The much-anticipated Palm press event today and it did not disapoint. Palm unveiled its new Palm webOS (codenamed Nova during development) and the Palm Pre, the first device to use it.
The Palm WebOS will be your door to the Internet, promised Ed Colligan as he introduced the new OS. Gesture driven, it introduces the metaphor of a deck of cards where every application is a card. All navigation is done with gestures such as flick, tap, swipe. Another very interesting feature is that everything is saved all the time, doing away with the need to have save buttons.
There are a couple of other highlights:
- A new technology called Synergy helps tie all your information together. For example, all phone calls and SMS with a particular person are organized as a single conversation.
- Exchange OTA is also supported.
- A notification bar at the bottom will help notify you of incoming messages or other system alerts.
- Developers should also like the new OS as it is built with industry standard tools such as HTML, CSS and Javascript.
Then, the new new Palm Pre was introduced. Powered by a new TI OMAP processor, it comes with EV-DO Rev.A connectivity, 3.1-inch QVGA touchscreen display with a ‘gestures area’, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 8GB of storage, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Blueooth 2.0 with A2DP, built-in GPS, accelerometer, proximity and light sensors, a 3MP camera with LED flash,3.5mm headphone jack, and a removable battery. It will also come with a new inductive wireless charger called Touchstone.
Sprint will be the exclusive launch partner for the Palm Pre. Sprint has already launched a microsite for the Pre where you can sign up to be notified when it becomes available. A precise release date was not provided but it will be sometime in the first half of 2009. Pricing has not been revealed either.