One of my misgivings about Palm's upcoming Pre smartphone with its fancy new webOS and way cool Synergy with all of your Internet based information was that it was not backwards compatible with PalmOS applications. Now MotionApps is creating an emulator for running PalmOS apps on the Palm Pre's webOS operating system. This is pretty good news for me even if it means I have to shell out more money for the application. I've depended on PalmOS applications for a decade and I still haven't found better alternatives for many of them on other platforms. So I'm a little more excited about the Pre than I was yesterday.
Showing posts with label Palminfocenter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palminfocenter. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
MotionApps Brings PalmOS Apps to Palm Pre
One of my misgivings about Palm's upcoming Pre smartphone with its fancy new webOS and way cool Synergy with all of your Internet based information was that it was not backwards compatible with PalmOS applications. Now MotionApps is creating an emulator for running PalmOS apps on the Palm Pre's webOS operating system. This is pretty good news for me even if it means I have to shell out more money for the application. I've depended on PalmOS applications for a decade and I still haven't found better alternatives for many of them on other platforms. So I'm a little more excited about the Pre than I was yesterday.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
WebOS Developer Webcast
It's been up for about two weeks but I finally got around to viewing Palm's hour-long developer preview webcast on Palm Infocenter. To no one's surprise, it turns out that programming for Palm's upcoming webOS, the operating system which will power the Palm Pre, is a lot like programming for the web. The information was very basic but it looks like webOS will be very easy to program for traditional PIM applications like Calendars and Contacts.
But what about more elaborate applications? People keep asking about games but I'm thinking more in terms of other classes of applications. Suppose I want to write a Usenet client for the Pre? It would have to connect to a Usenet server on the Internet and download articles using the NNTP protocol and install them into a database on the Pre. That should be no problem for a decent programmer (it might be beyond my abilities but that's another story). But what about other tasks that a good Usenet newsreader needs to perform like filtering, sorting, and purging articles? Will it be doable on webOS and will it be fast?
Another question is how easy will it be to add things that Palm leaves out of the Pre. Specifically, I'm thinking about a PalmOS emulator and Graffiti support. While I understand Palm's decision to not support legacy PalmOS applications, that doesn't mean I have to like it. So how long will it take to get a PalmOS emulator to run on webOS? I don't suppose that an application like WINE which is not an emulator in the strictest sense but does allow Linux to run many Windows applications is possible for running PalmOS apps under webOS?
And would it be possible for an enterprising developer to add custom gestures which would allow for character input—in other words a replacement for the PalmOS's old Graffiti character recognition system? A year ago, this probably wouldn't have mattered to me but then I upgraded my phone from my Treo 680 to a T-Mobile G1. Suddenly, I found myself using my Palm TX a lot more for tasks where my G1's Android OS didn't measure up to the PalmOS. And thus I rediscovered Graffiti. It sure would be nice to have a webOS Dashboard that could pop up a Graffiti like input area for times when I only need to enter a few characters and don't want to open the Pre's keyboard. I'd probably never use it after a while but it would be nice to know that it was available.
But what about more elaborate applications? People keep asking about games but I'm thinking more in terms of other classes of applications. Suppose I want to write a Usenet client for the Pre? It would have to connect to a Usenet server on the Internet and download articles using the NNTP protocol and install them into a database on the Pre. That should be no problem for a decent programmer (it might be beyond my abilities but that's another story). But what about other tasks that a good Usenet newsreader needs to perform like filtering, sorting, and purging articles? Will it be doable on webOS and will it be fast?
Another question is how easy will it be to add things that Palm leaves out of the Pre. Specifically, I'm thinking about a PalmOS emulator and Graffiti support. While I understand Palm's decision to not support legacy PalmOS applications, that doesn't mean I have to like it. So how long will it take to get a PalmOS emulator to run on webOS? I don't suppose that an application like WINE which is not an emulator in the strictest sense but does allow Linux to run many Windows applications is possible for running PalmOS apps under webOS?
And would it be possible for an enterprising developer to add custom gestures which would allow for character input—in other words a replacement for the PalmOS's old Graffiti character recognition system? A year ago, this probably wouldn't have mattered to me but then I upgraded my phone from my Treo 680 to a T-Mobile G1. Suddenly, I found myself using my Palm TX a lot more for tasks where my G1's Android OS didn't measure up to the PalmOS. And thus I rediscovered Graffiti. It sure would be nice to have a webOS Dashboard that could pop up a Graffiti like input area for times when I only need to enter a few characters and don't want to open the Pre's keyboard. I'd probably never use it after a while but it would be nice to know that it was available.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Pandora Developer On Palm webOS
Palminfocenter interviews Tom Conrad of Pandora Internet Radio. He talks about Palm's upcoming Pre phone and its webOS operating system and sounds excited about the new OS and its possibilities.
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