Palm Pre and WebOS, what is it for you?

Palm introduced a new and fancy Palm Pre in CES some time ago. Palm isn't so popular in Finland (or in Scandinavia?) but I believe it has some interesting possibilities for all of us. The main enabler is it's new operating system called WebOS. At the moment there isn't too much information about the WebOS, but all in all this seems like an interesting mobile phone and concept.

1. Palm Pre. Images available at Palm Pre -gallery.

It is interesting to see how market will adopt touch-screen with a slider. I think this is a good idea, because the user has an option to use either one. I really like Nokia N96's slider mechanism, but every now and then I wish it would have also a touch-screen.

Pre's technical specifications are quite similar to any other smartphone; big screen, all necessary communication methods (GSM, 3G, WiFi, bluetooth), enough memory and good processor. One interesting detail is that Palm offers a cordless charger for Pre. The charger uses induction for charging, but if I understood correctly this is not included in the sales package.

Although Palm Pre is meant for anyone, I've listed some of the possibilities that it offers to users and developers.

Users

As a user, you are probably enjoying the big screen that is suitable for example for browsing and watching movies. As a "all-in-one" device, I believe Palm offers a good music experience also. Palm has basically the same Webkit-based browser that S60 devices and iPhone/iPod Touch have.

You can use Pre with our without physical keyboard and I believe most of the users like this kind of possibility. Touchstone, the cordless charger, sounds first nice but when you start thinking it a little more, it might not be so convenient. At least I usually browse or play with my phone when it is being charged. When using Touchstone, this is difficult or impossible. So I think you will need 2 different chargers. On the other hand, cordless charging is a really nice feature which will be more and more popular in the future.

It doesn't matter which smartphone you are using, still you usually need to install some 3rd party software to make your life easier and better. Hude wrote a really good article about mobile platform diverseness and Palm brings yet another platform to the markets. Although platform is based on web technologies, it might take some time before you'll get all your favourite applications working in Palm Pre.

One of the coolest (and probably one of the most useful) feature is combining contacts and other information from different services, like Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn and corporate e-mail system. Palm Pre should be also able to combine conversations meaning that you can start with IM and continue with SMS and they are shown as an one conversation thread. Palm calls this feature Synergy. These kind of features are really good when people are using more and more different services. It is really time consuming to be active in several social networks.

Palm Pre promises that it is able to automate (or think ahead) in some services, for example if you are running late from a meeting, Palm Pre should be able to estimate your arrival time using GPS and maps and send a note to meeting participants. It is interesting to see how well these automated features work because usually they don't.

It is interesting to see what happens now that there are more and more devices with a really good browser. Good browsers combined with today's "cloud thinking" can be a success. Companies are for example taking or investigating if it would be beneficiary to take some of the services to a cloud. When the services are in the cloud, employees could easily access them with their mobile phone as long as the communication channel is secure enough. I believe this will fasten the mobile browsing even more. One of the obstacles offering intranet services for mobile employees have been wrongly designed intranet and connections to intranet.

Developers

As a developer, you must be thrilled that all the applications in Palm Pre have been build using web technologies (XHTML, JavaScript and CSS) or atleast they are stating this in the introduction video.

According to Palm, there are around 10 million web developers, so there should be a big enough developer community. Application distribution program will be vital, just like Apple has shown. I still have difficulties believing that there are more than 15.000 applications in Apple's AppStore. It remains to be seen how well Palm will handle this.

I believe that due to lack of information, developers have more questions than answers. Here are some questions that came to my mind:

• Will the WebOS be fully open? Are there some restrictions that application can or cannot do?


• Can application access memory card or SIM? Is this possible via browser?


• What kind of billing system there will be? In Palm and in the Application Store.


• When the SDK will be available?


• How easy is it to port existing Palm software to be interoperable with Palm Pre?

Unfortunately there isn't too much information available yet about Palm Pre and my views are based on the Palm Pre introduction video. See it yourself and check if you are also amazed at the people applausing for the fact that Palm Pre has a removable battery?!?

Ovi - door to success?

I bet you've heard about Nokia's Ovi, but do you really know what is it about? If you know what it is about, do you know how Nokia will make money out of it?

The reason for these two questions is that one of my friends asked me recently: "That Nokia's Ovi, what is it? I would like to use it, but I don't know how and I don't know what I could do there." I explained to him shortly that Ovi is a place for accessing Nokia's different services. You can find maps, music, games, share pictures there and upload calendar, contacts and files. To be honest, this was a kind of lousy explanation. After this I started thinking a little more about Ovi.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Nokia's general idea is to offer a service where you find everything you need and you can access it with any device (pc, mac or phone). Maybe it could be described in a few words as "personalised multi-channel portal"? Personally I think that if something cannot be explained in a few sentences, it won't be a success among users.

This "personalised multi-channel portal" looks quite nice and if you synchronise your phone with Ovi, it can be an useful service.



I tried it once, just to check it out how it works with generic data and stopped using it. Reason for this is that I've have company confidential information in my phone and I really don't want to share it. I know Ovi should be safe, but still I don't want to take that risk. I believe this is a quite big question / threat for IT departments because syncrhonising is really easy.

I'm not saying that Ovi concept wouldn't become a success, but I must say there are still lots of work to be done. I've listed some of things that need to be improved before success.

1. Too many user IDs and passwords. At the moment there isn't any general user ID and password for Ovi services, because it builds up from different services. Users won't use a service which need own credentials for Ovi (synchronisation), music, sharing pictures and games.


2. Integration. Basically same as above, all services must be seamlessly integrated before it is usable. If I use a portal, I want to be able to use all services easily and smoothly.


3. Common user-interface. I believe that a portal should have common user-interface because otherwise the usage of different services will be much more difficult.


4. Logic. A service must be logical to use. I was really surprised when I went to Ovi.com, clicked Sign In and saw a page saying "contacts & calendar". My first thoughts were: "What did I do? I don't want to sign in to contacts & calendar, I want to sign in to Ovi".
5. Useful services. Ask yourself why would someone create credentials and start using this service daily and suggest it to his/her friends? When Ovi is "fully personalised multi-channel portal", I believe this is possible.

Don't get me wrong, there are also good features already existing, for example easy syncrhonisation and your content from your Share on Ovi comes automatically to your Ovi portal. Atleast I don't remember giving any Share on Ovi credentials to Ovi, probably sharing is done by checking e-mail addresses.

A more difficult question is: "How Nokia will make money out of this?" If I would need to guess, I would mention three different approaches:

1. Offer first free services, then start charging. This seems to be the case in the Maps for example. Most of the new handsets have a free license for a year, after this the user needs to purchase a license.


2. Offer first free services, then start charging small amounts. Almost like previous, but with smaller amounts of money, e.g. a few euros (even cents?) per month.


3. Bundle the price to handset. Nokia is trying this with Comes with Music and everyone is waiting for the results.

I suggest that you check Ovi out yourself and make your own decisions. So, go to Ovi with your desktop or mobile browser and explore it.