512 Pixels

Gizmodo got their hands on it, and I have to admit, this thing looks legit.

This article, written in 1996 by Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen is a fascinating, if slightly-dated, read. It discusses the use of metaphors in GUIs, such as a desk with “real-life” objects on it that have purpose for the user.

For the most part, these types of interfaces have gone away — a classic example is Apple’s eWorld. But several iPad developers are tinkering with them once again, including Apple in the Calendar and Contact apps, which look like a real calendar and address book. It’s funny how things cycle back around.

Whatever this device is, it sure looks nice.

Background:

Back in January, I switched from the iPhone to 3GS to the Motorola Droid. In a lengthy piece titled “ Why I Switched to Android,” I outlined the reasons I chose the Droid.

None of that has really changed. Android is a great platform, and the Droid is a killer handset.

So why did I buy a Palm Pre Plus? Well, my 18-month old son smashed my phone and I needed a replacement. I decided to give Palm a shot at it, and so far, I’m pretty happy.

Hardware:

The Pre Plus is the opposite of the Droid. If the Droid is a Hummer, this is a Porsche. The Droid is AC/DC; the Pre Plus is Michael Bolton. It’s way smaller and way lighter than the Droid. The Pre Plus is all curves, all the time — the Droid’s hard angles are nowhere to be found.

When Palm introduced the Pre last year, they described it as a “river stone.” That’s completely accurate.

The physical keyboard is interesting. The phone is a portrait slider, which is a little unusual these days. They keys are small, but very solid.

The screen packs the same number of pixels as the iPhone does into a smaller space. It’s dense, and very nice looking. The only bummer is that it’s covered by plastic, not glass. I hope it holds up.

The phone isn’t as loud as the iPhone 3GS, and certainly not as loud as the Droid, but it gets the job done nicely unless I have my windows rolled down in the car. I’d peg it a notch above the original iPhone in that regard.

As far as buttons, the Pre Plus sports a power button, a volume rocker and a dedicated ringer/silent switch.

Build quality has plagued Palm for years. The Pre doesn’t break that tradition. While the keyboard slides out smoothly and pops into place quite nicely, the keyboard is creaky if I press to hard. It’s pretty sad.

The camera is lackluster. It’s a 3 megapixel unit with a LED flash. And while it can shoot video, it doesn’t have a macro mode. It’s fine for most things, and nothing on the market is as easy to use as what Apple’s done with the 3GS.

Software

Palm’s WebOS is ahead of it’s time. It multitasks more like a computer than a phone, and the card interface Palm has come up with is genius.

The collection of apps available for the Pre Plus is pretty limited — much more so than even Android. That said, the handful of apps I need on a phone are there, so I don’t mind so much. I’m not a gamer, so the lack of games doesn’t matter to me, either.

When Palm announced WebOS, the big thing they pushed was “Synergy,” Palm’s magic sauce that combined Facebook, Gmail and other accounts on the phone without combining them in the cloud. While that’s a neat addition to a slideshow, in real life, it means scrolling through 500 contacts from Facebook, most of whom I haven’t talked to in five years. Needless to say, I’ve got it all turned off, and am just using the contacts in my primary Gmail account.

Thanks to Synergy, the calendar app can also connect to more than one account, which means I can keep my Google App-powered work calendars and personal calendar separate. That gives WebOS a leg-up on Android, which can only connect to one Google account for calendar information.

The phone will connect to a PC or Mac in USB mode, just like most Android devices, for quick file transfers. (Thankfully, the Pre/iTunes thing is over.)

The media player smokes Android’s. That’s not too hard, since the media player Google ships with Android is a pile of poop. Photos pop on the rich display.

Multi-touch on the Pre works pretty much like it does on the iPhone.

Finally, the jailbreak (or “ homebrew”) community for WebOS is amazing. I’m going to be rooting my phone this weekend.

Mobile Hotspot

The killer feature on this phone — in my opinion — is the Mobile Hotspot software. In short, it allows the Pre Plus to become a Wi-Fi router for up to five devices. Anywhere I get 3G coverage (and being on Verizon, that’s just about anywhere), I can get Wi-Fi. The software will let me set the SSID and adjust security settings, just like a real router.

As the owner of a Wi-Fi-only iPad, this is awesome. It means I can use my iPad out and about easily. It also means that if the Pre Plus doesn’t have an app I use every once in a while, I can simply run the iPhone/iPad version as needed.

The most impressive thing about the Mobile Hotspot is that Verizon doesn’t charge for it on the Pre Plus.

The downside is I don’t leave home without the Pre’s charger.

Wrapping It Up

Palm is a lot like Apple. I know that is an obvious thing, since a good number of Palm employees are old Apple employees. The Pre Plus is very Apple-like device in a number of ways — it’s innovative, sexy and media-rich. WebOS is very smooth, and has far fewer rough spots than Android. The hardware/software relationship is much better, since Palm builds them both.

I am in no way saying the Palm Pre Plus is the best smartphone out there. The very future of Palm is in question, and iPhone OS and Android continue to dominate in sales. I am saying that it is a very capable smartphone, and has some features others lack. And that I’m enjoying carrying it around.

Apple Support:

Windows cannot take advantage of both graphics processors that come with some MacBook Pro computers. By default, Windows uses the NVIDIA GT216 discrete graphics processor when available.

Not surprising.

Reuters:

Opera Software’s Internet browser for Apple’s iPhone was downloaded more than one million times during the first day when it was available to consumers, the Norwegian firm said on Thursday.

[…]

“Apple said ‘Yes’, and iPhone users around the world said, ‘Yes, please’,” Opera said in a statement.

Crazy.

Thomas Ricker is right — this is magical.

Chris Foresman, over at Ars Technica:

Apple’s approach in the new 15" and 17" MacBook Pros differs from Optimus in two key ways. The first is that the switching is all handled automatically by Mac OS X without any user intervention (though there is actually a System Preference to deactivate it, if you choose). Apps that use advanced graphics frameworks such as OpenGL, Core Graphics, Quartz Composer or others will cause the OS to trigger the discrete GPU. So, when you are reading or writing Mail, or editing an Excel spreadsheet, Mac OS X will simply use the integrated Intel HD graphics. If you fire up Aperture or Photoshop, Mac OS X kicks on the NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M.

Optimus is pretty cool. But Apple building their own system is even cooler. I am envious of this — I’m usually in the wrong mode while using my Mid–2009 MacBook Pro, and logging out to switch is just plain annoying.

Joshua Topolsky, on Microsoft’s new Kin phones:

The Kin is perplexing to me, and doubly so due to Microsoft’s recent announcement of Windows Phone 7 at Mobile World Congress (with a follow-up showing at MIX10). It was literally one month ago that the company was extolling the possibilities and benefits of its completely rethought OS, a ground-up, reboot effort from the Windows Mobile team. An OS which taps into the Zune ecosystem, plays Xbox Live games, is built around the concept of social networking integration (sound familiar?), will have rich apps and great options for developers, and is built for state-of-the-art hardware. So, how does the company move from its halo mobile devices to the Kin and have it make any kind of sense? From high-end, iPhone-stomping phones, to two devices which are seriously under-spec’d (4GB, really guys?), severely lacking in services (no apps? no calendar?), and questionably designed (uh, the Turtle). How does this make sense for Microsoft, and more importantly, the consumer? Is the Kin customer the people featured in the brand’s advertising – scruffy, savvy, urban twenty-somethings who love technology but don’t want technology to get in the way of having a good time – or is it for someone else entirely? And is that the point?

It is confusing, and frankly, dumb that Microsoft would do this so quickly after announcing Windows Phone 7 — which hasn’t even shipped yet. While Apple may be stretched too thin, Microsoft just seems schizophrenic.

While the MacBook Pro line hasn’t been updated since the summer, these machines sure seem worth the wait. Core i5 and i7s found in the 15- and 17- inch, but the 13-inch is still sporting a Core2Duo. New video cards across the board.

John Siracusa:

Like the Mac, the iPhone debuted with a huge technical lead over its competitors. But this time, Apple is determined not to squander its advantage. Instead, it’s front-running as hard as it possibly can. Anything that has any chance of slowing down “the progress of the platform” has simply got to go. And the best way Apple knows to ensure platform progress is by controlling its own destiny in every way that it can. That means, among other things, no middleware vendors, no encouragement of cross-platform development (either explicit or implicit), and complete, arbitrary control over every application’s presence on the platform.

That’s the heart of the whole Section 3.3.1. Apple isn’t doing it just to screw with Adobe, it’s about preserving their platform.

PCWorld’s entire slideshow is gut-wrenching, but be sure to check out the 13th entry.