Comments on: Editorial: Treo vs the iPhone: 10 Rounds

You can't hear anyone on the Treo unless you install VolumeCare, and you can't interrupt the person you're talking to because the Treo phone is only half-duplex! It's like talking on a CB radio.

It's one thing to be biased. It's another to be a blind, ignorant fanboy. I've lurked on this site for years, but I just can't take the site, nor Palm's actions, any longer. Time to evolve, Tim.

the Treo phone is only half-duplex! It's like talking on a CB radio.

Check out this review:

http://www.wirelessinfo.com/content/Apple-iPhone-Cell-Phone-Review/Audio-Quality.htm

Then again, you wrote a review of a device you admit you've [b]never even touched![/b] Please, do us a favor, and write about what you know (if anything).

It's arguably fair to critique the iPhone on the basis of missing features: no removable battery, no MMS, etc. But any criticism based on the touch-screen interface is hogwash if you haven't given it a fair try. Saying something is hard to use, when you haven't used it, is odious.

I personally use Palm products, and I have not used an iPhone. That makes my opinion of its interface invalid, too. So pretend your criticisms have any merit, I'm going to go through your points, and any of them that mention the usability of the interface I'll ignore:

1. Phone:

All your comments are based on the usability of the interface. If I want to know your opinion of the usability of the interface, my first question will be "have you used it?" Oh, you haven't? Then I don't care. You get no vote here. Score: Treo 0, iPhone 0.

2. Messaging:

Hmmm, critiquing those touch-screen keys again, are we? Your opinion doesn't count. But the MMS thing is a valid gripe, an actual criticism based on objective data. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 1, iPhone 0.

3. Email:

You yet again mention a keyboard interface you've never touched. Again, irrelevant. You give the iPhone props for features, but give the score to VersaMail because it's compatible with more kinds of e-mail systems. Personally, VersaMail is the reason I don't use e-mail on my Palm at all. But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you personally actually use VersaMail on a regular basis. In which case you're basing your call not just on objective data but also experience. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 2, iPhone 0.

4. Web

Unlike your confounding defense of VersaMail, you rightly excoriate Blazer. Like VersaMail is to email, Blazer is to the web: they are the reason that I *don't* use features of my Palm. You base your critique on actual data, such as Safari's ability to render full pages. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 2, iPhone 1.

5. Camera

Your vote appears to be based on the specs of the cameras, which is as objective as you get. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 2, iPhone 2.

6. Media

Interestingly, here you mention both objective data and personal experience, and then give more weight to the objective data. You don't like iTunes and the iPod interface, but you acknowledge it as an asset to the iPhone. Remarkably even-handed. Data trumps experience. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 2, iPhone 3.

7. Usability

You know, I'd bet money that you're the kind of guy who discounts the opinions of people who say they prefer Windows Mobile when they've never tried the Palm OS. Be honest, have you ever expressed that opinon? You simply don't get a vote on usability if you've never used. Your vote doesn't count. Score: Treo 2, iPhone 3.

8. Extras

I'm grudgingly giving you this one, because the standard I've established is that data is what counts. You're right, there are more apps for the Palm. In fact, I would have an iPhone right now if PocketQuicken were available for it. But it isn't. I bet that there will be some kind of personal finance software for the iPhone soon, and on that day I'll bury my Palm and never look back, but as it stands today, you make a good point. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 3, iPhone 3.

9. Syncing

You point out that the iPhone has several syncing features Palm Desktop lacks. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 3, iPhone 4.

10. Price

People can argue over this forever, but this is completely a judgement call. Your vote counts. Score: Treo 4, iPhone 4.

So, if one ignores the opinions that are based solely on opinions, the phones come out even. But at this point, I'd like to turn something you touch on lightly into a full category of its own:

11. The Future

Apple has a cutting-edge desktop OS that gets updated regularly with new features. Palm has a rickety, rheumatic desktop OS that seems to be entirely stagnant. With that in mind, rate these sentences on a scale of believability from 1 to 10:

"The iPhone OS will probably enjoy regular updates and improvements."

Personally, I'd give that an 8 or 9.

"The Palm OS will probably enjoy regular updates and improvements."

I'd give that between 3 and 4.

I'll grant that there's a high degree of subjectivity in this analysis, here. But the companies' track records at keeping their software current are objective fact. If one is going to base future predictions on past performance, the future belongs to the iPhone. And that puts the score at Treo 4, iPhone 5.

Anyway blah blah blah I can't believe I spent so much time on this. Somebody shoot me. Enjoy your Treo, man, what do I care? Life's too short.

==========

BTW, given all the very valid objections, etc, to the "article" in question, it isn't YOU who are crazy but Ryan for letting that "article" get "published without a heavy editorial hand.

1) ?
2) ?
3) ?

Give it a rest, Kiddies. The facts are that he wasn't qualified to write this type of "article", but the article still generated a lot of discussion on a site that may soon no longer have any PalmOS products to discuss. Until those who complained loudest start submitting articles (or at least regular commentary) to Palminfocenter, the biotchers and whiners need to S T F U. Period.

TVoR

I mean, thanks for the latter point - it's sorely needed - but seriously. The only qualification you need to see that the iPhone ain't perfect is an IQ in double digits. I realise this precludes most Apple fans, but still...

Timmmmmmmmmmmmmay, you're starting to get as punch-drunk as PalmOS 5. Anyone who has used high-tech equipment over the years is all-too-aware that how things appear on paper often has little bearing with how things function in reality..

While for some people a virtual keyboard is an unacceptable compromise, for many individuals these devices are used primarily to display data rather than to input data, so any reasonable compromise made to maximize screen space is appreciated. Furthermore, the Treo keyboards are by no means the paragon of virtuous data input methods.

On paper, it may seem that the iPhone's virtual keyboard would be a clumsy kludge, but people who have used the iPhone frequently comment that it's actually not that bad. Until you've actually had the opportunity to use the iPhone , remain unqualified to make the judgments that you made in your article.

Remember, Timmmmmmmmmmmmmmay: It's okay to cry. Let at all come out, Timmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmay...

TVoR

I've pointed this out so many times, but I'll say it again. That "obvious disadvantage" of no tactile keyboard comes at the advantage of extra screen real estate. You can fit more data on the screen of the iPhone just because it has a larger screen, attributed solely to the soft keyboard. So, the argument is - would you rather have a hard keyboard and small screen or a soft keyboard and large screen? You say the large screen is nice, but there is just no beating the hard keyboard. Meanwhile, you haven't actually used the soft keyboard. Do you understand why people actually got upset about your editorial? Until you actually use it, you cannot make that judgment call in that the extra screen real estate isn't worth not having a hard keyboard, period.

TVoR said it best (yes, it physically hurt to say that) in that you remain unqualified to write this type of article.

(For the record, I have written for PIC before.)

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Totally irrelevant.

Noting that someone cannot fly by flapping their arms does not require one to be able to fly by flapping one's arms first.

Uh huh, so you can get the same work done with 160x160 monochrome than you can with 320x480 16 bit?

In your piece, you're making a load of judgment calls. Judgment calls that ACTUALLY REQUIRE USING THE DEVICE. Don't you understand? You can't sit here and rabidly defend your opinions without more supporting evidence than, "well I found a review that said so." That doesn't cut it.

>>Ugh. Don't know if the caps and the bold will actually help, but we can all live in hope.

(Oh, and if you consider calling people a retard to be insightful commentary - i.e. every word that came out of Mike Cane's mouth in this thread - then it's no small wonder that you keep letting this point fly straight over your head).

More-so to the point, I will not tolerate you sitting there and calling me an idiot. The majority of these comments are people telling you that you lack any credibility whatsoever (and they're completely correct). I'm not going to bother listing whatever credentials I have to be criticizing you, but realize that you'll never understand what the iPhone offers as an advantage until you use one. Evidence? You said the iPhone has a clumsy interface. You're a ****ing moron. You're wrong. Its interface is its biggest advantage. There's my first real insult to you. Enjoy it.

Have fun defending a dying company, pushing dying products with a dead operating system. A lot of people said OS/2 had so much more functionality than Windows ten years ago, and look what happened.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Boring. Try again.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Yep, the interface which you can't touch, can't feel, and must stare at to make sure you're hitting the right thing. The phone that doesn't have a hang up button.

Or perhaps mice with only one button! (oh, wait...)

Anyhoo, if you hated this article, you're really not going to like what I have planned for the future. Topics will include:

~~~

Come into the present and argue with Tim (freakout) in the here-and-now. He's still got plenty to say about iPhone, but at least you'll be arguing about the different devices as they now are.

"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)

Hack,

Considering you're not a software developer, what do you know about designing anything? As you say, "it's purely personal preference" - it's also bias.

itunes is worse than Palm's sync software? Now that's funny...

>As for the rest, you're listing stuff that's in iPhone OS 3.0, and other bits
>and pieces that were added after launch. Hardly fair to contrast what I
>wrote only a day or two after iDay with what's available today.

Hack, it's fair because it illustrates your stupidity.

>One last thing: sales figures don't prove nothin'. It's a point I've made
>many times but bears repeating: if popularity proved quality, McDonald's
>would be gourmet cuisine and Britney Spears would be the Beethoven of
>our generation.

Sales figures count if a company barely has it's head above water. Palm can't make cash with stock schemes and cash infusions. At some point they'll need to earn it by selling popular devices.

freakout wrote:
My lack of interest in iTunes is because it's a poorly designed, bloated piece of crap....

Hey, but what do I know? I get my thrills by running Linux on five year old laptops so that I can imagine that the amazing speed is because I have a really new and powerful system. And that's even with the eye candy turned on (Compiz).

"Vista? We don't need no stinking Vista." (And I meant no offence to Kris with that comment; everyone has their cross to bear.) ;-)

"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)

Many times the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, so simply comparing features isn't very convincing. Just take the fact that WM blows Palm out of the water feature wise, yet many prefer Palm simply because of the OS, usability and user experience (which was my case for a long time, and you also mention that in the article). Obviously the same argument applies to the iPhone.

Also, some people have reported that they have gotten used to the iPhone's virtual keyboard and that it works quite well, while for others that's not the case. Until YOU try you won't know.

Having said all that, the iPhone definitely isn't for me at this stage. But neither is Palm OS in its current form.

Palm Vx (a classic) -> Palm 505 (*yawn*) -> Dell Axim (slooow...) -> Palm TE (great) -> Qtek 9090 (great idea, lousy platform) -> Nokia 6630 (a toy) -> iMate SP3i (not bad) -> Nokia 9300 (can't sync notes!!) -> Treo 650 (awesome) -> hw6915 (almost perfect)

IMHO, iPhone is aimed at a different user than Treo. It's excusable to not notice, because way back in the day, there was a "Zen of Palm." That should have given rise to a user experience like the iPhone advertises. However, I have found that owning a Palm is like owning a Windows box: it can work well if you like to tinker.

And I think that sums up your review. Treo is for people who like to customize, add on, reset and start over. iPhone is for people who want their phone to "just work."

"^^ You've got me there: no, I don't. Actually won't even have a chance to play with one for at least a year, if the usual time to market in Oz is any indication. But I don't think that any of the points I've made would change if I got to play with one; I base my criticisms not just on Apple's own promotional materials and video guided tour, but the dozens of iPhone reviews and hundreds of comments from new users over the net. And just plain common sense too.
It's not like I don't like the iPhone: it's just that on paper, the Treo is the better device." - Freakout

Writing a review without actually using the device removes all credibility from your article as well as PIC. At least do some "journalistic/blogging" ethical writing by mentioning your lack of hand-on interaction with the devices in the article so readers can can be informed.

So sad...

iPhone is 2G GSM. So far as I know, you can't send and receive data while on a call with that technology. If you're in wifi range it's different, of course, but that's not always available. But we've already covered the fact that iPhone's internet experience is way superior, haven't we?

Which phone will be more stable and not randomly reset? Ignoring the Treo 700, which resets constantly, even my 650 resets at will. I'll pull it out of my pocket only to find that at some point it's reset itself. Sometimes without turning the radio back on. Or sometimes my GPRS connection goes down and requires a soft reset to come back - removing it's ability to pull mail.

Both are incredibly frustrating experiences that make the Treo a much less reliable phone than it otherwise might be.

My 650 reset itself about once a fortnight. It was a very well-behaved device. My 680 is almost completely bulletproof: it used to be that the only things that crashed it were Coreplayer and Audio Gateway. The latest Coreplayer update appears to fixed the problem, which leaves just Audio Gateway - and given how hard it pushes both the Treo and the Bluetooth, I'm not really expecting it to ever be perfect.

Long-windedly, I'm saying that the rare crash I experience nowadays is more than compensated for by the usefulness of the device. What's really annoying is Palm's incredibly stupid decision to remove the reset button...

Unless you're permanently in range of a wifi hotspot, iPhone is going to do exactly the same thing...

That's not usability, that's ergonomics. Usability is about how long it takes to learn how to use.

All the possible good points of your comments are shadowed by your inexcusable animosity towards the previous poster.

There is really no need to be ironic or sarcastic, you could post your views and discuss them with other people.

Regards,

I might consider it, for the real keyboard, but probably not for too long. The price is still a major deterrent, though.

But the real point here is that people will get used to idea of personalising their phones with applications, as well as ringtones and wallpapers and all that crap. Apple are in the perfect position to cement this idea in people's heads: using iTunes to deliver and sync apps, combined with iPhone's graphical wondrousness would be a huge boost to the mobile software market. Provided Apple lets more than a select few developers in, of course.

Once that idea is implanted - that extra apps are easy, fun and useful, as it is right now in Palm devotees - it's very hard to go to a device that doesn't offer that kind of choice. When people tire of their iPhone (which they do of any product, especially one that's changed every couple of years, like a phone) they're more likely to buy another device that lets them use mobile applications.

And even assuming that an iPhone SDK DID make AJ (Average Joe) more aware of the possibilities of third party apps, do you think (s)he would ever pick a Treo over an iPhone after comparing the two devices at the store??

The fallacy there is that you assume the devices will stay the same forever. Things change, and the phone giants (and no doubt Palm, if they have any sense at all) are all likely planning their own devices that are just as graphically swish. People won't use their iPhones forever, and many will switch to another brand of phone after a few years of ownership. It's the nature of the market.

Not many, considering that (with contract) you can get a Treo 680 for free, a 750 for $199 and a 755 for $279. Of course, it's bad news if these price cuts don't increase sales enough to make up for the smaller margins, but they are selling more of them each quarter.

We've seen plenty of Treo-killers, from the laughable Q to the E61. None has yet managed to unseat it. iPhone will make a dent in consumer sales, but we still don't know how big. (Although that massive launch has to be making Palm nervous. Some reports are saying they've sold 700,000 now...)

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

One final note on time versus reality and whether or not there are TREO-killers already out there - one of the most important things about financial reporting is noting what IS and what ISN'T mentioned. If you look over the transcript for the latest financial report out of PALM you'll see tons and tons of words about sell-THROUGH - the sale of devices to end-customers.

And you'll find next to nothing about sell-IN - sale of devices to those who sell devices - THE manner in which PALM actually makes money and THE venue in which the effect of the competition WILL be seen.

Not many, considering that (with contract) you can get a Treo 680 for free, a 750 for $199 and a 755 for $279. Of course, it's bad news if these price cuts don't increase sales enough to make up for the smaller margins, but are selling more of them.

I don't believe that the Treo pricing matters anymore. It's too late for Palm. Palm has had to slash prices in an effort to maintain sales, but this is a double-edged sword. First of all, wealthier consumers are going to choose better-designed devices like Apple's JesusPhone whether or not the Treo is significantly cheaper than the jPhone. Secondly, lower prices for Treos means lower revenues for Palm. For a company that relies on Treos to generate 80% of its income, discounting Treos is a recipe for disaster. (Of course, if Palm DOESN'T discount the Treos then they won't sell at all and revenues will fall even further. Catch-22.)

We've seen plenty of Treo-killers, from the laughable Q to the E61. None has yet managed to unseat it. iPhone will make a dent in consumer sales, but we still don't know how big. (Although that massive launch has to be making Palm nervous. Some reports are saying they've sold 700,000 now...)

Wrong again, Timmmmmmmmay. The competition that we've seen over the past year have done significant damage to Palm's bottom-line:

- Motorola Q: The combination of a low price, a big-name handset supplier, significant press, a Treo-like keyboard and high initial sales scared the living daylights out of Palm. The company has now had to rethink how it prices its devices and from now on will have to accept lower profits in order to avoid stagnant sales.

- Samsung Blackjack: Samsung starting to get serious about the smartphone = smaller piece of the pie for Palm. Just needed Wi-Fi + better keyboard.

- Nokia E61/62: Nokia starting to get serious about the smartphone = smaller piece of the pie for Palm. Arguably a more functional device than any Treo ever released.

- Blackberry Pearl: The (non-brick) phone that replaced (brick-like) Treos as the executive phone du jour. Devastating blow for Palm.

- Blackberry Curve: Further pain to be inflicted.

- Blackberry Pearl 2: The coup de grace for Palm that finishes what the jPhone started.

Don't believe me? Come back to this thread in 3 months (after Palm releases the current quarter's financial statement) and see which one of us was right.

TVoR

- Samsung Blackjack: Samsung starting to get serious about the smartphone = smaller piece of the pie for Palm. Just needed Wi-Fi + better keyboard.

- Nokia E61/62: Nokia starting to get serious about the smartphone = smaller piece of the pie for Palm. Arguably a more functional device than any Treo ever released.

- Blackberry Pearl: The (non-brick) phone that replaced (brick-like) Treos as the executive phone du jour. Devastating blow for Palm.

- Blackberry Curve: Further pain to be inflicted.

- Blackberry Pearl 2: The coup de grace for Palm that finishes what the jPhone started."

And yet, here you are again, posting comments on a PALM fan site. Makes me wonder. did I mention this is a PALM fan site?

BTW, TVOR, this is a PALM fan site. =)

The Q was a major dent, yet somehow Palm wasn't able to maneuver its hardware product design fast enough for this.

Samsung was seen a mile away by everyone, but I don't think any are taking them seriously just yet (I'd wager another model refresh will do the trick just fine).

The E61/E61 was Nokia's version of "hello, guess who's coming to dinner." THe E61i was their shot, and its a good one, too bad corporate IT-types don't see it yet. I'd wager even that the next iteration of this would be a real Treo-coffin nail.

The BB Pearl did hurt. Though I have seen many give up a Treo for one and go back not long after. If the hardware design issues could be cleaned up in Peral 2, then that's a nail. A big one because consumers and IT-depts will run at it.

The Curve is good, but hasn't hit its stride yet. I'd give it a few months before [me] making a call on it. It is one of the many directions the Treo should have been though.

the iPhone swooped everyone (except Samsung, and to some extent Nokia). The expectations are eye-candy and functionality. Heck, just this morning I was on my 680 wondering not so much why the hardware isn't there, but why the UI isn't. FooFighter did an article some time back about a UI overhaul that could hve been done whether a new OS or not. Its a shame that it hasn't been done. I do think that part of the delay of Palm OS II is UI related, the rest is advanced networking abilities related. Nevertheless, I'm borderline on the side of TVOR of thinking that Palm might not be an appendage this time next year, in Ed Colligan's words, "[they] just have not executed well."

That all being said, there honestly seems only one developer in the Palm OS world seeing that GUI makes a difference (GX5). If I am developing any programs for the Palm OS, I'd put the UI thru them and let them play -- a lot.

I also find it highly disconcerting that this review was one part correct, and another part missed the picture of the iPhone. The iPhone did not attest to do anything but be the best iPod and ad cellular/Internet to the equasion. If this were the real issue (it is for many consumers in the mobile device market not named techies), then the Treo has been roundly trumped on merit of integration and flow of use. That's not something that 3rd party apps should address, nor something that buttons should attest to; that is product design philosophy. And if that is truly what has been lacking with the Treo since the Handspring merger, then yes, the death of Palm is a merited topic to [pre]eulogize.

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com

Thanks, 'Toine.

The Q was a major dent, yet somehow Palm wasn't able to maneuver its hardware product design fast enough for this.

It's amazing that palm couldn't see the Motorola Q coming. I guess Hawkins et. al. thought the Treo actually had some special secret sauce that even the biggest handset manufacturers couldn't figure out. Very stupid + arrogant. Palm is so used to fleecing customers with its PDA-originated "incremental upgrade" business strategy that it appears to have become physically impossible for the company to fix that diseased corporate milieu and actually design good new products. In the tech world it's "Innovate or die". We're seeing what is happening to Palm now because it has failed to innovate.

Samsung was seen a mile away by everyone, but I don't think any are taking them seriously just yet (I'd wager another model refresh will do the trick just fine).

The Blackjack was just a (half-hearted) first attempt at a Treo clone by Samsung. When they get serious, the results can be devastating. I feel almost ALL of Samsung's current phones are crap by the way, including the A920 I picked up last year. But this is the same company that produced the i500 5 YEARS AGO - still the phone I use daily and easily the best cellphone I have EVER used. Imagine a Blackjack made to the same quality standard as the i500 and with Wi-Fi, EVDO, etc. Poor Palm won't know what hit them.

The E61/E61 was Nokia's version of "hello, guess who's coming to dinner." THe E61i was their shot, and its a good one, too bad corporate IT-types don't see it yet. I'd wager even that the next iteration of this would be a real Treo-coffin nail.

The E61 and the (Wi-Fi crippled) E62 embarass my Treo 700p. If it wasn't for the software I'm addicted to (DateBk 5, HandyShopper, DiddleBug, Ultrasoft Money and a few specialty apps) and Sprint's ultra cheap EVDO pricing + excellent voice quality (with free roaming onto Verizon with my SERO plans!) I would have looked at getting an E61 last year.

The BB Pearl did hurt. Though I have seen many give up a Treo for one and go back not long after. If the hardware design issues could be cleaned up in Peral 2, then that's a nail. A big one because consumers and IT-depts will run at it.

The BlackBerry Pearl was a way to expand the smartphone market to include non-smartphone users. Releasing a device like the Pearl seemed to be an obvious progression to EVERYONE except Palm's management. Why couldn't Palm have released a similar device complete with ChatterEmail 2 YEARS AGO?

The Curve is good, but hasn't hit its stride yet. I'd give it a few months before [me] making a call on it. It is one of the many directions the Treo should have been though.

At least BlackBerry is giving consumers a variety of form factors to choose from, unlike Palm with it's "any phone you want as long as it's almost identical to the 4 year old Treo 600" mentality. Had Palm released a couple of other form factors (e.g. a tiny Samsung i500-style clamshell and a small dumbphone-sized candybay shaped device) they could have broadened the Treo's appeal beyond the current market of people willing to carry ugly, heavy bricks. Look at what Nokia is doing with its tiny 3 ounce 6120 Classic: http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Nokia-6120-Classic-Review-review-r_1766.html

the iPhone swooped everyone (except Samsung, and to some extent Nokia). The expectations are eye-candy and functionality. Heck, just this morning I was on my 680 wondering not so much why the hardware isn't there, but why the UI isn't. FooFighter did an article some time back about a UI overhaul that could hve been done whether a new OS or not. Its a shame that it hasn't been done. I do think that part of the delay of Palm OS II is UI related, the rest is advanced networking abilities related. Nevertheless, I'm borderline on the side of TVOR of thinking that Palm might not be an appendage this time next year, in Ed Colligan's words, "[they] just have not executed well."

I still feel a simple update like giving users a tabbed launcher like Launcher X (which could optionally be turned off) would revitalize Palm while remaining true to the "Zen of Palm" that died so many years ago. Also, Palm should already have licensed + integrated best-of-breed apps into the OS and outsourced the job of making everything LOOK pretty to companies/codemonkeys that actually know what they're doing + let go 50% of Palm's current staff. Imagine a Treo that OUT OF THE BOX came with Chatter Email, Directory Assistant, Weatherman, Resco Backup, GoogleMaps, VideoHound, HandyShopper, Resco Viewer, TCPMP, Resco Explorer, TealLock, Uninstall Manager YAUC, Comet, etc. We already know Palm doesn't give a rat's a$$ about developers, so they could easily have played hardball and negotiated ultra-cheap pricing for these apps. (Any developers that refused to license their apps to Palm would likely lose ALL sales if Palm licensed a competing app and released it for "free". Had Palm done all this in 2004/5 the iPhone would not be making them look so silly in 2007.

That all being said, there honestly seems only one developer in the Palm OS world seeing that GUI makes a difference (GX5). If I am developing any programs for the Palm OS, I'd put the UI thru them and let them play -- a lot.

I still think Palm shoud focus on ease of use, functionality, speed and reliability rather than going for pure fluff. Of course, as the BRILLIANT GoogleMaps showed, it's possible to have it ALL - even under creaky old PalmOS 5.

I also find it highly disconcerting that this review was one part correct, and another part missed the picture of the iPhone. The iPhone did not attest to do anything but be the best iPod and ad cellular/Internet to the equasion. If this were the real issue (it is for many consumers in the mobile device market not named techies), then the Treo has been roundly trumped on merit of integration and flow of use. That's not something that 3rd party apps should address, nor something that buttons should attest to; that is product design philosophy. And if that is truly what has been lacking with the Treo since the Handspring merger, then yes, the death of Palm is a merited topic to [pre]eulogize.

Well put, twizza. For Palm - in 2007!!! - to be expecting users to hunt around for apps to give their latest hardware functionality that should be present out of the box illustrates the arrogance, laziness and stupidity still rampant at Palm. Now that the "jPhone" is showing users what can come in an integrated package, Palm is being exposed for the fraud it is. To fix these problems at Palm will require a COMPLETE change in how they do business. Based on the jaw-dropping number of mistakes Palm has made with its not-even-yet-released FOOLeo, it seems obvious that the current management STILL has not yet learned from the past decade's worth of Palm's corporate mistakes. The funny thing is that despite all this, Palm is STILL in business and STILL has an outside chance of turning things around. If Apple is smart they will kick Palm when it's down by quickly integrating prettier-looking clones of the best Palm apps into the jPhone - all for "free", adding proper "business-friendly" push email, adding MMS/video recording/remote file access + streaming/remote desktop control/and other useful software updates to the jPhone package. Apple wisely realizes that with each announced update, people will feel they are getting an even better "value" for their money, increasing goodwill towards Apple. (Remember how Apple dramatically announced the all-glass screen and the upgraded battery life? As if they didn't know these were part of the package all along? "Svengali" Steve Jobs is the most brilliant snake oil salesman slithering the planet today...

TVoR

I wonder how many FOOLeos Palm wiil be able to sell this year? Seriously. 1,000? 5,000? 10,000? What developers will care about such a TINY market... unless the FOOLeo's PalmLinux = the next generation PalmOS. Bwahahahahaha!

The sheep are waiting, Mr. Colligan. Chop chop!

TVoR

I don't see how. You must always navigate back to the Home screen in order to switch apps, even the major ones like phone and messaging. As for integration - both the Treo and the iPhone can parse phone numbers from web pages, messages, emails, maps etc. iPhone's built in web browser and media player are unquestionably superior to Palm's out-of-the-box solutions, but their messaging and phone fall short.

Actually, that's incorrect: every Treo since the very first 180 has had a dedicated button for the Phone and a dedicated button for Messaging.

Freakout says, Phones are not cars
Not only do I disagree with you, but if you have paid any attention to the mobile market from its inception until now, you will see that mobiles not only share the same commodization in terms of technology that autos did in the 20s-40s, but that socially, they have had the same impact everywhere not named the US in similar fashion that cars did. The analogy that was presented might not be totally right, but phones to cars is very much so correct.

Okay, that was a glib response, but it was a stupid question that was orginally asked. The way people use a car is very different from the way that people use a phone. Valhala's question would have been more accurate if he asked: would I take a car that required me to push a button before I switched on the radio, before I activated the wipers, before I turned on the indicator, before I got in and before I got out?

And surprise, surprise: no, I wouldn't.

When you boil it down, most of the cool stuff on the iphone is simply eye candy. Yes, the browsing experience is wonderful (over WiFi) and the iPod features top notch, but not being able to have third party apps, only one lame carrier and the unreliable keyboard are some serious disadvantages that Treo owners don't have to contend with.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was amazed with the device, ease of use and overall experience. There are some real innovations on the iphone and it totally changes the game for everyone, which is exactly what this area needed. But in the end it's not a smartphone, just a jazzed up feature phone, or a video ipod with a phone if you will.

If you just need an entertainment device it's more than perfect, however if you actually want to be productive and have access to tools and custom solutions you will be out of luck.

ryan - i'd love to read your review.

I think what Ryan means is that you can take a SIM card--ANY SIM card, or T-Mobile or Cingular/AT&T domestically--and put it in any GSM Palm Treo and have it work pretty much anywhere. But the iPhone is locked to AT&T alone. I think Ryan has T-Mob so he could not even pop his T-Mob SIM into an iPhone if he wanted to.

Gekko;

I think Kent has his iPhone but hasn't really said much about it. I am sure he'll post something soon. If not here on PIC then for certain on his elitistsnob.com or pocketfactory.com sites.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

I could never switch over on the single fact that it can't run third party apps. There is just so much functionality you lose when you get locked into a proprietary device. If the iPhone was available in tablet form or as a video iPod, I'd prob snap one up in a sec, but could never use it as my main mobile device in its current form.

The treo is just so much more useful, but I can't disagree that the iPhone design and interface puts Palm OS and Windows Mobile to shame.

Your review should have talked about much more important items, such as the inability to edit Word and Excel, no instant messaging client, and no SDK. The Treo has roughly 25,000 applications available for it. The iPhone has 12. Why isn't this listed several times? You can't use the iPhone if you need to bring your office with you, period. That's why you still need a Treo. But if you're looking for a boatload of entertainment value with music and video, the iPhone is an easy choice if you have the coin.

Also, the web browser is better than anything I've ever seen on a mobile device. Bar none. I am the damn PalmSource Software Expert for Browsers, and the iPhone killed everything in that list in one fell swoop.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

the things i don't like about the iphone -

1. no user-removable battery.
2. no cut & paste.
3. no contacts/calendar/memos search, no direct letter contacts search - is this really true?
4. no 3G.
5. no page scrollbars.
6. only at&t/cingular.

most of these can/will probably be fixed in v. 2.0.

check out Foo Fighter/Kent's iPhone adventure/review at the link above. good stuff.

If the UI requires more steps to get things done, then no, it doesn't "KILL" anything. This may be hard for people to admit because it looks so schmick, but one tap to get something done is better than two. iPhone's purely touch-based interface is by necessity limited in how quickly and efficiently you can get things done. Not being able to launch the phone without first jumping through the Home screen is the best example.

The Treo has roughly 25,000 applications available for it. The iPhone has 12. Why isn't this listed several times?

'Cause its gets boring reading the same point over and over. ;) I did make this point in the "Extras" section.

'Cause its gets boring reading the same point over and over. ;) I did make this point in the "Extras" section.

OK, let's ALL lay the apocryphal "30,000 PalmOS app library" dead horse to rest once and for all:

1) How many of those "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS apps were never updated to PalmOS 5?

2) How many of those "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS apps are abandonware?

3) How many of those "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS apps are for monochrome devices only?

4) How many of those "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS apps have been updated recently?

5) How many of those "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS apps are simplistic "listing/database" (think PDA Toolbox, baby!) apps released by some hobby coder with a whole 1 hour of coding "effort" hoping to fleece a naive newbie for a quick buck?

6) How many of those "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS apps are apps that PalmOS NEEDS in order to overcome limitations resulting from the OS not being significantly updated in 10 YEARS?

7) How many of those "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS apps are actually worth buying?

Less than 1000 PalmOS apps are actually worth buying. A LOT less than 1000. Probably more like 500. As is the case with Windows Mobile, by the way. So if Apple can control the quality of the JesusPhone's apps either by not allowing third party apps or by limiting the # of approved developers to those who meet certain quality control criteria, JesusPhone users aren't that bad off. Perhaps Apple + AT&T can institute a method of requiring digital "signing" of third party apps (like Tapwave did) in order for them to work. If the jPhone has 100 third party apps available within a year and optimizes the Web app kludge then - other than for specialty apps (real estate, legal, medicine, teaching, astronomy, diving, etc.) the Legendary "Magnificent 30,000" PalmOS app advantage evaporates as quickly as those vaporware Cobalt devices did 2 years ago...

Have mercy: do not flog this DEAD, ROTTING HORSE again. Please. Thank you. God bless. And goodnight. Drive home safely, folks.

TVoR

* Feel free to bookmark this post and link to it any time anyone else trots out that pathetic B.S. about the bogus PalmOS app library "advantage". ("20,000, 25,000, 30,000, 35,000, 40,000", etc. apps) If we all work together, 2007 will be remembered as the year that poor dead horse was finally laid to rest.

Counting taps was relevant in '96. The simple fact that Windows Mobile is alive and well is proof that counting taps do not matter anymore.

Also, your usage description of how to power on the iPhone and navigate shows that you haven't touched it. There are a few inaccuracies, but that's irrelevant. You are picking apart a UI that Apple specifically chose in order to avoid hard buttons. And do you know what avoiding hard buttons does? Increases screen real estate. Would you like a laundry list of the advantages that a larger screen provides?

>>bosco - nice to hear from you. where you been?

Of all people to actually miss me, it's Gekko. I'm still around, but I'm more of a car guy. Don't listen to what they tell you - a Mechanical Engineering degree is harder than it looks.

>>OK, let's ALL lay the apocryphal "30,000 PalmOS app library" dead horse to rest once and for all:

It doesn't matter if only 500 are useful. That's 500 applications of instant messaging, native MS Office editing, and games. Those few useful applications present an advantage for the Treo, whether you agree with it or not.

>>Drop the price and open it up, Apple, and my opinion of your device will change accordingly. Until then? Nice try, Steve.

Apple has a deal with AT&T, and AT&T has a deal with Apple. Apple only allows AT&T to get their hands on the service in the US, and in return, AT&T isn't allowed to subsidize the phone. The result? You won't get a lower price until Apple says so, which is a few weeks before the new one comes out. And that one will also be on AT&T. And guess what? So far, it's working INCREDIBLY well for both of them. Remember, their target is a lowly 10 million sales in a year.

Please keep in mind that I've been in the Palm OS game for a good bit. I will still sing the praises of the Palm OS's simplicity to this day. Unfortunately, there just isn't any innovation anymore, and I sure as hell don't want to keep trying Windows Mobile devices.

I'm going to go back to watching Carlito's Way on my iPhone. The battery took about a 30% hit from a 2.5 hour movie. I want to see how much video this thing can take in a single session. Maybe I'll load up The Godfather saga and hope I fall asleep by the time the third one begins.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Apple has a deal with AT&T, and AT&T has a deal with Apple. Apple only allows AT&T to get their hands on the service in the US, and in return, AT&T isn't allowed to subsidize the phone. The result? You won't get a lower price until Apple says so, which is a few weeks before the new one comes out. And that one will also be on AT&T. And guess what? So far, it's working INCREDIBLY well for both of them.

Well a big YAY for the billion-dollar mega-corporations! Too bad for consumers, eh? I realise that Apple aren't aiming to take over the phone market, but I'm sure there a thousands if not millions of people like me who see the iPhone as a truly excellent device, but simply won't pay up to 600 dollars for one.

People may be willing to pay it, but that's not the point. The point is that it's unreasonably high for most people, and that's not something we should praise Apple for. As a matter of fact people on this board were flaying Palm for that price point not so long ago...

Never said you weren't. Touchy, much? :P

--------------------------
Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?

That and you'll drop your pants in public in order to get some shekels from Ryan.

God Almighty, you've created someone with no brain yet who can type. Must be a sign of Armageddon...

This review has no ground.

________________________________________
If you feel like you're under control, you're just not going fast enough.

This review has no ground.

Here are two universal UI paradigms for phones:

(1) Taps matter. If device A makes you jump through more hoops to get something done than device B, the device B wins. I couldn't give a damn if the iPhone projected a photo-realistic 3D hologram display into the air that also did a convincing rendition of a full symphony orchestra for your ringtone; if it takes up to six steps to dial a phone number then it is not as good as a device that only takes three. It's that simple.

Here's the average iPhone scenario:
1) Turn on.
2) Press Home
3) Press Phone
4) Dial number / 'flick' through page after page for contact.

Treo:
1) Turn device on and launch Phone app with "Phone" button.
2) Press+hold letter for Favorite speed dial / type a few letters of contact / dial number.

Now you tell me: which do you think would work better?

(2) One-handed usage matters, and the iPhone is clearly not built for it. It's designed to be held in one hand and manipulated with the other. That's fine for a media player and a web tablet, but it's not the best choice for a mobile phone, the users of which are often trying to operate them while on-the-go.

And the majority of what I've read on the net says that while the virtual keyboard is not as bad as feared, it's still inferior to a real, dedicated thumb board. That won't be true for everybody, of course, but if you put the best button keyboard up against the best virtual keyboard I reckon the button keyboard will come up trumps every time. Yes, that's just an opinion, but this editorial is also just an opinion and not gospel.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

On a side note, Palm itself is not doing so well in their business. They ignored their core products (PDAs) and focused more on the smartphone market that they clearly underestimated the competition. They are looking for buyers and the Elevation deal was the best that they could get. As mentioned by tftp, The real "treo killer" is not the iphone. Its simply Palm.

TRUE blind typing...? Um... HOW?

That's one thing that tactility is absolutely NECESSARY for. I'm not going to say that the virtual keyboard is bunk (could use a little refinement, but I actually think you with practice you can go notably faster than you could on a Treo), but unless there's a "speak-out-the-letter-I'm-hovering-over" option in the Settings somewhere, just how can you blind type?

NO, but what the heck to use this OLD metod when with a touch of a finger you can acces this features directly into the screen?

If you want to do things that way, then a Palm will oblige you: it has a touchscreen as well. The point, however, is that in order to use that touch of a finger, you first have to turn the iPhone on, then slide your finger across the screen to unlock it, then go "Home", and then go where you want. If it had a permanent "phone" button that could be cut down to two steps.

Just 'cause it's old doesn't make it bad.

Imagine, for a moment, that you only had your mouse to input commands to your PC. Imagine that there's the best virtual keyboard ever designed on that PC, that predicts and corrects yada yada, that's easily manipulated by the mouse, so that typing by mouse becomes easy and intuitive. Even though this virtual keyboard is easy to use, it suddenly means that you don't have quick access to, say, CTRL-ALT-DEL, or ALT-TAB.

Smart Treo app designers integrate keyboard shortcuts into their app to help save time navigating around. Let's use Pocket Tunes 4 as our example: E for Equaliser, O for Open, H for Shuffle, L for Playlist, Z for Stop, F for Crossfading, R for Preferences, I for Song Info, K for Bookmarks, S for the Skin Menu... it goes on and on. In the Phone app, you can assign keyboard letters to your Favorites. Yes, Apple has a Favorites menu too, but it's only accessible by the touchscreen and you have to open it up first. On the Treo, just hold down that key for half a second and away you go.

On an iPhone, you gain the advantages of a large screen, and the disadvantages of restricting yourself to one input method. Which one you prefer, of course, is your own personal opinion, but it would be silly for you to deny that having so many different shortcut keys always available is a useful thing to have.

Give it up dude.

Honestly, I don't think will make it through the rest of next year, most probably they will get bought out again and it will be the whole 3Com deja vu again. Don't get me wrong, I love the treo and I welcome the iphone in the industry. I'm just so disappointed where palm is heading. The founders (Ed, Jeff and Donna) should all resign and let the new guys take over. I guess the founders thought that the treo is the perfect device that does not need to be changed... Why did they have to ruin the treo.... :( They created and killed it.. nice one Palm Founders..

this looks good -

HTC Shift

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/htc-shift-is-the-umpc-for-umpc-haters-246965.php

But even if Apple sell ten trillion iPhones, that's not proof it's a better device. As I said in another thread: if popularity is indicative of quality, then Britney Spears is one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived.

Honestly, I challenge you to use an iPhone for one week, then come back and tell me it does not have a more compelling user experience than a Treo. I challenge you.

Palm is years away from anything like the iPhone, if at all!

You are correct. It makes sense for me to compare them for a few reasons:

1) Ryan (AKA Emperor Kairer of PIC ;) ) asked me to.
2) There's no law against opinions, right?
3) iPhone has received massive coverage from nearly every media outlet there is. Already there have been detailed reviews, video tours, and lot of (mostly very happy) new users are reporting in, and a lot of commentary from other people who, shock horror, don't own one. Since it's often touted as a Treo-killer, it makes sense to take what information is out there and see how it matches up with what the Treo has. This is a Palm-dedicated site, after all.

Honestly, I challenge you to use an iPhone for one week, then come back and tell me it does not have a more compelling user experience than a Treo. I challenge you.

I'd love to. But there's two reasons I can't do that, and they're both points against the iPhone: it's limited to one carrier in one country, and it's 500 freaking bucks. To convince people like me to pony up that much dosh Apple have to work harder.

People seem to keep missing the fact that I really am impressed by the iPhone. The fact that Apple have come so close to besting the Treo with their first product should be sounding ear-splitting warning bells at Palm HQ. But what I'm concerned with is which one makes for a better phone, and from all the information available at hand, it's the Treo. I could draw all the same conclusions without ever having owned a Treo either - it's all public information.

TVoR:
He can't do that, since he lives in some dumba$$ trailer trash-infested country "Down Under" where 98% of the population doesn't even have running water. Or teeth. And most of the "women" look like members of the 1984 East German "women's" national swim team (later sponsored by Gillette). The closest he'll ever get to the jPhone is either putting a copy of iPhoney onto his POS Treo 680 or using TCPMP to repeatedly play a video of the jPhone in action while he drools like a rabid dingo.

Eloquent as always, Voice. Trash Oz all you like: just remember you hail from the country that elected George W Bush. Glass houses, throwing stones... :P

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

Okay, I'll go along with that. But when/if Apple open up the iPhone to extra applications, won't they face exactly the same problem? At least on the Treo, you have an ever-present keyboard on which you just need to type P to jump straight to that section.

Or think about making a call. Sure, the iPhone takes 6 actions (home, phone icon, etc), but let's look at the Treo. On my 680, I hit the phone button, and I see a picture of a guy standing on top of a mountain. I start dialing with my numeric keypad, but ooops! it starts looking up somebody in my contacts. I back out, hit the left arrow 3 times to get to the keypad, then I can finally dial. Overall, that took a lot longer.

That's true for a Treo 680, but not a 755p, which unless I'm very much mistaken, defaults to a Dial Pad view. The 680 is very easy to change though; you have a choice between whether or not typing starts a contact search or dials a number, and you can set the default view to a Dial Pad, or your Favorites, or your Contacts, whatever you like. And that kind of choice is what sets a Treo apart: configure it however you want. Yes, that means things become a little more complex for the Average Joe. But it also makes it a better phone.

It is clear, the iPhone isn't for "power users" who like to customize their device. But Apple did successfully make a smartphone for the masses, which Palm and Microsoft have been unable to do.

Accepted.

That's true for a Treo 680, but not a 755p, which unless I'm very much mistaken, defaults to a Dial Pad view. The 680 is very easy to change though; you have a choice between whether or not typing starts a contact search or dials a number, and you can set the default view to a Dial Pad, or your Favorites, or your Contacts, whatever you like. And that kind of choice is what sets a Treo apart: configure it however you want. Yes, that means things become a little more complex for the Average Joe. But it also makes it a better phone.

Actually that's not correct. If you type a phone number on the Treo, even if it defaults to a contact search, it will automatically switch to the dial pad and enter the digits typed instead of doing a letter search as soon as the letter/numbers typed doesn't match a contact.

You should know your devices better :)

Palm Vx (a classic) -> Palm 505 (*yawn*) -> Dell Axim (slooow...) -> Palm TE (great) -> Qtek 9090 (great idea, lousy platform) -> Nokia 6630 (a toy) -> iMate SP3i (not bad) -> Nokia 9300 (can't sync notes!!) -> Treo 650 (awesome) -> hw6915 (almost perfect)

You've obviously never met any mothers. ;-) 90% of them would be flipping the device every which way to make SURE they see EVERY button so they KNOW they might not be hitting the WRONG one... and then hesitate for a few minutes regardless, asking anyone in earshot what to do.

Basically, anyone born before the 70's who didn't get EMPLOYED by the tech sector is almost completely useless with tech. Heh...

In half a years time we will see something truly cool.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/news/2007/07/05/Nokia-Embraces-Tactile-Touchscreens/p1
Keep in mind also that the JesusPhone has a 700 MHz processor with 1 gig of RAM. This is unheard of in any phone. Nokia typically have 200 MHz and 64 MB RAM. The JesusPhone is first and foremost a bruteforce device, simply a shrinked Mac, and is therefore hardly a revolutionary except for maybe power management.

Palm’s Reasons for the Transaction

The board of directors unanimously decided to pursue the Transaction because of the potential financial benefits of the Transaction to Palm’s stockholders, as well as the potential opportunity for Palm to enhance and accelerate significantly its product development efforts through an affiliation with Elevation and Mr. Rubinstein’s leadership position with us.

In particular, the Transaction provides an immediate return to stockholders in the form of the $9.00 per share cash distribution, while allowing stockholders the continued opportunity to participate in future potential growth of Palm and appreciation in its stock price. The board of directors also believes that the opportunity to add Jonathan Rubinstein as executive chairman of the board will allow us to develop new and innovative products and bring them to market quickly and efficiently. Mr. Rubinstein has extensive product development and engineering experience including leading the team that developed the iMac and, most recently, as the senior vice president and general manager of Apple’s iPod division. The board of directors believes that Mr. Rubinstein will significantly increase our ability to recruit and retain talented development and marketing personnel, which will be critical to our future success. In addition, the board of directors believes that the addition of two Elevation principals, Fred Anderson and Roger McNamee, to the board will provide valuable assistance to our strategic planning. Fred Anderson served as Chief Financial Officer at Apple for eight years and was instrumental in its turnaround and restructuring during the late 1990’s, and Roger McNamee has been a technology investor for nearly twenty-five years and is recognized for his insights about technology trends and product strategy. In addition, the board of directors believes Elevation’s long-term investment perspective will provide support to enable us to realize the strategic benefits of our product development efforts.

What a load of crap. In other words: Here's $9 and a fistful of penny stock Mr./Ms. Shareholder... now go bugger off and leave us to engage in some more corporate intrigue. Don't mind us as we blow all of (y)our massive cash reserves AND go into debt to the tune of almost half a BILLION dollars so we can pay you off and let Elevation get $25% of Palm at almost half the going rate. And what does Palm get for its almost BILLION dollar "gift" to Elevation? The hope that Rubinstein can somehow work his magic and save the company from years of incompetent management.

Hmmmmmm... this doesn't sound like a very good deal for Palm, does it? So after half a year of desperately shopping the company around, this Elevation scam was the BEST Palm could come up with? WOW.

OK, so Elevation comes in, cuts Palm's workforce in half, outcources EVERYTHING, scales back/refocuses the FOOLeo pipe dream, turns Palm into a brand name for HTC, releases a PalmLinux "iPhone Killer ("PLiPKi"). Then what? Merges with HTC? (To "augment their synergies" blah blah blah...?)

Corporate America is truly insane. (Crazy as a fox...)

TVoR

I am so glad I had swallowed the soda before reading that. I would have drowned.

Damn! Mental note to self: Must... try... harder...

TVoR

Anyway, things are far from being as clear cut as this article tries to make it.

You had in your mind to rate the Treo higher than the iPhone before you ever wrote the article - and skewed the results to match that outcome.

Things like stability (which you blindly gloss over) and usability (which you mistakenly refer to as ergonomics) aren't weighted properly in the "article".

Have you gone back and corrected any of the mistakes in your "article" yet?

Yes, either that or 500,000 people in two days.

The best arguments you have for the Treo are the fact that it has a hard keyboard, traditional "green & red" phone buttons, and Palm OS applications. In all honesty, EVERYTHING ELSE IS IN THE iPHONE'S FAVOR. Battery life, screen real estate, interface, syncing, form factor & design, and storage space are all superior on the iPhone. And as we recently discovered, the total cost of both devices after two years is within spitting distance of each other. Get that 8 GB SD card for the Treo you keep trumping, and suddenly the Treo is more expensive. And then those third party applications for productivity? A lot more money.

What I'm saying is you need to stick to two arguments. Number one, you can edit native Office documents and other important PRODUCTIVITY applications due to third party software support. Number two, you can make a phone call from a cold start marginally quicker. Anything else you care to comment on, including battery life, keyboard usage, and UI features should be kept out of an editorial piece. Why? Because it's inaccurate when you haven't actually touched one yourself. At least Mike Cane goes to Fry's and tries a device for three minutes before he bitches about it. Why can't you? If you do what I say, you'll realize more than half of your editorial needs to be edited.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

I have nothing more to say to you.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

*Hundreds of different third-party applications makes it more versatile than the iPhone. Before you go whinging that it's only a matter of time before these are available on iPhone, the point is they're not here yet.

I keep seeing this idea thrown around like it is the gospel truth: "The iPhone will soon have a proper SDK and will be open to third-party software." But I keep asking myself, where's the "proof" that it really is going to happen? Does anyone have a quote from Steve Jobs that indicates this is true? What we did hear from Steve was talk of third-party apps, but they he pulled the classic bait-and-switch and said it was all limited to the browser.

Other than a bunch of "wishful thinkers" who are perpetuating this line on web forums like this one, is there any real indicators that Apple is going to really open the iPhone up? I'm truly not interested in anyone's "conjecture" at this point; there's been way too much of that already. Your "hoping" it's going to happen is nothing but a waste of my time. And even quoting Apples "televangelist" isn't really enough if he doesn't blatantly say that is what they are planning to do. He's as slick as any of the rest of them.


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/ or http://www.mepis.org/

I do the same thing with my iPhone, but I also surf the web and read email on it a bit more than the treo, and when I get up the next morning it is at 50% battery.

I also get much better coverage on my iPhone but I'm willing to blame that on T-Mobile.

I'm not a rabid Apple fan boy. I bought an iPod and replaced it with a Creative Zen Vision:M. I had a Mac laptop back in the mid 90s and hated it. I haven't touched an OS X device for more than 10 minutes and when I did I couldn't figure out how to get the "intuitive" interface to do anything. I think iTunes is a horrible program and I hate that I have to use it to do things with the iPhone and I think sticking to the "one-button mouse is the right thing" line is as dumb as sticking with Garnet for as long as Palm has.

The iPhone is missing two things right now: Exchange mail support (using ActiveSync or BB connect so that you get "instant"/"push" notification) and IMAP IDLE support so you get instant notification of personal email (it is really a crime that they couldn't get that in there and I wonder if Yahoo had something to do with it). If it had those, it would clearly beat the Treo, in my opinion. Without them, it is a toss up.

I also find it ridiculous that you keep telling people that it is an opinion piece but then also tell them that there is no question about it the Treo is better and anyone who doesn't agree is a rabid fan boy. I see that opinions only matter when they are yours.

My argument has always been that a Treo is a more useful, productive device that's better at certain things. Which doesn't mean I don't like the iPhone, or think that it's not a superior web device or a superior iPod. I'm more than happy to have a logical argument, it's just that very few have actually offered one yet.

Other than a bunch of "wishful thinkers" who are perpetuating this line on web forums like this one, is there any real indicators that Apple is going to really open the iPhone up?

The same applies to the suppositions that a 3G iPhone will be available in a few months. Can you imagine what happens to AT&T's HSDPA network if several million users have large screen video iPods that stream media off the network? I read some UK research the other day that said that no more than six viewers per cell can watch video at one time from the average 3G network today. They estimated that if 40% of users on a typical 3G system watched six minutes of video a day, they would saturate the entire network.

It's not some accidental oversight that the iPhone is closed to 3rd party apps, has a 2.5G radio, and won't let you download media over the wireless radio. Nor I think will these limitations be just a quick fix by Apple--especially if the iPhone has broad adoption. I predict that AT&T's first over-the-air iPhone upgrade will be a feature that uploads cash straight out of the iPhone user's wallet and deposits it in AT&T's capital investment account.

I'm truly not interested in anyone's "conjecture" at this point

Oh. Well, get back to work and stop reading PIC, then! :-)

Work? What side of the globe do you think I live on? I should be asleep and you should get back to work.

BTW, are you going to pick up the Neo 1973 developers kit? I'm still quite curious about it even though I personally couldn't work with a screen that small.


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/ or http://www.mepis.org/

I think, as David does, that there are very good reasons for the current iteration of the iPhone being closed to third parties. I'd add another one too: AT&T are probably terrified of someone turning it into an excellent wifi VoIP device. But if the future of computing is mobile, then eventually they'll have to open it up in order to keep up with the Joneses. (IMHO)

We rarely ever run editorials here at PIC, mostly because I find the ones on other sites so trite and uninteresting. However, I find the current hype and lovefest over the iphone to be absolutely absurd, so it's good to have someone outside of the reality distortion field provide a different and fresh perspective.

And Mike I take offense to your comment, that's a pretty harsh and unfair claim considering some of your past articles and opinion pieces published on this site.

Pac- Wes has been working for Microsoft's mobile division for some time know and afaik he is still there.

Have you tried IT, the iPhone?

Keep waving that Palm flag. But the ship has been torpedoed and is now sinking.

(rolls eyes) Y'know, recognizing that the Treo is a superior smartphone has nothing to do with my opinion of Palm's business decisions...

And Mike, it doesn't stand for "Psychosis". It stands for "Pooch". PIC will soon become the new homepage for dog-lovers, featuring tips on grooming, diet and exercise. I'm especially excited about the new "PoochoShop" segment, where people will post pictures of famous celebrities altered to look like dogs. Unfortunately that technology has encountered some serious stability issues in the testing phase, so until it's up-and-running we'll just be posting pictures of funny-shaped stools.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone else. :)

My T3 is 3 years old for god's sake. Try to find a new device today with equal sized screen surfing the web with 3g speed outside of WiFi range. There is only a small handfull of them except Nokia E90 and HTC P3600 who both have HSDPA (3.6 Mbit/s). This is something the holy JesusPhone simply cannot do, it crawls along with decade old technology. I also use my T3 for TomTom, try that on an iPhone.

The iPhone is so limited in it's usefulness as a phone or PDA-phone or smartphone it is almost absurd. It is absurd because the it is hyped as the next generation *phone*. There is nothing next generation about the phone capabilities, it is not even current generation. It is a multimedia gadget plain and simple, maybe the first generation of its kind.

Dispite everything written and said, I also want a Foleo, if it ever gets out and is sold here on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, and works together with my P1 (not very likely by the looks of it, but you never know). It wouldn't surprice me if Nokia comes out with something similar either, only much "flashier".

Are you completely nuts? TomTom + T3 is exactly like any other TomTom running on any other PDA/Smartphone or on TomTom hardware; The best car navigation system available on the planet right now.

To navigate you have to know where you are all the time, that is the whole point of using a GPS. Google maps and iPhone have no clue to where you are, and cannot possible be used to navigate.

"iPhone has received massive coverage from nearly every media outlet there is. Already there have been detailed reviews, video tours, and lot of (mostly very happy) new users are reporting in, and a lot of commentary from other people who, shock horror, don't own one. Since it's often touted as a Treo-killer, it makes sense to take what information is out there and see how it matches up with what the Treo has. This is a Palm-dedicated site, after all."

What's more, it's not actually a review, it's a comparison piece. If I got any of the details about iPhone's operation wrong, I'm happy to be corrected. But I'm pretty sure I didn't. Before I write anything for this site I try to write at least a page of notes of my major points and cross-check them all, and I couldn't find anything that contradicted how I described the iPhone's interface.

Haven't you ever heard of window shopping, Lupin? For a 600 dollar purchase you'd want to do a little research first, right? That's all I did: dug up every scrap I could find about the iPhone and summarised it all, and concluded it's not perfect.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

>>>You don't own a Foleo, yet you've been bagging it ad nauseum since it was announced.

That's right -- because I've USED an effing similar Linux device: the 770. Have YOU? And I've used its browser, Opera. And I know from that experience that the Foleo is going to be a Flopeo. That, plus UMPCs such as the raon Digital Everun are just going to crush the Flopeo. Single-window browsing? In the 21st Century? Get real.

When the hell did PIC start employing retards? Is this an ADA thing?

I've USED an effing similar Linux device

Sorry, Mike, but saying "I've used a Linux device therefore I know the Foleo sucks" is a helluva lot more stupid than anything you're accusing Tim of. Linux can run fast on hardware with such limited resources that Windows Mobile can't even boot on it or can be larded up with stuff that makes it bog down a Pentium 4. A mobile Linux OS can be designed to encourage quick-and-dirty ports of desktop Linux apps like Nokia's Maemo platform, or it can be designed to sacrifice some portability so as to enforce good mobile programming standards and the quality of the user experience. "Linux" really has nothing at all to do with your complaints about the Nokia Internet Tablet. All those issues have to do with decisions that Nokia made about the middleware that runs on top of Linux. They took the easy way out in a number of areas and that's why it's more of a geek toy than a consumer Internet appliance for your grandmother to use.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

I'm not Mike but the first word of the article is "Palm".

== "Palm Treo vs the iPhone: 10 Rounds"

directly copy-n-pasted from the PIC home page at the time of this post.

Only if I actually go INTO the article by clicking on that home page title does the first word change.

Giggle.

If you are one of 500 "chosen" developers, you can get an N800 for 99€. The next iteration of the hardware will probably come already in first half of 2008.

iPod 6? I'd actually consider one of those myself. It would be a very handy household internet tablet, especially with home wifi. Just drop the price a little please...

I should clarify: it's not my main job, it's a side operation. I have a "real" job too. And I got offered the position after I handed in my PocketTunes 4 review and the first iPhone piece I did; Ryan liked them enough to ask if I'd like to help out with the site more often. It works out nicely for me too, 'cause one of these days I'd love to have a real-life journalism job and being published anywhere is a nice little bonus to put on that CV should I see an opportunity I'd like to go for.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

Seriously, you're misjudging so many aspects of the iPhone. Pull this article until you've spent some time with one.

Basically, even if the iPhone keyboard won in ease-of-use, the Treo has 26 shortcut keys that are always available and usually easy to use one-handed. Which cuts back to the main thrust of my argument: by necessity a purely virtual, touchscreen-based interface is limited in how quickly and efficently you can access your information, whereas a Treo has three different ways to input commands: touchscreen, d-pad and buttons. It's just a more productive combination to my mind.

Of course, but that is 95% due to predictive realtime correction, something mobile phones have had for a decade now. This is the reason SMS has become so popular (in Europe). With predictive realtime correction and a little practice, you can type faster on a numpad, than you do on a QWERT phone (Treo) with no correction, when using only words in the dictionary.

What you have to compare is an iPhone and a phone *with* buttons that *have* predictive correction, for instance SE M600 or P1. Those phones have buttons and grafiti and virtual keyboard. Grafiti with realtime predictive correction is actually incredible fast, since the main reason grafiti is slow is due to errors and mistakes while writing. I haven't tried the iPhone yet, he he, but I doubt that it will be faster or a better experience to write emails on that compared to a P1.

How in the world do you have any business talking about the keyboard?? You've never typed on int!

Seriously, it is absolutely ridiculous for you to be talking about reviewing and comparing the iPhone to the Treo without having used the iPhone.

The thing about the internet is, there is no requirements for journalistic standards, so any old Joe can start writing on a website. This is what we are now witnessing.

To Mike, or whoever the editor of this site is, how can you publish an in-depth 10 point comparison when the writer hasn't used one of the devices?!? We're not talking about just initial impressions, we're talking about a deep comparison, including reviewing the keyboard, which definitely requires usage in order to judge.

Come on, this is getting ridiculous

Yes, it was ingenius innovation for web browsing, media etc which just work so much better with a large screen. Which is why I rate the iPhone higher in those categories. But as far as getting around your device goes, it's better to have three different input methods than one. It's faster, it's more efficient.

Imagine, for a moment, that you only had your mouse to input commands to your PC. Imagine that there's the best virtual keyboard ever designed on that PC, that predicts and corrects yada yada, that's easily manipulated by the mouse, so that typing by mouse becomes easy and intuitive. Even though this virtual keyboard is easy to use, it suddenly means that you don't have quick access to, say, CTRL-ALT-DEL, or ALT-TAB.

Smart Treo app designers integrate keyboard shortcuts into their app to help save time navigating around. Let's use Pocket Tunes 4 as our example: E for Equaliser, O for Open, H for Shuffle, L for Playlist, Z for Stop, F for Crossfading, R for Preferences, I for Song Info, K for Bookmarks, S for the Skin Menu... it goes on and on. In the Phone app, you can assign keyboard letters to your Favorites. Yes, Apple has a Favorites menu too, but it's only accessible by the touchscreen and you have to open it up first. On the Treo, just hold down that key for half a second and away you go.

On an iPhone, you gain the advantages of a large screen, and the disadvantages of restricting yourself to one input method. Which one you prefer, of course, is your own personal opinion, but it would be silly for you to deny that having so many different shortcut keys always available is a useful thing to have.

And with that, I'm DONE with this thread. It's consuming too much of time and my life. But it was a blast...

Dismissed!

Jaysus.

iPhone Is Not Expen$ive
http://tinyurl.com/yuko3s

As for all the eejits carping about no 3rd-party iPhone apps, dry up and die when they start to FLOOD the market before March of next year. You are all so used to the half-assed, brain-dead, mentally-retarded, shuck-and-jive abuse of PALM that when a company comes along to TAKE THE TIME TO DO THINGS RIGHT, you don't know what to make of it or how to react.

Get some help.

In many cases, that $100 will be an investment when you end up with more cash in the end.

PalmerDeville:
Just think of it like you're putting that $100 in the bank. Now you will receive a monthly disbursement over the life of your contract.

In many cases, that $100 will be an investment when you end up with more cash in the end.

As Poopie helpfully quoted in another thread:

So the difference between a free Treo 680 and a $500/$600 iPhone over the course of 24 months is a grand total of $40... or $1.67/month or less than $0.40/week.

Great disbursement! And iPhone is still more expensive...

You're changing the argument. The article said:

"$600 with contract is a lot to ask for a phone. Especially a first-generation product. To put it bluntly, it's exorbitant. You can get a Treo 680 for free nowadays on a contract, and with that you could get an 8GB SD card, a sweet pair of wireless headphones, all the best third-party Palm OS apps and still not pay as much as you would for an iPhone."

Which is complete and utter bull.

> Yes, after two years, the costs might even out,

Not "might" -- will. I've shown that the free Treo 680 is MORE expensive than the 4gb iPhone and only $40 less than the 8gb. PLUS with the $80/month you are going to be paying higher taxes. Even the 8gb is likely to be less expensive than a free Treo 680.

> but that's no good to the people buying one today, is it?

It depends. Are they unable to do math? Are they easily duped into thinking that the TOC is inconsequential?

> As Poopie helpfully quoted in another thread:
>
> So the difference between a free Treo 680 and a $500/$600 iPhone over the course of 24 months is a grand total of $40... or $1.67/month or less than $0.40/week.
>
> Great disbursement! And iPhone is still more expensive...

Get your facts right. The 8GB is $40 more expensive. The 4GB is cheaper.

And the 3G vs EDGE was nor part of the original argument either. The argument was that the iPhone is "exorbitant".

That's false. And the facts should matter.

If you want to argue that you're getting more for your money with the Treo, that's fine, but you can't say that $40 more than the Treo is exorbitant.

And all the crashes you can eat. And all the eyestrain you never knew you could get.

You are such an absolute idiot. Ryan must being doing hiring based on ADA factors. You are clearly deranged.

The sign of a truly great argument is that when it gets challenged, you drop it and start saying something else.

You originally argued that the free Treo 680 with all of these extras was a lot less than the iPhone.

Now you're saying that for $400 (measly?) you can get an unlocked Treo.

And what exactly would you do with it without a voice/data plan? Tip calculator?

"Hey! I got a great price on this car. Sure I can't drive it anywhere because it only gets 8 miles to the gallon and I can't afford the insurance, but WOW what a great price!"

> Sorry mate, but you're not going to convince me that iPhone's
> minimum $500+contract price is not exorbitant.

If for no other reason than you've firmly decided that you're right.

Your complete inability to defend your original point should be answer enough for reasonable people. Whether or not I convinced you, well, really not the point.

I bet you cleaned up on the traffic you got from this post though.

You originally argued that the free Treo 680 with all of these extras was a lot less than the iPhone.

It is. Buy an iPhone, walk away at least $500 poorer and with a contract to a (apparently) horrible cell provider. Get a Treo 680 for free, walk away with the same amount of money you had before and a slightly more expensive contract with same provider.

And what exactly would you do with it without a voice/data plan? Tip calculator?

Let's see. mp3 player, movie player, e-book reader, document editor, games machine, insert anything here... a Treo isn't just a great phone, it's also a more-than-decent mobile computer.

If for no other reason than you've firmly decided that you're right.

'Cause based on all the evidence at hand, I am. :P

Your complete inability to defend your original point...

Look at that, I just did!

I bet you cleaned up on the traffic you got from this post though.

We did! Thanks for the congrats. :)

P.S. A saving of $40 after two years is practically worthless. A saving of 500 bucks in one day, though...

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

And you conveniently left that out of your article, favoring day 0 costs over anything else, therefore labeling the iPhone much more expensive. That's misleading. Basically, you're stooping to the level of used car salesmen on TV yelling at the viewers with promises of, "ZERO DOWN!!!" and a giant monthly lease in the fine print. Technically, in your eyes, those zero down deals are all offering cheaper cars.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

How come that cost hasn't been factored into the equation?

I'm currently shopping for a new smartphone. I wish Palm offered a Palm OS phone with wi-fi. I was tempted by the UK offer of free TomTom GPS with Treo 680 but the lack of both wi-fi AND 3G puts it out of my running.

My shortlist is down to either the Samsung SGH-i600 (the Blackjack with 3G AND wi-fi) or the Orange SPV e650 (their version of the HTC s710 with wi-fi). I dislike WinMob but these phones offer the features, styling and performance that I want as a customer. They can also run Styletap so all is not lost.

Both of these phones are free to most Orange UK contract customers. Orange doesn't bother offering ANY Treos to UK customers. I can even buy either of these phones contract free at the same or similar price as the inferior Treo 680. Incidentally I see someone who'd buy a £399 Treo 750 over a £285 Samsung SGH-i600 as either too wealthy to care, not being right in the head or someone who values threaded SMS and the Palm logo at £114.

Palm is the only company that doesn't have a smartphone with wi-fi now that RIM is offering a Blackberry with wi-fi.

Yes we can debate all we want about Treo vs iPhone but it should be extremely troubling for the Palm management that Apple with their first attempt can come close to (and in many aspects surpass) what the Treos offer.

On reflection:
I'd never heard of a Samsung phone in 2002 but had seen the early Treos.
I laughed at Samsung's first offerings in 2003/4 and was keen to get a Treo.
Now I'm impressed by Samsung's Blackjack in 2007 and dismayed by the current Treos.

It's so desparately sad that Palm threw its advantage away and now what does it have left to offer?

Touchscreens

When the Treo 600 was introduced I remember how much emphasis Palm, Handspring and even Hawkins himself placed on how it easy it was to operate without using the touchscreen at all.

Thus even Palm has demonstrated that having no touchscreen doesn't impact on how useable the smartphone can be. I've found that's the case with Nokia's n95. I've enjoyed using this phone and only wish Palm could have come up with something similar (in a sense they have, the Treo 680 has similar battery life despite offering a fraction of what the n95 does). However, a Treo offering no wi-fi nor high speed data has a huge impact on those trying to use it for web browsing or email. As a data device Palm should have got its priorities right - I would have happily traded the touchscreen for a European Palm OS Treo with wi-fi and/or 3G.

I appreciate the Windows Mobile Treos were "buying time" for Palm to sort itself out but frankly they're not competitive with other WinMob devices - see list of some UK choices below:

But if you really need a touchscreen:

with keyboard:
- E-TEN glofish M700 - Wi-fi & GPS: £295
- Sony Ericsson P1i - Wi-fi & 3G £395
- Sony Ericsson P990 - Wif-fi & 3G: £200
- Sony Ericsson m600i - 3G: £240

Without keyboard:
- HTC Touch - Wi-fi: £290

And in comparison:
Palm Treo 750 - 3G but no wi-fi: £400 ($800!!!)
The Treo 680 doesn't bother to come with 3G or wi-fi so isn't invited to the party.

However it's ironic how the iPhone and HTC Touch are providing novel approaches to how the phone user interacts with the software via a touchscreen.

Now I notice it's slugged EDITORIAL. Where's that word OPNION? Or, in this case, PSYCHOTIC DELUSION OF PALM FANBOY EEJIT?

Wishing for Palm to die the death it deserves is NOT a complaint, you retard.

Why don't you just stop replying to all posts. The more you type, the dumber you reveal yourself to be.

I think this trash should be called COMEDY, not EDITORIAL. You've provided loads of laughs for people here.