Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Inside the Pre
Last night, someone discovered a file, which includes the ROM of the Pre. This morning, there are instructions all over the web on how to get access to the Pre as root. In a few hours, the first Hello World app has been developed (without access to the Mojo SDK...).Once again, this is quite amazing. Every time these things happen, I have a feeling the device manufacturer did it on purpose. I just can't believe they let it happen by mistake. Three steps and you are root with read and write access. You can see everything inside the phone, including comments in the config files. However, some are a bit embarrassing, so I do not know what to think anymore...
For example, getting access to the device requires you to type upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart on the device (I swear). This is clearly a punch at the iPhone because doing the same with the virtual keyboard would take you an hour, while with the Pre keyboard it is a breeze ;-)
When you look inside, you find a lot of very interesting things. First, it is a Linux machine 2.6.24 (check, yet another mobile open source based operating system). It has a Java Virtual Machine (1.5 Standard Edition). It already has settings to connect to the AT&T and T-Mobile network (which make sense, reading rumors about a GSM version coming soon). Moreover, there are hints of the rumored Palm EOS device (the one at $99) which in the OS is called pixie (the Pre is castle) and even a third one coming (zepfloyd, which seems to support wifi as the Pre, while the EOS won't).
There are also funny comments left by Palm developers inside the phone, like the TODO list. E.g.: "TODO FIXME: we ought not call this, eh?". Or this one: "On the offchance that the user hits the 'minimize' before we finished capture ... slimy bastard users"...
In general, it is very easy to modify things, for example someone quickly modified the camera to no longer make the shutter noise even with all system sounds enabled (not that I know what the use case behind it could be...). Tethering your laptop via wifi is just a matter of changing a couple of config files. There are also things I cannot talk about, but others are (for example here and here).
Bottom line: it took a few days and WebOS is naked. The world is looking at it. From what I have seen (ehm, read on the blogs, I would never do this and risk to void my warranty ;-), it looks like a very nicely developed OS (with the three stacks, Linux and Java and Javascript/HTML/CSS). Even if Palm hasn't leaked it out on purpose, the feedback from the hackers community is two thumbs up, which is another good sign for Palm.
Posted by Fabrizio at 10:27
3 Comments:
Absolutely wonderful!
Thanks Fabo!
Palm and Funambol has a winner here. At least the basis for it. There is a lot of work to do, but the basis is now there.
The next few steps are easier: gsm, umts (two easy things), i18n + l10n (which are usually more difficult things for companies coming from big countries).
Technically this a YAL, yet-another-linux. Which is most excellent. Standard Java is very good news.
**
The mobile OS game is almost over now. The critical mass is on the Linux side. Symbian and friends are morphing to there, too.
The game is on the UI level now.
(Sorry, WinMob, RIM, Apple, I consider you as the niche from now on due to you OS :-)
Considering the UI game, Palm might be the OS/2. Technically superior to Windows, but..
Is Android the Windows there? Not yet, at least. Nokia surely wants to be with their multiple platform Qt.
We live interesting times :-)
Comment Posted at 21:31
Taylor said...
The code to gain root access is the Konami Code, not a stab at Apple.
Comment Posted at 09:58
dror said...
I hope that palm embraces rather than fight these attempts the way apple does.
Let the community help you, and you'll be able to fly pass the iPhone.
