Thanks to the generosity of the PreCentral and WebOS Internals communities, I am now the proud owner of a Palm Pre.
There is just one catch  – since I live in Australia (which uses a proper cellular communications standard), the CDMA Palm Pre that I was able to import from the USA will never work as a phone here (yes, I knew this before I purchased it).  I plan to also purchase an unlocked GSM/UMTS Pre when one becomes available (maybe I’ll buy a German one and then swap the two keyboards).
After founding the WebOS Internals project, and using the Pre Emulator in the development of Preware, it is great to have a real device to get the full Pre experience.
If you want to keep up to date with the activities of the WebOS Internals group, just follow @webosinternals on Twitter. Â You can also find a list of articles about WebOS Internals in our Press_Room. Â We hang out in the #webos-internals IRC channel on Freenode, and have a webos-internals-announce Google group.
I still use my trusty old Treo 650 as my daily phone, which allows me to not have to worry about reflashing the Pre to try out things, as I don’t keep any real personal data on it.
I guess this also closes the OpenMoko chapter of my open source development activities. Â I was involved with OpenMoko from the very start, but always said that an OpenMoko device with a hardware keyboard was my preferred form factor, and the Pre seems to satisfy that personal hardware form factor preference whilst still being open enough on the software side to attract my interest. Â I wish those who are continuing the OpenMoko path the best of success.
I’ll document my experiences with the Pre in subsequent posts …