Object of desire

Looks like the Palm Pre, the new smartphone from the ailing company that helped invent the category, might just be a winner. There are a few sceptics out there but the demo at the launch of the new operating system and its user interface had people yelling for more.

It was the closest thing to a Steve Jobs Macworld Apple keynote so far at CES, several veterans told me.
Many were desperate to get their hands on it.

In particular I liked the deck of cards style of the user interface. Each card is an application and they can be flicked through by swiping. The Pre appears to touch very well and has a gesture pad at the bottom - a row of sensors that performs a variety of actions when you make certain movements on it. This does away with almost all the navigational buttons, which in theory means that you can do the basics one-handed.

It's small and it's light and it has a removable battery (unlike the iPhone) and, without having a play with it myself, I think it could give mark the return of Palm. There are still question marks over price and whether it is good for the business market (and when it is coming to the UK) but we will let those ride for the moment.

Let's just be happy that an innovative company is back in the innovation game.

For more about the Palm, Engadget has comprehensive coverage. Meanwhile, here's another pic:

UPDATE: It seems lots of people, including quite a few on Wall Street, liked what they saw at the launch.

Palm's share price gained 1.15 dollars during the day to close at 4.45 dollars, an increase of 34.85 per cent and it added another 12.36 per cent in after-hours trading to 5.00 dollars. Wow.

Comments

[Koistya `Navin]

Looks like Palm is recovering :-)

[nick]

Woah check out this site with a boat load of screenshots of the Palm Pre webOS

http://palmgoon.com/