Nothing much has been heard regarding the Palm Pre phone since HP acquired Palm earlier this year. Finally, HP has announced an upgrade to webOS and an upgrade to the Pre. Although these upgrades appear low key (because we've come to expect so much these days), it means that HP is still in the game. In fact it's the first major upgrade for webOS for 16 months and it has some nifty features such as "Stacks" which groups together your applications logically. The new “Just Type” feature will allow you to start an email, send a message, search a website, or update your status without ever opening an App. Developers will be able to create shortcuts called “Quick Actions” to take advantage of the Just Type feature. On the hardware side, the Palm Pre will have a 1GHz processor, a new 5 megapixel camera and 16 GB of storage.
Is there a need for another smartphone in the market in what is already becoming a crowded space?
Yes there is. Some people still prefer to have an onboard keypad and there are a lot of loyal Palm users out there. Palm has always been in the business market, which puts it head to head with Blackberry and now Microsoft with its' Windows Phone 7 platform. Both Blackberry and Microsoft have been too slow to move into the true smartphone space and it's no comparison to webOS, which is a true multitasking operating system. In any case, webOS 2.0 includes Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, which will allow users to view Microsoft Office files, as well as the Skype application that users have been waiting a long time for.
What's interesting is that the French and Canadian markets will be getting the phone first, in fact this Friday it will be available in France, followed by Verizon in the coming months.
Overall, it's good to see HP is getting serious about this great smartphone and operating system. HP has also attracted some executives from Nokia and Samsung, so expect more great things from HP Palm in the future.
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