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Thursday April 30, 2009
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The Internet has been buzzing today about Palm's second WebOS smart phone, the follow-up to the upcoming Palm Pre.
I've heard from some friends as well, and the predictions are coming into line - Palm's working on something that's lower-cost, and yes, it will have a QWERTY keyboard. Boy Genius Report published a blurry photo of a supposed phone, and Engadget followed up with a Photoshop rendering, the name "Eos" and a pretty comprehensive list of specs.
Finally, around dinnertime, Michael Arrington on TechCrunch christened it the "Pixie," and Greg Kumparak on Arrington's own TechCrunch site fell into the Eos camp.
The new device is supposed to be a slim, lower-cost WebOS gadget, destined to come out within several months of the Pre. Engadget purports to have almost suspiciously precise specs, and even to predict that it's coming out on AT&T.
The problem with rumors like this is that people tend to take them too literally. Six months before launch, a lot of specs are subject to change. Calling the frequency bands for AT&T, for instance, is extremely premature; unlike Apple, Palm are comfortable working on a range of bands and radio interfaces, and could swap a different radio in lickety-split if they get a good deal from a different carrier.
Calling the price is even more absurd. Negotiations over subsidies go on until even a few weeks before launch. I've seen prices tweaked even after I've gotten draft press releases. When predictions get this specific, they tend to involve a lot of wishful thinking - taking something that's a proposal, a negotiation or a talking point, and casting it in stone.
What really matters here isn't the specifics of the device. Those are subject to change - and they will change. What matters is that Palm has a broad, upcoming lineup of WebOS phones, and they're already working on more than one. Palm promised that WebOS will be a platform and a lineup, and it looks like they're going to live up to their promises.
This has implications for software developers, who can look at more than just the Pre when they think of markets for their software. And it's got plenty of implications for users, who won't have to worry about the Pre being an isolated event.
But let's back off the hard-and-fast predictions. They're likely to create as much unwarranted disappointment as joyous anticipation. This far in advance of launch, in the mobile industry, things almost always change.
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April 30, 2009 11:12 PM
This is the problem I find with a lot of technology blogging: the focus becomes so much on getting the scoop, getting the story out on the street first, and getting the rumors published just so you can say that you were first to the party that somehow quality and accuracy seem to be lost. It's the kind of writing that makes bloggers seem like "lesser journalists" when, if we behave properly, we could be anything but.
Sometimes I wonder if the folks at Engadget and Gizmodo pay more attention to their traffic stats than who they're getting these rumors and press releases from. I mean, we already know that Arrington doesn't.