www.webOShelp.net

Precentral has posted an article entitled "Palm Pre - Will Production Match the Demo?"  In it they reference an interview in which David LaGesse said:

"If they can really pull it off as good as their demonstration, they may have a winner here."

Apparently at CES the Palm demonstrators were entering secret key combinations to initiate certain demo sequences.  The article then goes on to point out that the Blackberry Storm didn't live up to initial expectations, but has still posted good sales numbers.  From other rumors on the net, it seems that Palm may use the entire "first half of 2009" timeframe.  Do you think Palm will be able to pull out a winner, or are we going to see a buggy/late release?

Palm has already stated that the Pre is the first in a line of devices.  Whether the Pre is successful will largely determine whether we get to see any of those other devices. But think about this one: Netbooks are taking off, helping push Acer's shipments of computers up 55% in the fourth quarter of 2008 while almost every other manufacturer saw a drop during that same period. With hotspots popping up almost everywhere, people are looking for lighter, more convenient ways of taking the web and email with them, and let's face it, netbooks are just a stopgap. Come on--having to boot up Windows Vista just so you can surf the net while you drink a cup of coffee?  What a waste of resources.

Enter webOS. With its current "card-based" app-switching paradigm and its off-screen gesture area it would be perfect for a netbook with little to no changes. And with the sexy-but-abandoned Palm Foleo on their resume, what's to stop them from trying again with a new-and-improved webOS Foleo 2?

Bloggingstocks.com has posted the results of a survey of 1,200 consumers on "how likely they were to buy the Pre when it becomes available".  The results are hardly mind-blowing: 2% likely, and 6% somewhat likely.  However, they point out that these numbers correspond well with those of the original iPhone:

In a nutshell, our initial Pre results are almost identical to those of the original iPhone.

And while this doesn't necessarily mean that the Pre will go on to capture a big chunk of the market any time soon. But it does mean that if the Pre lives up to the hype it could wrestle a sizable number of customers away from the competition.

I think that while the Pre offers a lot out of the box (PIM suite, multitasking, physical keyboard, etc.), a lot of its appeal will depend  on the application support it will have when and after it launches.  Note to Palm: Hurry up and get your Mojo on!

Palmwebosblog.com has a fun piece on a fictional day with webOS and the Palm Pre. 

I search for taxi numbers using Universal Search. Conveniently Pre knows where I am and pulls out nearby taxi companies with phone numbers, websites and their locations on the map.

In the taxi I read the agenda for our conference presentation. It occurs to me that they forgot to mention a major marketing point in our presentation. Nothing that a quick edit cannot do! I add the extra point and send the new agenda to all attendees with a short update.

Check out the full article here.  Have any interesting thoughts or speculation about webOS?  Post it in the forums!  Interesting submissions will be moved to the front page.