Meeting Android and Updates on webOS

First thing first, I left my camera at work so picture taken from the recent Android and Web OS with enthusiasts were by my BlackBerry Bold 9700.

Definitely attention grabber with these devices on the table

The meeting was organised by palmdoc (Alan’s famous nick in the cyber arena, especially for his fondness on Palm) at Old Town White Coffee, Subang USJ on Saturday, March 6, 2010.  I arrived at the meet slightly later as coming from Klang after a client’s CSR project in the morning and post event shower was urgently required before the smell overtook Android and webOS.

Some background, Android is the mobile operating system by Google and webOS is the new mobile operating system by Palm.  Both the mobile operating system are running on Linux kernel with the respective proprietary components and elements developed by both the companies.

The eye catching moment was when ebernie (also a nick) brought up the Nexus One, also famously known as Google phone, another great product produced by HTC.  Nexus One is running on Android 2.1 and in the recent conference held in Singapore, the developers have been given the SDK to develop applications on Android platform.

Some of the applications that developed and showcased were like news portal – The Star online.  The form factor of Nexus One is slim, feels more solid than iPhone (ok, I might be biased, but it is).  The device seems to be running smoothly, with interesting wallpaper configuration of which might drained the battery and memory until, perhaps next firmware upgrade.

The unlock of the device is cool, as Nexus One allows the user to customise the way how the unlocking works, instead of slide to unlock or with PIN.

palmdoc updated us on the 3D support for webOS with the recent 1.4 firmware upgrade.  He showed us that Palm Pre now supports 3D games such as Need for Speed, The Sims etc.  palmdoc also showed me a medical application recently released after much awaited of which I forgot the name (yes, palmdoc is also a doctor for human being).  Palm Pre is still very impressive and it has attracted to now about 6 Palm Pre users in Malaysia.  As the time when this entry is being updated, Palm still has no intention to bring Palm Pre or Pixi to Asia Pacific, more so – Malaysia.

One interesting that I always curious about notification for other smartphones, such as BlackBerry, so we did a test to check that out.  I sent an email to both Palm Pre and Nexus One.  They received it almost instant, with Palm Pre being the leader in notification, about 3 seconds ahead of Nexus One.  When I tried with the second e-mail, again it was Palm Pre received the notification first.  This time about 10 seconds delayed in Nexus One.

ctwolf (also a nick) brought us his seven year old Sony Clie, of which was a major hit that time.  Incorporating built in CCD camera and also bluetooth.  I think it was a big deal that time.  Well, the unit is still in working condition, running on Palm OS 5.0 – also the last Palm OS that Sony worked on before ending the working relationship with Palm.

The Google Map Street view on Nexus One is impressive but too bad that it is not available here.  Not to mention the Live Traffic, which is also not available here.  We also wonder when this feature would be incorporated into Malaysian version of Google Map.

Wymen joined us later with his MacBook and HTC Touch Pro 2 combination.  HTC Touch Pro 2 has a great speakerphone feature of which is highly suitable for doctors.  Wymen shows very good combination of how Microsoft and Apple could be used or leveraged at the same time.

Azhari and kyalanis both are strong or rather power users of BlackBerry, whom I benefitted a lot learning from both of them during the meet.

Our meeting was supposed to be ended by 5pm, but with all the interesting updates and gadgets around, we stayed on until 6pm.

Good to meet everyone and looking forward to meet everyone again soon.