www.webOShelp.net

 
 

preDevCamp, an event for up-and-coming WebOS software developers, is coming to a town near you. Announced by organizer whurley in Phone Warz: Revenge of the Palm, over 60 cities are on the agenda so far including New York, San Francisco, Houston, Toronto and even destinations as far-reaching as Budapest (Hungary) and Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam). This follows in the footprints of iPhoneDevCamp, the developer event for the iPhone hosted around the world in July 2007 (and again in August 2008). From the site:

preDevCamp is an upcoming not-for-profit gathering to develop applications for Palm Pre using both the Mojo SDK and traditional web standards. The event is currently being planned in over 60 cities around the world.

The date is set for shortly after the US release of the Pre. Below is the official word so far.

Dates: 1 week after the US release of the Palm Pre
Venue: See individual city sites for venues and related updates.
Registration: A system has been put in place so that registrations are broken down by city. Please see your city to register.

With the release of the Pre on the horizon, preDevCamp is sure to have a large following. Check the Event Guide for a location near you. Each city has it's own page so you can stay informed about the events in your area.

Visit the official site for all the details.

 

"Wha--? How--?"

Yes, it's true. How is this possible? Although the webOS SDK has yet to be released, Palm has stated that the Mojo application framework is "based on the HTML5, CSS and JavaScript standards that web developers already know and love". So they have already given us all the information necessary start building your webOS development skills today, and we've brought it all together in the very first webOS tutorial ever! (Okay, so maybe calling it a webOS tutorial is a stretch. But if you invest some time in mastering the technologies upon which the webOS Mojo toolkit is based, you can hit the ground running the day it's released!)

Precommunity.com has posted an interview with Sprint and Palm executives that uncovered a few interesting tidbits about webOS:

Palm confirmed that, while the SDK will not be entirely open to modification, it would be broad in its flexibility. A Palm OS emulator, for instance, would be both possible and permitted, though the company themselves have no plans to create one. webOS will also support over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates, rather than requiring a full plugged-in ROM reflash as on previous Palm devices, and tasks such as pairing Bluetooth devices and switching between them have also been streamlined.

Palm has already stated that the Pre is the first in a line of devices.  Whether the Pre is successful will largely determine whether we get to see any of those other devices. But think about this one: Netbooks are taking off, helping push Acer's shipments of computers up 55% in the fourth quarter of 2008 while almost every other manufacturer saw a drop during that same period. With hotspots popping up almost everywhere, people are looking for lighter, more convenient ways of taking the web and email with them, and let's face it, netbooks are just a stopgap. Come on--having to boot up Windows Vista just so you can surf the net while you drink a cup of coffee?  What a waste of resources.

Enter webOS. With its current "card-based" app-switching paradigm and its off-screen gesture area it would be perfect for a netbook with little to no changes. And with the sexy-but-abandoned Palm Foleo on their resume, what's to stop them from trying again with a new-and-improved webOS Foleo 2?

Arstechnica has posted an article entitled The Palm Pre's possible Achilles heel: battery life.  In it, they talk about the how the screen, cellular radio and beefy cpu may drain the Pre's batter faster than its competitors.  The most interesting part of the article, though, is about how the webOS software stack may be more computationally expensive than because of its reliance on web standard languages such as HTML and JavaScript:

Performing some common operations in JavaScript, such as string concatenation, can be a lot more computationally intensive than doing it with native code. On top of that, programs that are built with Web-based technologies are going to rely on DOM manipulation to control the user interface, which will take more processing power than using a conventional native widget toolkit.

Web runtimes are increasingly viewed as a more portable alternative to native development, and there are some emerging standards and existing mobile implementations that show a lot of potential in this area, but the technology is extremely resource-intensive; it doesn't really scale well enough to be used pervasively on conventional handsets. The Pre's Cortex A8 will certainly help make the software environment fit into a mobile, but the combination of the processor and the software stack could make for a big drain on battery life.

Head on over for the full article.

Many sites have published articles and commentary on the Apple vs. Palm patent debate.  Here's a quick summary of all the headlines, sorted by date:

TG Daily: Apple's A-bomb against Palm: A 358 page iPhone patent - This article gets into the nuts and bolts of Apple's patent application for the iPhone, with technical diagrams detailing the way gestures are implemented. It also goes into a bit of the history of multi-touch, and reiterates the conflict and back-and-forth between Palm and Apple over the Pre's technology. (Jan 27)

Engadget: Apple vs. Palm: the in-depth analysis - An excellent article with analysis of the patents assisted by a patent attorney.  Reveals that that Apple's patents aren't as far-reaching as much of the media has made them out to be.  Palm holds a number of patents that could be applied almost directly to the iPhone.  Concludes that Apple is the most likely to fire first, but that neither company move due to the risk of losing their respective patents. (Jan 28)

Gizmodo: Dissecting Apple's "Multitouch" Patent: Can It Stop Palm? - A follow-up article in which a professor of patent law takes a deeper, more technical look at what exactly is required to violate a patent.  Discusses how Palm could implement something very close to what has been covered in Apple's patents without actually violating the patents.  Paints the picture of Palm as having its back to the wall and being the only one desperate enough (or having enough of a patent arsenal itself) to potentially risk a patent battle with Apple. (Jan 30)

So far, the marketing strategy behind the launch of the Palm Pre and webOS has been brilliant.  The timing of CES 2009 was just right, and the follow-up via social media such as Palm's Twitter and Facebook pages and corporate and developer blogs made the community feel as though Palm was really listening to their needs.

Palmwebosblog has now found evidence that suggests social marketing company Blast Radius is behind Palm's most recent marketing strategy.  From their company credo:

This magic happens when a brand becomes a forum for sharing interests and passions (check out EA's Madden Challenge). People get interested. Customers turn into fans, and fans turn into advocates who spread the good word, doing more for your brand than any ad ever could.

The web is not just another channel to push polished messages.  It's about brands inviting people to engage around a cause—which is to say a passion or a mission. Together brands and consumers create content, tools, services and other useful stuff that serves the cause. This may sound lofty, but we promise you it's not. This is what we do every single day.

This sounds a lot like Palm's strategy and it appears to be working very well.  Let's hope they continue to devote resources to engaging and listening to the community as the momentum around the webOS platform continues to grow.

Palmwebosblog.com has a fun piece on a fictional day with webOS and the Palm Pre. 

I search for taxi numbers using Universal Search. Conveniently Pre knows where I am and pulls out nearby taxi companies with phone numbers, websites and their locations on the map.

In the taxi I read the agenda for our conference presentation. It occurs to me that they forgot to mention a major marketing point in our presentation. Nothing that a quick edit cannot do! I add the extra point and send the new agenda to all attendees with a short update.

Check out the full article here.  Have any interesting thoughts or speculation about webOS?  Post it in the forums!  Interesting submissions will be moved to the front page.