June 2009 Update: If you’re thinking about how to get hold of a Palm Pre in New Zealand, don’t bother. The current incarnation of the Pre is CDMA only, so will only work on Telecom’s non-XT (aka: old and busted) network. Palm may one day release a WCDMA Pre, and I’ll no doubt let you know when they do.
Palm have announce the new Palm Pre (rhymes with tree) smartphone. It?s a radical departure from any previous device, and is running the new WebOS linux-based operating system.
The big blogs have the usual in-depth coverage, but there is one image that tells me Palm have hit a home run with this device:
![CropperCapture[2]](https://i0.wp.com/www.ben.geek.nz/wp-content/uploads/croppercapture2.jpg?resize=433%2C243 "CropperCapture[2]")
I wonder how developer friendly WebOS will be. Ah. See http://developer.palm.com/
Apparently you develop apps with HTML5, CSS, and Javascript…which is an interesting choice. Javascript isn’t exactly an industrial strength development language after all.
Sounds like third party developers get to live in a browser sandbox.
Javascript is a real man’s language these days Stu 🙂
And with things like http://phonegap.com providing cross-platform APIs to access local resources like GPS and Accelerometer, it’s pretty un-sandboxy too.
Yeah. Get back to me when you’ve written and debugged any Javascript program more than a page long.
Nothing wrong with a bit of non-industrial strength Javascript – especially since a lot of standard software such as Adobe’s Creative Suite supports it. Beats getting my operators doing repetitive tasks that require decent GREP skills – the kind of skills they just don’t normally have.
What’s your gripe about debugging it?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/gadgets/2473153/Review-Palm-Pre/
says Palm Pre will be available in NZ on Vodafone this year!?!?!
Yeah Palm has said they’ll do a UMTS version of the Pre, but no news of when or where. “This year” (i.e. calendar 2009) is probably too optimistic.