Palm Pre – The next (or better) iPhone

First thing first: Palm Pre is declared as the CES-2009 show stopper. Is this smart phone going to live up to the hype? Definitely should be my answer. I bet my money on the Palm Pre. Please refer to the following sites: Cnet review: http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10137746-100.html and http://palmpre.org/ for more take/specs in the product.
In continuation of my preview blog on APs : http://karthkl.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-texas-instruments-ti-omap-open.html, TI once again proved that how far ahead they are in the club of AP competitors. With TI’s OMAP 3430-the brain behind the Palm’s Pre, taking all the responsibility of delivering the performance it has promised, it is indeed a most promising AP chip from TI’s stable for 2009. With TI’s OMAP 3430 based platform solution, what Palm done is to build innovation on top of that and build a software app solution which can fully use the potential of OMAP 3430.
Web OS, the OS running the Palm Pre, is indeed going to shape the mobile computing and would help pave the way of cloud computing and so. The ease and fast at which the UI performs stands testimony to the power of OMAP and in comparison to HTC Touch Diamond (with Touch Flo interface) is way ahead of the lot. Though HTC Touch Diamond’s Touch Flo is very good user interface (UI), but what a bad selection of AP will do to the innovation is clearly seen. What HTC Touch Diamond got in the end is very good innovative UI running on a bad AP, making the whole system sluggish like a lame horse running in the race track. Hope HTC gives a thought or too on the right selection of AP for their innovative design.
Adding a signing note, I really like the way the Google Apps are customized for iPhone while not so for Microsoft Mobile OS. It looks like in corporate world “enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Google if it really promises to release free apps, should ensure that they maintain their equality and not be partial to one OS v another. Anyways, lets see with the advent of Android what Google does with iPhone MAC OS X with regards to the Mobile Apps.

Why Texas Instruments (TI) OMAP (Open Multimedia Application platform) is the Application Processor of Choice?

With the laptop revolution reaching saturation, it is the time for the connected mobile computing in the form of smart phones and MID (mobile internet devices). With high speed mobile internet taken for granted after the advent of 3G and 4G networks, people would like to make full use of the connected computing devices. In this juncture, Application Processor (AP) has a huge market in terms of revenue. Several firms are jumping into the AP market and each company is uniquely placed with their IP in APs. But one company which shows a differentiation in the mobile battery powered devices is the OMAP AP maker Texas Instruments. Having a lion’s share (65%) in this market space, they know what it takes to make a better application processor for battery powered devices. Having introduced the 3rd generation APs and already spinning out powerful 4th generation AP they are better placed with their vast experience in their AP based platform solution for smart phones.
With TI’s competitors simply improving the speed (in simple words: higher the CPU speed, more is the power drain from the battery) of the ARM core without giving any consideration to power management, it is a bad omen for the industry that companies including Apple’s iPhone embrace these platform solution. User experience does include the power management and no user wants to see his phone’s battery drained sooner than his expectation. Here the TI’s unique “heterogeneous core” AP platform solution is standing out in this market space. TI having tightly integrated the ARM core and DSP processor on the same chip (including hardware and it supporting complete embedded software solution includes MM, Graphics, BSP, and Connectivity) have some unique advantageous compared to it s competitor both in terms of power management and CPU speed. DSP which is well suited for all Multimedia related activities is the best to perform all the codec/signal processing related activities compared to ARM both in terms of speed and performance. It is not the simple usage of dedicated DSP that matters here, but it is how it is integrated with the ARM core and made to have a seamless communication with ARM core, which TI does it, best in class.
TI’s solution also adds the additional flexibility of integrating co-processors to buy additional cpu power, if needed. What Intel is trying with its Atom AP is making using of its powerful x86 processor architecture(around 1Ghz) but completely failing in terms of power budget and so is Snapdragon from QCom as well as nVidia's solution making use of Intel's Atom processor with their powerful graphics processor. It is understandable what to expect from a company like Intel with little to no experience in battery powered mobile devices.
The ultimate winner apart from the user experience is better power management. What one can achieve with one heterogeneous core (ARM=700 MHz /DSP =600 MHz) from the TI’s OMAP is manifold than that of its competitors solution. The advantage of having a dedicated DSP to perform all MM related activity is not stopped their. Now you have the idle ARM processor that can be put into use for some other multi-tasking application when the DSP is silently performing the computational intensive MM related activities. Hope iPhone and Blackberry makers seize the potential advantage of the TI’s platform solution over other. It is not always the case “single is powerful” and it is how multiple cores are put into use in computing world. Though the “hardware codecs” are the best in class but you don’t need one when there is an intelligent platform solution like OMAP from TI. Thus apart form the performance it buys some cost benefits to the iPhones and Blackberries makers and thus lessening the burden on to the customer. After all, what the customer wants is a satisfactory max 25-30fps AV playback and recording (includes HD videos), including internet based MM content.