A promising OS for the new Palm

Palm is back in the smartphone race with a new handset and a brand new operating system to prove so.

After unveiling the "Pre" smartphone at CES on Thursday, the Palm share went up by 35%. Good news for a company that had been struggling recently. So what's all the talk about?

Good looking and minimalist design

For one, the Pre looks good and it ticks all the right boxes. This high end touchscreen phone with its curvy body and glossy finish does indeed have a stylish look. It has all the features that are now a "must" on a smartphone and comes with a 3.1 inch multitouch display, 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity, 3 megapixel camera, 8 GB memory, an accelerometer and a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out.

And then there is the touchstone. This is a magnetic induction charger - which looks like a puck- on which you lie the headset for charging. Totally wireless and totally a great idea. According to the first reports from Las Vegas, those who have tried the touchscreen interface were rather impressed.

Palm OS web : an open system

The names says it all: the new operating system promises to deliver the best of mobile Web. The platform is designed to allow the use of several programs at once. A function called Synergy integrates information from various applications. This will be of great interest to users with multiple accounts (Outlook, Gmail..) and those who use social networking websites (Facebook...) as all contacts online will appear in one list. A similar application for the iPhone can be found on the App Store and proves indeed very useful for combined messaging.

Last but not least, the Palm OS web is an open source system so developers can bring in new ideas.

The Pre is supposed to hit the stores in the United States during the first half of 2009 but its price is still unknown.
Hopefully we shall be able to play with it next month during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Could this be a new beginning for Palm? Competition within smartphone operating systems is certainly  welcome and might lead manufacturers to  come up with even better ideas…sooner.




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