New Palm Pre apps underscore Apple's iPhone limitations
While third-party apps are being trumpeted as the iPhone's strength, key Palm Pre demos this week were designed to highlight their restrictions by taking advantage of those precise things that Apple won't allow.
The most advanced was Pandora's Internet radio app. On an iPhone OS device, the music service is partly neutered by Apple's refusal to allow true background tasks, preventing users from listening to streams while they run other chores; on the Palm Pre, Pandora not only runs in the background but hooks into the always-on notification bar to let listeners approve or dismiss songs without having to even switch active tasks.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Palm also underlined Apple's refusal to permit interpreting code within tjhird-party apps by showcasing an emulator that does just this. Mobile software developer MotionApps released an app known as Classic that, much as with Apple's own Classic that was present in Mac OS X until Leopard, recreates the entire working environment for an older operating system. In the case of webOS, it lets Pre users run PalmOS apps near full speed and as just one of any other, native apps that can be running at the same time.
MotionApps' Classic running with Pandora controls in the notification bar.
A less dramatic but still noteworthy demo emphasized the ability for apps to cross-pollinate contacts, calendars and other information in its Synergy framework. One of the more popular iPhone movie app developers, Fandango, has built a webOS port that not only enables buying movie tickets online but which will automatically book off the movie's running time for a calendar appointment without having to leave the software itself. iPhone apps are more limited in which apps they can touch and must quit to let the receiving app load the new content. It won't be until iPhone OS 3.0 that users can e-mail a note or a discovery without first exiting the current process.
All webOS apps, regardless of nature, are treated equally and in a special manager appear as "cards" — essentially live, individual programs that can be quit with a flicking motion.
Apple has long justified its decisions on what third-party apps can and can't do as attempts to maintain security and speed on its still young mobile OS. By halting third party apps from running their own, separate programs and limiting their other privileges in the operating system, Apple hopes to prevent malware from spreading through rogue iPhone apps. It likewise points to tests of rivalling operating systems like Windows Mobile which showed major reductions in battery life by letting software run completely active while still in the background.
The iPhone maker's planned background push notification for iPhone OS 3.0 will solve some of this by permitting apps that need to receive alerts, such as instant messaging clients, to send alerts through an online channel of information. But by requiring an active Internet connection and declining to let the programs themselves run, Apple has not only denied the system to iPhone and iPod touch owners without Internet links but has prevented games and some other non-alert programs from running as expected.
Regardless of what the Pre and webOS may do correctly for app developers, however, timing may potentially sink Palm's success in attracting developers as wells as Palm owners. Palm and Sprint continue to cling to a "first half of 2009" release date in spite of more than half of that time already having disappeared. With a late spring launch now the most likely, Palm may have to contend directly with Apple's third-generation iPhone launch expected at or around WWDC in June.
212 Comments
If those are limitations then i'm fine with that.
If I'm listening to music i'm listening to music. I don't want to surf and try to manage Pandora decisions.
I don't think the interpreting code example was sufficient. iPhones have no legacy software so we cannot understand how Apple would have dealt with adding compatibility.
Under no circumstances do I want to buy Fandango tickets and have it calendar the event. I only use Fandango when there's a chance I may not get into the theater which is rare. I'd never use it to plan out further than a day or two. No need to calendar.
All this comes from my own perspective and desire for features. I speak only for myself.
Well the whole classics thing is completely moot. What is the point of bringing that up in the article?
I wouldn't mind an API to hook into the calendar store, its one of the very few things missing from the new API's in 3.0 IMO.
Also i'm still not sold on the backgrounding, we don't know how the battery will handle that, also unless you manage your tasks a lot you're going to slow that phone down pretty easy. The hardware is a lot beefier than the iPhone's 2 year old hardware but it runs slower, or on par at best compared to iPhone with only a few apps running.
So tell me again how well Pandora and Fandango will work without a web connection, for those Pre owners without access?
The iPhone sucks pure and simple and is being funded by idiots with non existent standards with a me too, narcissistic complex. A generation of media brainwashed zombies. 3 revisions before you get cut, copy & paste? Zombie generation with no standards! A fourth generation to get a video camera? No office apps? Things that i have on my ancient Treo 650 or even my prehistoric Treo 600.
I have a Treo 650 running Palm OS and it does so much for me as smartphone. Yes the browser is such a nightmare but it does a lot for example i can schedule a meeting and have all pertinent information at my finger tips like contact info, notes, etc all attached to one event. All i do is drag and drop or "clip" the items in Palm Desktop, sync and all that info is at my fingertips. Or when i call the roadside assistance folks, i'm able to talk and pull up all the vin number and info they need all from my address book and open up other apps for more information. Lots of useful applications for it even one to tether that does not get me charged by Sprint.
I've had no issue with background apps nor any battery problems. I love the use of the stylus, it makes data entry and selecting things easier for me. Video camera as well. Seriously who is Apple to dictate to me how i can and can not use my device? If there is a malware issue, then there will be companies to make anti-malware software. Apps run on my Treo 650 in background fine, i'm sure the mighty iPhone hardware and OS can handle it or can it? The only thing my Treo does not do well and is lacking is its browser. What BS from Apple, they just don't have the skill or engineering know how. All they do well is sell bright shiny, expensive, backward nonsense gobbled up by a genration of mindless, no standards zombies who are pitifully trying to act cool, self important and sophisticated.
Until they become a legitimate smartphone and start playing with the big boys (money has nothing to do with qualifying to play with the big boys of tech), i'm not buying one. I may just move to the PRE.
iLad,
I respect your ability to make you own judgements. But might I suggest that you tone it down?
Currently, you make it appear that the only brainwashed fool around here is you...