Getting a little bit of insider information from a Palm employee friend can really make your ears prick up when they seem to get excited about a new phone and phone OS that their own company has produced, especially it comes from a company that has been mostly doom and gloom for the last few years.
Even with an insider I couldn't get more information than anyone else other than to ensure I would watch the CES 2009 palm announcement.
Well I found the whole presentation on YouTube, and I have to say that it really does look like Palm could have pulled a last minute gem out of their pockets and saved themselves from oblivion. They really need that GSM version though, and more over, need to get the same silly over hype that iPhone had.
Everyone is going to compare this to the iPhone since that phone is the current market consumer leader. Apple introduced the multi touch, clown like interface with features very much oriented to the consumer such as better web browsing and integrated rich media support and social services. If I was forced to compare, I would say that iPhone had a bunch of people with a wish list of cool technology that already existed, and a marketing team that said "it doesn't matter how much it cost, we'll be able to sell it", and so the team went to work cramming everything they could to push an iPod to become the iPhone forgetting the odd essential on the way.. Palm however, seem to have thought about people actually using a phone which could do media and social stuff, and realised that a whole new OS was required to get better cross product integration and interface management, much like Google, Windows and Apple had done/are doing.
I believe what they have done is saved themselves, as long as they can scream from the roof tops over the echo's of iPhone this, iPhone that...
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Key stuff that hasn't been mentioned yet is the approx battery life, and they didn't talk about the new induction charger which allows the phone to be charged without having to plug it into a wire. You just have to leave it on the desk and it will charge.. Great for those that find that problem where the phone will ring then you find yourself wrapped in cables, or ear glued to the desk because the cable is caught or too short! Definitely well thought out, and they are working on the GSM version.
Here are the things I'm not so conviced about. The 3MP camera seems a little small for high end device when competitors are hitting 5-8MP now, and the screen resolution (number of pixels on the screen) is 320 x 480 that is better than the conventional 320 x 240, but I would really hope for a least 640 x 480 or as some devices are going 800 x 480. It makes for much better web browsing, esspecially when the device is oriented around that very feature.