Palm Pre = is this really a new idea?

As most of you technologically-savvy smartphone watchers will have noticed, Palm is back from the dead. And they have got a whole load of newness to show the world!

After what seems like a decade, Palm has brought a ‘whole new UI paradigm’ to the smartphone table. Apparently, there are no applications on this phone. Just a whole load of……cards. This is apparently also enough to convince certain people that the UI is way ahead of everything else, including the iPhone UI.

I call shenanigans. Colour me a non-believer.

I’m really sorry, but I like to call a spade a spade. Those ‘cards’ ARE applications. There is nothing ‘groundbreaking’ about a merged email/IM client application. There is also nothing amazing about ‘multitasking’, because *most* smartphones have been doing it for years. Now, I commend Palm for making a UI that looks nice, and feels very ‘now’ but really – an iPhone killer?

And I am also sceptical of the developer environment: a mix of HTML/JS/CSS. Erm, isn’t this what Apple proposed for the iPhone’s ‘Web apps’ SDK, and then universally derided for not providing a *true* SDK that allows access to the hardware? With no access to the lower-level API’s, there is no fun. Just a whole load of ‘widget’ style apps. If you think that the AppStore is currently flooded with crap ‘..ifart’ style apps, then just wait for the Palm appstore.

Of course, I love the fact that ANY competition is good in the phone industry. It will make the next-gen iPhone even better. It *may* make Nokia try harder. It will help RIM fix their UI problems (storm).

In the end it is good for the smartphone.

END.