
Palm Pre to arrive on Sprint on June 6 - sant0sk1
http://blog.palm.com/palm/2009/05/palm-pre-availability.html
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jrockway
It's kind of a shame that the smartphone universe is becoming so fragmented;
iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Pre, whatever Nokia uses and Android. The
result is a bunch of OK apps for each platform, rather than really good apps.

For me, owning a smartphone has been a big waste, since it doesn't actually do
anything smart. When my contract runs out, I think I am going to get the
simplest phone possible, and a 3G USB dongle so I can use a real computer for
real computing. But it disappoints me, and I hope the market fixes itself.

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jmtulloss
What are you looking for in a smartphone?

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old-gregg
Even though you didn't ask me I just couldn't resist anyway: I'm looking for a
100% POSIX-compliant machine, i.e. I walk into my house, it grabs my Wi-Fi, I
ssh into it, compile and run any POSIX-compliant C code leveraging thousands
(if not millions) of POSIX programs and libraries: from Python, Haskell and
vim to RoR, Apache or MySQL if I wanted to... I could also run a proxy,
establish ad-hoc WiFi network to several laptops to tether via 3G.

I want to write software that runs on my Linux, Mac and my phone simply by
recompiling. I see no reason why not - these phones are equivalents of Pentium
II of late 90s, they ran Linux just fine.

I don't need custom platform-dependent "development kits", fuck that - we've
been through this on the desktop and it seems that unixes are winning, why
going back into dark ages of platform APIs?

Yes, there are phone-specific things like graphics/GPS/address book
integration, etc - give us specs and we'll write open sourced multi-phone
libraries that abstract all that crap away, but the core should be POSIX/libc,
not a locked up proprietary toy - there's no fun in it.

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rbanffy
"we've been through this on the desktop and it seems that unixes are winning"

As much as I would love thet to be true, I cannot agree. The Windows crap
still seems to have a long future.

And unless you are talking GNUStep, you more or less can't compile a Mac app
on a Linux box and expect it to work. A POSIX app, sure, but that's not a Mac
application - it only goes as far as not being Mac-proof.

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sant0sk1
I guess they figured it's better to release it 2 days before WWDC than 2 days
_after_ WWDC...

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mikecuesta
Either way it's dangerously close to Apple's product launch... seems like
they're playing with fire.

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callahad
If they can make enough of a splash, they'll be able to co-opt Apple's post-
launch publicity. If the Pre is seen as a credible threat, it'll be mentioned
in the vast majority of articles covering Apple's new product, and dedicated
comparisons will inevitably follow.

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tdonia
anyone explored their sdk and/or the Palm WebOS/mojo documentation yet? i'm
curious to see how low they can set the app-creation bar, as development
without the app store curatorial process could be an interesting
differentiator.

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mtinkerhess
I'd also be curious to hear from anyone who has some hands-on experience with
the emulator. From reading some of the documentation they've put out and
watching a webcast about Pre development, it looks like building Pre apps is
more or less like building web pages. On the plus side, this means they're
easier to build than an obj-c gui. On the minus side, you have to use
javascript for logic.

I'm predicting apps on the Pre will look a lot more like web pages and a lot
less like desktop or iPhone apps. I wish you could use c/c++ and opengl on the
Pre -- that's what would get me really excited about it as a platform.

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randallsquared
_On the minus side, you have to use javascript for logic._

That's not really a minus, in my opinion. Most of the problems with Javascript
are really the DOM and lack of libraries, and I don't have many problems with
the DOM these days due to jQuery and friends, so if they have the libraries...

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pj
JavaScript is still fighting the stigma of browser incompatibilities, but it's
gotten much much better. It is still a little show though, but that'll change
over time.

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auston
In the case of mobile Android, iPhone, Pre & S60 (Nokia's thing) all use
WebKit.

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falsestprophet
literally D-Day

