New Palm OS
According to Ars, Palm released a new mobile operating system at CES. As of late, Palm isn’t a big deal but this OS is different. It has character, charisma even. With this OS, Palm has dropped the long tradition of windowed applications for a more modest approach termed ‘cards’.
Cards, in this sense, take over where applications left off. Each card is task oriented. So you can have a card for chats, a card for email, a card for weather, a card for practically anything. The example given by Jon Stokes involved chat operations. He says a chat-oriented card will provide the means to communicate via text (SMS), AIM, Gtalk, Jabber, or whatever else on the same card. So regardless of medium, just so long as they provide the same functionality.
Alerts on this OS appear at the bottom on the screen and don’t require interaction. For anyone familiar with Growl, this is a similar concept. They key here is it doesn’t required interaction, thus providing a seamless, distraction-free environment.
Finally, this OS is open to third party developers. Each card can be built using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. The OS is completely immersed in the web-based environment.
My Take
First, let’s state the obvious: this is a huge step forward for the people at Palm. Seriously, the Treo is played out.
The card concept is stellar from a UI standpoint. While some people might see this as a huge departure from an application based environment, I don’t. To be honest, aside from UI interaction, I don’t see a difference in the two. Ars (which I assume was taking a cue from Palm) made it a point to differentiate the two stating the card-based system is task oriented. I’d argue applications are also task oriented. Let’s look at the iPhone (which I proudly own). Twitterific/Twinkle/Tweetie lets me interact with twitter. Google Maps lets me find out where I am in relation to what I’m looking for. Safari lets me browse the web. Each application is specialized for a particular task. I believe Jon was looking for something more general though. He mentioned a communication card that gathers up all communication mediums (SMS, AIM, GTalk, and so on) in one location. Assuming you want to be on all these at the same time (Sometimes I want to be on one or the other, not all), I don’t see why the application environment can’t do this. I admit, the iPhone doesn’t have this functionality, and kudos to Palm for thinking of it, but the iPhone has the power to do this. So overall, I’m not so sure a card-based system is all too much different from an application-based system.
I have have a few concerns about the third party development. The iPhone’s third party system is something everyone should model afterward. Any iPhone owner can grab their phone and find any application a friend has by doing a quick search on the app store. I didn’t notice a mention of an Palm app store (maybe I’m wrong). Without this store, a user is forced to go to a ton of developers sites and download something straight from them. There’s no one to ensure the application is non-malicious. No quality control authority. This is a huge mistake by Palm.
Finally, I have to question how productive one can be with Javascript, HTML, and CSS. Does anyone know of any good javascript-based games out there?
Regardless, the effort is great. I look forward to more information unfolding.
Read more details about the OS over at Ars.