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preDevCamp, an event for up-and-coming WebOS software developers, is coming to a town near you. Announced by organizer whurley in Phone Warz: Revenge of the Palm, over 60 cities are on the agenda so far including New York, San Francisco, Houston, Toronto and even destinations as far-reaching as Budapest (Hungary) and Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam). This follows in the footprints of iPhoneDevCamp, the developer event for the iPhone hosted around the world in July 2007 (and again in August 2008). From the site:

preDevCamp is an upcoming not-for-profit gathering to develop applications for Palm Pre using both the Mojo SDK and traditional web standards. The event is currently being planned in over 60 cities around the world.

The date is set for shortly after the US release of the Pre. Below is the official word so far.

Dates: 1 week after the US release of the Palm Pre
Venue: See individual city sites for venues and related updates.
Registration: A system has been put in place so that registrations are broken down by city. Please see your city to register.

With the release of the Pre on the horizon, preDevCamp is sure to have a large following. Check the Event Guide for a location near you. Each city has it's own page so you can stay informed about the events in your area.

Visit the official site for all the details.

Precommunity.com has posted an interview with Sprint and Palm executives that uncovered a few interesting tidbits about webOS:

Palm confirmed that, while the SDK will not be entirely open to modification, it would be broad in its flexibility. A Palm OS emulator, for instance, would be both possible and permitted, though the company themselves have no plans to create one. webOS will also support over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates, rather than requiring a full plugged-in ROM reflash as on previous Palm devices, and tasks such as pairing Bluetooth devices and switching between them have also been streamlined.

TamsPalm posts an interview with PalmOS developer mobile-stream covering topics including reactions to the webOS announcement:

The operating system is said to be web-only. Do you think that its possible to create solid applications in such an environment?
Lately the idea of web services has been very popular. We’ve seen many examples of that on desktop computers. Now time has come to smartphones.
It is possible to create solid web services. That’s just a very different way from an old Palm scene. Some old Palm developers will switch from Palm to other platforms, some will start to do web-based projects. New companies (mainly with web development experience) will come to Palm.

They also cover other topics including developing in webOS vs. other platforms and hopes for a native SDK.  Check out the full article.

Arstechnica has posted an article entitled The Palm Pre's possible Achilles heel: battery life.  In it, they talk about the how the screen, cellular radio and beefy cpu may drain the Pre's batter faster than its competitors.  The most interesting part of the article, though, is about how the webOS software stack may be more computationally expensive than because of its reliance on web standard languages such as HTML and JavaScript:

Performing some common operations in JavaScript, such as string concatenation, can be a lot more computationally intensive than doing it with native code. On top of that, programs that are built with Web-based technologies are going to rely on DOM manipulation to control the user interface, which will take more processing power than using a conventional native widget toolkit.

Web runtimes are increasingly viewed as a more portable alternative to native development, and there are some emerging standards and existing mobile implementations that show a lot of potential in this area, but the technology is extremely resource-intensive; it doesn't really scale well enough to be used pervasively on conventional handsets. The Pre's Cortex A8 will certainly help make the software environment fit into a mobile, but the combination of the processor and the software stack could make for a big drain on battery life.

Head on over for the full article.

Boygeniusreport has posted some screenshots of Palm's webOS SDK in action.  In them, they demonstrate that apps can be previewed in the web browser and that the SDK runs as a local server (most likely to process the specialized Javascript API calls to hook into webOS services).

For starters, everything is tested and previewed in the web browser (our shots are of the Mac version, so Safari), which bodes well for Palm’s “anyone who knows how to program in Javascrizzy can write an application”, line. We’re told that even in Safari, apps work just like they would on the actual device, and much like the iPhone Simulator, just in the web browser. This means scrolling and rubberband-man bouncing. Very cool and very sneaky. The SDK operates as a local server that serves up the web pages (applications), and you can hook into it from your local browser.

Check out the article and the screenshots here.

Precommunity has uncovered an HD walkthrough of the Pre that shows "previously unseen features" of webOS.

A new YouTube video was uncovered by internet sleuths yesterday that has Peter Skillman, Palm’s VP of Design walking through some previously unseen features of the Pre.

They also expand on the "new" features in the article.  Check it out here.

FierceWireless has posted yet another hands-on demo of the Pre.

They have also posted an article in which an analyst at Citi predicts Palm will sell 1.5M units in the first year:

The analyst, Jim Suva, said while Palm is still expected to face large losses over the next few years, Citi had an optimistic view of unit sales. Citi went on to note that it was taking conservative views on what the Pre's average selling price and margins would be, and that Palm needed to provide more details on its pricing strategy for the smartphone.

Engadget has a piece entitled "What Apple could learn from Palm's webOS", which compares the iPhone OS and Palm's webOS in areas such as push notification, developer freedom and transparency, multitasking, contacts integration (Synergy), instant messaging, and more.  They then expand on the best features of the G1 and Blackberry/Windows mobile. Here's a snippit:

but we can't help but think that Palm took a long hard look at where Apple was at with its ultra-successful mobile OS and what they could improve upon, and we would like to assume that Apple is looking very carefully at webOS right now (and hopefully the Pre's physical keyboard, but we're dreamers) and comparing it with its current iPhone OS.

Definitely worth a read.