Palmer Eldritch: btw, if the palm emulator is anything to go buy, this thing’s going to fucking rock
Palmer Eldritch: that is, if the software works as well on the device as it does in emulation
Joel Johnson: I presume all the fretting about the “web environment” not being powerful enough is bullshit?
Palmer Eldritch: yeah, assuming the handheld can keep up with everything
Palmer Eldritch: the api looks pretty thorough
Palmer Eldritch: and the web environment means a nub like me can write an app with about 10 min of reading
Palmer Eldritch: vs the iphone :p
Joel Johnson: Yeah, that is a pretty big deal
Joel Johnson: Even if the apps don’t end up as “powerful”
Palmer Eldritch: yeah
Palmer Eldritch: well, how many iphone apps need power?
Palmer Eldritch: obviously some
Palmer Eldritch: but nothing I’d write!
Palmer Eldritch: if I read one of these config options right, you can back your pre up “to the cloud”
Palmer Eldritch: there’s going to be some palm service for it
Palmer Eldritch: I’m probably being over optimistic, but I’m really excited about it
Palmer Eldritch: and now I can keep my super cheap sprint plan
Joel Johnson: that’s interesting
Palmer Eldritch: I wish MS and RIM would start from scratch on something
Palmer Eldritch: maybe it takes desperation to do that
Palmer Eldritch: but I’m tired of phone software that was built in 1998
Joel Johnson: Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with starting over
Joel Johnson: Also, you should post that stuff.
Joel Johnson: It’ll make Palm happy.
Joel Johnson: Anonymously, of course.
Palmer Eldritch: haha
Palmer Eldritch: you can, if you want :p
Joel Johnson: There’s not enough to go with yet!
Palmer Eldritch: ok, what all do you want to know?
Joel Johnson: let’s structure this like an interview
Joel Johnson: Now that you’ve had a couple of days to dink around with the SDK, what makes you so excited about webOS?Palmer Eldritch: in order: the cards concept is slick, app development is easy, and they seem serious about it working with existing services (like the google ones, facebook photos, etc)
Joel Johnson: What about app development is easy? Just because it uses web tech you already know? How reliant are you on Javascript?
Palmer Eldritch: Yeah, I’m familiar with the web tech. This also means I can use my existing weapons of choice to develop stuff, which really makes it easy to jump in.
Palmer Eldritch: And very reliant on javascript, the better you know js, the easier app development will go for you
Palmer Eldritch: The SDK seems to know that people are going to want to use their own tools for everything. Most examples start with the “blessed” Eclipse based development, then give the same example assuming just a command line and text editor.
Joel Johnson: How easy is it to get access to the hardware? (At least from how you can tell from the SDK?)
Palmer Eldritch: Meaning things like gps, camera, etc?
Palmer Eldritch: actually, I’ll answer both possible alternatives
Palmer Eldritch: Palm says theres a developer program that will get developers handset contract free for “$100 under msrp”, whatever that is
Joel Johnson: Sorry! I’m typing!
Palmer Eldritch: As far as API access goes, it looks like everything you’d expect is or will be there
Palmer Eldritch: The accelerometer stuff is incomplete, but the docs say it’s coming
Palmer Eldritch: gps, camera, etc, are all pretty easy
Palmer Eldritch: here’s how you request gps stuff, for instance:
Palmer Eldritch: this.controller.serviceRequest(‘palm://com.palm.location’, {
method:”getCurrentPosition”,
parameters:{},
onSuccess:{},
onFailure:{}
}
});
Joel Johnson: So you actually call services over HTTP? That’s odd/awesome.
Palmer Eldritch: Heh, not exactly I don’t think. The palm:// prefix probably invokes some native javascript stuff.
Palmer Eldritch: same way ftp:// isn’t the http protocol, it’s just a uri
Palmer Eldritch: it seems like you can actually write apps that expose services too, though I don’t see specifics
Palmer Eldritch: but ‘palm://com.whoever.appname’ is how you’d reference a 3rd party app
Palmer Eldritch: I don’t actually see any way to access microphone/sound recorder in the docs
Joel Johnson: What sort of things aren’t going to work on the Pre that work on the iPhone, say?
Palmer Eldritch: Keeping in mind that I’m relatively ignorant about iPhone development: I think it’ll be hard to get low level libraries that aren’t Palm produced. For instance, I think there are several barcode recognition libs written in C++ that are probably easy ports to the iPhone. It’s not clear to me how something like the Unity Game Engine (http://unity3d.com/) could work on the Pre either.
Palmer Eldritch: Palm has hinted that lower level stuff is coming at some point, but they haven’t said when. They say they know it needs to be added, though.
Palmer Eldritch: Apparently people are asking for lower level networking access, among other things.
Joel Johnson: In a way, though, that seems fine, because the one thing Palm needs right now is as many little apps out as possible.
Palmer Eldritch: yeah, I think it’s tolerable. There’s a great swath of stuff that *could* be written for it as is, including things like a Kindle Reader. It’s like a more useful version of how Apple launched.
Joel Johnson: Cool. Anything else?
Joel Johnson: Or anything else that is cool?
Palmer Eldritch: Yeah, the mail client supports a unified inbox view accross accounts. 
Palmer Eldritch: That’s awesome!
Palmer Eldritch: Oh, one other thing. The SDK has some notification options, including UI guidelines for them.
Palmer Eldritch: But devs can essentially trigger two types of global notifications, a “subtle” one for things like new emails, and an “omfg pay attention” thing for missed meetings and whatnot.
Joel Johnson: Is there any sort of unified “at a glance” screen? I don’t recall seeing anything in the demos, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t show it.
Joel Johnson: That’s one of the things I love about Android, that pulldown screen at the top with all the status updates.
Palmer Eldritch: Hrm, let me look.
Palmer Eldritch: The emulator is hard to use without multitouch and the gesture pad.
Palmer Eldritch: I don’t think so.
Palmer Eldritch: There’s actually quite a bit that seems to be missing from the emulator, as far as phone functions go.
Palmer Eldritch: Like, no settings screen (only application specific ones), the app catalog is mia, and I can’t figure out how to close apps.
Joel Johnson: Palm is doomed!
Palmer Eldritch: yeah, definitely
Joel Johnson: What’s really awesome is that in aim
Joel Johnson: your image is a blacked out silhouette
Joel Johnson: so I feel like we’re on 60 minutes
Palmer Eldritch: DUN DUN DUN
Hey Joel! I’m not a web guy, so I don’t really know how this works, but your RSS feeds have been coming through with no formatting at all since the move to the new design. Now, on to read the post…
Is there some sort of sinister Palm mind warping afoot, or is it just a philip k dick homage that the programmer’s name is Palmer Eldritch??
Does he know this is true? I’d seriously consider a Pre if I could keep my SERO plan, but if I need a new plan I won’t get one.
It’s been a long time since I read the book, but didn’t Palmer Eldritch turn out to be a simulacrum, fronting for malign space aliens planning to enslave the Earth? (Or was that part just a hallucination? It’s hard to keep things straight in those ’60s PKD novels.)
Also, what Smalltimore said. Something is screwed up in the HTML formatting in the RSS feed and paragraph breaks are being lost, so the entire interview got smooshed together into one block. Not good. (I’m reading with NetNewsWire, btw.)
I like the screwed up RSS feed format. This article opened with “Palmer Eldritch: btw, if the palm emulator is anything to go buy, this thing’s going to fucking rock Palmer Eldritch”
I know it got my interest that way.
Actually, he won’t be able to keep his cheap sprint plan (especially if it’s a SERO plan). Sprint has announced that the Pre will be ESN locked to their “Simply Everything” plans. Those start at at $70 for 450 minutes (and $.45/min overage), go up to $90 for 900 minutes (and $.40/min overage), and top out at $100 for unlimited minutes.
The “Super Cheap” SERO plans were $30 for 500 minutes (and $.20/min overage) and included just as much unlimited messaging and internet.