Palm is taking steps to reach out to developers looking to develop third party applications for the new Palm Pre and webOS. Unlike the folks in Curpertino, Palm is asking for feedback from developers on third party application distribution. Don't discount how much developers will embrace being part of the solution and having a say in the new Palm App Catalog (official name for Palm's new App Store).
Andrew Shebanow (formerly of Adobe) is in charge of third party app distribution and solicting feedback from developers regarding the following:
According to a report by PalmInfoCenter, Palm is rumored to be working on an update to the Palm Centro that will run the new Palm webOS. The Palm Centro has been a major success for the company selling millions of units. They reference a snippet from PCMag speculates that a candybar form factor without a QWERTY keyboard could be in the works.
The current Palm product line is based upon three operating systems:
Palm Pre: webOS
Palm Treo: Windows Mobile Professional
Palm Centro: Palm OS
The legacy Palm OS has served the company well, but it would certainly make sense for the company to transition those users to the new webOS. From a support standpoint alone, Palm could focus on support just two platforms. One of the reasons for the Centro's success has been the price. If they were to develop a low-cost entry level Centro running webOS, it would sell in droves.
Palm has posted the complete presentation of the Palm Pre event at CES 2009. The Pre announcement was a great event and worth watching to hear the story behind the new management team, webOS and the Palm Pre.
In the third installment of our Palm Pre hands on video, you'll see a demonstration of how the Palm Pre handles notifications. Rather than interrupt your current workflow, the Palm Pre alerts you at the bottom of the screen. You can choose to dismiss, snooze or act on the notification. This is a great example of "cards" and how the Pre allows you to work between applications on the Pre desktop. This is the closest we've seen of desktop productivity on a mobile device.
