their range of new services), Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Android, and BlackBerry. Samsung and, obviously, Palm are offering this too.
Cellular operators are excited because people first download the apps (creating data revenue) and then use them and their often web- based services (creating more income).
Apple offers about 15000 apps and there have been about 500 000 downloads so far.
But the innovation belongs to Palm, the first hand-held computer and the first to offer apps from a so-called third-party (third after the makers of the hardware and software, even though, in Palm’s and Apple’s case, it’s the same company).
What is so pleasing about the current run on apps stores is that it vindicates the great idea Palm had of opening its operating system to other developers, whose imagination had gone wild. It couldn’t be a better compliment to Palm’s original genius.
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