Palm says game on for the Pre
Games will be part of the mix of applications available for Palm's Pre smartphone.
(Credit: Corrine Schulze/CNET Networks)Palm has confirmed that games will be among the applications available for the Palm Pre, although exactly what type of games will run on the handset remains unclear.
In an interview with Engadget, Palm said games will be part of the Pre experience, along with various other applications that will be offered through a Palm-style version of Apple's App Store. Mobile gaming is extremely popular on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and is a big part of Apple's pitch for those devices.
Therefore, it's not all that surprising that Palm and its developer partners would want to get in on demand for mobile gaming. But onlookers have been curious about what types of applications are suitable for the Pre, given that Palm isn't allowing native applications in the early days of Pre development, mimicking the early days of iPhone development.
Limiting application developers to Web-only applications never seemed like the long-term plan for Apple, and it's probably not for Palm either. Developers tend to be less enthused about building applications that have to run entirely in a browser and can't take advantage of the built-in hardware on a phone, and that's especially true when it comes to games that people want to play both online and offline. Engadget pointed out that Palm may be depending on Adobe's support in placating developers for the time being by allowing them to build Flash applications.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
Let me be specific: Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's, Palm OS was the hottest thing a PDA or PDA-phone-of-the-day could have on it. Sony was the early front-runner in Palm OS-specific enhancement--I still have a Sony PEG-TJ37 'entertainment pda,'--and their high-end models, although expensive, were the high-end handheld devices of their day, complete with high-end integrated digital cameras, and excellent sound playback.
Palm (PalmOne later on) was far behind in their own devices for entertainment purposes, and I was pleased when Sony started marketing better devices than Palm. Pity they stopped. Pity they also limited expansion port on their highest-end model: Specifically, it had a CompactFlash port (same pin arrangement, proprietary interface, limited to Just One Sony-branded CF-card Modem. (This was back before Wi-Fi was more readily available, as today, and modems were more a 'standard' of Internet connectivity).
The point is this: The port was in all respects a CompactFlash port, and could've been used for any one of a number of CF-type products which were available and on the open market. Sony simply designed it so that only their proprietary products--in CF form factor--would work--and they didn't make many of them, either!
This is the problem: Limited Expandability from the get-go!
My first PDA was also the first color Palm OS device on the market: The now-defunct Handspring Visor Color. Remember the Springboard Module expansion port in the back? Quite something for back then. The Visor was built like a tank and was made for the mobile lifestyle. Although not a phone, it still served it's purpose for database organization, which is where Palm OS has always led the market.
Thousands of applications exist for Palm OS, and, even at this late date, are routinely used by many companies for in-service-specific functions where a lot of data in a very small packages is necessary. I'm talking about stand-alone Palm OS devices like the Palm T|X, and not the kinds with the built-in cell phone!
Instead, they're for keeping track of long lists that are in need of heavy compression--Zlib, anyone??--and Palm OS is still the big boy on the block for that purpose. And it does it oh-so-well.
That said, the Pre is a handsome looking advancement for Palm. Still, I feel the apparent lack of the inclusion of the third-party software community at-large is a majorly boneheaded mistake for anyone even remotely considering getting involved in the modern cell phone marketplace. Palm, in my honest assessment, should simply 'know better,' and be more on the pulse of the modern cell-phone user base--especially the so-called 'power users.'
They will make you or break you, will tear apart your beloved product from the inside out and report back to the 'intelligentsia' what lies beneath the chrome and plastic. Being an Amateur Radio Operator, or Ham, for many years, I can tell you that the desire to take things apart to see what makes them tick is still alive and well. Even if no circuit-board parts are able to be replaced, someone in the technical community will still take it apart just to see how robust the construction is of a particular phone.
The BlackBerry and iPhone have already been disassembled. Palm's products also probably have these types of people, but I have not needed to take apart my Palm products for any reason. Hmm. Interesting thought. I still have my old Cingular branded Treo 650, which is still in working order. Built like a tank, if not a little short on the internal memory.
Oh gads! Memory! I should forget so easily! One thing that will also make or break your beloved new bundle of surface-mount semiconductors is whether or not you have a minuscule or robust amount of memory. Okay, so what do I mean by minuscule? Read on and learn!
If a phone doesn't have at least a Gigabye of basic, in-service, non-volatile RAM, I won't even consider it! Why should I? Memory is comparatively cheap, is easily integrated during the design phase (if it's not, please consider getting a new integration firm!), and really shouldn't even be an issue. Put loades of memory in your product. Don't be conservative here. Sticking to the '512mb is okay for anything anyone would ever want to use' is simply so 1990's! -Continued-
Maps, for example, take up a tremendous amount of space, and need fast processors and lots of memory to render (make them available for viewing) properly. Any GPS-enabled applications using maps (TeleNav, as an example), and especially those applications--like TeleNav--that use a 3D 'birds eye' overhead view when navigating, need both fast cpu cycles and available RAM for these applications to work properly.
Developers of new products need to understand this and utilize this knowledge to produce winning devices. Ignore at your own peril!
Concluding, third party applications will either make or break your platform in the long run. Upfront inclusion of this market segment is a *necessity* and not a luxury!
If you want your new OS to be adopted by a large majority of users, the incorporation of the third-party software development community should be a no-brainer.
Also, the inclusion of on-circuit-board GPS chipsets, along with powerful mapping applications like TeleNav or Google Maps is not to be considered optional, but necessary.
Lastly, updating our long-behind-Europe-and-Asia low-speed cell towers--for those who are still lagging behind at 2.5 Edge and 1X (GSM and CDMA, respectively)--are of paramount importance. Granted, this rests with the providers and not the cell phone manufacturing community, but there could always be joint-marketing projects between carriers and manufacturers targeted at this very worthy goal.
Trusting and hoping that this was very helpful, and leaving you with my,
Warmest Regards,
Stephen A. Brown
Missouri
thats a really long comment, felt like palm bit u before or something, anyways u could put it in your blog and link it might save u the trouble from making 2 posts
Games? They're not for me, but a bunch of my buddies bought an iPhone for the gaming. Decent voice quality and a great contact manager with a bulletproof contact manager will get me to look at getting Pre units for my company. I know some of my employees will be playing a few games on the units with my blessing, so the games had better be good if I'm going to spend a few bucks on them for my guys and gals.
Apple was off 5% Boo Yaaa !
Any gamer knows real games require buttons and/or a mouse. But Apple users are not real gamers.
And since the Pre CPU is like 4x more powerful than iPhone`s , it`s no wonder Palm will have games.
And thanks to me , and other Docs contacting EPOCRATES , Epocrates will be ready for the roll-out.
Epocrates is a must for rounds.
BTW...it has been made official , Pre will support Flash. Also Palm`s new UI is miles ahead of Apple`s. Time for Jobs to try and catch up.
I hope the Pre does well, competition always makes other products better, but lets talk about some of your comments.
The buttons, ahhhhh the buttons, some of the iphone games have buttons they are just on the screen, but there are already third party accessory makers who have made a dock that the iphone fits in. The dock makes the iphone look like a psp and has lots of buttons, not out yet but its coming.
Then lets talk about the Pre's buttons, they are only on the bottom slide out so when you are playing games in landscape (which we dont know how that works yet even) you only have buttons on one side of the device so dont make it out to be a gaming device because it has a slide out keyboard.
Lastly lets talk about the UI, I should hope its as good if not better then Apple, I mean Apple's UI was shipping in 2007, Palm has had 2 years it better be damn good. On that note there will be a new iphone released not to shortly after the Palm comes out so we will see how they match up then. This will be a major overhaul unlike last June that just added a few features.
Executive Chairman
Palm, Inc.
Jon is chairman of Palm's board of directors as well as an executive officer of the company. He leads Palm's product-development efforts, focused on driving innovation in mobile products.
Jon has helped launch some of the most influential computing products of the past decade. As a member of Apple Inc.'s executive staff and head of hardware engineering, he was instrumental in conceiving the iPod. He began his Apple career in 1997 as senior vice president for hardware engineering, overhauling the company's engineering teams, product roadmaps and manufacturing processes. In 1998, Jon led the rapid rollout of the iMac, a machine that at once revitalized Apple and revolutionized personal computer design. As the success of the iPod soared, he became head of the iPod Division.
Before joining Apple, Jon spent two decades building his career at a variety of other computer companies, including Hewlett-Packard and NeXT, and started his own computer company, Firepower Systems Inc.
Jon is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and a senior member of the IEEE. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Cornell University and a master's degree in computer science from Colorado State University.
* About Palm
In fact, Palm will ship the Pre with features that have been MISSING from the iPhone for over 18 months.
MMS, camera with flash, video recording, MMS, **FLASH SUPPORT**, applications in the background, voice dialing, speed dialing, turn by turn GPS, stereo bluetooth support, and WIRELESS tethering (iPhone won't tether at all).
Seems to be when the Pre ships Apple will be playing a very large game of catch-up because the only "advantage" they might have is the Apple faithful buying whatever Apple sells.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/7966/palm-hires-new-svp-of-product-development/
But until then, it's all just promises.
But most importantly, the Pre's web applications CAN take advantage of the specific hardware that it is running on, because it's already been said and shown in the book about developing on the Pre that there are APIs to call up any of the native hardware such as GPS, the accelerometer, etc.
While I think that a SDK in C or whatever other language would be much more capable for games, the Pre's version of 'web applications' are far superior to those of the iPhone. I don't even like the description of web applications for them, because while yes, underneath it all, they are rendered by WebKit and they are programmed in Javascript, CSS, and HTML5, they have absolutely nothing in common with the iPhone's web apps and aren't even dependent on the web.
- by intriguedd March 11, 2009 10:42 PM PDT
- I hope that video capturing is included among the misterious array of applications that the palm pre will have. That was one of the main reasons why I never purchased the i phone.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(17 Comments)