I dearly hope the offer a decent tablet that is inexpensive and not tied to a mobile carrier. I think one of the things that killed Palm/Pre was that they tried to play the 'mobile phone' game, when they could have gone 'retro' with the "pda without a mobile phone" and done much better. Lots of geeks and non geeks would be willing to give a device a spot in their lives that doesn't displace their current mobile phone…
I think to be successful, Palm would have had to offer both a PDA and a smartphone. I think the problem was that Palm didn't have the resources to do both. Even when you look at something like the Palm Pre 2, you can kinda see that Palm hasn't been able to keep up. At a time when only the really low-end devices have 320x480 screens and 3.1" screens, the Palm Pre 2 gets introduced with those specs. Apple has shown tha…
The huge sales of the touch at $230+ make my point even more, though, in many ways. People are OK with spending a moderate amount of money on a decent device. We can't be expected to drop everything for the next 'mobile device' that requires 2 year contracts all the time. Yes, tech bloggers and a few ubergeeks can do this - most people can't and won't.
"There's a reason why HTC, LG, Samsung, and Motorola have all created great Android smartphones". I think it's because they're basically lazy and unimaginative. Having Android dropped in their lap means they can ride a bandwagon without having to spend as much on R&D - they can use that money for even more invasive "nascar/nfl" licensing deals to put non-removable widgets on the device homescreen! (yes, I'm more than a bit cynical about this).
I had had high hopes for Palm with the webOS was first launched, but saw them trying to play the 'me too' game by only offering mobile phones, which are tied to carriers, and bring a huge baggage with them - legions of people who will never leave or never use particular carriers.
It's all water under the bridge now, but if anyone had the ability to redefine the PDA space, it was Palm, if only because of the legacy of the name. Well, that tied with the relative boldness of webOS - I wanted one, but I didn't want to have to tie up thousands of dollars and years of my life with a particular company.
FWIW, I have done that with AT&T/iphone, but relatively late in the game, and opted for it only after I realized how poorly the pre was going to play out being tied to sprint. I occasionally travel overseas and couldn't deal with CDMA only, and also already had some family on AT&T and the 'free minutes' thing tipped the balance.