Palm Pre in Depth
The Pre was widely reported as being an incredibly important release for Palm; a kind of last ditch attempt to create a portable device that would sell in an overly-crowded smartphone market. And so far things are looking good for the future prospects of the Pre. It is selling well, which is always a good thing, but for modern smartphones there needs to be a bit more going on behind the scenes and outside of the official channels if they are going to be an enduring success. Thankfully, typing ‘Palm Pre Community’ into Google will provide you with a range of community sites, many of which are already claiming to be the best or most advanced places to chat about and improve your own Palm Pre experience. That these sites have come into existence so early in the Pre’s life bodes well for the phone itself and more importantly for the webOS software which powers it and which will power future Palm handsets.
Mobile phone communities are useful for several different reasons, but the number one incentive to visit a Palm Pre fan site is for news updates. Palm is seemingly throwing itself into a new role as trusted benefactor with aplomb and it has already released an update for the Pre which hikes up the webOS to version 1.3.1. Since it is likely that continued updates, improvements and releases will keep on being made available to enhance the Pre, keeping one ear to the community to find out the latest news is essential for every Pre owner who wants to get the most out of their phone.
We turn now the second useful Palm Pre communities function, that of independent product reviews. Whenever a phone becomes popular there are going to be hundreds of peripherals, add-ons, enhancements and so forth. There is also always quite a lot of useless tat that many people will waste their money on without realising their mistake. If you are looking for a case for your Palm Pre, or you want the low-down on any other third party peripheral then the community is the first place you should turn. Most major tech sites do not have the time or resources to review every accessory for every smartphone and you should not put all your faith in online retailers, since it is their job to sell products rather than provide objective opinions. Since the Palm Pre community sites answer to no one, you should consider the opinions voiced about accessories to be fairly unbiased and therefore worthy of your attention.
This same logic can be applied to app reviews. Any rating system which relies on stars, symbols or percentages is fine to a certain extent, but in-depth and honest opinions about the various applications which are released for the Palm Pre can only really be generated within a community environment. These are coming from people who want to support the platform as well as constantly improving it and if the Pre is ever going to catch up to the iPhone in the app department it needs people to give feedback to app developers.
Whilst there are already plenty of Palm Pre community websites out there it is worth using a bit of common sense when you look at them. Some have been set up pre-emptively, in the hope that people will stumble across them and join in automatically, whilst some look like thinly-veiled attempts at garnering a bit of quick business on the back of a popular mobile phone. There are even sites which sell themselves as offering hacks for the Pre, although if you actually visit them they are little more than under-populated forums. As yet there is no significant Pre-hacking community, however it is important to note that in this context ‘hacking’ is not used in a negative sense, instead relating to user-generated content and improvements to the platform which are not officially sanctioned.
Another useful function of the Palm Pre community is that it can give Pre owners the knowledge and capabilities to get the most out of their phones. The Pre’s webOS has so much going for it and indeed so much going on, that not being fully in tune with its functions and potential could dampen the experience for the uninitiated. There may be aspects of the Pre with which you are unfamiliar or do not know exist. The community is a good place in which to get to grips with the basics as well as providing a portal to improving your own abilities and using the more advanced functions.
The Palm Pre is still in the early stages of its lifecycle, although with a growing community supporting it online it is likely that the Pre will remain relevant for considerably longer than other smartphones of the current generation. It seems important to note that the Pre, like the iPhone, is essentially the only mobile phone that Palm produces. It will, however, be releasing the Pixi soon. This is essentially a scaled-down version of the Pre that shares the same webOS software. As both Apple and Palm can focus their efforts on a single smartphone, they can continually provide support and foster the growth of a community which will ensure longevity. Other manufacturers seem to suffer at the hands of divided attentions. Samsung, LG, HTC and Nokia all seem to release a new smartphone every couple of weeks and then immediately stop supporting it when it isn’t an instant success. This allows more focused manufacturers such as Palm to nurture their platforms and phones, which shows benefits in the long term.
