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

Yep. I gave my reasons: the iPhone's purely touch-based interface (and one non-reprogrammable button) mean that it will take extra steps to get things done. It also means that for the most part one-handed usage gets thrown out the window.

If they released an iPhone with buttons and some way to navigate other than the touchscreen, I'd be much more receptive. But they haven't and they didn't, so as far as functionality goes, PalmOS wins.

And you think VERSAMAIL is superior to Apple's Mail implementation?

Actually, I don't. Like I said, stuff like rich HTML and in-line photos means iPhone's email interface leaves Versamail in the dust. It's old and unstable. But Versamail is compatible with more kinds of email - it'll even do Blackberry if you want it to - and you can easily swap it out for a better third-party application. Plus, of course, the Treo has a real-life keyboard that is just easier to type with. And those are the real selling points for email in my mind, not pretty pictures.

Wow - I didn't know that - I thought that was a "feature" of speakerphone mode only.

"We got another one!"

Did you actually read the article? The iPhone has a lot of good things going for it, which I praise it for, but as a phone it falls short and it doesn't take a genius to see that. Comments like "time to evolve" are just dumb. Evolve to what? A device that can't do messaging properly, a device I can't expand and a device I can't use my cool Bluetooth headphones with? Quit being so short-sighted; it's about more than graphics.

Do you even use the phone on your Treo? The sound quality is horrible. I ditched my Treo 650 for an iPhone last Friday and don't miss the Treo at all.

It's true that the now three-year-old Treo 650 had poor voice quality. Not so much of the new 680, which is greatly improved. And if you'd bothered to read a few iPhone reviews, you'd see that it's voice quality isn't anything to write home about either. Plus from what I hear it's on America's worst cell network...

You can't hear anyone on the Treo unless you install VolumeCare

Hogwash. That's true for a lot of older people who are half-deaf, but I've never had a problem hearing people on mine. And again, it was most prevalent on the three-year-old Treo 650. Quit livin' in the past, man...

As GSM handsets go, the iPhone's voice quality can only be described as "unremarkable." Not bad, but not particularly stellar, either.

And it's not a review, dopey. It's an editorial. An opinion piece, that clearly states at the beginning that it's based on the fresh new opinions that have been popping up over the net ever since it was announced. Perhaps you should learn to read?

I, however like to do things like type periods without having to bring up a second keyboard.

You've got to be kidding me!!!! Anyone with even an ounce of common sense and critical thinking capability can tell that an entirely virtual interface is going to cause problems.

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...

Sure, it's not that bad. Is it as good an input device as a real keyboard, even a relatively cramped one like the Treo's? Nope, and it never will be. Silliness like having to pop up an alternate keyboard just to type a frickin' full stop is a perfect example (amongst many).

And crying is for girls. Boys don't cry. If The Cure said it, it has to be true. :P

I prefer the Treo keyboard over Graffiti 2 if both devices are 320x320. But 320x480 or greater + Graffiti 1 would be preferable over any keyboard. Of course, stroke-based character input is NOT the wave of the future or the key to mass-market acceptance. After the raging success of the BlackBerry & Treo thumboards, I cannot help but think that one of the things that led to the downfall of the conventional PDA was a lack of cheap Treo 90-style devices. The average consumer never could grasp either G1 or G2.

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

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

I brought it up because of this comment:

>>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.

By his listed qualification, I can bitch all I want.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Don't know how many times I need to ask this, Bosco - did you actually read the goddamn article?

I can see perfectly well the advantages a large screen provides. That's why iPhone is a beter internet device and a better media player. But a large screen means jack shit for productivity, and the elimination of any kind of buttons whatsoever makes for a more clumsy interface. AND IT ALWAYS WILL.

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).

Rather than carry this on myself, I'll let The Best Page In The Universe do that for me. Have a read sometime:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

Enjoy shooting huge sticky wads over your toy.

Just to keep fueling this pitiful fire because it amuses me so:

Evidence? You said the iPhone has a clumsy interface. You're a ****ing moron. You're wrong. Its interface is its biggest advantage

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. Wow Apple, thanks for revolutionizing the phone!!!! Where would we be without your stunning vision? What's next? Cars without wheels, maybe? 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:

Why Vista Will Save PCs
DRM Is Good For You
Apple's Negative Effect on Modern Product Design
Mac Users Scientifically Proven Bad In Bed
Governments Should Filter The Internet
Small Penis Syndrome: An Objective Analysis of Republican Voters
Buying An Apple - Your Guide to a Second-Class iLife
Steve Jobs: Kitten Abortionist or Puppy Fiddler?

360 comments ain't nothin' on what we've got planned....

Hugs 'n kisses, Bosco.

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

Phone:
No tactile feedback. That's interesting you point that out as a "requirement". I prefer the touchscreen alot more then clunky buttons because it's faster. Ironically you point out that it takes so much longer to type out a contact. I always use favorite contacts. If your going to point out that the treo has speed dial, by the time you hold down the shortcut, and waited a few seconds, I'm already in my call.

iPhone: 1

Messaging:

I can type much faster on a keypad that requires me to touch with my fingertips vs. my fingernails. It's just a matter of learning what part of your finger touches the screen. iPhone already supports mms since day 1. All you had to do was send a email in the (telephone number)@(carrier email), and it works! In fact you can even add under a contact the email for that, easy! I already know why MMS wasn't added, you need to write in drivers to parse all sorts of media files like jpg's, png's, gif's, bmp's, and so on. MMS will be integrated in iPhone 3.0 software. (Which is by the way, going to be free for iPhone users!)

iPhone: 2

Email:

I've used Versamail, it's crap, it doesn't always work, and for the most part I always look for workarounds to getting email to function correctly, this usually involves third-party programs like "Express Mail", obviously a indication of how poorly Treo's function.. even after having a phone out for years! The iPhone on the other hand, handles practically everything, VPN, RSA, POP, Exchange, IMAP, whatever. It's in there, and there's no silly second party apps you need to get it working.

You make the point that there are other email apps for Treo, well that's true with the iPhone as well! And moreso, I can download any email application I like on the go, as long as it's below 10mb in size. Not so with the Treo...

iPhone: 3

Web: -skip- iPhone: 4
Camera: -skip- iPhone: 5

Media:

A2DP will be supported on the iPhone 3G with the iPhone 3.0 software, your lack of interest in iTunes is understandable because you know nothing of how to use it. However, it's worse when your trying to put music on a Treo, you can shove a cdrom into your computer, and iTunes will automatically import, and when setup right, will be copied onto your iphone automatically.

The idea of taking apart your Treo, taking the memory card out, finding some way to get mp3's either by buying, or ripping them yourself, and then putting the Treo back together with the memory card is both unrealistic, and cumbersome. Then again.. if you have a Treo, chances are you will never use it to play music. I think on that alone you can say the Treo doesn't compare.

iPhone: 6

Usability:

Reading this made no sense to me, you've pointed out already your a staunch believer in the swis army knife of big bumpy buttons all over a phone. The keyboard in a iPhone only shows up when you need it, the Treo's wastes space ALL the time. I don't get what's so much more intelligent than sliding to unlock, and then clicking a item on a screen that's 2-3 times larger than any of Treo's offerings.

Ending a call is so easy on the iPhone, all you do is press the top left button once, and it ends a call, regardless if your in a app, on the home screen, or getting a incoming call. Again, without needing to look at the iPhone I do this all the time in my car, or at work!

Pressing the home button is easy when needing to switch to a different application, and the phone automatically will close apps when memory is low. Not so with the Treo, at times, you may be required to pull the battery out to stop it from freezing.

Unlocking is alot easier than you make it out to be. Sliding is all you need to do. If you had a app open, it saves the previous state because it actually remembers!

iPhone: 7

Extras

iPhone comes with the app store as of iPhone 2.0 software, is updated roughly every 3 months, automatically backs up your phone by default, and has over 25,000 apps on the app store. Alot of these applications are free, or trials before you buy. Contrastingly, with Treo apps you have to download them, and every app I've seen worth downloading for Treo has costed money.

iPhone: 8

Hardware:

Treo's are bulky, every one of them is. Doesn't matter which one you have they are all boxy with round edges, and super thick. The iPhone is sleek, thin, and contains only three buttons you can easily feel by touch. Volume, Silent/Normal, and Power Off/End Call/Lock.

iPhone 9

Syncing -skip- iPhone 10

Price:

Since the influx of the iPhone 3G the price was subsidized into the 2 year contract. You forget to mention that you are paying $600 without a contract, you could even setup a iPhone as a Pay-As-You-Go phone. Something you could never do with a bulky Treo without handing alot of cash for alot less functionality. $199 is not alot to pay when you consider that a top of the line Treo for AT&T is a Palm Centro with 64mb of memory, a tiny screen, support for a 4GB card, with Edge service.. not even 3G support.

Contrastingly, iPhone comes with 8GB internal storage, and now they sell iPhone 3G can be bought as a refurb with a $100 discount! Now that is cheap.. Verdict: 11 iPhone, Treo 0

The Palm Pre may mix things up a bit, but as it stands, the iPhone wins, not only in functionality, but also for sales. That should speak for something;

"The top handset models in rank order, based on unit sales in [2008] Q3, were as follows:

1. Apple iPhone 3G
2. Motorola RAZR V3 (all models)
3. RIM Blackberry Curve (all models)
4. LG Rumor
5. LG enV2"

Thanks for saving me the trouble of typing that myself, Ron...

MrWise: I really can't be bothered responding point-for-point - I already did way more of that than could be considered healthy when I first wrote this piece - but there's one thing I really can't let slide:

your lack of interest in iTunes is understandable because you know nothing of how to use it.

Ohoho. No, no no no no no. My lack of interest in iTunes is because it's a poorly designed, bloated piece of crap that runs slower than a wet week even on my dual-core system. It's purely personal preference. I've tried to use it many times and always wound up running screaming for the hills. It's rubbish.

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.

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.

Given the lack of knowledge about the Pre outside early-adopter circles, it'll be VERY interesting to see what sell-through is like after the first rush.

Still I don't see how this completely ignorant and totally incompetent Palm guys (Fooleo??) could have achieved this with their dying platform? For sure they don't deserve it, but maybe they are just lucky, and the competition is even more incompetent. Well, not anymore, my personal winner is already chosen, its the Nokia E90. Now, a comparison of these two would be interesting (and devastating for Palm ...)

IIIe -> m505 -> T3 -> Treo650 -> Treo680

It's not like I don't like the iPhone: it's just that on paper, the Treo is the better device.

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

Is that why it takes more steps to dial a phone number on the iPhone than the Treo?

Not if you're on Verizon it doesn't. Nor Sprint. Nor basically any other network right now. I was really itching to pick up a Treo last year, but the forced $80/month plan and the lack of integrated wireless killed it for me. (I would have been perfectly happy with a device that only did NORMAL cell phone use, and otherwise only connected online with WiFi.)

You must admit the iPhone is priced more compellingly than other devices right now. (at&t's network quality is a separate issue.) The low end is at a NEW low, basically (at least for any of the major carriers--I can't vouch for everyone...), as what one gets for $60/month with the iPhone you'd have to pay $80/month + individual SMS (or another frickin $10/month at this point) with Verizon, and roughly $80/month with other carriers. Even just counting a $20/month difference over the 2-year contract period alone...? Hey, lookit that! The iPhone has a significantly cheaper price!

Anyone smart enough to be wanting to BUY a smartphone is also smart enough to measure our their real cost over time. ;-) Features are the real factor, not cost. (Though one could kvetch about there being a higher up-front cost... It would be nice, since Apple is applying the revenue spread across two years anyway if they'd let you essentially roll the cost into your monthly plan to begin with. ^_^ But if wishes were horses...)

iDay has come and gone, and the first iPhones have made their way into the hot, grubby hands of gadget geeks and Apple cultists. It's an important phase: how well is this svelte little beauty going to bear up under the hypercritical gaze of enthusiasts without the patented Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field surrounding it? ... Now that we have fresh, unbiased opinions coming in, it's time to see whether or not the Treo still passes muster.

If it's not clear enough for you that the article will be based on those opinions...

USR Palm Pilot 1000 --> Palm Pilot Professional --> TRG SuperPilot --> Palm IIIc --> Palm V --> Palm M505 --> Palm M515 --> Tungsten T|2 --> Treo 600 --> LifeDrive --> iPhone

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.

Ahh, but I'm not talking about the internet experience. I am talking about the phone experience. If my phone doesn't work while I'm doing something (or my phone is automatically doing something) on the internet, that makes the phone that much less reliable. I miss calls regularly due to this.

Of course on the flip, flip side, the iPhone can't do any offline RSS reading which is one of the two reasons I haven't switched to one already. Need to read my feeds while I'm on the train. :)

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...

My 650 resets if not daily, close to it. It also does that awesome thing where it loses gprs connection and needs a reset - that happens all the time. And from folks I've known with the device that's not uncommon. There simply are two things that the Treo does that the iPhone doesn't that make it very difficult to switch, so I guess you're right on that front. It's just good enough on many fronts to not warrant a switch, where the iPhone seems to be very good at almost everything it does, but it misses a couple required features entirely. I'm sure they're coming though, at least I hope so!

Do you know this, or are you making this up, too?

I wouldn't say the iPhone's more usable: it takes more steps to do things and more often than not will need two hands to operate.

As for it not being Microsoft, there's also another advantage: it's not Apple, either. :P

I really think that Treo and Palm herself will not survive the iPhone.

It's going to be interesting, no question. But I have a feeling the iPhone is going to have a much less simple impact on the market for Palm's products than most people understand. The biggest market for smartphone makers like Apple and Palm to be going after today is not the people who are already using smartphones and PDAs: it's the vastly larger group of mobile phone users who don't know how useful and cool it is to be able to customize their phone with native apps. The Treo and BlackBerry captured the imagination of the early adopters of connected mobile computing, but adoption has only barely pushed into the mass market. For the average phone consumer smartphones are still thought of as being either geek devices or gadgets for business people who are addicted to push email. What has been missing is a handset that shatters that image and gives the masses the idea that using their phone for more than voice and text messaging is useful and cool. Despite the fact that users can't install applications, the iPhone is complete enough to spark the idea and the habit of using mobile applications in the public mind. That will open up a market for smartphones that is vastly larger than the one that exists today.

Once that starts to happen there will emerge all kinds of profitable market segments for multiple vendors--including Palm--to exploit. If the current iPhone is any indication, Apple sees its most profitable segment to be entertainment-focused users. Palm seems to be focused on business users that spend most of their time away from their desk and deal with tons of email and office docs, while fostering an application ecosystem that enables the Treo to satisfy lots of niche uses that Palm can't really pursue themselves. These business users would never even consider an iPhone as a substitute for a Treo for many of the reasons Tim explains so well. Bottom line: they need a highly ergonomic, efficient workhorse for managing all their mobile communication activities and integrate with their IT department's email systems. Palm has to start executing better in going after this market, but I think we're on the cusp of a new phase of business mobility where applications other than email will be driving adoption, and Palm is far better situated than Apple to capture this. Apple will be a catalyst for this shift, smashing the barrier to mobile application usage that vendors like Palm, HP, and HTC have been unable to break on their own. That change in the public thinking from "this is my phone" to "this is my mobile computer" is going to be more important for Palm's future than the smartphone customers that Apple steals from Palm. If Apple steals 20% of Palm's current customers, but triggers a doubling of the smartphone market from 30M to 60M users, Palm still sells a lot more Treos, even if it's market share is diminished.

If I were Palm I'd actually be crossing my fingers that Apple does release an SDK in a year or so, because that will do more to create a "download culture" among phone users than anything that Palm itself would be capable of doing. Without that culture, there's no "big dance" for Palm to even show up at and no quality of execution will help Palm really grow its market.

In short, the iPhone/Treo/BlackBerry competition of today is a tempest in a teapot. The real competition is the one that turns a billion feature phone users into mobile computer users. There will be room for multiple winners, large and small, in that greatly expanded game.

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

It's going to be interesting, no question. But I have a feeling the iPhone is going to have a much less simple impact on the market for Palm's products than most people understand. The biggest market for smartphone makers like Apple and Palm to be going after today is not the people who are already using smartphones and PDAs: it's the vastly larger group of mobile phone users who don't know how useful and cool it is to be able to customize their phone with native apps. The Treo and BlackBerry captured the imagination of the early adopters of connected mobile computing, but adoption has only barely pushed into the mass market. For the average phone consumer smartphones are still thought of as being either geek devices or gadgets for business people who are addicted to push email. What has been missing is a handset that shatters that image and gives the masses the idea that using their phone for more than voice and text messaging is useful and cool. Despite the fact that users can't install applications, the iPhone is complete enough to spark the idea and the habit of using mobile applications in the public mind. That will open up a market for smartphones that is vastly larger than the one that exists today.

Obviously smartphone manufacturers want to expand their market to reach new customers. The Treo 680 was Palm's attempt to reach the Average Joe. The jPhone was Apple's attempt to reach the Average Joe. Which do you think the Average Joe would like to own?

Once that starts to happen there will emerge all kinds of profitable market segments for multiple vendors--including Palm--to exploit. If the current iPhone is any indication, Apple sees its most profitable segment to be entertainment-focused users. Palm seems to be focused on business users that spend most of their time away from their desk and deal with tons of email and office docs, while fostering an application ecosystem that enables the Treo to satisfy lots of niche uses that Palm can't really pursue themselves. These business users would never even consider an iPhone as a substitute for a Treo for many of the reasons Tim explains so well. Bottom line: they need a highly ergonomic, efficient workhorse for managing all their mobile communication activities and integrate with their IT department's email systems. Palm has to start executing better in going after this market, but I think we're on the cusp of a new phase of business mobility where applications other than email will be driving adoption, and Palm is far better situated than Apple to capture this. Apple will be a catalyst for this shift, smashing the barrier to mobile application usage that vendors like Palm, HP, and HTC have been unable to break on their own. That change in the public thinking from "this is my phone" to "this is my mobile computer" is going to be more important for Palm's future than the smartphone customers that Apple steals from Palm. If Apple steals 20% of Palm's current customers, but triggers a doubling of the smartphone market from 30M to 60M users, Palm still sells a lot more Treos, even if it's market share is diminished.

More Beersy-style sophism. Your position (that the iPhone will increase the visibility + popularity of smartphones in the public eye, allowing Palm to benefit by feeding on the scraps that fall from Steve Jobs' JesusPhone table) is truly absurd, Beersy. The companies that produce a good product (e.g. Toyota) get ALL the pie, while companies that produce crap (e.g. Chrysler) get NO pie and go bankrupt. The fact that Palm was one of the first to produce a successful smartphone is meaningless now. That was then, this is NOW. The company is only as good as its current products. The jPhone is a solid foundation that just needs a few tweaks and a few applications to COMPLETELY shut out the Treo from the business sphere that you suggest Palm is focusing on. Opening up the jPhone platform would also allow third party vendors to supply "niche" apps for the jPhone, absorbing yet another potential Treo market.

It's incredible that you dare spout such utter B.S. in public like "business users would never even consider an iPhone as a substitute for a Treo". Business users don't want nice big screens, right? And they like using buggy, unstable poorly-built Treos, right? And they like having to hunt around for apps/utilities like ChatterEmail, Butler, Profiles, Graffiti Anywhere, Resco Backup, DiddleBug, Crash, Resco Explorer, Uninstall Manager, etc., etc. to get their Treos into a barely functional state, right? Sorry, Bubba but as soon as Apple fixes its surprising lack of a bulletproof business email solution for the jPhone then the Treo's only convincing raison d'etre disappears.

Yes the overall smartphone market will grow (with smartphones replacing featurephones for many casual users), but with every cellphone manufacturer now getting serious about the market Palm's share will drop dramatically - both in % market share and total # of phones sold. Starting NOW. The financial report from Palm's current quarter will document how quickly The End can come for a former maket leader. For the past 4 years Palm had the smartphone wading pool almost all to itself. Unfortunatrly, now the Big Mean Kids have shown up.

If I were Palm I'd actually be crossing my fingers that Apple does release an SDK in a year or so, because that will do more to create a "download culture" among phone users than anything that Palm itself would be capable of doing. Without that culture, there's no "big dance" for Palm to even show up at and no quality of execution will help Palm really grow its market.

Sure, Beersy. Release an SDK, make the jPhone even more attractive and give Palm's remaining customers even LESS incentive to stay with Palm. Real smart, Bubba. Do you not find it telling that so many of Palm's most ardent supporters have given up on Palm in disgust over the past year? These were people that actually CARED about PalmOS. Now Palm's customers are increasingly a bunch of business types that don't even know what OS their phone has. They will have no loyalty to Palm and won't think twice about leaving Palm behind as soon as the latest executive toy comes along. (Witness how popular the new small BlackBerry devices have become - the people/companies buying phones like the BlackBerry Pearl USED to be Treo customers. Think they'll EVER go back to Palm?)

In short, the iPhone/Treo/BlackBerry competition of today is a tempest in a teapot. The real competition is the one that turns a billion feature phone users into mobile computer users. There will be room for multiple winners, large and small, in that greatly expanded game.

Bull. And you know it. Ignoring Symbian's (bogus) "smartphones" and the BlackBerry email devices, you are fully aware that the smartphone market hasn't grown that quickly at all over the past few YEARS. Now that pie is being targeted (and fragmented) seriously by Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Apple, BlackBerry, HTC, etc. You should be embarassed by this feeble Palm Apologist crap that you've posted here. Shame, Beersy. Shame.

TVoR

What can I say.... If you really wish that Apple does release that SDK, thinking that it would do Palm good, than I'm certainly glad you're not heading Palm. TVoR's car analogy above explains it very well. And why the he11 would you want to buy a Treo (in its current form) in the first place if the iPhone, by releasing an SDK, can do everything that the Treo does?

Honestly, would YOU buy a Treo instead of the iPhone if you could get the same apps/functionality for the iPhone through that SDK? Honestly?

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??

You have probably been around here for as long (or longer) than I, so you know people on this board have been asking for a modified Treo in the shape of the iPhone for years (large screen, multimedia oriented, etc.). Palm has been paralyzed for years, and the iPhone is an indication of the potential for the "new" smartphone market (i.e. converting non-smartphone users). Palm lost all their ground in the business market to RIM and WM. Now they are losing the consumer market to iPhone. What's left for Palm? The Foleo?

Some people say the the iPhone is a multimedia device with phone capabilities. Palm/Hawking has openly stated that they aren't developing any new PDAs, saying that there is no consumer interest nor growth potential in that area. The iPhone proves those assertions completely wrong: a well executed PDA+phone from Palm could have achieved similar success as the iPhone.

But Palm obviously knows better: apparently the Foleo is the answer to all Palm's financial problems, and not an iPhone-like device they could have released years ago....

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)

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.

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 of the major problems with financial "reporting" is time - from the time you send things out (and report THAT) to the time those things actually get sold to end customers (and report THAT) and the time the rebates come streaming in (and you adjust numbers to =begin= to report THAT (*)) a lot of time passes.

So you can't get a good picture of what's REALLY happening for a long time.

But PALM just gave us some interesting hints on PAST activities; they said the rebates streaming in hadn't met their expectations so their "Average Selling Prices" reported this time around were higher, so their results looked better than they expected. And they're expecting the NEXT results to be horrible to the point of going negative possibly.

Hey! Maybe they finally ran out of already-sold-in TREO 650s that they could give away FREE with a rebate to increase their sold-through numbers (if you want, you can change that '5' up there to an '8')!

Time...it's a bummer...and it can hide the REAL reality really well.

========

(*) Some numbers get recomputed "periodically" - that's a nice way of saying the CURRENT instantiation of "the numbers" reflects what was, not what is and, even when the numbers are recomputed, they'll STILL reflect what was, not it. Time, once again, rears its ugly head.

Now I'm going to bed. If there isn't at least a page of hate posts from Apple fans when I check in tomorrow I'm going to be very disappointed...

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

As always, thanks for sharing, retrospooty. You don't work for Palm, now do you? Of course not!

TVoR

- Add 3G radio
- Open platform up to third party developers (can you imagine how many developers are chomping at the bit for a piece of the iPhone software market?)
- Add Microsoft Office-compatible apps
- Add voice dialling
- Improve Bluetooth implementation
- Add memory expansion
- Offer device on other networks
- Add instant messaging app
- Add VPN/VNC app
- Add MMC capability
- Add voice calling
- Add user-removeable battery
- Add cut & paste
- Add remote data access/streaming apps

The question is whether Apple even NEEDS to do ANY of this to ensure the jPhone keeps selling strongly. That's the $30 million question Palm is waiting to be answered...

TVoR

looking at all the jPhone's Version 1.0 deficiencies, it appear that most of them can be solved fairly easily:
.
.
- Add VPN/VNC app

jPhone 1.0 does come with VPN, one less problem to solve.

(1)Ryan, the mobile version of PIC is really well done. About the only thing missing is being able to navigate the news posts via the number pad.

(2)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.

(3)Freakout says, 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.
You had to do the same thing with Treos until the 680 and 700 models too. Nothing new there. In terms of simplfying UI concepts, this is smart, albeit not necessarly easy for those used to docks and start bars.

(4)TVOR says, The question is whether Apple even NEEDS to do ANY of this to ensure the jPhone keeps selling strongly. That's the $30 million question Palm is waiting to be answered
They do need to do it, and mainly because the mobile OS/device market is by no means the slow beast that the desktop market is. Apple was very smart in making aspects of the iPhone modular (browser, some UI, and other components) so that firmware updates could take care of this. The question isn't when others will realize, but how they will respond. Nothing that I know for sure, but I do believe that both Palm and MS are looking for a more modular approach to their new OSes. I am not so sure that Access is however. And Symbian needs to be built from scratch to do so. Advantage Apple here.

Oh yea, according to AT&T, over 1 million iPhones were activated (not sold, Activated). That is dang near better than the RAZR. Even with 10% returns (normal for this kinda of device) that is simply incredible and speaks to what solid marketing will do to any product.

(5)TVOR says, f 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.
Careful, you are mixing the 3rd party argument with a prodcut design and implementation one. Here is where your points can be easily confused by others who don't or won't understand that while you do believe in much of what the Palm OS can do, you don't believe in getting less than what you feel equals value.

(6)TVOR says, 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?
Product design philosophy is something that a visionary has to make you believe in. It bleeds into execution and belief that something can and will do well despite the inability of others to see it. Apple's chief desinger and chief evangelist, is also the same person that makes everyone believe he knows best. Jobs's ability to have that kind of managerical structure is also what makes Apple's products just work, and RIM has a similar (up to a point) kind of structure that has allowed for this to come about. I know some of Palm's insides, but not sure as to whether everyone believes in the vision, or if they are believing in it, just not sure how to say it -- which is hard to do for some.

(7)TVOR says, 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.
You know, I totally agree. Google Maps is one sick application. I have no clue who designed it within Google, but they really did make a functional, fun, and well done application for Palm OS. There is not that much polish on any Palm OS applicaiton IMO -- else I'd be using it.

(8)TVOR says, Now that the "jPhone" is showing users what can come in an integrated package, Palm is being exposed for the fraud it is.
No, not a fraud. Palm et al are being shown that the barrier for what people expect has now gone up. I have preached enough that hardware increments is not innovation, innovation is challenge perceptions and raising the bar on performance, execution, accessiblity, and usability. If a mobile device maker cannot do that every few product design cycles, they tend to have an issue of not being relevant any more. Much like Foo's iPhone article talking about how people asked him why he still has a Palm OS Treo, the lack of refinement and real innovation makes people believe that you aren't growing and maturing. I know that Palm knows this, and hope that they are making the needed changes in their pipeline.

Tis all for now, back to my N95 and 680 (8GB) running :)

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com

Just playing with you, but I've had a night were I am questioning product design philosophy, UI, UX, and mobiles, and I am not liking that I am agreeing with Apple's product on several levels. They aren't five years ahead in the sense of "ooh look at the future," but are five years ahead as in "ooh, look what you should have seen 5 years ago."

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com

Conjecture? Everything I've written is based on the dozens of online reviews and innumerable comments from new users, and just plain common sense. If you dispute a particular point, let's hear it. Otherwise, thanks for coming.

What GSM carriers does PALM have in the US?

and where is Foo Fighter the big Apple fan's iPhone review? did he even get one yet?

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/

to ryan and all - happy 4th of july!

Still, what we have to keep in mind is that this is a first-generation iPhone. Look how far (relatively) Palm & Handspring have come since the Treo 180. Or, better yet, look how the iPod changed from its 1st to 4th generations. Nothing super-revolutionary there, but enough to make people keep upgrading year after year. I'd expect pretty significant changes from Apple each year for the iPhone, if for no other reason than to keep customer chrun to a minimum and keep everyone constantly locked into a 2yr contract.

For what it's worth, about 3/4 of the executives/professionals/colleageus I know who own Treos or BlackBerrries don't have any extra software installed on their devices. At best, you have maybe a Solitaire or chesss game plus one or two MobiTV or PocketExpress-type apps installed and that's it, aside from the bundled Palm ROM apps. To THOSE sorts of people, the iPhone will look just dandy, as Abosco points out.

I know one guy who carries a GSM RAZR & a CDMA Blackberry. Another guy already has an iPhone and a CDMA Blackberry. And I still carry my KRZR K1m + 700p combo for maximum efficiency.

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

2. I agree again. Even with the iPhone interface, it would be simple to add. I wish it had this functionality.

3. This isn't a big deal for me. With the contacts search, you can flick or pick a letter from the right-hand side of the device. There's a complete vertical listing of the alphabet, and if you tap on a letter, it'll bring you to that place in the address book.

4. I agree, but definitely not a deal-breaker. There are so many conspiracy theories about this. Jobs said there is no 3G integration because there was no 3G radio available at the time of development that gave them the power usage they wanted. It's unfortunate, but I believe them. 3G is a battery killer. Would I prefer it? Absolutely. But EDGE has been surprisingly peppy. Even watching YouTube is bearable if you have a shred of patience and good reception.

5. Scrollbars are visible when you're flicking/dragging pages, but they're just for reference. Scrollbars are useful with a stylus, but once you get your hands on an iPhone, everything comes pretty naturally. When you load a long webpage in Safari in landscape, yes, scrolling gets a bit long in the tooth. But there's nothing stopping you from zooming out (by a simple pinch) and flicking once to take you down.

6. I was a already current AT&T customer. On top of my voice plan, I was paying an extra $15 per month for text messages, multimedia messages, and a limited data plan. I'm now paying $20 per month for unlimited data and the same amount of text messages. As for MMS, it has already been solved. If you know the provider of the recipient, you can email the picture to the correct phone number. For example, if the person is an AT&T customer, you send it to (ten-digit-phone-number)@mms.att.net. Every provider has their own address just like that.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

That's still 500 more than the iPhone has.

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...

I (kinda) made this point already:

This could change in an instant: Apple could announce tomorrow that they're opening up the iPhone to third parties, and it would instantly neutralize Palm's biggest advantage.

But the point is that until Apple actually do open it up we're dealing in maybes. PalmOS offers extra applications here and now, and you could buy all the ones worth buying and still pay less than you would for iPhone 1.0.

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

That may be true. But it hasn't won yet.

Rubbish. Counting taps is still just as important as it ever was; Windows Mobile surives because of advanced features like multitasking that make up for the deficiencies of the interface. This is why the iPhone can still be considered a good product, because it has other features that help make up. But when it comes to ease and speed of access to what's important, it's the Treo that comes up trumps.

Also, your usage description of how to power on the iPhone and navigate shows that you haven't touched it.

That's not a secret...

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.

Rubbish! You're telling me Apple couldn't fit a "Phone" button and a "Messaging" button on either side of the Home button? The screen doesn't go from edge to edge of the iPhone, in case you haven't noticed. Do you actually own one? :P Apple chose to avoid hard buttons because they care more about a sleek, good-looking design than maximum functionality. Good for them; but it means that an iPhone is not as efficient as a Treo at speedily accessing your important info.

Would you like a laundry list of the advantages that a larger screen provides? No thanks; I already provided one. Did you actually read the article? iPhone won the Hardware, Media and Web categories, and the large screen was one of the major reasons.

people on this board were flaying Palm for that price point not so long ago...

I paid top dollar for most of my palms and bought about ever other new PDA model.

I would have paid probably close to $800 for a successor to the Tungsten T|3 that never was -- something with 640x480 res running Cobalt with lots of real RAM and multiple slots. Heck, I would have even bought it as a PHONE. Price point is *ONE* consideration. Palm abandoned lots of the loyal PDA power users and said, "you don't need as powerful a PDA as the one you have right now -- DOWNGRADE to a Treo!".

Palm abandoned me long ago.

People may be willing to pay it, but that's not the point. The point is that it's unreasonably high for most people

I find this moaning about price rather tiresome and bogus:

- Apple and AT&T aren't forcing people to buy an iPhone anymore than everyone on minimum wage is being coerced into buying a Rolls Royce or Lexus. What matters to a company is not if everyone can buy your products but whether enough people can buy them for you to remain a profitable company.

- if the price is too high or the product flawed and people don't buy then that's Apple's or AT&T's headache. freakout himself is pointing out that people have a choice. At least 500,000 iPhone sales in a weekend imply that the iphone's value is at an acceptable price for the market. A company can price its products at whatever level and people then make their decision - if the company prices wrong then it's up to it to adjust accordingly or go out of business, take a hint Palm!

- If you want a definition of unreasonably high then consider in the UK:
an unlocked Samsung Blackjack with built-in wi-fi (SGH-i600) costs £285 ($570)
an unlocked Palm 750 with the same features but bulkier and lacking wifi costs £399 ($800)

So a UK customer is paying an extra $230 for the "privilege" of having the Palm badge and no wifi on their Windows Mobile device.

Now that's what I call unreasonably high for most people.
Well, as I said earlier, people (and companies) have their choice.

I'm talking about the US market

Well if you're free to sit in Australia passing judgement on a device on sale only in the USA which you've never touched then I'm just as free to express my own opinions.

My points and observations apply to all markets, including the US, except those where people are coerced into buying a product...

The price of iPhones in any market is irrelevant to my arguments that people will pay for what is the perceived value of the product, if the product is priced way above what people perceive its value to be then it will not sell.

It is a company's duty to make as much money as possible and it achieves that by charging as high a price as possible for its goods and services. If enough people value its goods at the price demanded then it's successful, otherwise it has to look re-evaluate its pricing. Other companies compete to provide the same goods and services so how the customer perceives the value of what's offered by whom becomes more complex.

Like it or lump it, you perceive the iPhone as being too highly priced, and you're entitled to that perception, but at least 500,000 think different to yourself. I suspect none of the excutives at either Apple nor AT&T are losing sleep over your perception.

Judging from Palm's recent results I suspect their executives are losing sleep over people's perception of the Treo.

As I said before, if people perceive spending an extra $230 on a WinMob device with a Palm badge, no wifi and a threaded SMS application is good value for money then good luck to them!

Incidentally, w.r.t to the US market, visit Amazon.com and you'll see:
Samsung Blackjack (US model with no wifi) $0 with 2 year contract to AT&T
Palm Treo 750 $299 with 2 year contract to AT&T

maybe the best things in life are free...

It's just totally weird that someone would put something like a BILLION dollars on the line, then only THREE DAYS LATER (or two (!) depending on how you count) withdraw it!

Guess the feng shui (風水 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_Shui) had simply changed.

Weird!

You're trying to play the man, not the ball. Shame it's so pitifully transparent. Wake me up when you actually have a point to make, dickhead.

Thanks!

but writing about the iphone without ever using one is comparable to a virgin describing the joys of sex.

Actually, back in those horribly dark days before I had yet to experience those joys, I had a vastly overrated idea in my head of what it would be like. Reality was somewhat sobering...

Much like a lot of people singing the iPhone's praises, actually...

Lol. And I could have sworn all the lights were out...

Also, the scenario you lay out is not quite right because the iPhone has a single page "Favorites" that you can add contacts to, making any need to scroll through a long list unnessecary - you also are not understanding how quickly the operations you describe are done, to the point where timewise I think that in many phone scenarios an IPhone user could beat a Treo user in terms of speed to execute a task. For instance, what you don't know not having used the device is that "phone" and "favorite" buttons are located in exactly the same physical position, meaning what appears to be two button presses is more like one.

And the iPhone user never has to worry about hitting that "Phone" button in his pocket.

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

Note to freakout: when you grow up and become a real journalist, i hope you can write articles as well as the ars review.

we must remember that this is just iPhone 1.0

Or... you could consider this to be the 6th generation iPod with a browser and a phone added. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod

Seriously, I just spent a few hours at the Apple store and I'm sold. Keyboard was a little awkward at first. I'll miss a few select apps like handyshopper, my golf scorekeeper, my car maintenance program, voice recorder, and a notepad where you can draw on the screen... but that's about it.

I'm sure apps will fill in some missing pieces eventually, but as-is, it works so much better than my Palms have ever worked for browsing the web... and the more I used it, I realize that the iPhone and the foleo share a lot ideas about "don't carry your data with you... access it from the web". Okay, for *most* data, I can do that. Some things I want local - like my stored passwords.

Here are the apps I want to see for iPhone:
- flash in safari
- vnc / terminal server client
- secure password storage app
- address book lookup like contacts pro where you can type on a keypad that matches any first/last/company names as you type
- multi-protocol IM client (ahem... audium?)
- video recorder from camera
- audio recorder from mic
- ability to use the rotated keyboard in every text entry box

Gonna get my iPhone tomorrow morning when they get more in...

It's cumbersome... yes the Treo can freeze and reset. Those effects occur less often when you learn how to use your applications. And I don't pass to much time on this. For me it's the perfect tool to move with. I can access to all my data. When I'm out of office, I can transfer files via bluetooth to my tablet PC from my PCs at work through the Treo, keep tracks of rendez-vous, tasks, notes, etc.

When the IPhone will give half of this, I'll look at it. Truly, the force of the Treo come from the third part companies, not from Palm...

But right now, IPhone is still closed to third apps!

I know several people with PDA phones (HTC), and all of them bring their PDA (phone) and their ordinary phone because after a couple of weeks with menues, submenues and getting just plain sick of not being able to dial properly and to use one hand, they give up. An ordinary phone is simply MUCH easier to use as a phone, and regardless of fancy looks and flashy media, using a phone as a phone is a large percentage of it's use.

I'm not saying that the GSM radio in the PDA is useless, but the use is more in datatransfer than as a phone. I am 100% sure that if the JesusPhone was offered with WiFi only, and no GSM, it would sell just as good because of the hype alone (It would probably also be a much better thought-through device, all considered). I am also 100% sure that a lot (a majority) of iPhone users will wake up some day in a couple of weeks time and regret that they ever purchased this reduculously expensive toy. It IS a toy, a multimedia gadget with less than average phone capabilities.

But, a real cool device coming soon is this:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/exclusive/motorola-zante-looks-even-shinier-than-you-know-who-also-runs-on-edge-274943.php
So good looking that you want to eat it, and you can use it as well. THIS will be the Treo killer.

Since iPhone's "Home" button is unlabeled, whereas the Treo's has a picture of a freaking house on it, I'd wager the Treo would win that contest. And the actual screens themselves are freaking identical - a grid of icons for the various programs. Treos have one labled "Pics and Videos", iPhone has one labeled "Photos".

Sorry, I just don't see what's so great about the way iPhone does it.

700,000 phones in three days. iphone is for regular people - i.e. people that want a phone that just works (IPHONE). Not a device you have to reboot when an app. crashes the device (TREO).

Keep writing fluff opinion pieces - that won't make the Treo any more usable or stable.

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.

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.

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

Nonsense. HTC (and everyone else) will be pumping out clones of the JesusPhone before the end of 2007. Of course, they won't have the jPhone OS, but that's just a minor detail, right? Expect the Palm/HTC "iPhone Killer" Real Soon Now.

TVoR

Apple has learned an important lesson about product development. What is important is what features they've left out, and that they haven't succumbed to assembling the most massive feature list. Palm always talked about their "Zen" and compared with WM it is Zen-like, but Apple really took that to the next level. For example, how do you view pictures on either device?

iPhone: home button, look at 12 icons, select Pictures icon
Treo: home button, look at 12 icons, don't see it. scroll down (4 button pushes), don't see it. scroll down, don't see it. 13 button pushes later, "Ah there it is." And this gets worse if you have more applications

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.

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. Apple sold 700K in 3 days, more than Palm sells in a quarter. Palm's niche has just been made smaller...

Other than that, the iPhone is a cool toy.

I still have to see why is it better that the PalmOS's UI "usability"-wise. Not that I dislike Apple's GUIs, but PalmOS is still the GUI that "even a fool could enter a DateBook note". I won't say that early that Apple made a phone for the masses.
This is not Microsoft's GUI "we just copy" vs Apple's GUI "we invented GUI after all". This is Palm's GUI "we invented the PDA & made it sell" vs Apple's GUI "we invented the iPod & made it sell", a giant's battle.

Thanks anyway. :)

Lastly, there is a reason why the iPhone started to sell out in Apple stores Monday & Tuesday - after the weekend, and after people had a chance to try them at home and at work from other people who had bought them. This might not be the greatest business phone yet, but I was astounded at how many co-workers bought them, a number after they had a chance to try mine (includng some that made constant fun of the iPhone - before they held and used it).

LAS VEGAS – The fight world watched in shock and horror as fresh-faced smartphone newcomer Apple iPhone was quickly overcome by a barrage of thundering uppercuts to the jaw savagely delivered by #1 ranked contender, Palm Treo within seconds of the opening round of their title bout on Friday. The preening Apple iPhone was pounded relentlessly into a corner by Palm Treo, and was unable to defend itself in time as it was too busy checking its reflection in a pocket vanity mirror as it applied lipstick and blush. At one point Palm Treo appeared to be using Apple iPhone's head as a speed bag, rocking the pretty boy's jaw with a series of rapid-fire bombs... (snip!) At 1:36 Palm Treo unleashed a vicious uppercut to the glassy-eyed Apple iPhone's jaw and the champ immediately crumpled to the mat, bleeding profusely. Spectators say it was too busy doing little squeezing motions with its fingers to notice the fist heading towards its face...

****************************************************************

Amusing, but hardly true. Both devices are actually fairly evenly matched if you break it down. As a phone, the Treo has the edge. As a mobile computer, the Treo has the edge. As an internet tablet, and a media player, iPhone has the edge. But most importantly, the Treo has the edge on price: iPhone is ridiculously expensive for a non-expandable device. That's what tips the scales for me.

You are wrong and Palm is DEAD wrong. FOOLeo and PLiPKi will not save Palm from the wrath of JesusPhone.

TVoR

Downsizing and reorientation - both NECESSARY moves by a company getting killed in their own sector. This "deal" performs a major part of that.

Somewhere else around PIC someone posted that PALM's "strength" was PalmLinux (!!!); if THAT's PALM's strength then ... well ...

=========

That $9 nontaxable dividend is interesting and MAY be a by-product of the manner in which the "deal" is being performed - since this is NOT a buyout but "merely" a purchase of ONLY 25% (er...27%?) of the company, PALM may have had to jump through some hoops via forming and merging with a company SOLELY to get that "dividend" into "simply investment value back" nontaxable status.

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

Anyway, just to remind you, my final conclusion was that the Treo has its problems, but it is a more useful and productive device.

*Three different user input methods, maximum efficiency.
*Compatible with more kinds of email.
*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.
*MMS support makes it a more fully-featured messenger.

You can scream. You can cry. You can throw yourself on the floor, kick your legs and pound your fists up and down. But the iPhone 1.0 is a very limited device, and only the most rabid, die-hard Apple Cultists would disagree. As a slick, fancy iPod the iPhone is unquestionably the superior device. As a smartphone the Treo holds the upper hand.

Get over it. Let go...

Doesn't mean they don't think it's limited. Just means they're happy with those limitations. Which, by the way, I've never claimed wasn't possible: just that it's a less versatile device.

In all honesty, EVERYTHING ELSE IS IN THE iPHONE'S FAVOR.
In your opinion.

Battery life,
Yep, you can get a day out of an iPhone, just like you can get a day out of a Treo. You can probably get a slightly longer day out of the iPhone, but then you'll be doing less with it as well.

screen real estate
Already acknowledged this.

interface,
Graphically, yes. Functionally? No copy-and-paste, no one-button access to important stuff.

syncing,
Already acknowledged this.

form factor & design,
And this.

and storage space
Bzzzzt! Sorry, that wasn't the answer we were looking for. It's true that the iPhone comes with greater built-in storage space, but there's an upper limit. Whereas a Treo has removable memory cards, for infinitely expandable storage.

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.

Buy an iPhone with contract today, spend 500 bucks. Buy an unlocked Treo today, with the card I keep "trumping", for $465. Or a 200 dollar Treo with contract plus card for $265. The price after two years is almost irrelevant, especially when it's such a pitiful saving.

And then those third party applications for productivity? A lot more money.

Take aforementioned $265 Treo, add $200 for a selection of the best apps. $465 total and still cheaper than the iPhone.

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

Like the Foleo?

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PROVES the Treo is more expensive.

My GOD! Can't you read? From one post up:

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.

Buy an iPhone with contract today, spend 500 bucks. Buy an unlocked Treo today, with the card I keep "trumping", for $465. Or a 200 dollar Treo with contract plus card for $265. The price after two years is almost irrelevant, especially when it's such a pitiful saving.

And then those third party applications for productivity? A lot more money.

Take aforementioned $265 Treo, add $200 for a selection of the best apps. $465 total and still cheaper than the iPhone.

Quit wasting my time.

Let's repeat ourselves for the third time:

Buy an iPhone with contract today, spend 500 bucks. Buy an unlocked Treo today, with the card I keep "trumping", for $465. Or a 200 dollar Treo with contract plus card for $265. The price after two years is almost irrelevant, especially when it's such a pitiful saving.

There are NO Fry's where I am (dammit).

And I usually take longer than 3 minutes. 3 minutes it was it took this eejit to conjure up what has to be The Most Embarrassing Article Ever Published By PIC (thanks for putting my Sculley false alarm in 2nd place -- but at least I had some fekkin source in the stock world. You? -- your retarded mind! Stop listening to those voices, kid. They lead you astray!).

So, you weaselly little brat, have YOU tried a Foleo?

I'll probably fondle one before you. And it'll probably be sh*t as I've predicted.

No, but that's not going to stop me talking about it. You on the other hand are of the opinion that unless you've actually used a device then you can't comment on it, couldn't be right about anything. So maybe you should just never speak of it again until you buy one.

I'll probably fondle one before you. And it'll probably be sh*t as I've predicted.

Good for you, Mike. Would you like that trophy in 24-karat gold or Steve Jobs' shite?

I believe it's going to opened up eventually, because it just makes so much sense for Apple to do so.

I'm not at all convinced that because it "makes sense" to many of the types who post on forums like these that "Steve" is going to open it up. Of course those of us who have spent a few years tricking out our PDA's/smartphones are going to think it makes sense for the iPhone to be opened up, but we are a self-selecting group and that's what we want to have happen. I'll believe it when Steve specifically says it is going to happen. Until then, it's still all just wishful thinking. (And I hope it does happen; I wouldn't mind another good option.)


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/

BTW, are you going to pick up the Neo 1973 developers kit?

Not sure if you noticed but this is an editorial -- an opinion piece, not a detailed feature for feature hands on review.

Thanks for reminding us, Ryan. Not that it would make a difference to someone who thinks no comment questioning someones "credibility" is complete without 5th-grade playground smack about lips and backsides.

You can disagree with Tim's final conclusion that the iPhone/Treo contest is a pretty close call, but his analysis isn't exactly out of the mainstream opinion among smartphone users that have tried one: the iPhone has great browsing, a superior media experience, gorgeous hardware, improved synchronization, and a better camera than the Treo; The Treo is better in terms of accomplishing things quickly and with minimum fuss (including placing calls), has better tactile feedback, offers a vast array of software options, and works better with corporate email. Which factors you care most about is a personal thing--and that's where the editorial part comes in.

And agree or not, you gotta hand it to him: Tim's done a great job responding to his critics with facts, logic, and (failing all else) good humor.

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

Have you tried you? Are you mad, that the SSS Treo can compete against it? I repeat: Are you mad?!

Here's the headline:

>>>Palm Treo vs the iPhone: 10 Rounds

That screams COMPARISON REVIEW by default, Ryan.

"PoochoShop" segment, where people will post pictures of famous celebrities altered to look like dogs.

Great! Everyone fire up Safari on your iPhone and point it here: http://www.freakingnews.com/Dog-Pictures--207-0.asp

Not really a photoshop, but sticking with the new theme...
http://www.flyaboveall.com/dogs.htm

Yeah, without actually having *experienced* one.

Next!

I do not own a LifeDrive.

I do not own a Fooleo.

I do not own an iPhone.

I have NO PROBLEM commenting on each and every one of those.

I do not write comparison articles about them, however.

Do you now see the difference?

[BTW - I haven't read your article, either, but don't mind commenting about IT (well, sorta - actually don't care). And also haven't checked to see if appropriate disclaimers have been added after-the-fact to make clear that it is (1) opinion and (2) based off of no more than what I base my own comments on]

What's more, I clearly state at the beginning that this is about the fact the iPhones are now in people's hands and we now have something other than Apple's own previews to base our opinions on. I go on to say:

Now that we have fresh, unbiased opinions coming in, it's time to see whether or not the Treo still passes muster.

Isn't that a big freaking neon sign that the article will be based on those opinions?

Apologies for the flame.

The Nokia 770 is a completely different class and type of device. Anyway the N800 is a pleasure to use for the most part. Furthermore, I don't understand how do you come anywhere near making a comparison with a 3 year old underpowered tablet with a micro laptop you haven't even used or know what the final specs or software will be. Anyway Mike, please tell me what the first word in the title of the article is again.

Enough. This is getting pathetic. Either dispute the views put forth in the piece or don't, Mike. I have the feeling that you can't, and all this bitching comes out of the fact that I've dared to make the claim that dearly beloved Apple haven't created perfection itself in phone form.

As for you, Pac, you've got such a ridiculously over-the-top case of sour grapes at Palm for not making a money-losing PDA to your exact specifications they're practically haemerroids. Let fly with the personal insults all you like; it just shows up your hopeless inability to mount any kind of logical argument.

Yes I do still want a PDA and I'm actually hoping that Apple comes out with a phone-less version of the iPhone since Palm has abandoned me. The TX is perfect for my needs if only some of it's issues would be fixed. Since it doesn't appear that Palm is interested in this anymore I now have to sit and wait for someone to come out with a device that suits my humble needs.

Again, my apologies to you and David for my behavior. I will try to tone down my sarcasm to an acceptable level.

PDA's Past and Present:
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum, Deluxe
Sony - SJ22
Apple - MP110, MP2000, MP2100

Sounds like Timmmmmmmmmmmmmay needs a hug! Poor little fella. Come to TVoR, Timmmmmmmmmmmmmay!

I assumed you were being blatantly sarcastic about Ryan paying you. Since neither you nor he clarified + said you were joking, add me to the list of The Shocked. And TVoR is now going on strike for retroactive pay of "a lot more than what Timmmmmmmmmmmmay is getting".

In any event, the content of the "article" is almost irrelevant. What matters is that it has produced over 200 comments - many of which are thought-provoking and/or amusing - and the subsequent discussion has livened up a site that appears to be suffering from the ennui induced by next to NOTHING interesting occurring in the PalmOS device world.

Palm will know the game is really OVER when the comments at Palminfocenter dry up due to complete lack of interest in Palm's products. Sadly, that day seems to be soon-approaching...

TVoR

Basically, even if the iPhone one 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.

The iPhone however can offer many more than 26 shortcut keys, should it choose to give up the screen real-estate - and the iPhone has the choice to do so, a choice you cannot make with a Treo or any device that has physical keys. And the iPhone has the option of altering the size of those shortcut keys depending on how useful or likley to be used a shortcut is.

Once you get past the mental block you have that keys must depress in order to be useful, you can see many reasons why virtual keyboards are far more flexible and useful, if well laid out.

You're not listening, kgelner. The Treo has a touchscreen as well, with button layouts that change depending on the app: i.e. the 'new', 'respond' and 'delete' shortcuts in the Messaging app, or the different tabs in the 680 phone app. But it has the physical buttons in addition to the touchscreen, all the time. So you can choose what works for you. On the iPhone, you get what you're given and there's no consideration of the fact that different people like to do things different ways. It's one-size-fits-all, which is fine if you like the way Apple does things, as you seem to do. Too bad if you 'think different'...

This point is just plain wrong. Apple gives applications the whole screen to use, instead of locking you in with a hardware keyboard that's there all the time taking up precious screen real estate, even when it's not needed. Getting rid of the keyboard while not typing was an ingenius innovation! Smartphone users only spend a certain percentage of their time typing, so Apple has unlocked the rest of the limited virtual space for those times when typing is not applicable.

This gives applications more screen real estate to display data. Also, since the keyboard is software, the layout of the keys can be changed depending on the application, which gives even more flexibility for text input.

Yeah, now who's thinking different...

These backwards arguments, arguing in favor of non-innovation, sound like they're straight from the mouth of ol' Eddy himself!

Yes, that is true. However, the "regular" media is lacking as well for any number of reasons. It's just part of the game nowadays.

== "Be Careful Out There - the Me-Too Media OFTEN gets it wrong!"

is the background drone at all times.

Well lookie there: Mike Cane completely sidestepping the argument again, because he knows how pathetically he'll lose! What a surprise...

PALM is ****ed.

[pardon the vernacular]

Yes, after two years, the costs might even out, but that's no good to the people buying one today, is it?

8GB SD: $65.99. Pretty damn cheap nowadays...

They had such a great UI lead for small devices, however could they have let it fade away...

Yes, after two years, the costs might even out, but that's no good to the people buying one today, is it?

The $80/month plan you get with the Treo is an unlimited 3G data plan that you can also use with your laptop.

The closest offering to the iPhone on the market is the Sidekick, which has similar functionality and usability that's at least as good. The unlimited data plan for the Sidekick is $30/month, and that includes the equivalent of .Mac. I'd take a Sidekick over an iPhone any day: it's an excellent phone with a real keyboard and an excellent service plan.

No matter which way you look at it, the iPhone service plans are overpriced, too.

The difference between an 80-dollar-a-month plan and a 60-dollar-a-month plan is a helluva lot more palatable than a 500-dollar-phone versus a zero-dollar phone. Or even a 200 phone, which is the average Treo price nowadays.

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

No, they just may not want to spend 500 bucks in one hit and then have to pay for a contract with what is apparently one of America's worst cell providers. See, the point is that it's a huge outlay *in addition to* a contract. Whereas for a measly 400 bucks you could get an unlocked Treo, that you don't have to sign up to anything for.

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

TCO in the case of a Smartphone when you're comparing clearly defined non-variables such as voice and data plans, are simple facts. You can either choose to accept them or not. You can choose to ignore them or not.

But they're not some kind of card trick.

The smoke and mirrors is trying to compare the Day 0 costs of two devices WHICH BOTH REQUIRE a contract (your original argument for a "free" Treo 680) but ignoring the costs of that contract.

I needed to clarify a little. You said:

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

Actually, what I wrote was:

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 not saying "a lot less". Just cheaper. Fractionally, yes. But still cheaper. If you take away all those extras, then the saving becomes much clearer and even more attractive.

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

Yep, that's an opinion. But then, this is an editorial.

Don't get me wrong - Palm has left wi-fi out for far too long and failed to keep up with the Joneses. But any kind of smartphone, be it Palm, Apple or HTC, has its own unique compromises. The Treo's is a relatively cramped keyboard and lack of wi-fi. Sales would seem to indicate that wi-fi is not a must-have for your average user. (Yet.)

And yes, their international prices are criminal. After paying a ridiculously high price for my Treo 650, and with the Aussie dollar trading at nearly 90 US cents these days, I don't think I'm ever going to buy a local device from Palm again. It's just insane. Do they think we can't look around for ourselves and see how much they're ripping us off by?

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

Because he can't!

No VPN for ***secure*** communications

page 99 of the iPhone user guide:

Configure VPN
Choose General > Network > VPN and tap Settings. Ask your network administrator which settings to use. In most cases, if you’ve set up VPN on your computer, you can use the same VPN settings for iPhone.

Turn VPN on or off
Once you’ve entered VPN settings, a VPN switch appears at the top level of the Settings list.
Tap Settings and turn VPN on or off.

Well, you say you have the device, is it you or the iPhone manual that is in error?

Personally, I do not browse the NYT website. But I do a lot of forum browsing, and I can tell you that the iPhone works so well with vBulletin tables and formatting that it's not even funny.

I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to say it again. I was the Software Expert at PalmSource for Palm OS Browsers. I know a thing or two about Web Pro V, NetFront, Blazer, and PocketLink. Nothing comes close to Safari on the iPhone. If embedded Flash support for web pages is ever added, it will be 100% perfect, bar-none.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Uh.... say what? It doesn't act that way on a Mac.

Hello, desktop vs. handheld. Bueller? Bueller?

That's great! So long as you only have 8 numbers you ever want to call, that is.

AND, on top of that, you press the letter on the side of the screen and you're right at the first or last name of the that letter. Not. Real. Hard.

No it's not. Who said it was? All I said was that a Treo was more quicker and more precise. Press phone. Type the first couple of letters of Contact, or hold down a key for speed dial.

MMS
Messaging can be added via firmware/software update.

Great! Where is it?

EMAIL
Email I understand, but I'm already getting my work email pushed through VPN, off a Microsoft-centric business account. So I really don't understand the limitations. I've my personal mail, my gmail, and business account coming thru just fine.

Follow the link in that section of the article; there's a huge variety of email systems out there.

CAMERA
I'm *sure* video will be added.
So am I. But it's not here yet, and Apple don't get extra points for things they may or may not do in the future.

In terms of photos, I grew up with an SLR and learned to take better photos withOUT a flash. So no flash on the iPhone is actually a lovely thing.
Mmmmm. Better photos without a flash in the dark? Only on the iPhone... in the hands of a blind fanboy...

MEDIA
All my work involves coding. Which means I need my laptop. Which means I really don't *need* to add software to the iPhone.
Good for you, but most people don't carry around a laptop with them. And whether or not you need to is beside the point; the question is whether or not that option is available.

I got it for it's combination of iPod, browser/email, and phone. And visual voicemail. I HATE listening to voicemail and having to skip to where I need to be. One pet peeve completely taken care of by the iPhone.

I'm glad you're happy.

USABILITY
This is where you obviously haven't used the iPhone. NO MATTER WHAT SCREEN YOU'RE ON - an alert comes up with either a voice call OR a text message. Even when the iPhone is "off" and locked. ONE TAP accepts or declines.
Don't believe I ever even mentioned that, let alone criticised it. But the same behaviour you describe also occurs on the treo, so it's not like iPhone is better in this regard.

If you're using the iPhone in music mode, double clicking the power button declines the call. Again, NOT cumbersome.

Another thing I never mentioned, but I would say that a one-click dedicated "hang up" key is better than a double-click. Small difference, but still better.

And oh my god, did you even touch an iPhone yet? Do you even have a friend that has one?

Nope. I'm not going to bother justifying this yet again; scroll up the page to find your answer.

I can also, WITH ONE HAND, use the iPhone quite well and that includes typing. Again, try using a product before posting a "comparison" article.

Mmmmm. Does it include those cute little squeezing gestures? Can you use it in one hand without looking at it? Be a bit hard without any tactile feedback.

EXTRAS
Meh. I don't buy crap for extras. But there are already online shopping lists. And let's see, the iPhone's been on the market for a week, and you expect shelves full of 3rd party titles? Hell, many developers are just now getting their hands on one and able to test their software real-time.

Lol. There isn't even an SDK out for the iPhone yet! Developers aren't testing bupkis on the iPhone. Hackers are cracking it, or in the various stages of attempting to. Yes, it may be opened up in the future, but again, why should Apple get extra points for something that may or may not do in the future?

HARDWARE
Um, I have to use my iPhone constantly for nearly a full work day (that's 8 hours, case you were wondering) before it warns me it's low on battery. That's using it a LOT - that's not leaving it on standby, sitting with the screen off. When I do that, I get from 2 - 3 full days use with out charging. Again, try using a product.

Your experience differs from that of nearly every single product review that's been done of the iPhone so far. Lucky you! And say, just out of curiosity, what are you going to do when that battery needs to be replaced? Just pop in a new one? Oh, wait...

PRICE
You can get a TREO free "with a contract", and that contract will cost you. And are you saying I could BUY ALL the best 3rd party software and it wouldn't cost as much as the iPhone? Highly doubt that, especially if you keep your math straight and include the full cost of the contract.

To quote myself in an earlier thread:
Total cost of ownership is the same kind of smoke-and-mirrors rubbish that MS tries to use to scare companies away from Linux. Many people may be able to afford a more expensive plan, because it's billed per month and you don't notice the hit to your wallet quite as badly.

The difference between an 80-dollar-a-month plan and a 60-dollar-a-month plan is a helluva lot more palatable than a 500-dollar-phone versus a zero-dollar phone. Or even a 200 phone, which is the average Treo price nowadays.

For about 200 bucks, you could get an excellent range of good Palm software. Add around another 70 for an 8GB memory card. So, free+270=cheaper than iPhone. Even if you didn't get the "free" (with rebates) Treo, you could still get one + extras for cheaper than an iPhone.

You REALLY REALLY, REALLY, should try actually f**king using a product before you spout off like this. Seriously. You get paid to do this kind of writing? It's taken me less than five minutes to show you the door on your "research". Some comparison.

LOL, ROFLMAO. You've shown me the door, have you? By arguing points that weren't even in the article, you mean? Get real. Thanks for coming.

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, on top of that, you press the letter on the side of the screen and you're
>>right at the first or last name of the that letter. Not. Real. Hard.

>No it's not. Who said it was? All I said was that a Treo was more quicker and more
>precise. Press phone. Type the first couple of letters of Contact, or hold down a
>key for speed dial.

That's a lot more button presses than hitting a letter to the side of the screen and then your contact. I thought you were admiant that buttons presses were the primary measure of usability?

So we have, for calling your most often called people the iPhone is superior (through either favorites or recents), and for calling people from the contact list, the iPhone is also better. None of those facts appear in your review.

MMS
>Great! Where is it?

It's called "email", here in 2007 we send pictures to each other via "email". If your phone can't support it, time to upgrade.

EMAIL
>Follow the link in that section of the article; there's a huge variety of email
>systems out there.

And all of them worse than the iPhone built in client.

USABILITY
>Another thing I never mentioned, but I would say that a one-click dedicated "hang >up" key is better than a double-click. Small difference, but still better.

It's always a single click. The top button always declines the call (with a single press), but while playing music (and doing other things) you also get a button on the screen to eitehr accept or decline as well.

Responses like this, are exactly why you shouldn't review or even talk about the iPhone without having used one are carefully examining features. Basically you come off with a lot of egg on your face.

>Nope. I'm not going to bother justifying this yet again; scroll up the page to find >your answer.

I see no problem with it, as long as you care to continue to be thought of as completely unreliable in reviewing devices. Personally if it were my site and I was writing in some kind of professional capacity, I would care a little more about my reputation.

>Mmmmm. Does it include those cute little squeezing gestures? Can you use it in one
>hand without looking at it? Be a bit hard without any tactile feedback.

Actually yes, you can (in a "pinch", ha ha) use it one handed even for the "squeezy gestures". And yes, you can also use it one handed since as I noted in my reply many buttons are spatially anchored. I can often type without looking, I can certainly reach the phone app without looking and even dial some favortires without looking quite easily.

You don't need physical keys, you just need to remember where buttons are. That is true of your Treo as well, you just don't remember that the only thing physical keys help with a little is in training to remember spatially where controls are located.

This lack of understanding how virtual keys can be just as memorable as physical keys, is really the reason why you come off so foolish in your review.

EXTRAS
>Lol. There isn't even an SDK out for the iPhone yet! Developers aren't testing
>bupkis on the iPhone. Hackers are cracking it, or in the various stages of
>attempting to. Yes, it may be opened up in the future, but again, why should Apple
>get extra points for something that may or may not do in the future?

They already have a iPhone specific web SDK. No it's no the same as "real" applications, but it does offer the ability to add some features you would traditionally add through dedicated Palm apps. And there is a need for documentation as there are some phone features you can trigger with a bit of careful markup.

HARDWARE
>Your experience differs from that of nearly every single product review that's been
>done of the iPhone so far. Lucky you! And say, just out of curiosity, what are you
>going to do when that battery needs to be replaced? Just pop in a new one? Oh,
>wait...

In three or four years when the battery might need to be replaced, I'll send it off for a few days while I use the rental iPhone.

Please point to ONE review that says in an average day of use it will not last eight hours. My lasts easily much longer than that, though I am not talking 24/7. All of the reviews I've seen have said battery life is pretty good. The only thing that really brings it below eight hours at all is constant video watching, but I can't do that at work and for plane flights I'll simply get one of the many iPod external battery packs - just as bulky to carry as a second battery, and when I get off the plane my phone will still be charged, also like a secondary battery.

PRICE
>To quote myself in an earlier thread:
>Total cost of ownership is the same kind of smoke-and-mirrors rubbish that MS tries
>to use to scare companies away from Linux. Many people may be able to afford a more
>expensive plan, because it's billed per month and you don't notice the hit to your
>wallet quite as badly.

In other words, you are OK paying more for a Treo. Good luck with that.

>For about 200 bucks, you could get an excellent range of good Palm software. Add
>around another 70 for an 8GB memory card. So, free+270=cheaper than iPhone. Even if
>you didn't get the "free" (with rebates) Treo, you could still get one + extras for
>cheaper than an iPhone.

So after you replace the shipping software with stuff that works, and buy enough storage that you start to get close to the iPhone capacity, even after that, you can't buy a new screen or more usable OS.

>LOL, ROFLMAO. You've shown me the door, have you? By arguing points that weren't
>even in the article, you mean? Get real. Thanks for coming.

It's sad to watch someone sink their own online rep this way. You're forever more going to be known as "that sad guy that did the Palm review of the iPhone".

>>>Again, personal insults from Mike Cane. Again, no sign of any point whatsoever. And life goes on...

Then in the prior message he vomits:

>>>You are such an obviously pathetic fanboy, it hurts to read.

Keep showing just how unqualified you are to even *gaze* on a keyboard. Unless, you know, you're busy doing something on your level of IQ, like a fekkin online game.

Just like you wasted all of our time with an incredibly ill-researched review?

No need to respond to my point-by-point explaining all the many, many ways you went wrong! No need at all, since you have no answer in response to the ways I point out where you are wrong.

>No, just one one of them. And guess what? You can just press one letter if you want to do it iPhone style! >Amazing! But unlike the iPhone, you can take it further and tap out one or two extra letters to get an exact >match and save page flicking.

But the flicking is faster that multiple letters. So the operation is still slower on the treo than the iPhone operation.

>Why would they? The Treo has Favorites, Recents and a better-implemented Contact search.

But all are easier to use on the iPhone, as I said. I know because I have used a Treo before (during the times I spent over the least few years evaluating friends to see if the latest model was worth purchasing for myself), and actually own an iPhone. All you can do is sit there making a bigger and bigger fool of yourself.

>Please grow up. iPhone is not the best phone ever designed, and it takes only a cursory look to see it. And I
>am now DONE with this thread.

We're not talking about it being the best phone ever, we're talking about the iPhone being better than the very ancient Treo, which by almost any measure it is. And you're just putting your hands over your ears going LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU because you have been so completey annhilated by people who have used the phone.

You are indeed done as you say, as few people on earth will believe anything you say after this debacle!

>You are such an obviously pathetic fanboy, it hurts to read. Go tell that to businesses running Goodlink, or
>Visto. Durrrrr.........

Yes, I have friends running Goodlink on Windows Mobile 6 devices. My statemnet stands, as poor as the iPhone Mail application is today.

>Yes, in a pinch. It wasn't designed with that in mind, though. Get over it.

Like you would know - but you implied it was not possible, which I actually owning and touching the device can clearly see is false - like so much else of what you have written. I don't have anything to get over, since again I am actually holding the device in my had and can make my own assessments as to what works and waht does not.

The iPhone has flaws to be sure. It's just that not having one, you failed to list any of them!

I am actually a bigger Palm fan than you will ever be. So your defense of the Treo in the face of the iPhone is even more pathetic - you are literally killing them with kindness by pretending everything is OK when it is not! Should Palm indeed just stay the course as they have been, as you would seem to argue, in the face of the iPhone?

Are you nuts too?

So, Gekko, what does the iPhone need to get you to buy it?

"Author's note: I do not own an iPhone. This is not a review. This is an editorial/opinion piece based on the dozens of iPhone reviews and hundreds of users comments that have appeared on the net since the device was announced. Every effort has been made to ensure accurate descriptions of iPhone's operation. If iPhone owners would like to point out any technical inaccuracies, feel free to post them in the Comments section below."

What's the bet this still doesn't make them happy?

Okay. Now I mean it - I'm done. And thanks, Gekko.

Tim, I think you've comported yourself quite well through 327 comments (and counting) on this article. Is that a new PIC record? Either way, you've done a great job sparking controversy and making a case that maybe, just maybe, the iPhone isn't every person's perfect replacement for a Treo. Congrats.

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

Not that we have many actual business-people on this board, but I thought this quote from BusinessWeek's article entitled "Not Everyone Wants an iPhone" was a fairly sober assessment based on a major factor that mainstream Treo users care about: email.

Gartner is advising clients—mostly big corporations—not to support the iPhone for now. "It's just not ready for prime time as a corporate e-mail device," Dulaney says. "The resistance by the IT departments of large companies to supporting the iPhone is going to be fairly widespread.".... The iPhone is designed to work with Exchange in cases where a system supports a message-retrieval method known as IMAP. The trouble is, most Exchange installations don't.

The articles concludes:

As high as the hurdles may be for corporate users, some of same features that make iPhone attractive to consumers will surely make it a hit among businesspeople. It's clearly going to attract attention for digital media enthusiasts, even many who already use an alternative smartphone.

The iPhone wouldn't be the first device to enter corporations through a back door. Originally released in 1996, the PalmPilot made a splash among busy executives with a tech bent and a busy schedule. PalmPilots began showing up on many corporate desks at the initiative of employees. Corporate IT managers only later began supporting them.

Yet as appealing as the iPhone will be to executives when they're outside the boardroom, don't expect it to replace the BlackBerry or Treo right away.

Those fanboys.

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

> ...mostly big corporations...

Those are not PALM clients - from their own mouths. PALM's clients, unaddressed by the Gartner "analysis", are the "prosumers"...exactly why everyone and their neighbors thinks PALM's going to get hit devastatingly by the iPhone (among a cast of a thousand other "smart"phones).

Why in the WORLD do you think I have =any= position in PALM's stock?

Since you've repeatedly said you've never had any interest in using Palm products, you post every minutia about Palm and the people who trade its shares on the Yahoo Finance board (the last 31 mins ago), and since I obviously have no knowledge of your portfolio, perhaps the question (it was a question) was intended for you to answer.

All your buds who hang out with you on Yahoo seem to think they know your position in PALM's stock:
http://tinyurl.com/2hpub5

But what would they know?

Giggle

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

PALM's clients, unaddressed by the Gartner "analysis", are the "prosumers"

Really? So what defines a prosumer? A heavy smartphone user who purchases their handsets from the web or a retail store rather than having it issued to them by their employer? I've got news for you: the vast majority of business users buy their handsets on "individual liable" not "corporate liable" plans, which means their phones are purchased off the web or at retail and reimbursed by their employer. Reimbursed, that is, if they are on the list of phones approved by the employer.

You should do a little research on this industry if you're thinking about, you know, risking real money on it. :-)

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

let's hug it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZvarRe-XVQ

Just to keep you happy. Oh, and:

To take your post seriously would mean I'd have to take seriously reviews of restaurants, movies and the like without the reviewers ever having been to the restaurant or movie in question.

Wrong. A restaurant is judged on the quality of its food and service; a movie is judged on many artistic factors that are highly subjective. A piece of technical hardware like a phone, however - especially one as heavily-documented as the iPhone - can be judged by software interface design, ergonomics and other factors that have a strong theoretical basis. It's entirely possible to apply logic and common sense to form an opinion of an interface you haven't used. You won't get the complete picture, buy you can form a pretty good one. And if you read the article, you'd see that my opinions aren't all that radical: iPhone is a great iPod and web browser, but no so great phone and messenger. Ooooo, controversial!

Software interface, ergonomics. .blah blah.. but you haven't used one! How can you not get that through your thick head? You can say all you want but then you may get one and go.. "oh god.. this is quite nice. wow, look at that" And it's something you'll not know until you use one. Of course once you do try one we know you would not say such things and any follow-up article will basically say, "yep, i was write when I wrote the other post and all my guesses were correct". Because you wouldn't have it in you to admit you were wrong. Apply common sense? To a restaurant? Oh yeah, I've never eaten there but by the photos and the TV ads I can imagine the food tasting so good. Give me a break! There is nothing controversial about what you said about the iPhone really, more so how lame it is to make such comments without using the device. See? We keep coming back to that. But you still don't get it, do you?

So 99,999 % of comments about the Foleo are trash (well, actually...)? The iPhone hype has made some people a little too fanatical: it's not superiour in EVERY way. You CAN write something without using the gadget; iPhone can't hang up from another app with one push of a button, send a MMS, etc. no matter how long you use it. Just like Foleo doesn't have a fingerprint scanner, Prius can't haul a horse, Ares I can't launch a module to the ISS...

Some people around here would like to know that unlike Treos, iPhone does have a 3,5 mm audio plug. Except you still have to buy an adapter if you want to use other headphones!

How much negative reaction Palm would get if the next Treo won't have a user swappable battery?

Summa summarum: good editorial.

But iPhone sould not even be compared to the Treo, since they're for totally different markets. iPhone might be better for many people, but not for a nurse or an architecht (3rd party software!). It's mostly Apple's fault because they compare the iPhone with a Treo instead of a Walkman or a Chocolate.

-- http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/25/iphone-dev-wiki-update-the-floodgates-have-opened/

Nice thoughts, and I agree whole-heartedly, except on one thing: phone viruses. I've seen those MMS worms that travel around; I also had a friend with a Nokia who copped one. The interesting thing, though, is that this Nokia was in no way a smartphone; just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety 'dumbphone'.

I don't believe you'll truly be safe anywhere from mobile viruses; not on a Nokia, not on a Treo, and not on an iPhone either. As a matter of fact, there is a (slightly shaky) case to be made that with all the iPhone hype in the press, it's actually a more attractive target for any hacker looking to gain notoriety than other mobile devices might be.

David Beers had a great sum-up of the various reasons why Jobs and AT&T probably shut the door on third parties: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/9491/#134990 . Fear of mobile viruses is probably the bottom of their list. ;)

(The editorial which you never read, by the by, so going by your argument one could say that its your credibility in criticising me that's at stake here...)

Be Careful Out There! Giggle!

Regardless of what a few morons seem to be doing on their iPhone's keyboard, my mistakes are minimal. The phone seems to catch and correct them without any effort from me. When you try to correct it during each word is where it really slows down. If you just type and reread the paragraph after you're done, it works perfectly.

And like I've always said before, I would much rather take the extra screen real estate over a tiny keyboard. Hands down. Anybody who says otherwise either owns a Blackberry (which is great for corporate email), or simply hasn't tried anything other than 320x320.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Try out an iPhone or iPod Touch. You will be ASTONISHED at the UI.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

I am the one-week-old owner of a lovely new black iPod Classic 160GB. The size, considering the capacity of the HD, is phenomenal. Build quality is great. Screen is lovely. Battery life is rather decent. However, the scroll wheel is atrocious. It's decent for scrolling through 20GB of tunes. But ~130GB? Forget about it. I'm constantly over or undershooting where I want to end up. I wish the iPod had something like the classic one-handed contacts lookup of POS.

But worst of all is iTunes and the iPod's file management. In fact, iTunes 7.5 under Windows (XP OR Vista) is right there up on my "worst things of all time" list alongside the initial releases of the LifeDrive and 700p (and the Virtual Boy & Windows ME). For more on this matter, see my thread in the PIC OT forum.

P.S. I'd cheerfully pay $100 more for, say, a Cowon version if the iPod that was identical in every way BUT fully supported UMS for drag'n drop music adding and didn't require iTunes.

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

At least those "antiquated, single-tasking" devices can play music in the background without randomly crashing:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1017279&tstart=0

Revolutionary!

OMG!!! The iphone has a bug!!! Hopefully they won't go the Palm route - ignore the bug.

Apple is good at providing timely firmware updates - something Palm has no grasp of.

Long after this bug is fixed, Palm will still be trying to get their "next gen" OS written.

Hi Bosco! How's the weather over there? You seem awfully sensitive... Note this date from the last post in that thread:

Posted: Nov 4, 2007 3:38 PM

I have have been having the same problem (music cutting out while using using safari--both on Edge and wifi). I took the first iPhone I bought back to Apple for a replacement and the replacement has the exact same problem. Moreover, when I met with Mac's "geniuses" (gimmie a break) they essentially said "well, that's just part of owning and iPhone," as if such a bug should be acceptable. I cannot believe that Apple has allowed iPhones to ship with this problem. Extremely disappointing. So much for Apple's quality control/quality assurance. I wish I had simply returned it instead of getting a replacement. At this point, I wish I had purchased a different phone from a different company.

Is that the definition of "solved" nowadays? Seems I can't keep up with the rapidly-evolving English language anymore...

Re: iPhone can't multitask?
Posted: Nov 24, 2007 1:32 PM

It happens with iPod Touch as well. My instinct leads me to think it's not a lack of multi-tasking but a crashing of the iPod service(s) similar to how MobileSafari will sometimes crash and revert you to the home screen.

Hopefully a future firmware update will fix it.

Oh dear...

abosco:
Notice nobody else ever agrees with you?

Well, I've certainly noticed that you don't - which is what makes this so much fun! :D

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

I had the music problem in Safari. After one of the three updates so far, it never happened again. The same happened to a lot of people. The problem came, it was solved, and it was done. Do I need to remind you of all of Palm's ridiculous mistakes? Does SUDS mean anything to you? It does to me. Shortcut - 8. Remember that?

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

No, not at all. I just get a kick out of gently reminding you iPhone folks that for all your unseemly groveling at the Altar of Apple (and the even more unseemly premature dancing over Palm's grave), the iPhone is flawed. Not fatally so, but certainly enough to blunt all those endless, boring criticisms of Palm OS... and definitely enough to put the lie to Apple's ridiculously over-hyped marketing.

The point isn't that the installation process is overly complicated (which it is); the point is without a jailbroken iPhone you'll never be able to do it in the first place.

You find any and every excuse to look down your nose on the iPhone.

How many emulators have you installed on the Palm OS? You act like Hotsync makes it so simple. You need EXPERT knowledge to run 90% of them. That's just the way it is. If you want to install the latest Astraware puzzle game on a Palm, it takes two seconds. But anything advanced will require careful manipulation to make sure the database and files are in the right place. Oh, and let's not get into VFS thanks to the antiquated Garnet OS. The Palm OS community identified the VFS problem seven years ago. It still hasn't been addressed. I still can't put a .pdb anywhere but RAM for any program, save a few well-coded applications.

It doesn't matter if I get a 4GB SD card for my Treo if it still only has 64MB of RAM to actually work with.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

As for finding any excuse to look down on the iPhone? No. All I'm doing is pointing out the iPhone's many flaws. I consider it a public service. :P

All I'm doing is pointing out the iPhone's many flaws.

Two revolutionary things about the iPhone: desktop-style web browsing and multi-touch, which while innovative is really just an alternative to stylus input rather than a complete replacement.

Maybe Apple's marketing has trained people to expect more from their cellphones. But they were all moving in this direction anyway, with or without Apple's assistance.

What really would have made the iPhone revolutionary? Simple: full-fledged third-party app support from the get-go, combined with an iTunes storefront for selling them - that was open to anyone, not just Apple-approved devs. Apple have the power to make mobile applications popular with everybody, not just the tech-nerd set like us. But judging from all their past behaviour, they don't seem to want to do things that way.

As it is, if you hand me an expensive, locked-down phone that doesn't even have some of the most basic features of other phones, and try to tell me it's revolutionary, I will laugh in your face. It is not. Impressive, maybe, but not revolutionary.

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

As for getting people other than uber geeks like us to use third party applications, I think that's in the works. Again, in the realm of the possible, I don't think we could have expected Apple to release a fully open operating system. Jobs's explanation for why there was no third party apps at launch was lame, but what he said in the letter announcing the February SDK made a lot of sense. They need time to get the OS right, and that won't happen until February. Can you imagine the press reaction to the iPHone if it had been more significantly buggy than it is? Everyone--and that includes you--crowed over every bug that emerged as if it proved the device was useless. No way could they have just thrown the puppy open and then mopped up the mess.

It's a whole new OS. When Palm releases their next OS, they'll have a similar problem.

Faster than you can blink your eyes, indeed in a mere couple months, the Internet is going to be flooded with use-on-ANYTHING Java applications as developers see where the REAL money is.

Only because Apple's hype machine was standing in the corner of the room the whole time, screaming "IT'S REVOLUTIONARY!" at the top of their lungs. If they're going to make such lofty claims then they should expect - and deserve - tough scrutiny. I find Apple's marketing (and Jobs' original keynote) a complete insult to my intelligence. Revolutionary? Bullshit. They've taken what came before and wrapped it up in a prettier package. No-one should have to apologise for calling them on it.

Have ya seen, say, Google Maps for Mobile?

Freak, multi-touch *does* replace the stylus. No going back now. It's much to easy and fun of an interface to expect people to go back to futzing around with a tiny awkward stick.

Freak, to me anyway, none of the reasons you cite are particularly compelling.

1.) better to draw on the screen: Drawing anything more than a crude smiley face never worked on my palm. Even the "write a note" function thing never worked well enough to use. The screen resolution is too low and the digitizer too insensitive.

2.) smudgy screen: honestly, nobody who owns an iPhone complains about smudges on the screen. It's a non-issue. Even in the Apple Store, where the phone passes from grubby hand to grubby hand all day, you don't notice anything on the screen unless the phone is off.

3.) more accurate: possibly, but the annoyingness outweighs this. One thing I always liked about my Palm was I never had to reach for the stylus on my nice big t5 screen. It's true it can be tough to pick out a link in Safari though.

4.) get in the way: the iPhone has that very cool magnifying glass thing for text entry that makes it easy to see what key you're hitting.

5.) pen/stylus. Dude, no offense, but geek-o-rama.

Ha! Your insult might have a little more bite if you were, say, an attractive woman who I actually knew in real life. But you're a guy arguing about phones in the forums of the Internet. It's like George Bush calling you a dumbass.

Anyway, your refutations basically boil down to "I don't need it and never liked it, so why should anyone else?" But the bottom line is that where once you had two touch options - stylus and fingers - the iPhone gives you only one. Bzzzzt! iPhone loses. Thanks for coming.

Not sure how multi-touch would help write Chinese... Do you usually write with two pens? ;)

No, but I do often eat with two chopsticks.

Pinyin IME is of course possible and simple. But that doesn't even come close to the helpfulness of handwriting recognition, particularly when you are trying to look up characters that you don't recognize. There are plenty of other reasons to write characters as well.

I'm curious as to what does happen currently if someone tries to use a stylus on their iPhone. Is it no problem? Does everything work just fine? If so, there is probably no reason why from a hardware and base level software perspective that the iPhone wouldn't be able to deal with Chinese hand writing recognition. It would just require some company writing or porting the software over. If there is money to be made, you can count on some Taiwanese company to do it.


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

what does happen currently if someone tries to use a stylus on their iPhone[?]

I did read somewhere that a moistened q-tip would work, but I doubt I'll be carrying around moist q-tips any time soon.

USR Palm Pilot 1000 --> Palm Pilot Professional --> TRG SuperPilot --> Palm IIIc --> Palm V --> Palm M505 --> Palm M515 --> Tungsten T|2 --> Treo 600 --> LifeDrive --> iPhone

finger - works

stylus - does not work
top of pen - nope
earpiece from ipod headphones - nada

apple - YES (i'm not making this up, pressing the side of a whole apple will operate the touch screen) hmmm coincidence?

banana peel - yes sir

leather glove, hand in - no
leather glove, hand out - nope

therefore, I conclude from my 100% statistically relevant test, organic matter (that hasn't been through the tannery at least) will operate the touch screen, inert objects will not.

Oh, I dealt with that long ago. I just don't think it's "revolutionary", which seems to be why all these stupid arguments keep starting. iPhone fanboys are intent not only on defending the device's honour, but Apple's overblown marketing as well. Which is just sad.

I've manhandled the iPod Touch a fair bit; it's beautiful and great fun to use and I can certainly see why it inspires such loyalty. But as you say, it's just a new set of compromises. Not the perfect revolution. Unfortunate that so many can't handle hearing that. (waves to Bosco!)

a Chinese made clone would be "better" if it could handle stylus input as well as finger input.

http://www.tenonedesign.com/stylus.php

and just for fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SIRtOkUgww

"Oh my god!! Look at those gloves! He must own an iPod!!!"

Geek isn't even necessarily an insult, but it's an impulse I think we all need to be careful to keep in check. Not only because it's cold alone in bed at night, but because what's functional and acceptable in the geek world of Palm Infocenter isn't necessarily going to fly with average users. Most Palm users add few if any third party programs, for example.

I don't use gloves because, like umbrellas, I lose them instantly.

Ah, and you think people will be able to *dial* on a Centro while wearing gloves? Can it even be done with a Treo?

I should also mention that the weather where I am only requires me to use a relatively thin pair of gloves on the coldest of days. So, yes, I could imagine how I could easily operate a TX-like smartphone with a pair of gloves on. I will agree that hitting the keys on the current Treo line with anything thicker than a pair of surgical gloves is going to create problems. But at least people should be able to answer a call on the Treo with gloves on.

Hey, I just had a brainstorm! People can answer calls on their iPhone without taking off their gloves by tapping the screen with their nose! (But talk about greasy smudges....)


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

For the record, I wasn't calling styli geek-o-rama, but the combination pen/stylus, which I would expect to get snickered at for using.

And Bosco, yeah, it's just a little thing. I agree it's really no big deal. I just think some of the iPhone fanboys need a little reality check. Like I said before, I'd happily take one and "probably" happily use it if someone gave one to me. But I can easily imagine some frustration with it compared to my fully-tweaked TX (at least until there is a decent sized third-party ecosystem). People who can't seem to figure that out and think that the iPhone is the be-all-and-end-all of the handheld world can use a little "reminding" that it does in fact have its own faults and compromises and can not possibly be the "right" device for everyone. And no, Steve Jobs is not "the prophet", so just because he said that the iPhone is the only truly "smart phone" doesn't necessarily make it so. (Do I need to be worried about the Apple jihadists?)


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

Go hold a pillow over that Treo (or was it a TX?) tonight while it sleeps.

Mercy killing.

Go hold a pillow over that Treo (or was it a TX?) tonight while it sleeps.

I will say that I agree with the initial reaction of most; this look really good! But I also agree with most of the list Kris came up with below as "issues" I'd still like to have resolved before I "sign on the line" and become one of Steve's disciples. But the balance seems to have tipped over to the iPhone at this point (at least for me). And if nothing else, this thing is going to force the other players to deliver some better products themselves.

(Nah, I take that back; I will never become one of Steve's disciples no matter how many Apple devices I end up buying; he's just way too ......... "Steve".)


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

[AT&T sells the Treo 750 for $199, for example, after all the rebate stuff; how does the 750 stack up against the 8G 3G iPhone?]

New case for centrol
New charger for centro
New extended battery for centro
New rumor leaked about what color centros will be on carrier X

Please, PALM... give us some news.

Well, well Apple having more brass has thrown down a 3G iPhone that will probably be sold internationally as most of its volume. The race in the domestic US is on now on to finally finish 3G. For a change the carriers are going to respond to customer demand instead of culling a feature list according to their infrastructure budget.

When I see StyleTap on the iPhone, bye bye Palm. You made the mistake of following carriers desires instead of the desires of the carriers customer. The customer matters and not a bunch of mid-west MBA's that never wrote a line of code in their life!

All they need to do is offer an unlocked version and they'll have ticked nearly all the right boxes. I'd still like some hardware buttons for call control, but that's a minor niggle.

I feel very sorry for all those poor, poor deluded fools who bought launch models. Steve ripped you off big-time, folks.

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

This is the real deal. Apple has hit the nail right on the head this time. I am very interested in what companies have pledged MS Office support for the iPhone, as well as any company that is going to develop peripherals. I'm mostly interested in a wireless keyboard, which I will snap-up in a heartbeat and turn this basically into a UMPC.

I am sad that my iPhone took a tumble three days ago on my way to the office and landed face-down on the concrete, shattering the glass screen after a four-foot nosedive. While it is amazing that it still works flawlessly, it pains me to read my email through a spider-webbed screen. I'll be picking up a 16GB iPhone 3G on July 11th. Mostly, I'm excited for the GPS functionality.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

Just a few of the (IMO) major shortcomings off the top of my head:

-GSM only
-No MMS
-No unlocked version
-iTunes
-No MS Office compatibility out of the box
-"Walled garden" SDK/3rd party development atmosphere
-No video capture
-Mandatory 2yr contract + in-store activation
-No removable memory card
-No stylus
-Cruddy PIM apps
-No alternate input methods other than the onscreen keyboard
-iTunes
-No A2DP
-Fixed battery
-iTunes
-Weak codec support
-No hard buttons (gonna be a killer for porting decent action games to this guy)
-iTunes

Now, let's assume that all of the specs we've seen for the Treo 800w & 850 are correct and they offer no tremendous leaps over existing Palm Inc. handsets. Those devices have the following shortcomings:

-No substantial onboard memory
-Small Square Screens
-Weak battery life
-Bulky/thick/unstylish
-Poor Palm quality control
-Overpriced
-(likely) mediocure camera & video capture quality
-No 3.5mm headphone jack
-Weak web browser
-Crude, unintuitive WM UI/PIM apps
-YouTube is less impressive than on the iPhone

My point is that IMO all smartphones (regardless of OS) still essentially suck & have too many compromises. The iPhone is still too dumbed down and WinMob 6.1 is still too much of an unintuitive kludge. A modern, robust, ROCK-SOLID STABLE overhauled version of the Palm OS could/should still combine the best of the RIM, Apple & WInMob worlds while retailing enough of the fabled Palm "special sauce". Unfortunately, I have serious doubts that Nova will ever see the light of day but that's another debate for another thread.

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

Wait til next year. Isn't that when Apple's deal with AT&T ends?

And to that dolt who listed iTunes as a NEGATIVE 3x (wow, as if we could miss something that stupid ONCE), the frikkin iPhone is an iPOD, you eejit. You never have to deal with iTunes except for syncing. And there are even programs out that allow you to SKIP iTunes altogether. You can buy stuff OTA or rip on your PC and NEVER have to deal with iTunes.

What, are you managing your frikkin audio collection with PALM DESKTOP?! Puhleeze.