In a tucked away room in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, Sprint and Palm are demonstrating a number of Pre applications for the first time. Earlier this afternoon we got a bit of footage of Classic, a PalmOS emulator by MotionApps’ purposed for running any legacy applications you may have laying around. Since then, we’ve also had the opportunity to check out the Pandora, Fandango, Sprint TV, FlightView, and Nascar applications, and brought back a boatload of video for you to check out.
For all videos below, I’d recommend hitting the HQ button for the sake of visibility. These applications are all pretty dang gorgeous, so the extra click is worth it.
Pandora:
They were one of the first to be disclosed as being in the know when it came to the webOS SDK, and now they’re one of the first with something to show. Pandora brings all the streaming radio functionality you’d expect of an app to bear the name, but leverages the Pre’s notifications bar to serve as a media controller from outside the app.
Fandango:
Like all of the apps Palm had on display, the Fandango application is reaaally smooth. The UI is gorgeous, it localizes theater times and ticket availability via GPS. A bit of a neat trick: it can automatically add the movie to your calendar, making sure you don’t miss your flick when you lose track of time whilst grabbing a pre-show drink, and allowing you to invite others.
Sprint TV:
The fact that the Pre is launching exclusively on Sprint is a bit of a big deal. Unlike AT&T with their iPhone deal, Sprint is making sure to get some of their services onto the device right out of the box. Sprint TV is one of Sprint’s popular offerings, allowing you to pull live video feeds from CNN, Fox Sports, Disney, ABC, the Speed channel, and others.
FlightView:
Gotta pick up grams at the airport? Want to check if her flight is on schedule? FlightView is a fairly basic application, but it serves a purpose. Punch in the flight info, and you’ll get notifications of any changes along with access to a live flight tracker once it’s in the air. Recently searched flights are automatically stored for later viewing.
Nascar:
Not to unfairly generalize here – but is there all that much overlap between the Palm Pre’s audience and devout Nascar fans?
Whether it sees much use, the Nascar application seemed well designed. The demonstrator had a bit of trouble getting it to connect to video streams while we were recording, but we’d seen cars successfully tearing around the screen just minutes before. I’ve gotta ask: Any Nascar fans out there dying for the Pre?
“Not to unfairly generalize here – but is there all that much overlap between the Palm Pre’s audience and devout Nascar fans?”
is called the Sprint Cup – http://www.nascar.com/series/cup/
so maybe there’s the correlation
Correlation between Sprint and Nascar, not between potential Palm Pre buyers and Nascar.
I looked at the SDK and wasn’t that thrilled about what I saw. I still don’t see how this SDK helps you write games for example, however I do see how it would enable tons of enterprises to get their internal applications onto the platform. Existing enterprise shops can have applications ported to the Pre in 3 months or less which is a VERY big deal. Apple shouldn’t be worried, RIM should be!
test
Sprint TV – are they serious? Why do telecom companies insist on venturing their own way? Combined with Verizon’s proprietary web idea, I don’t know which company is stupider: Verizon or Sprint. FAIL.
Are you serious man :( Wtf, Who want to know boring applications people will take for granted anyway come on.
Palm Pre is a new PALM – SMART – PHONE 2009.
Let this new palm show some skin , I get this odd feeling these demo’s as it is called do the palm any good.
The old palm is gone now show me the PRE NOW .
Not to unfairly generalize, but is there any correlation between MobileCruch reviewers and elitism? Apparently plenty.
Were you trying to be funny? Or just insulting something you apparently know nothing about?
Palm Pre will be a gigantic failure, mark my words.
Yay. Because if you’re right, no one will know. And if you’re wrong, no one will know. Yay.
Is it just me, or does the UI seem to hiccup a lot and not move with the persons finger during a scroll? It makes me think about that I haven’t seen a demo of any games during on the Pre. Can it run a game when it looks like it’s having trouble with these fairly static screens?
Enough teasing of the product already. Deliver the dang thang !!
Kind of annoying that Pandora (Tom Conrad) refuses to support Android, even months after public release, but we’ve got a full pre-release Pandora client for WebOS? Including the ability to control it using the notification bar? (Admittedly Palm probably sells more phones than Google does currently.) Why doesn’t this exist for Android? Why is Pandora insisting on giving all their streaming music business to Imeem and Last.FM?
This is a really nice looking phone, coming from an iPhone addict. But Sprint? Really? Isn’t Sprint the ONLY US carrier that lost customers last year?