back to article Palm to take on iPhone with web 2.0 banana phone

Troubled Palm today launched its (hopefully) turnaround product, the Palm Pré, running its new Palm Web OS operating system. There's a heck of a lot of Mac OS X and the Apple phone about the Pré - pronounced 'Pree' - with an animated application dock on the main view, Exposé-style app switcher, JavaScript widgets as applets, …

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  1. Iain Paterson
    Heart

    Banana Phone?

    Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring, Banana Phone!

    Those who know will have it stuck in their heads forever now.

  2. Matt
    Unhappy

    Photos???

    'The hardware's nice but the OS is nicer' kinda implies that there was a demo or mockup somewhere to be seen... and noone from vulture central has a camera, or a camera phone?!

    bad show!

  3. J
    Pirate

    Pretty cool

    Apparently. Even better if it takes memory cards (does it?). Let's see how much it'll cost.

    And could they please make one that has no phone, and plays music well? :-)

  4. Olof P
    Stop

    Not for Europe then

    EVDO = CDMA = No phone use on this side of the pond. Seems kinda silly to limit yourself to the american market for something like this.

  5. Matt

    Noooooo!

    Damn you Iain Paterson! ;)

  6. Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware (Written by Reg staff)

    Re. Pics

    Photos in now, folks.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Foreign news

    Interesting - people in a foreign country are getting a new phone. How is this relevant to me?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Perhaps not quite for Europe then, yet.

    Olof P wrote:

    "EVDO = CDMA = No phone use on this side of the pond. Seems kinda silly to limit yourself to the american market for something like this."

    Palm has done quite a bit with Sprint so it's not surprising. I'm sure once they get things ironed out you'll see other protocols. For example, it's not like the Treo is just CDMA : )

  9. Chris Matchett

    UTMS (Worldwide) phone in preparation

    according to Treo Central.

    My Treo Pro looks poo now :-(

  10. Alastair

    re: Olof P

    Not necessarily. Plenty of manufacturers make CDMA and GSM models of their phones, no reason Palm wouldn't do the same.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Heart

    Return of Palm

    Way to be cynical el Reg. Even usual Palm haters out there are loving this. And investors seems to be agreeing.

  12. Jeremy
    Alert

    @ Noooooo!

    Wasn't Ian Patterson, the bloody headline was all it took for me.

    I'm off to shoot myself now...

  13. John
    Happy

    banana phone

    superb song. I hope the Pre is as good.

    /me goes to iTunes Store...

  14. John
    Unhappy

    banana phone update

    boo. can't get the real version on iTunes Store, the UK Amazon download store doesn't have it and I can't buy it from the US store. then again I read some stuff on Raffi's site and he's a bit of a tree hugger.

  15. digibadger
    Go

    @olof - GSM version is in the works...

    ... according to Engadget

    http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/there-will-be-a-umts-palm-pre/

  16. Rob Haswell
    Happy

    Think I just creamed myself

    Never thought I'd see another decent Palm phone. Finally something to replace my ageing Treo 680? Fkin hope so.

    Any word on a 3.5mm audio jack?

  17. raving angry loony

    another one?

    What's with these idiots locking their phones to a particular network? First they choose CDMA, which is laughable in the face of a world market, then they tie it even more to just the American market by locking it down to a sub-standard carrier.

    Bloody idiots. I might even have bought one too.

  18. dodge
    Coat

    Café. Décolletage. Attaché... Pré

    Surely it's pronounced "pray".

    Which I guess is what Palm management is doing right now...

  19. Jeff Holbrook
    Linux

    Don't Pray

    It is pronounced Pre, as in or like... before. It rhymes with tree. There is no gruve over the e. And yes it appears to be an awesome device. Go Palm. The world needs you, if only to clam up the idiotphone phanbouys.

    Tux as this is a Linux OS Phone. W00t!

  20. Andy Worth

    Too far....

    They've gone too far in trying to make it look curvy and hip - in making the sides curve outwards as well, it looks a bit tubby in the middle and nowhere near as sleek as its main competitors.

  21. Mick Sheppard

    Software support?

    I've still to find something that matches using my old Palm III and Palm Desktop connecting to Mac OS 9. I could install apps and have them sync data back to applications on my laptop. Then Palm stopped updating Palm Desktop so I moved away to other things. Unless Palm are going to provide a nice new, plugin friendly, Palm Desktop application for OS X this is no good to me. If they are, and a 3G version comes out, I'll look at it when I need to change my phone.

    Sadly I suspect that by the time Palm deliver Apple will have and their chance will have gone.

  22. Matt Linin

    Semantics

    Shouldn't it be pronounced 'Pray' with the acute over the letter 'E'??

    Maybe a bit Freudian that the pray it will turn their business around?

  23. Andy ORourke
    Joke

    So will they ...

    Add an annoying "sent from my banana" auto signature to outgoing emails?

  24. Conrad Longmore
    Thumb Up

    Odd name, but..

    Odd name, but nice device.

    On the EVDO / CDMA thing, the Palm press release DOES also mention UMTS / HSDPA (see http://investor.palm.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=358392). So perhaps the Pre is an exclusive to Sprint at the moment, with a UMTS version coming out later.

    There are a couple of things that make the Pre interesting - one if the user interface idea of having application cards running side-by-side. It sounds interesting, it would be interesting to see it in practice. The other thing is that the software seems to be rather good at managing contacts and messages from all sorts of different sources into a unified system.

    I really don't know if this can save Palm though - if it came out 12 months ago, then perhaps. At least Palm managed to secure some more funding so that they can give it a try..

  25. James Pickett
    Jobs Horns

    Revolutionary

    Removable/replaceable battery? Yay! Who would possibly be daft enough to sell a phone without that..?

  26. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

    @ Mick Sheppard

    You want "Missing Sync", available for several mobile systems including Palm, syncs using OS X sync services to your OS X data pools. So you can sync your Palm with iCal etc.

  27. Tone

    Looks pretty good

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j6l0birqeig&feature=related

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Battery

    The one thing I've not seen in any of the coverage is even a hint of the battery life, which makes me think that it might be the Pre's Achilles heel.

    I wouldn't be surprised at a low battery life, what with wireless, GPS, Bluetooth, a fast CPU and a phone in there it must eat power.

    Shame, this is the first time for ages I've seen a pda phone like this that I wanted to buy. (I've got a BB Storm through work, it's ok but all the BB's I've ever used have felt sluggish and in need of a more beefy CPU)

  29. sleepy

    just shows

    Just shows people from Apple don't need supervision by Steve Jobs to make a decent product. But the current iPhone (essentially the same as launched 2 years ago) isn't the one Pre will be up against, and its shortcomings don't mean Apple can't fix them. (Apple simply doesn't play a card until it has to, an elementary lesson its competitors don't seem to have learned, which drives the Apple haters crazy when Apple prevails over "better" products).

    I like the way they've put in multi-touch which the rest have been afraid to do. If Apple doesn't sue, they get away with it. If Apple sues and loses, Palm is suddenly worth much more; if they win, Palm can just pull the multitouch feature with little harm done.

  30. Alex King
    Thumb Down

    Stupid accents strike again

    There's no justification for the accute accent at all, it's just another attempt to make something sound exotic by adding an accent, cf. the ridiculous adulteration of Moben and Motley Crue.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    too thick

    A 12mm thick version without the keyboard should be offered.

  32. Johannes

    video

    check out http://palmone.r3h.net/downloads.palm.com/ces.mov -- the device appears about 13 minutes into the video, UI demo about 5 minutes later

  33. pctechxp

    @J

    Simple, buy it SIM-free and engage flight mode and there you have a palm music player.

  34. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Another OS

    'cus what the phone market needed was another OS!

    WM

    Symbian

    iPhone OS

    Android

    Palm OS (I suppose this is called Palm Classic now)

    and now Palm WebOS?

  35. David Edwards
    Stop

    Why a keyboard

    Palm sold the most successfull PDA for years with no keyboard, they now seem wedded to nasty tiny qwerty keyboards just when Apple, Balckberry, LG etc are finally ditching them in favour of virtual keyboards on full touch screen. Not only is it nasty to use, but surley it costs more to manufactuer and is less reliable. Lets hoping that the OS goes onto a Propper (as in US Robotics Palm Pilot) Style PDA/Phone. I was waitiing on this, but now I think ill get a Storm. and Hope there is a non keyboard Palm in a year when contracts up etc. Still ove my TX.

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