And we're back...
This was a somewhat less depressing thought I had yesterday morning when I was walking to my morning train.
I am a huge fan of Palm's WebOS on their 2 new smartphones, the Pre and the Pixi. I've had a Pre since June and despite the fact mine is physically wrecked I still think the OS is great. I hope Palm makes more money so they can use better hardware and QA. But I was thinking about WebOS applications, being written primarily in Javascript and also the new gaming capable APIs which I believe are in Java for direct hardware access. Java is a desktop language...and Yahoo! widgets are written in Javascript. Unfortunately, Yahoo! widgets suck. I haven't really seen anyone using them out in the wild, and of course they're only available on the PC.
But what if it were possible to use certain WebOS applications AS widgets? The Palm Application Catalog could be extended to the desktop, and you could run the same games and utilities on both. I'd written an application to scrape the mbta_alerts twitter feed and show me if my train was delayed, wouldn't it be cool to have that on my computer and take advantage of the better network connection? This also creates a 2nd distribution channel for developers.
The way I read it, Apple's trying to put the iPad somewhere between a laptop and a device like the iPod touch. Unfortunately that space is currently occupied by netbooks. For all their shortcomings, they have one major leg up on the iPad: They are a real computer. So if Palm were to create a system which would allow their WebOS apps to run on real computers, they can not only grab desktop space but can also invade that contested area for lightweight applications running on lightweight computers.
As far as I know, no one's created anything that can run the same applications on a mobile device, on a low-power computer, and on a full desktop. Also, Palm has been pushing the idea of reliance on the "cloud", in WebOS devices information like installed applications, device settings, and contact lists are automatically synchronized to the internet. This capability is already there, wouldn't it be EVEN COOLER if you could log in to this desktop WebOS system and get all your installed applications?
Garsh, I hope someone at Palm is paying attention 'cause I totally want this now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment