Palm’s Jon Rubinstein Dives Into The Stupid Pool

Palm CEO, former Apple exec says he’s never used an iPhone

Rubinstein said that although it sounds “really strange,” his company doesn’t pay much attention to Apple, and he doesn’t worry about the iPhone. To that, Swisher responded: “I don’t believe you.” Rubinstein then claimed he has never touched an iPhone

“I don’t have an iPhone,” he said. “I’ve never even used one.”

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

I really fear for the future of Palm now.

Congratulations, Rubinstein.

You’re in the Stupid Pool along with Steve Ballmer and Sergey Brin.

Mobile Web Design

It’s strange how things pop up to be noticed weeks after publication. Long Tail for the win, I guess.

Friday, November 6, 2009: WordPress Trumps Blogger in Mobile

Wednesday, December 16, 2009: Reading on a Mobile Device

Both are relevant to my earlier post, The INEVITABLE Changes The iSlate Will Create.

Let me just say these are baby steps. It’s still not enough. Scrolling must die!

The INEVITABLE Changes The iSlate Will Create

None of you pay attention.

Just because people are experiencing things doesn’t mean they have any insight into them.

— Bellwether by Connie Willis

Those words are in the forefront of my mind as we approach January 26, the rumored iSlate announcement date.

Why?

Bob Lefsetz again provoked my thinking with a new post where he recommends a video featuring Apple’s designer, Jonathan Ive.

Since he doesn’t embed videos, I will, after the break.

When The Truth Finally Comes Out, It Is Brutal

Ten reasons why an Android phone is not a phone for me.

This is excellent. The first truthful account I’ve read.

Some choices quotes:

For whatever weird reason the tech news scene tends to grant everything coming out of Google with premature praise.

Welcome to the Planet of the Tech Gadget Whores. It’s a rude awakening, isn’t it? They’ll open their mouths to any insertion by a large corporation so they can flaunt their early access to shiny things. That’s what matters to them — not you, the reader and potential purchaser.

I don’t consider it to be a consumer’s primary task to fix a flawed smart phone OS

Exactly! People shouldn’t have to fix something that’s supposed to be a tool. I’ve been down this road investigating the Palm Pre. People told me of all the shortcomings and all of these ridiculous patches that would “fix” them. Who in their right mind wants to have to deal with that? I’ve been down this road with the original Palm OS and hacks. Been there, done that. Go get lost now.

It’s Google’s freaking operating system and they should have imposed at least basic means of quality assurance to make sure that Android partners provide a consistent experience to consumers.

This is what Palm isn’t getting: they can offer that. Unfortunately, they’ve retreated into the crowded and cutthroat cellphone space instead of swerving and avoiding it altogether with a mini-tablet. They would have been well ahead of the game by now. The lust of the market would have caught up to them and they’d own the mini-tablet space right now instead of people looking at the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, the Camangi WebStation, and the upcoming Dell Streak, Notion Ink Adam, and the ICD device. Without having to devote resources to the telephony aspects of a device, they could have conquered all the current shortcomings in webOS and it would have been a superior product to what it is now.

Go read that post. It’s the kind of writing we should come across every damn day on the Internet. Instead we are constantly fooled by the hype of self-interested whores.

Multi eInk eBook Device Fondle Report

Note: Crappy graphic for illustrative purposes only. Devices are not to relative sizes.

Last weekend I was frustrated in my attempt to fondle a live Barnes & Noble Nook. The only working unit was still locked away in an office and the person with the key wouldn’t arrive until 2PM that day (I was there at 10AM!).

This weekend, I went back to the same Barnes & Noble. What the hell, let’s see.

And they had two live Nooks.

After fondling the Nook, I went on to fondle three other eInk eBook devices and have drawn some conclusions some of you will find surprising.

Palm Manages To Stun Me: Project Ares

Mobile development: of the web, by the web — and now on the web

Project Ares Open Beta

Introducing Project Ares

Today we’re opening Project Ares to the developer community. Ares takes a radically new approach that brings mobile development right to your browser.

Ares is the first complete set of integrated mobile development tools hosted entirely in the browser. It features a drag-and-drop interface builder, a robust code editor, a visual debugger, and built-in source control integration. Ares dramatically lowers the barriers for web developers to jump into mobile development and makes building webOS apps even easier and faster than before.