The buzz over Palm Pre

Having owned Palm devices since the late 90s I have always found them to be manufacturers of good simple products that did the job well. I have checked out their Palm OS development kits back in the day and found it to be quite clean. However I never got into it as Java was all the rage then and learning C was not a priority. It has been quite disappointing to see Palm lose direction over the years as it sold off its operating system division and then allowing the Treo to fade into obscurity by not keeping up with the leaps and bounds made by the iPhone.

Now Palm finally has an answer to the iPhone. The Palm Pre. It is not a very good looking device however it seems like the device is overall smaller than the iPhone with just as many features. Taking many ideas from recent developments in desktop UI enhancements the Palm Pre takes the mobile OS experience to the next level by once again giving users the ability to switch between applications as well as making sure that their API supports normal web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Thereby making coding for the Palm just as easy as creating a Dashboard widget in OS X.

It is good to see Palm being in the spotlight again with expectations high, contrasting to Apple's uninspiring MacWorld performance, one hopes that they can once again make way in the mobile devices market and push all other vendors to give their users more to work with and make the mobile experience more pleasant.