Palm has unveiled its overhauled operating system alongside a touch-screen smartphone, in a bid to claw back share from competitors such as Apple. Good luck to Palm. The new phone looks cool (and could possibly compete with the iPhone) but Palm’s rep of late hasn’t been that great.

The operating system – the Palm WebOS – was developed under the watch of Palm executive chairman and former Apple chief, Jon Rubenstein, who was one of the key executives responsible for the iPod.

Palm has been developing the operating system, which is set to rival Android, since 2007. The company was the pioneer of touch-screen phones with the Treo, but has been steadily losing share to the iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry, and other similar devices.

The new smartphone, the Pre, is a touch screen device with GPS, Wi-Fi and a slide out full keyboard. It currently runs on America’s CDMA phone network and is incompatible with European mobiles, but a 3G version that could go on sale in Europe is currently in development and will be released in the next few months, and will include the UK.

The Pre phone easily consolidates multiple communication services such as instant messaging, text messaging and social networks such as Facebook, and multiple email systems. It’s already being called the “iPhone killer” in some circles, but we’ll wait and see on that designation, if it becomes the case or not.

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