Comments on: Palm Pre vs iPhone: Pre Emerges Bloodied but Victorious

You'd be better off with a low-end iPod Touch. Even a used/refurb one, if you don't want to spend much $.

I got excited and was expecting some huge app store/content partner announcement/a Fooleo successor running WebOS

Instead he showed us the TOuchstone. A great little gadget, sure, but nothing that defines an "ecosystem" in the Apple sense of the word.

And while RIM's ecossytem is less glamorous and less consumer-oriented, they've built up enough of a user/developer base and enough critical mass & presence in the market that they can sort of accomplish stuff via brute force (look at the sales numbers, despite the rumored 30+% return rate of the Storm).

Long-time POS users may remember those cool little booklets/brochures that Palm used to include in the box with their new handhelds. This was back in the Pilot/PalmPilot/III/V days. I believe they stopped shipping them after the last OS4 models arrived. It was a little book full of not only Palm's own branded accessories, but 3rd party accessories like the Kodak PalmPix, "small" software solutions like PrintBoy alongside "big" killer apps like DocsToGo . Crude as it was, that little catalog nicely summarized the fledgling Palm OS ecosystem of the mid-late 90s for all new handheld buyers. Just delivering those apps to the customers' devices was the problem back then. That's why with the magic of wireless, it's crucial Palm have a fantastic OOBE (out of box experience) for the user as far as the app/media store tightly integrted with the device. If it's buried amidst a sea of Sprint bloatware/trialware (Nuance voice control, NFL mobile, Sprint TV etc, Sprint app store etc)

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->?

If the Pre is a lot seller, and the Touchstone isn't too terribly priced, then I do see a relatively high attach rate for Palm. Then the inevitable cheap knock-off type chargers from the usual Chinese peripheral firms like Brando etc will follow. Same as the old days of the Palm Hotsync cradles.

The Touchstone IS a really nifty little device and I'd love to have one on my desk. In fact, I'd like to see Palm make all of their future devices Touchstone-capable with the proper back cover installed. It'd make a nice way of unifying the line and not having to worry about FF diffferences or the locator of the microUSB port etc.

But one innovative accessory (Touchstone), a leather case, and a few chargers and a headset or two does not make a thriving ecosystem. I was surprising that Rubinstein, known by many as the "podfather" would use the "ecosystem" term to introduce an accessory instead of some kind of app/media store.

Another cool concept woulbe someone like Altec Lansing doing a music dock that was like the Touchstone but had built-in speakers that played via BT A2DP.

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->?

My point pointedly was, as much as I enjoy your writing and read everything I see from you, you thoroughly got caught up in The Gush along with scads of other Me-Too Media-droids and are only now coming off the high.

most infamous quotes in palm history

1. "yes this really is a gold threaded suit." - carl yankowski
2. "we're prepared for whichever way the market goes." - carl yankowski
3. "look at the shadow on the second hand, cobalt really is amazing." - david nagel
4. "PC guys are not going to just walk in." - ed colligan
5. "no, foleo can't do youtube but i wish it has a faster processor." - jeff hawkins
6. "why would we want to charge the same or less for a better product?" - ed colligan
7. "i'm a huge proponent of ecosystems. check out this new charger." - ruby

It may turn out that the Pre's "multitasking" turns into a detriment. Leave a web page with some crappy JavaScript open on some off-screen card and it may drag performance to a crawl.

Seems to me that it was the Apple Newton before the Palm... and the Sharp portables in the late '80s (yeah, had one of them, too...)

(And there were *many* pundits who wondered if the iPhone would really go on sale in June back then too!)

What is going to be delivered and what was demoed are going to be DIFFERENT, imho.

I would BET the delivered Pre will be MUCH thicker to accommodate a much bigger battery (in fact, I believe the paradigm for using the Pre will to ALWAYS keep it on a charging dock if not "on the move"!).

I would bet the delivered Pre will have a more robust movable part.

I have to wonder if they'll get rid of that lip around the keyboard that at least one person has complained about already.

We'll see how fast the delivered Pre is hacked and virus-infected. If Apple says they didn't want to do certain things for "security" reasons, it'll be very interesting to watch as the Bad Guys show Palm exactly what Apple was talking about!

Oh please. If mobiles were going to become virus havens thanks to open architectures WinMob and PalmOS would have been targeted long, long ago. Apple simply used "security" as an excuse for the things they didn't want to deliver. Remember when Steve said "no third-party apps, we don't want them bringing down AT&T's network?" Far as I know, it's withstood the onslaught just fine so far...

To your question, I didn't compare the original MacOS to DOS. I compared it to AmigaOS. In that comparison, Macs came out as underpowered, boring machines for dullards who hoped to be hip by association.

A Mac was my primary computer between the death of the Amiga and the release of Windows 95. Apple had a compelling product for those few years, but Windows 95 was far better than Apple's OS6 (remember having to adjust the memory partions for each running program? Having to reboot with all extensions off to burn a CD?).

> Apple should hire the same accountants every other CE company uses, since they can release upgrades for free.

And do those accountants use accounting methods which continuously show those other CE companies as more profitable than Apple? Apple's accountant's picked Apple's revenue recognition methods for a reason. And that method has legal consequences as a side effect, given SOX.

.

Demos of stuff seemed to require a lot of finger movements.

I wrote to SytleTap. I figured if they do it, I can find a way to slowly migrate Garnet apps over time. "One ring to rule them all...."


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

>Apple simply used "security" as an excuse for the things they didn't want to deliver. Remember when Steve said >"no third-party apps, we don't want them bringing down AT&T's network?" Far as I know, it's withstood the >onslaught just fine so far...

Actually, Apple used security as an excuse to secure mobile os x. at one time, everything ran under root - which has been long since fixed and several bugs have been fixed.

Steve said no third party apps - because a proper sdk wasn't available nor was the ecosystem to support 3rd. party apps available.

What there was - at the time - were web apps. Which, iirc, you lambasted because in your opinion, the iphone was a closed environment and no proper sdk was available.

Now palm is pushing javascript and css as a development environment - yet now it's a good thing???

still. javascript apps aren't anything special - let's see the pre's sdk - when it's completed.

Apple tax!!!!!! that's a lot of bagels!

Apple tax!!!!!! that's a lot of bagels!

So what are you going to do now that you have no more upgrade path? Buy a stock of Centro's and a lockbox? God forbid you have to take 4 minutes to learn a new OS. Is it iPhone time for you in 2010? Are you feeling a certain masturbatory glee as you suddenly feel like voting Democrat and wearing turtlenecks?

We tried to bring this:

- http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/01/12/palm-pre-the-emperors-new-phone/

to his attention - he dismissed it outright.

That piece does a good job of highlighting the desperation of the media to find a smartphone that matches the iPhone stride-for-stride. The argument of double-standard acceptance of no full SDK for the Pre and iPhone is excellent. He's very correct; Apple got raked over the coals before it released 2.0 and had web-based development only. Suddenly, the Pre is ahead of the curve with the same.

So we're looking at 4 months before it's released on Sprint, 10 months before it's available on domestic GSM networks, 24 months before a full SDK is available, and maybe only 6 months before nobody cares anymore?

-Bosco
m105 -> NX70v -> NX80v -> iPhone -> iPhone 3G

That piece does a good job of highlighting the desperation of the media to find a smartphone that matches the iPhone stride-for-stride. The argument of double-standard acceptance of no full SDK for the Pre and iPhone is excellent. He's very correct; Apple got raked over the coals before it released 2.0 and had web-based development only. Suddenly, the Pre is ahead of the curve with the same.

For f****s sake, it's NOT the same.

On the iPhone, using webapps, can you:
- create system wide alerts and notifications?
- access the system message buss?
- access and create application DBs?
- create apps that run *outside* the web browser?

On the Pre, JS/Ajax/HTML is simply the programming language/framework, which will allow developers to the those things. So please explain how the he11 can it be the same??

If it were straight web-based development, with the limitations that that implies there wouldn't be any need for an API, would there? They'd simply say to all developers: "create any webapp, and then publish it on the Pre".

I fully expect that the vast majority of apps created with Mojo will be, if not fully native, very "native-like", with only games, doc-editors and other resource intensive apps needed to be coded in C++.

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) -> Nokia E51 (un/impressive) -> Touch Enhanced (nice!) -> Samsung 780 (mousepad woes) -> HTC S740 (stellar)

If I was the editor though, I wouldn't consider the piece particularly news-worthy, coming as it does from one of the most biased sites on the Internet.

We've been over this before. Why do you still not get it?


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

I'm just too damn thick! ;)

abosco:
These sites are frequently wrong.

You'll find no disagreement here. Still interesting though.

Were I to write the same article now, iPhone would win handily. Still wouldn't be my personal preference though. And fortunately for them, Palm has new game in town.

They're right that Palm ripped off the hardware pretty heavily though. I think we can all be thankful that they did...

Yes, that better camera in the Pre is nice. But the iPhone - even with lower res - is able to kick out some nice pics.
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/iphone-camera-test/

So, spec-wise, the Pre's camera wins out. But Palm's devices have historically never had very good cameras so if the Pre does have a superior camera over the iPhone and the G1 then that will a small but fairly significant win for Palm. And again, I ask-where's my damm video recording !?!? Oh yeah, that's right...video would fill up the available internal storage too quickly. Preh indeed!

Who came up with "Fooleo" back in '07? Joad gets this year's award for "Preh" but Gekko still holds the all-time trophy for "FrankenGarnet"

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->?

Again, I urge caution for anyone expecting standalone digicam-style image quality on the Pre until we see some actual image quality samples. That said, the Pre's camera app seemed to be quite responsive and possessing a far better UI than previous Palm camera apps. The Pre's camera app was very iPhone-esque in appearance.

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->?

The Dell Mini line (though there are a few intriguing specs on the just-announced Mini 10) is terribly underwhelming. I do give Dell props for finally breaking out of the 10" screen size limit.

BTW, Mike, speaking of netbooks & cheap ultraportables, I personally fondled the HP DV2 at CES and I am delighted to say it's all that I was hoping it to be. If it's not plugged up with too much bloatware and the price isn't out of sight (ie it's gotta be <$700) then it's probably the perfect combination of size/price/specs. AMD/ATI might have the sleeper hit of the year with their Nano and put some fear into Intel (albeit a brief scare). I'm not too hot on the aesthetics (they had a white one and a black one on display) and HP DOES tend to go nuts with the bloatware but it's surprisingly thin and appears to be very well built.

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->?