Udo's Techblog

To be honest, I didn't think Palm was even still in business, but sometimes circling the drain can be a great wake-up call for a company that still has potential, I guess. Enter the Palm Pre. It just now came out and people all over have already commented it to death. So there's just one short point I'd like to make from the developer's perspective:

Developing for the iPhone is kinda fun. The development invironment is powerful and enjoyable, and the power being able to use Objective-C for OpenGL-based applications (!!!) on a mobile device is beyond cool. However, when you just want to do a quick list-sort-of-app with minimal data entry and net connectivity, you're inevitably stuck wondering why you have to do so much boilerplate code for so little functionality. Is it nice that you can link all sorts of complex object behavior with a single entry in a listview? Sure. But it gets old fast, especially if you're required to jump through these hoops for the simplest stuff. Yeah, you can copy and paste, and have code generated automatically, but I really really despise frameworks that make me do that. Kinda like Java, but I digress.

Anyway, when you're developing apps for the iPhone you're likely to arrive at the point where you're wondering if it wouldn't have been simpler to do this entire project in 50 lines of HTML/JavaScripts and be done with it already. Of course, you can always build stuff for mobile Safari, but it has zero offline capabilities.

And don't even get me started on the App Store. I hate the idea that you can only run Apple-signed apps on your own frigging device. It's a disgrace. People moan about TPM, then they turn around to buy an iPhone and pretend not to notice. Hipocrites. 'Nuff said.

So here's this new Palm Pre, powering it is the long-awaited WebOS, and its applications are based on nothing more than HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They look beautiful and they'll be really easy and fast to code for. Of course you won't see cool OpenGL transitions, advanced UI elements, or even 3D games for the Pre anytime soon. But the majority of apps are not Jump'n'Runs, they're Twitter-style and Facebook-style forms with some local data and seamless online connectivity.

My first reaction was: why didn't Apple do exactly that? It would have been easy to give developers the option, at least. All the more so, since the iPhone is clearly the superior device on purely technical grounds. And in theory, Safari has pretty cool offline functions. The answer probably has to do with control. It's a lot harder to make an inert, signable package out of a web app without crippling it beyond recognition. And as an App Store hater, I really hope with stupid "business decision" will give Apple the beating it so richly deserves in that area.