So What Does LG know that the rest of us don’t?

Remember Palm and their operating system WebOS?

It was bought by HP in 2011 for $1.2bn. At the time HP gave it 100% backing, but much like the football Chairman who gets the backs his manager during a bad losing streak, they have decide to change. HP did launch products such as their TouchPad which ran on WebOS, but the result was poor sales.

Palm developed WebOS to run smartphones, Tablets and mobile devices but was swept aside by Apple IOS, Google’s Android and even fell far short of players such as Blackberry.

HP will retain the underlying WebOS patents and technology but will handover the source code, documentation, would be used to power its next-generation smart TV technology. The big question now is whether WebOS will fair any better against the same competitors in the emerging smart TV battleground? Will an Android dominance lead to manufactures want to create their own look and feel, or like Microsoft is doing with Windows 8 will they merely jump ship to the perceived next best thing?

To demonstrate what HP actual thinks they have just launched their first Android-powered HP Slate 7 tablet, at the 2013 Mobile World Congress.

HP is not thought to have recouped the money it paid for Palm for WebOS..

Palm Continues to Taunt Apple

Palm has taken a decision to re-syncing its Pre Web OS to iTunes. This follows iTunes issuing an update to block their previous hook up.

The question now is whether this latest twist will end up in court? On June 16, Apple issued an iTunes support document that said it does "not provide support" for non-Apple hardware that attempts to use iTunes for synchronizing content from a Mac or Windows PC. Palm’s openness would suggest that they are taunting Apple and expecting a reaction. If Apple were to turn the other cheek then it may be an open invitation for others to follow and could undermine iTune dominance in the market. Others see it as strengthening iTunes in the same way that the adoption of MP3 made it more attractive to a wider audience.

However there is another viewpoint that Apple is open to the Palm approach in that Palm hasn't done anything to Apple's software, only its own Web OS software and therefore there is little that they can do legally. Palm has not violated Apple’s software so has not infringed any copyright.

Until there is clarity, or the Apple engineers devise code that prohibits Palm, it would appear that Palm wish to continue to synch to iTunes software and taunt Apple.

As We Await Apple

So as the world awaits Apple’s next announcements on Monday and the undoubted media blitz that will follow we have taken a quick look at some of the others vying for space in this crowded market.

Palm Pre
The Pre has made its long awaited entrance and now its down to the consumers to decide whether it lives up to the hype or becomes just another also ran. The webOS, Palm's new operating system enables concurrent applications open at once. You simply organized the apps like a row of cards and you flick the screen to switch between them. WebOS will also notify you of events that need your attention, no matter which application you're in. Again, making the iPhone look cumbersome and others just clumsy and slow. The Pre’s webOS aggregates contacts and calendar items from multiple sources, like Google, corporate Exchange servers, and can even insert your friends' Facebook photos into your contacts list. This obviously wins over the iPhone’s in many ways but is it enough to make consumers buy or even switch allegiance? Will we get iphone app overload and will the Pre give us the apps that are clearly driving this market?

Whether you get a Pre or not, its has clearly raised the bar on the software will leave its mark on the phones you buy in the future.

LG
We have long awaited LG GD910 mobile watch will be hitting the UK in July but unfortunately only being available via Orange and with a £1000 price tag. The price will almost certainly put off many from being James Bond but will it become a designer status symbol for chavs or merely a nice product at the wrong price? As previously reported it has a 1.4 inch touchscreen, looks good being only 14mm thick, has 7.2Mbps HSDPA, voice recognition, text to speech capability, Bluetooth, MP3 player and tells the time too.

HTC
HTC are about to unveil its third Andriod mobile and rumours suggest the announcement will be on June 24th . The HTC Hero is expected to launch in two models, one with touchscreen only and one packing a QWERTY keyboard and so offering appeal to all. With Google’s arsenal of potential opportunities and its cross platform design, the Andriod phones are certainly ones to watch.

ACER
Acer’s new Tempo F900 smartphone arrival to the UK appears imminent. First shown in Barcelona in February the device looks set to have a £429 price tag. It features a 3.8 inch VGA screen, Internet Explorer 6, with JavaScript and Adobe Flash Lite, and high-speed HSDPA. Acer has clearly stated it wants to be a smartphone player and have adopted Acer 2.0 user interface to aid navigation and ‘desktop’ customisation, in addition to Google Search, Google Maps and YouTube. Acer is not alone in the move from netbook to mobile and could bring some interesting user friendly aspects to the table.

INQ
UK based INQ is to launch a Twitter phone which it claims will be the first mass-market phone to have a client for the social networking phenomenon built-in. It will use the internet to send and receive tweets, rather than text messages. The question is what is so special and surely everyone else can easily follow. Like Skype you don’t buy a device just make it easy to twitter or do you?

Palm Pre Comes Late to the Party

So today Palm has set out to reinvent themselves. They have finally realised that their devices have been obliterated on all fronts and what was once a must have device – the PDA, and the Treo smartphone are no longer on the consumer radar.

Enter the Palm Pre a touch screen smartphone aimed at competing with the iPhone and revitalising Palm’s fortunes. The Pre comes with eight gigabytes of storage, GPS navigational capabilities, Wi-Fi networking and a slide-out keyboard. The Pre is to be distributed by Sprint and is aimed at helping them compete with AT&T’s iPhone alliance.

Palm face a number of significant hurdles, not least their market position and economics would lead some to suggest that they are not the most stable of the players in this market. As applications become more important to smartphone consumers, how do they get application developers to use their WebOS platform? Can they really expect developers to drop iPhone, RIM, Android or Symbian applications in favour of the Pre?