Archive
Palm Pre coming soon
So we know the Palm Pre launches in the US on 6th June for $199.99 with a 2 year contract. Now Palmgoon.com have the news (via the Guardian Newspaper) that O2 will offer the Pre in the Uk. That should make for an interesting match, with O2 already offering the iPhone. Speaking of competition, the Palm Goon web site makes no bones about who the competition is, with most of their articles directly comparing the Pre to the iPhone. Anyone would think RIM and Nokia ceased to exist when the iPhone was released. Or is this personal, since much of Palm’s management team are ex-Apple staff?
Here’s a few images of the Palm Pre software in action, lots more at palmgoon.com
iPhones and eBooks
eBooks have been around for several years now, and in many respects are seriously behind other forms of media. While music is making the painful transition from DRM to open formats other media such as films and books are still subject to restricted use. This often makes it awkward if not impossible to view these files on your mobile device of choice.
Until last year I used a Palm TX PDA running the palm eReader software. I could buy a fair range of pdb format ebooks from ereader.com, or use the free dropbook for Mac and eReader Pro for Palm to convert and read text files myself. I have a large collection of mainly SF and Fantasy paperbacks that I have read over the past 20 years, and set about finding electronic versions of them to read again. It’s an issue that always gets a lot of attention, but if you have purchased media in one format is it fair to have to buy it again in another? I don’t think it is, especially given the price of some of the eBooks currently available. I’ll get to iPhone options for ebooks a bit later after a look at eBook pricing. Read more…
What’s so smart about smart phone’s?
My first smartphone was a Nokia 7650. Chunky, solid, poor keyboard and questionable styling, but this was the future. Lots of groundbreaking features that weren’t quite perfected but a big step forward. My dream of one device to rule them all was looking like a vague possibility. I became the department geek where I worked at the time, the only person with a camera on their phone. Believe it or not, I was in great demand. The department manager wouldn’t buy a digital camera and I had by far the easiest method of getting photo’s into a powerpoint presentation.
Unfortunately, it all seemed to go wrong after that.
Read more…