Comments on: webOS 1.3.2 Released for the Palm Pixi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=camMiqtt19I

PalmInfocentral :-/
You can't edit so I've re-named the web page ;-)
Tech Center Labs

Welcome back ;-)

Couple comments/corrections from this side:

1. Agreed, the Centro is still the best data/email/PIM-centric smartphone choice out there. I struggle DAILY with this blasted Droid of mine (and STILL carry my Treo 755p) but at least it handles heavy lifting that Garnet cannot do (camera, multimedia, navigation, web browsing).

2. I mentioned this earlier in the year but again for full disclosure:

The PIC CES trip was NOT paid for, subsidized, reimbursed, expensed or otherwise affiliated with Palm in any way. Ryan paid for my airfare & lodging and I paid for food and incidentals out of my pocket. I took a week of vacation from my regular job to go there. The only involvement we had with Palm was registering as press to attend their "event" and the subsequent Q&A sessions and a few minutes of one on one time with them the following morning.

And yes, I was very impressed with Palm's initial WebOS demo simply because I expected them to be nowhere near as far along with Nova and/or new hardware & formfactors (I was expecting 320x320 etc). to think what a Pixi would be like under the same conditions. It's quite telling when an early beta-level tech demo at CES is more responsive & snappier than a production-level Pre nearly one year later. I recently used someone's Pre that had several GB of music & movies onboard and a ton of PIM data & emails and it was nowhere near as snappy as what we saw in January. I shudder

HOWEVER, within just a few days after CES and certainly in the following weeks & months it became very apparent that there was some scary cracks in the foundation. My enthusiasm started to fade when they announced Sprint as their carrier partner and continued to diminish with each missing bullet point---no removable memory card slot (and no plans to add it), very weak PIMs (though still arguably better than the competition), no 16gb+ model, no voice dialing over BT, failure to give any firm release date or pricing announcementm no video or voice recording, no desktop sync component even as an option, no onscreen keyboard, tiny list of developers onboard, nothing but lightweight "web apps", the usual choice of only Sprint etc etc.

Add to the above list all of these shitty choices Palm has made to annoy, aggravate, and frighten their customers (no unlocked QWERTY Pre, no "PDA" mode functionality on a Pre that no longer has active Sprint service, the scary lack of an opt-out for their data collection & tracking etc) and it really becomes clear that they've completely turned their backs on their once fiercely loyal user base.

In short, I agree with all of your points on the list, especially #2 & #10.

P.S. I still like the Touchstone, especially if you get one in the $40 neighborhood, and find it to be the best accessory Palm has released to date. But accessories do not smartphone marketshare gain...as far as I'm concerned, the entity we knew as Palm has been dead for at least 10 months now.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

> ...I'll wager that Elevation will never get the kind of ROI they were hoping for
> from Palm in this economic climate!

They're not going to get a 10x ROI,that's fairly certain. They MAY get about a 1.5x ROI, however. Right now I believe their basis cost is under $7 (however, that latest dilution may have destroyed THAT number since it was at $16+). Since the current price is $11-ish, they're sitting pretty, even for a multiyear "investment".

I do not know if Elevation Partners has "promised" their investors any particular return.

The Pixi forum on THE Palm site, Precentral, is a ghost town.

hkklife wrote:
I know we've all been bleating this for years but it REALLY looks like the writing is on the wall for Palm now. So far, NO solid rumors of a AT&T or VZW Pre, NO rumors of a 16GB or otherwise hardware-enhanced Pre, and most tellingly, NO sign of a successor or 3rd WebOS device on the horizon or even any comprehensive updates to WebOS. Where's the video capture we've all been waiting for, for example?

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/10002/precorder-brings-easy-video-recording-to-pre/

While this is a very limited Homebrew app, it uses the same infrastructure which Palm put into webOS in a recent update. Indeed that is part of the reason why it is so limited because it is waiting for further Palm updates. And this makes me wonder what you consider a "comprehensive" update. By my count, Palm has pushed out at least seven updates to webOS:

1. 1.0.1: Bug-fixes and stability improvements released the day after the Pre debuted.
2. 1.1.0: Added features, fixed bugs, and improved the speed of the device as a whole.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9861/a-look-at-the-new-features-of-webos-11/
3. 1.1.1: Fixed iTunes sync after Apple broke it.
4. 1.2: Support for paid apps in the App Catalog. Improvements to the Email, Browser, and PIM apps.
http://www.precentral.net/webos-12-available-download
5. 1.2.1: Fixed problems with Exchange and re-enabled iTunes sync.
6. 1.3.1: A wide variety of bug-fixes and new features.
http://www.precentral.net/webos-131-update-available-download
7. 1.3.2: A Pixi specific security update which is documented in the very article to which this thread -- where the above comment complains about a lack of updates -- is attached.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/6682/webos-132-released-for-the-palm-pixi/

I think I might have missed a small 1.0.2 update which fixed an email security bug (or maybe it was part of the 1.1.1 iTunes fix, it's hard to remember). Palm has become increasingly good at keeping its cards close to the vest (how much did we know about the Pre, Pixi, or webOS before CES?), so it's hard to attach much meaning to the lack of rumors. (Isn't a rumor by definition not solid?)

In any case, I often find it beneficial for my own perspective to compare the evolution of webOS to that of Android. They are both Linux based, relatively open mobile OSes and because I've owned a T-Mobile G1 for a year, I've seen that evolution first hand. I've seen at least three updates to my G1 over the past year. The first appears to have been fairly small. The second was the Cupcake update which added numerous new features, including video capture. The third was the Donut update which finally fixed the horrible lag which plagued my G1 for nearly a year. If Donut had come out before June, I probably would have never bought my Pre. And after all is said and done, my G1 looks about the same as it did a year ago. So you tell me, if none of the seven above Palm updates were "comprehensive," which of the Android updates would you call "comprehensive?"

So basically I have these two similar devices which have taken somewhat different paths to the same goal of producing a modern Smartphone and keeping it up to date. Android has chosen large, "comprehensive" updates with fancy nicknames which occur many months apart which limit the pace of its growth. Palm with webOS has chosen to make do with smaller, incremental updates which maintain a steady pace of growth but which can also introduce new bugs (like the serious stability problems introduced in the Classic emulator with webOS1.3.1). But to say that Palm has made no updates to webOS is a ridiculous statement.

SInce we heard rumors of the Pixi way back at CES, I think it's safe to say that Ruby & Co. got the 2 initial WebOS hardware designs out and called it a day.

Huh? I don't remember hearing about the Pixi back at CES and a quick perusal of both PIC and Precentral shows nothing. Care to share your superior Google-fu with the rest of the class?

Anyone want to speculate on what kind of behind-the-scenes machinations are going on between Palm & Nokia (or whoever) right now to have a firesale for pennies on the dollar? I'll wager that Elevation will never get the kind of ROI they were hoping for from Palm in this economic climate!

Meh, I suppose that Palm might be an attractive takeover target for Nokia or Dell right now. But what does Palm possibly have that's worth buying you say, a physical keyboard and a Linux-based OS which is not Android? And why would they even want to get bought out by a company which has been pretty clueless itself in recent years? And hey, maybe Elevation Partners will throw couple hundred-mil at Palm again! So I guess Palm is in the exact position that they've been in for the past decade, six months away from bankruptcy -- and this time, we mean it!
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

SeldomVisitor wrote:
BTW - your links are somewhat nonuseful - the PIC link returns...something...and the Precentral link breaks.

It think that the PIC link is very useful as it shows how badly its forums have gone downhill. As for the Precentral one, when the hell are they going to fix that damn bug?

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx218/RobertCastillo_photos/precentral.png
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

SeldomVisitor wrote:
My apologies for not saying more than "It's a ghost town".

I should have said "Relative to numerous other forums on THE Palm site, the Pixi forum is a ghost town".

I was a little lazy today.

[6 active threads is noise level]

You mean as opposed to the one or two active threads as we have on this website?
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Bah. If iPhone were to go to Sprint, it'd be Game Over for Palm. Let's stop the kidding.

And what if StyleTap did it for Android? Another nail.

I don't think you need more than two nails for that coffin.

I don't know wtf happened. Maybe they specced the hardware before the software? Or maybe the software itself is simply inadequate? Why should I care at this point? It no longer interests me.

BTW, if you want to keep going with PalmOS (the real one), better get your bids in on eBay. Supplies are drying up and prices have fallen to market-crash levels. (Same with Pocket PC, by the way.)

> ...You mean as opposed to the one or two active threads as we have on
> this website?

I was strictly commenting on the lack of interest in the Pixi where it counts, not on the already-discussed -by-others that THIS site is seeing fewer and fewer posts (I don't nor ever have visited the forums here (except maybe a comment or two on something I forget a year or five ago)).

SeldomVisitor wrote:
> ...You mean as opposed to the one or two active threads as we have on
> this website?

I was strictly commenting on the lack of interest in the Pixi where it counts, not on the already-discussed -by-others that THIS site is seeing fewer and fewer posts (I don't nor ever have visited the forums here (except maybe a comment or two on something I forget a year or five ago)).

Right. When your blanket assertions are challenged move the goalposts.
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Darth;

#1 If you search for "webos centro" at PIC, the very first entry of the search results reveals this:

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9680/centro-2-running-webos-in-the-works/

#2 PIC has never been about the forums or, to a certain extent, even "hand-holding" tips & advice. It's been first and foremost about news items (e.g. what Gekko referenced earlier) and the resulting discussions of those news items, with reviews/features as a secondary focus.

If you are that unhappy here listening a bunch of Palm OS diehards & old-timers bitch and moan, then please go elsewhere.

#3 As far as WebOS updates vs. Android, I'll just reiterate my earlier stance that the time & $ Palm spent chasing around for an iTunes workaround would've been better optimizing, tweaking, improving, and enhancing the core OS. I never said Palm had made NO improvements to WebOS. I simply meant that they had made no substantial improvements in performance nor had they added any new features.

FWIW, I find WebOS in its current state a superior platform to Android in nearly every way. Android will win out, of course, due to the sheer $ muscle & marketing prowess of Google and the quality & variety of hardware running Android. But WebOS is still a far better OS for things like PIM & basic productivity.

ANY mobile OS that lists "yesterday" or "6 days ago" in its default call log instead of specific dates & times is best destined for the playground instead of the business world.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

SeldomVisitor wrote:
> ...I'll wager that Elevation will never get the kind of ROI they were hoping for
> from Palm in this economic climate!

They're not going to get a 10x ROI,that's fairly certain. They MAY get about a 1.5x ROI, however. Right now I believe their basis cost is under $7 (however, that latest dilution may have destroyed THAT number since it was at $16+). Since the current price is $11-ish, they're sitting pretty, even for a multiyear "investment".

and this is over the course of a year where the stock market crashed no? I would think Elevation Partners is pretty happy with themselves right now. And why would they cut out now? It's a low moment for Palm, but they've come miles since this time last year, when they really reallly looked like toast.

And there's no reason not to believe that right now they're sorting out the bugs in WebOS and adding to it. The smart phone market is going to grow tremendously in the next few years. Why wouldn't Elevation Partners feel like they got in on the ground floor, cheap, on a platform that, at very least, has a good shot at a nice niche position.

Yes, the odds are against Palm, but they've come so freaking far since a year ago...

hkklife wrote:
Darth;

#1 If you search for "webos centro" at PIC, the very first entry of the search results reveals this:

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9680/centro-2-running-webos-in-the-works/

Thanks for this, I stand corrected. (Although I feel obligated to point out that this was during a period of time when I was in Palm's interest to leak a lot of rumors.)

#2 PIC has never been about the forums or, to a certain extent, even "hand-holding" tips & advice. It's been first and foremost about news items (e.g. what Gekko referenced earlier) and the resulting discussions of those news items, with reviews/features as a secondary focus.

I disagree. The older Palm forums on this site still have tens of thousands of posts and were always a good source for a rumors and discussion. Unfortunately, they were allowed to atrophy and have never recovered....

And while I agree that the news and discussion have always been PIC's most important feature, I fear that PIC might be falling behind in that respect as well. As I pointed out in another post, other websites like Precentral are posting more news these days. And while the discussion is still good to a certain extent, it is less balanced. There are is less give and take. If Tim, myself, or one or two other people don't comment on a thread, it tends to quickly devolve into a gloomy echo chamber with people bitching about Palm, or Frankengarnet, or about how their new phone can't do what their three year old Treos could do even though they had always agreed that their Treos sucked.

If you are that unhappy here listening a bunch of Palm OS diehards & old-timers bitch and moan, then please go elsewhere.

Make me. :) According to my profile, I've been on this board since October 4, 2002 and I have no plans to go anywhere. People have been bitching and moaning around here for years. What has changed for me is that for the first time in a long time Palm doesn't seem to have brought all of this upon themselves. They have a phone which despite its flaws is brilliant and which I finally enjoy using again. So I will defend them so long as I feel they deserve to be defended.

#3 As far as WebOS updates vs. Android, I'll just reiterate my earlier stance that the time & $ Palm spent chasing around for an iTunes workaround would've been better optimizing, tweaking, improving, and enhancing the core OS. I never said Palm had made NO improvements to WebOS. I simply meant that they had made no substantial improvements in performance nor had they added any new features.

My experience has been different. Would Palm really be any further along if they hadn't tried to restore iTunes compatibility? Maybe. Even so, my Pre is faster now than it was on the day I bought it. I can copy and paste from the browser when I couldn't before. The Calendar has Their App Catalog has gone from a few dozen apps to more than five hundred. More importantly I enjoy using my mobile device again. It is a feeling that I haven't had about a Palm device since the Treo 600.

FWIW, I find WebOS in its current state a superior platform to Android in nearly every way. Android will win out, of course, due to the sheer $ muscle & marketing prowess of Google and the quality & variety of hardware running Android. But WebOS is still a far better OS for things like PIM & basic productivity.

Just like Windows Mobile won out because of the sheer $ muscle & marketing prowess of Microsoft.

Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Did any of the "hard-hitting" "journalists" invited to the Pre intro/lovefest bother checking to see if Palm was overclocking the Pre hardware or slipping in any other bogus "optimizations" in an effort to make the Pre seem faster than it really is? No? What a surprise. Everyone at the Pre intro got played. Go back and read the fluff articles that all the fanboy sites put out immediately after the demo if you disagree.

The Pixi has been a bust according to the Sprint reps I spoke to. Interest in it is reaching depths not seen since the Treo 800w. Maybe Palm can recycle the old m105 cases buried in the landfill behind Palm HQ as some exciting new artist designer back covers?

Does anyone here not realize that Treocentral/Precentral is a marketing arm of Palm? Masterful manipulation of the masses.

Access' ALP OS is officially dead. It's embarassing watching the company attempting to reposition ALP OS every 6 months, hoping to jump on the latest bandwagon. Remember how Be tried desperately to rework BeOS into BeIA, MacGyver-style? Access-san: you gotta know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run.

Selling a $30 Palm OS emulator for Android is probably the only option Access still has if they want to monetize the "snake eyes" they rolled before they go belly up.

TealOS + Centro > Pre > Pixi. WebOS needs at least another year of development (and an actual public SDK) before it can be taken seriously. Palm's problem is that Apple and Google won't spend the next year sitting still the way Palm did with the Treo from 2004 - 2008.

Elevation Partners has to pump and dump before they lose it all like Be did. Who would buy Palm? A company that already bought and lost.

Android hardware scheduled for release in the next 4 - 6 months will make anyone who bought a Pre feel like (even more of) a fool.

iPhone is on the rampage like BlackBerry was 2 years ago. But Apple has the ace up their sleeve that no one else has (App Store); business customers are actually choosing it over BlackBerry if given the option; and the impending availability of iPhone on several new networks creates the Perfect Storm. Symbian, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile will be running around like chickens with their heads cut off, groping for chairs once the music stops.

Elevation Partners will be pulling the trigger on The Deal soon.

> Did any of the "hard-hitting" "journalists" invited to the Pre intro/lovefest
> bother checking to see if Palm was overclocking the Pre hardware or
> slipping in any other bogus "optimizations" in an effort to make the Pre
> seem faster than it really is?...

Or maybe it was just a skin running on top of PalmOS.

Giggle.

Why DID the former CFO end his stint the day BEFORE the intro? You know, the guy who, when asked if the Centro actually made any money for Palm went into an amazing circular multiple word statement that said "It did better than we expected" rather than "yes" or..."no".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd1rXB0rGiE&feature=related

Droid on track to sell 1 million by year end

Andrew Lyle on 01 December 2009 - 20:57 · 10 comments & 1996 views

Motorola and Verizon are on track to selling 1 million Droid phones by year end, a huge success for both companies
. The company has sold between 700,000 and 800,000 units in the first month of its release, beating early predictions of only selling just over half a million in 2009.

The Droid runs on Android 2.0 from Google, which offers numerous feature list, including ones missing from the iPhone. Android 2.0 debuted on the Droid at the beginning on November, adding dozens of features over the previous version, including a new interface.

Droid had a $100 million marketing campaign push to help promote the new smartphone in the North American market, something that seems to have paid off. The Motorola Droid estimated to sell only 600,000 units by the end of 2009, but has already passed expectations.

Even though the Motorola Droid failed to beat iPhone sales, it managed to sell roughly 100,000 in the first two days; it didn't come near the estimated 1 million iPhone 3G and 3GS sold in their opening weeks.

The Droid and Android comes feature packed and includes a 3.7-inch multi-touch screen, sliding QWERTY keyboard, 5-megapixel camera, MicroSDHC support, an interchangeable battery.

Motorola Droid starts at $199.99 US, same retail price as the iPhone 3GS 16GB.

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/12/01/droid-on-track-to-sell-1-million-by-year-end

At the local Sprint store I pass on weekends, the Pre promo stuff is being de-emphasized.

The Pre looked great ... then reality kicked in.

As for the Droid, don't get all giddy. Lots of problems with that baby. I'd like to see how long people stick with it in hopes of an OTA update before they return it.

Mike;

As you'll recall, I've been saying that the Droid is THE overrated device of the year (along with Android in general). That said, I have decided to unhappily keep the miserable device (primarily due to the lack of solid small flip dumbphones on VZW at the moment) but I will use it alongside my Treo 755p for the time being so I am STILL fumbling with 2 devices nearly a decade into the new millennium.

Droid's hardware specs are nice on paper but it's quite unwieldy to use. Forget about doing anything quickly or one-handed. And be prepared to accidentially dial numbers frequently when in your pocket. Definitely doesn't have the intuitiveness of any Palm OS device. However, at least it checks of all of the critical hardware features--wi-fi, removable battery, huge high-res screen, removable memory card slot, replacable battery, solid build quality, physical keyboard + Dpad, 3.5mm headphone jack, fast(ish) CPU.

Moto could easily spin out a slightly revised hardware version of the Droid (ala BB Storm 2) and have a very nice device. Heck, just giving it a faster camera, beefier battery and physical green/red call buttons on the "chin" would be enough for me.

My main beef is with Android itself--weak PIMs, very unintuitive UI at times, very coarse aesthetics, inaccurate touchscreen with no means for calibration, tremendous lag at times, very weak app library, minimal native functionality (no memo pad or to do apps, no voice recorder, frequently crashes/lockups/reboots when in camera or browser, dumbed-down calaculator & email apps, no voice dialing over BT etc).

Right now I give Android 2.0 a C+ at best and the Droid hardware a B+. If the promised forthcoming 2.0.1 and 2.1 updates offer enough performance & stability improvements, it'll definitely nudge Android 2.x into shouting distance of competing with WebOS from a usability standpoint. At least Android 2.0 is an improvement over BB OS 4.x & WinMob 6.x (haven't used BB 5.0 yet).
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

abosco wrote:
The next iPhone will probably be available from AT&T and Verizon. Get it. Seriously, stop playing around with these other fringe platforms. I used a Blackberry again recently. My god, what junk.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

1) I used to avoid long data entry on my phone. Then OS 3.0 finally brought the landscape keyboard to all apps. It's top-notch.

2) I synced with iTunes to get my media on the phone when I bought it. Since then, I only sync when there is an update to the OS. Seriously.

3) The only multitasking I've ever used (and this extends way back into my Palm OS days) was to play music in the background. Since then, I've expanded my horizons to include looking up information while on the phone. And I've asked you guys before, but still, the only legitimate lacking in the multitasking department is not being able to play Pandora in the background.

4) I don't carry secondary batteries with me. If my phone dies, it's dead. At best, I'll keep one of those battery packs in the car for emergencies. The same goes for removable storage media. When I used Palm OS, I had a card, but it was always in the slot. I never changed it out.

5) Legitimate complaint, but it is beyond overstated. I've noted this before - what apps are available on all other platforms, but Apple won't allow? Google Voice, but there's a webapp and a jailbreak app available if you REALLY want it. Other than that, there's very little.

6) Legitimate complaint. I hate people. But I had it before they all did, and I blow cash on apps like it's going out of style. Keeps mine pretty unique in leu of those sorority girls with pink skin cases and fake tans.

These are all small issues that you'll gladly overcome when the time comes. Tim, by next year, even you will finally switch.

As much as I hate to get back on the "Palm is Dead" bandwagon (I spent last year on it), it is starting to look bad. If only there were more rumors of a new device coming sooner than late next year. That would be *after* however many more Android 2.0 devices and another iPhone revision. When is Microsoft's 7.0 thing due out?

That is a lot of cards stacked against the Pre 2. What could it possibly bring to the table that would compensate?

Is Palm exhibiting at CES?

Bosco:

1) I used to avoid long data entry on my phone. Then OS 3.0 finally brought the landscape keyboard to all apps. It's top-notch.

Landscape virtual is alright. Now that so many of my friends have iPhones I've had many more opportunities to play with it, but it still pales in comparison to a physical keyboard. (Even a QWERTZ one that leads to the occasionally embarrassing typo...) And I just plain prefer portrait - I don't like having to constantly flip the phone around in my hands depending on what I'm doing.

2) I synced with iTunes to get my media on the phone when I bought it. Since then, I only sync when there is an update to the OS. Seriously.

I guess we're from two different classes of user, then - I'm rotating the music on my phone and copying photos off it every other week. (Of course, this wouldn't be so much of an issue if the Pre had more storage...)

There are jailbreak solutions available to avoid iTunes, but they're available. If I was a Mac user it probably wouldn't matter so much, but iTunes on Windows is a dog. A mangy, neutered, one-legged, blind, flea-bitten mongrel with cancer. Of the ass.

3) The only multitasking I've ever used (and this extends way back into my Palm OS days) was to play music in the background. Since then, I've expanded my horizons to include looking up information while on the phone. And I've asked you guys before, but still, the only legitimate lacking in the multitasking department is not being able to play Pandora in the background.

Multitasking isn't crucial. But a good implementation is very very nice to have. Case in point: I got an email the other day from MS, telling me that my Xbox Live subscription is up for renewal in January and i'll be automatically billed for it. So I popped open the Calendar to set a reminder to have the money ready - but wait, how much was that again? Flick - back to the email. Oh, right. Flick - back to the Calendar.

Multitasking on webOS is crazy-awesome. I love it to bits. It feels pretty much perfect. Palm totally nailed it. Should I jump ship to another platform it's gonna be the one thing I miss the most.

4) I don't carry secondary batteries with me. If my phone dies, it's dead. At best, I'll keep one of those battery packs in the car for emergencies. The same goes for removable storage media. When I used Palm OS, I had a card, but it was always in the slot. I never changed it out.

I hardly ever carried spare batteries for my old phones - only when I knew I wouldn't be home that night to charge it. But the Pre guzzles the battery like Michael Jackson took painkillers. This is partly 'cause my usage pattern has changed now that I have 3G, wi-fi, GPS and a decent browser all in the one device. I can't imagine the iPhone could be that much better.

5) Legitimate complaint, but it is beyond overstated. I've noted this before - what apps are available on all other platforms, but Apple won't allow? Google Voice, but there's a webapp and a jailbreak app available if you REALLY want it. Other than that, there's very little.

I don't mean to oversell it - it just rankles me, the very idea of someone else having that much control. The iPhone platform as it stands is a cage. A cage with solid gold bars and luxury fittings, with toga-clad servants feeding you peeled grapes and fanning you with palm fronds... but a cage nonetheless.

Unless you jailbreak, which would be the first thing I'd do. But still. It's the principle of the thing.

These are all small issues that you'll gladly overcome when the time comes. Tim, by next year, even you will finally switch.

Maybe. Then again, my complaints about webOS - UI lag, dodgy PIM, no frakking line breaks in SMS messages (WTF Palm?), no stand-alone GPS navigation solution - may well be rectified by then. Or there might be an Android device in the form factor I want.

Still, the fact I'm even considering it scares me a bit.

It's also woth noting an unlocked 16GB iPhone 3GS would set me back $879 AUD, which is actually more than what I forked out for my unlocked Pre - shipping from Germany included!
Sometime PIC blogger
Treo 270 --> Treo 650 --> Treo 680 --> Centro --> Pre
I apologise for any and all emoticons in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.

Tim Carroll wrote:
Editorial idea: Why Did The Pre Fail*?

*Unbelievably bad, botched marketing campaign?
*Sprint exclusivity?
*Bad launch timing? (i.e. not soon enough to head off the iPhone 3GS?)
*Tainted brand?
*Hardware not "wow" enough?
*webOS just wasn't good enough?
*Evil spirits?

*bar for success set too high (by palm and the tech media)

It's probably worth speaking of why the Pre "failed" apart from Web OS. If the Pre ends up with disappointing sales, it's more the weak state of Palm the company than Pre the product that makes a less than home run launch a huge problem. There should have been room to get the Pre out, have six months to a year to perfect it and build the app store and relations with the developers, and then release a killer version 2 device to build on that success. But the crap state of Palm the company's finances cuts that short.

Really, at least in software, WebOS has launched with fewer glitches than any iteration of the iPhone. The software bugs in iPhone 2.0 especially were quite irritating for several months. The biggest difference is Apple has taken (and had) time to very carefully build the platform.

An example really is multi-tasking. They decided not to include it, then added the push-notifications (a super solution that launched more than six-months late), and maybe they'll add real multi-tasking later. Palm just doesn't have that kind of time and the luxury of ignoring the heckling about not delivering on promises that Apple shrugs off with the iPhone.

> ...To a certain extent, counting a platform's number of apps, even if they
> are 99% comprised of fart-related garbage, has become the current
> smartphone benchmark for excellence...

Add "for some", please. Number of external applications has never been a benchmark of anything for THIS reader other than as a manner of "developer enthusiasm".

> ...Palm basically did NOTHING of significance in between launching the T|T
> in 2002 and the Pre in 2009, yet managed to hang in there this long...

Palm found a Sugar Daddy who gave them hundreds of millions of dollars in return for, literally, nothing more than a potential future. ONLY that has allowed Palm to "hang in there", NOT some sufficiently good set of products.

>>>I also think with the demise of Garnet, Palm utterly lost every single bit of the "zen" that attracted hordes of users to that platform in the 90s and early 00's.

No, it was PalmOS 5.x that sounded the death knell. Wasn't that when they caved and jettisoned Graffiti for Jot? NO ONE wanted to frikkin learn JOT! **NO ONE**. Even those who lied and said they did eventually moved on to WinMob or something else. Most ordinary people said FTS and moved on.

I have like a 75% error rate with Classic Graffiti grafted into my LifeDrive. It's disgusting! I could frikkin write entire articles with Classic Graffiti. I am frustrated in trying to do a short Calendar entry these days!

mikecane wrote:
>>>I also think with the demise of Garnet, Palm utterly lost every single bit of the "zen" that attracted hordes of users to that platform in the 90s and early 00's.

No, it was PalmOS 5.x that sounded the death knell. Wasn't that when they caved and jettisoned Graffiti for Jot? NO ONE wanted to frikkin learn JOT! **NO ONE**. Even those who lied and said they did eventually moved on to WinMob or something else. Most ordinary people said FTS and moved on.

Horse hockey. I learned Jot very easily, more easily than I had learned the original Graffiti. Even before being bought by Palm and turned into Graffiti II, Jot had been the top add-on application for the PalmOS. I never moved to WinMob and when I did move to Android it had nothing to do with the slightly slower than the original but easier to learn Graffiti II. It was because after repeatedly heard-resetting and rebuilding my Treo 680, it was still failing to do simple tasks like downloading data over the network. And even after switching to an Android phone, I continued to carry a Palm TX and happily entered data into it using Graffiti II/Jot for another year.

I have like a 75% error rate with Classic Graffiti grafted into my LifeDrive. It's disgusting! I could frikkin write entire articles with Classic Graffiti. I am frustrated in trying to do a short Calendar entry these days!

So you are telling me that loading hacked, pirated Graffiti libraries onto a device which has already been hacked by removing its hard drive and replacing it with an off-brand compact flash card leads to a high error rate? I'm shocked! Shocked! I tells ya'.

Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

I think most expect Palm to be bought (*)- the question literally for years has been "At what price?". Right now it would cost a potential suitor about $3 or so BILLION dollars to buy Palm without paying ANY premium at all.

Yes, that's an outrageous price that's more than 10 times more outrageous than the price ACCESS paid for PalmSource and PalmOS.

We can only hope the companies of the world are lead by smarter management than would pay $3+ billion for a STILL untried OS.

It's not clear to THIS reader what the oft-mentioned/never-defined "patent portfolio" is worth. As far as I've seen, that "patent portfolio" hasn't done Palm much economic good to date - I'm not seeing ANY effect across ALL phone manufacturers by it.

=====

(*) In late 2006 even Palm's BoD decided Palm's BEST future was to sell the company. They almost had a buyer in Elevation Partners and some unnamed co-conspirator, but within =3= days of making the offer the unnamed one said "Nevermind!", a VERY strange thing to do when talking hundreds of millions of dollars having been thrown out there to be accepted. NO OTHER ENTITY offered to buy Palm at a price that was high enough. At the time, of course, Palm was reasonably around the same stock price (the price got pumped up early 2007) but had a name, a portfolio of products, an unknown Next Great Thing coming, much much fewer stock shares, NO DEBT AT ALL, and hundreds of millions of cash...no buyers at ALL.

Note - the above is documented by Palm in at least one of their filings about the transaction that brought Elevation Partners into the fold back in 2007. NONE of it is ambiguous nor extrapolated; it is HARD documented by Palm.

Dell already went with Android.

[Nokia, ever the "My way!" company, went with Maemo...]

HPQ already may have gone with Android (google "hp android" for the latest poop]

Motorola already went with Android.

Samsung already went with Android.

LG already went with Android.

HTC already went with Android.

Sony Ericsson already went with Android.

Asus already went with Android.

Acer already went with Android.

Am I seeing a pattern here?

[Hey! I know! Let's start Yet Another "HPQ Buying Palm" rumor!]

What could Palm offer a suitor?

1. Brand recognition/clout. "Palm", "Palm Pilot", "Treo", "Centro", and "Pre" might be worth....err,something.

2. Palm's existing carrier relationships

3. Palm's various IP (patent portfolios, the perpetual Garnet license etc)

After spending some hands-on time with the latest iteration of Android, we need to examine the areas in which WebOS is clearly superior to Android from a user's perspective(DarthRepublican, perhaps you can assist us here):

1. Nicer UI/aesthetic design. No question Palm beats Google here.

2. Better, more intuitive usability & overall integration of the OS components + various apps (keyboard shortcuts, task switching, better overall messaging and social networking capabilities). In WebOS, Alerts appear on the main screen (not on some buried status bar).

3. Multitouch is standard on all WebOS devices, not on a device by device basis like Android.

4. Better native PIM apps along with a bit more standard functionality like the task manager/to-do app, memos app, better e-mail app & Synergy (which itself seems to be a very overhyped feature to begin with). Frankly the biggest attraction of WebOS to me right now is Palm's one-way Palm Desktop PIM data import/cloud migration tool to seamlessly bring over my 13+ years of legacy Palm OS data.

5. Better multitasking & a nicer implementation of it via the "card" metaphpor. Of course the question arises of how critical multitasking is on a handheld device...

6. Presence of the Classic emulator (only important to some).

7. Arguable points: Better security (for corporate stuff as well as things like HIPA) due to integrated storage & no removable SD card. Palm has more fully realized cloud integration & support as well. Palm's also supposedly getting mobile Flash support in the coming months.

That's it, at least from my perspective. Anyone got any others to add?

Certainly there are not many compelling reasons for an individual user to go with WebOS over Android, especially after Google gets it up to 3.0 and Palm's lack of compelling hardware. And certainly there ain't enough reasons there for "some" entity to warrant paying $ USD 3 Bil for Palm!

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid

Nokia doesn't need Palm because of Android. Nokia should simply use Android for free. Nokia already has carrier relationships. they should just make a Droid with their own special sauce. why be on an island all by themselves?

Paying $3+ billion for Palm for WebOS would be beyond (WAY) dumb for Nokia to do.

That is to say, going with WebOS is literally no better than going with Maemo.

A user interface is...to say the least...TRIVIAL to come up with - have you guys got ANY IDEA about how many window managers there are on Linux?

BTW - the guys at TealOS came up with that PalmOS "card" interface without even having a Pre in hand! And they did it in like 2 or 3 weeks!

THAT'S how hard it is to come up with it.

"Synergy" has ALREADY been cloned under Android.

Okay, what else is there?

Physical phone appearance?

There are hundreds of design companies (one of which i believe Palm recently bought) that can do industrial design just fine.

$3,000,000,000+ for what Palm has to offer?

Dumb idea.

[then again, we were all shocked to the core by the PalmSource buyout at an outrageous $300,000,000+ so strange things HAVE happened!]

From the sound of it, you're either a middle school student or a 50 year old virgin. Possibly both. Reread your post. You sound like a moron.

As per your claim that PreCentral offers such wonderfully mature members and stimulating conversations, here are a few thread topic gems of theirs:

-Howto get fancy iPhone style launcher links
-I WebOS Doctored and somehow it put me back at 1.1
-Pre not keeping accurate time
-Pre crashes when slid open

You're right. Sounds like a great platform and a wonderfully mature website audience.

Go away.

no i think ill stay around and bash this site.. maybe if i bash palm enough like you are i can get some kind of lame avatar or something like that. Looks like youve been a loser since 2002. Have you been bashing the pre since that long? I think the pre is freakin awesome. I can tether while im on a phone call, i can reboot my work servers via SSH. i can download torrents and i can record and watch video. All this i learned from precentral. The only thing i learned here is how dead palm isn't and how bad palm is but really isn't. This site is a joke scam phony a fake.. its a korean invicta watch with a fake diamond studded band. Just all images and spaceholders of mindless iphone hate. Don't make me start putting posts up here.. oh wait. there really arent that many posts.

Braino, I'm delighted that you have managed to circumvent the inherent limitations of CDMA network technology--please enlighten us how you alone can manage to have simultaneous voice + data (aka "tethering) on a non-GSM device!

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

"All iPhone features become super cool for them, even if they have been implemented by a gazillion other phones ages ago"

Indeed, I do agree on that point completely. People were ranting & raving about the iPhone adding cut & paste or video capture. We have been enjoying C&P on the Palm OS platform since 1996 and video capture since the Treo 650 in 2004.

And some people still think that the iPhone was the first touchscreen-enabled converged device. Sheesh.

I call it like it is, and the truth is that despite its crustiness and lack of flash, for many basic usability/productivity functions, Garnet still beats out EVERY other platform on the market.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->?

abosco wrote:
Really? The Pre can do all that? Awesome! Just one question for you. How can I get my 10 GB of music onto the Pre?

If he does give you a good answer send him to me. Maybe he can figure out how to get my 100 GB of music, video, and podcasts onto the iPhone.

The platform you so loudly proclaim as better than the iPhone was engineered, developed, and managed on the backs of ex-Apple employees. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Right because once and Apple employee, always an Apple employee -- from the moment you sign your soul over to Steve Jobs in blood until the moment Steve decides to claim it.

You know nothing. Go away.

Apple. We're not arrogant. We're just better than you.
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

hkklife wrote:
I call it like it is, and the truth is that despite its crustiness and lack of flash, for many basic usability/productivity functions, Garnet still beats out EVERY other platform on the market.

Certainly in terms of PIM functionality this is true. But I rather like being able to just open my Pre and type something like say "refrigeration," tapping on Google Maps, and being provided with a handy map, complete with addresses and phone numbers, of all the refrigeration contractors in my area. Now that's a productivity enhancement. In fact, I rarely even bother to open the Calculator on webOS. Granted, the webOS calculator app sucks but this is not why I rarely use it. I rarely use it because I can simply type my calculation in from the Universal Search screen and run it through the Google Calculator. The same goes for always having Wikipedia handy through Universal Search.

Universal Search is not perfect but it is the single most productivity enhancing feature of the Pre.
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/

Let us know how Algebra goes for you this semester. Come back when your balls drop. Putz.

Riddle me this: if the Pre were so badass, how come the sales have been absolute shit?

Why would you try to get into a pissing match about salary over my smartphone platform choice?

Bullshit, the more likely scenario is that you're a bored middle school student on your parents' family plan. I'm a mechanical engineer working in the nuclear industry. If you really are an engineer, you have shown remarkably little class, and you represent my profession poorly. Someone with the literary skills of yourself leads me to believe you graduated from a third-rate tech school with a chip on your shoulder. In which case, it goes against basic ethics to label yourself an engineer. And let's not even get into PE licensure.

Getting back to the point, sales matter. Sales spur application development and accessories. The most impressive mobile applications in the past few years have ALL come to the iPhone first. Few have been ported to other mobile platforms because there simply isn't enough money to be made. Go ask Gameloft. Palm hasn't sold any phones, so they won't get picked up by many developers. Since there are no applications, customers will look elsewhere. And then when Palm dries the well that is Elevation Partners when they can't generate a profit of their own, you'll realize how sales affect your platform when Palm is bankrupt and leaves webOS an orphan.

Go away.