Gadgetory

when you think of smartphones today you typically think of Android iOS maybe even Blackberry but back in 2009 there was another player on the block that brought some brand new features and things that we take for granted right now let's take some member berries and take a retrospective look at the prom pretty 2009 was the Wild West for smartphones Apple is really just starting to establish its dominance the App Store had really just come into its own Android was starting to really establish itself as a dominant player but there was still room in the marketplace for a third operating system the folks at Palm the makers of the trio and the pilots thought they had the answer entered the Palm Pre the main selling feature of the Palm Pre was operating system webOS maybe not familiar with it or you think it's just what powers LG TVs today but it was one of the best os's I have ever seen and I think it had the best way to handle multitasking even to this day rely on a system of cards you can move cards around rearrange cards you can swipe them right off the screen to close apps it was really elegant and relied solely on multi-touch for pretty much everything except for typing which we will definitely talk about one of the killer features at webOS in the pre had is has been called synergy and integrate information from a ton of sources it allows you to sign into accounts like Gmail Yahoo Facebook LinkedIn and Outlook and took all those contacts integrate them into a single contact list which sounds kind of simple today back in 2009 it was totally revolutionary on the software front I think palm did an absolutely incredible job in retrospect it ended up being really underpowered and weak hardware that I think doomed the OS Egypt with 256 megabytes of RAM eight gigs of storage and a tiny miniscule three point one inch 320 by 480 screen and it was riddled with problems from day one the hardware of the original Prix was really underpowered and it held back the OS from being as smooth so people were used to with iOS at the time that wasn't ultimately what did the Prien they made a few mistakes first they launched exclusively was sprint and they had a creepy ad campaign that went with it it was a strange-looking lady that didn't resonate with anyone I remember camping out at the Sprint store to get a Palm Pre first one I got together box set it up it was broken went back to the store second one set it up broken again wasn't until my third Palm Pre they found it got one that worked that was again when the issues with the Palm Pre was quality issues mechanisms that loosen could often wiggle all about and the issue became known as I still think it's a best name for a problem today Oreo twist the phone would slide out in reveal a keyboard and for an OS that relied solely on touch having a physical keyboard just didn't seem bright let alone a physical keyboard that was in portrait mode so it's really small keys they weren't very tactile it often gets stuck down and it was a horrible typing experience even from launch day pawn was still in a little bit of legal trouble if you remember back in 2009 palm actually got a little bit legally creative and when the pre initially shipped you could sync it with iTunes which imagine Apple was not overly halfway out and it started a cat and mouse game Apple would fix iTunes it would break the sync palm release an update and then fix it again went back and forth for a while even when as far as Tim Cook stating we will not stand for people ripping off our IP and pom responded they've quote have the tools necessary to defend themselves so setting up for a really cool legal battle that never end up coming to fruition now the Palm Pre did live long enough to see a few updates we saw the Palm Pre Plus we saw the pre - even the pre three started chipping for 18 t then was pulled from the shelves palm was ultimately bought by HP thought they were gonna be the savior of the operating system ended up just kind of burying it ultimately selling it off in piecemeal this is kind of the end of a sad story for the pre I love the software I think they launched a little better hardware and better carrier partners we'd still be using webOS devices today it was extremely elegant look how it worked back in 2009 we didn't seen anything like this before and I think palm deserve credit for paving the way for a lot of things that we take for granted today but unfortunately the Palm Pre the palm line is no more you've got an old pre pre plus pre - or pre 3 kicking around dust it off plug it in turn it on remember how awesome things used to be