"Considering Palm's missteps in recent years, some were
expecting the company to stumble again with its long-awaited,
Linux-derived "Nova" operating system (OS). Yet on first glance,
the WebOS distribution and the Pre phone it runs on appear to hold
up just fine next to high-end smartphone platforms like Apple's
iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry Storm, and Palm's fellow Linux traveler,
the Android-based HTC G1 phone. (More on the Pre is available
farther below, and more on Palm's tumultuous history over the last
decade is available in last week's pre-release coverage, here.)
"The Linux-derived WebOS leverages industry standard
technologies, including CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript, says Palm,
presumably using a technology such as Movial's just-open-sourced
Browser Dbus Bridge to give privileged Javascript access to
operating system-level APIs. The UI itself is apparently rendered
by Webkit, according to reports. Real details about WebOS will not
be available before Palm begins distributing the Pre, though
software developers may be able to get early access under NDA
(non-disclosure agreement)."
