Palm Pre

Palm unveiled their next-generation mobile device today at CES: a phone called the Pre running a new WebKit-based software platform they’re calling “WebOS”. The gist, from a software standpoint, is that all the apps are written as client-side web apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Hardware-wise, it’s an iPhone-style touch screen with a hardware keyboard that slides out underneath — but in portrait, not landscape.

No word yet on price, and they don’t expect to ship it until later this year. The biggest technical challenge, I think, is going to be performance. If it’s fast enough, though, this could be good.

★ Thursday, 8 January 2009