Or is it just another Newbie OS trying to pull an Apple?

If you’ve seen some of the demonstrations and commentary around on the net (CES Keynote), you may notice a few cool things that the Palm Web OS will bring to us, but what’s missing now? Larry Dignan says, “Palm gets in the Game, doesn’t change it; Reality Lurks” on his ZDnet post, and Om Malik of Gigaom is also skeptical.

I think Palm’s first mistake is admitting that they ONLY do mobile. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live out of my pocket at all times. Nor do I want to live on a cloud that could blow away at any moment. There’s a reason that server-based computing never caught on. In reality, we have smartphones, home theater systems, desktop computers, laptop/tablet computers, work computers, and varying degrees of internet access/coverage. When I’m at work, I like to have my phone’s capabilities accessible through my large-screen workstation with a full keyboard and Wacom tablet. I don’t want to have to use my phone’s tiny keyboard or handwriting recognition to reply to text messages when a full sized keyboard is sitting right in front of me. Connecting it through WMDC and Pocket Controller Pro makes that very easy. When I’m at home watching recorded TV shows on Windows Media Center, or listening to music, or watching movies, or looking through pictures, or watching Internet TV, I also want my phone’s capabilities accessible from the Media Center’s remote control and large screen. Or maybe I want the Media Center’s capabilities accessible from my phone via Windows Sideshow or Media Networking. I want to be able to start watching a recorded TV show on my home Media Center, see a meeting notification appear on the screen, leave the house, then continue watching that same TV show on my phone while sitting on the train. You’re not going to get that kind of integration from a company that has no experience with anything except mobile phones.

The next issue I hear about the Palm Web OS is that you have to use CSS, HTML and Javascript to develop applications. Does that mean this whole OS is just a web browser shell with some caching capabilities? Has anyone ever written voice recognition or text-to-speech applications using javascript, CSS, and HTML? How about a GPS navigation program with text-to-speech? A 2 way video streaming application? How about SIP based VoIP or Skype? Doesn’t look like it has any on-screen keyboard capabilities or multiple input method support either, so no handwriting recognition or JOT.

It seems that all of the Palm Web OS applications are highly dependent on internet access. Is that really a good thing? I generally keep internet usage to a minimum when traveling. For one, you might get hit with a ton of roaming charges. For another, many areas aren’t exactly blanketed with wireless internet access and it’s going to cut out sooner or later. If any GPS navigation software is developed for the Palm Web OS, will it work without an internet connection when you get lost in Montana?

The universal search feature looks like an excellent usability enhancement though. You can type anything in the home screen, and it will start searching applications and contacts right away. This is very similar to Windows Vista’s awesome Start menu search functionality. However, if you continue typing and the search finds no results, you’re then allowed to select from a few website search options thus saving you a step from opening a browser first.

Are the animated user interface and minor usability enhancements worth becoming fully depending on Palm’s cloud based lifestyle? Are web based programming languages going to be enough to create powerful applications for this new OS? Or is this just another little smartphone OS for non-power-users? What do you think?