Palm press release leaked early

In a few hours we can expect to see pictures and video, but for now we know what Palm is going to announce: The Foleo.

I’m going to make a huge prediction here that might make me sound like a total fanboy, but I think Nokia already has something like this in their pipeline. It would be foolish not to! The power of the mobile web server coupled with the talent of the Internet Tablet Team = Nokia’s Foleo.

There is a serious disruption about to occur in the world of mobile. No longer will we care about devices connecting to the cloud, we will care about devices that connect to devices that will eventually connect to the cloud. The importance of personal area networks is grossly underrated right now.

Between Sony Ericsson’s watch, Nokia’s Internet Tablet, Stereo Headphones and wireless headsets, don’t you think that Bluetooth is being completely underutilized?

The problem is standards. I hope Bluetooth 3.0 is not so much about speed, but about creating more connection profiles so more devices can exchange even more bits and bytes.

Thoughts?

Update (a few more thoughts):

I ultimately think that the concept of a dedicated hardware device as a "companion" to a smartphone is the wrong path to take. People already have large screens and keyboards, let them use those devices. Don’t get me wrong, a new breed of hardware will emerge due to this thin client concept, but we don’t want to end up with a closet full of 5+ proprietary docks.

This is my favorite part of the press release:

Smartphones will be the most prevalent personal computers on the planet, ultimately able to do everything that desktop computers can do. However, there are times when people need a large screen and full-size keyboard. As smartphones get smaller, this need increases. The Foleo completes the picture creating a mobile-computing system that sets a new standard in simplicity.

If I were in Nokia’s Mergers and Acquisitions department I would totally buy Palm. They get it.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

Milhouse

I actually aluded to this in my reply to your article on Sombrero/Metapad However I think Palm are only part way there and Nokia seem to “get it” more by leveraging the compute ability of the smartphone and rendering the smartphone content on what could be a very dumb device with a bigger screen.

But why 5+ proprietary docks? With the smartphone as compute device, the dock only needs to provide power (for charging), screen, keyboard/mouse and perhaps audio and broadband network connections, and all of this can be provided over one or two USB2 connections. And isn’t PCI Express designed for just this kind of thing also?

I’m sure vendors would prefer proprietary connections but there would be no technical reason to take this route and I would hope that consumer pressure for interoperability would force vendors to standardise – did I read somewhere that the South Korean government is trying to get manufacturers to agree a common charging standard?
olly

Dude, I could not agree more with the statement “The importance of personal area networks is grossly underrated right now.” I just recently did a post on getting UPnP setup between my N800, my wife’s Windows XP Lappy, and my Linux Lappy… thanks to standards like UPnP, and also DAAP on the other side, keeping devices connected becomes a breeze.

At this point, a media server in your home is a task even the most novice computer user could do:

Step 1: Put your media into a folder on a computer that’s always on and connected to your home network.

Step 2: Enable UPnP on your router

Step 3: Install a UPnP server on your the connected machine (freely available for just about any platform, uShare for Linux, TVersity for Windows, etc).

Step 4: Connect any device that’s UPnP capable to that server, and enjoy your media.

Nokia already has it nailed, the N80i, the N800, etc.

-olly
Lewis McCullen

Sorry, but this is another total mis-step by Palm. The trend is to get more things into a single device (ala the N95, e61i, e90, etc…) and this just doesn’t make sense. I’d give it half a chance if it had phenomenal battery life, but specs saying 5 hours always mean 4+ if your lucky and this doesn’t offer enough benefit for the effort of carrying around another gadget. I think ultra mobiles like HTC’s Athena have a much better chance of succeeding.

Like the “life drive” this is not in tune with the current market and just doesn’t make sense to me. I predict this may be the end of Palm as we know it and ripen them up for a future acquisition for someone who wants the Treo name such as Moto or Nokia.

My .02 cents….
Richard

Brilliant!

I DO like everything on my phone and I DO want a bigger screen experience w/o lugging a laptop through every airport on the planet. With this and my WiFi-enabled phone I’ll be good to go providing:

1. Foleo will handle HTML e-mail (which I doubt by the lack of it in the publicity shots)

2. Foleo will display PowerPoint presentations stored on my PPC

3. Battery life is half-decent –

Psion actually made a unit like this some years ago (GOD, they were soooo far ahead of the world), but it ran EPOC, then “WINCE”.

Foleo takes that concept and makes it what it could have been.

Cool!
PlayerKill

I don’t agree with you regarding bluetooth. I mean, when can everything by Wi-Fi instead?? Yea, bluetooth is great for headphones and some other accessories, but I’d prefer Wi-Fi for wide usage to Bluetooth anyday.

Also, I think Hardware approach is needed too. Making it software only is a bad idea and is very limitted, IMO. Using a web server only as Nokia is doing is a good software approach, but I see a limit in the end. I mean, isn’t it much more convenient to rely only on a handheld device and not a PC accessing a web server? I don’t think this is enough and people will see a limit by relying on just web servers soon. The idea is just too geeky to me to reach the broad population, not to mention how inconvenient that is. People would rather have devices which connect to the cloud, not a device that relies on computers to connect to the cloud.

So, I would welcome Folio, as it will bring more competition to the area and make Nokia do more on the hardware approach. I see Nokia as too darn stingy, to be honest, for not making their “multimeadia computers” more powerful and all. I mean, promoting N Series phones as computers is a joke, seing how it doesn’t perform that fast and how limitted it is. Nokia relies too much on software. This also includes how their cameraphones produced overprocessed photos due to the lack of sensors cameras should have, improving S60 to be less RAM hungry instead of adding more rams, etc.

It’s nice to see Palm trying a different approach that is more independent than what Nokia is offering. It’d be great if this stir some major development. Yeah, sure, the small screen sucks compared to the PC/Laptop screens, but I’d say leaving out buttons and making phones pure touchscreen would eliminate this problem. Also, this would be a lot more mobile and independent on other devices. So, I’d say I want a device that connects to the cloud more than devices which connect to other devices that connect to the cloud. Why going towards a more limitted and inconvenient path when we should be progressing to a more mobile and independent path?