I don't see this as incompatible with what I've been saying. I don't think anyone here has said that the Palm Pre is going to kill the iPhone, or that Palm's WebOS devices will be #1 in market share in X number of years.

All I said was that it could be a legitimate player, that I think there is room in the market for 3-4 major players, and that Apple should take this new device as serious competition. I really didn't expect those statements to be so controversial.

I think you and Bruno both have this mistaken notion that the iPhone's fantastic sales numbers have led to Apple dominating the entire smartphone market, which is not borne out by the facts. They obviously have some advantages, and have to be considered the favorite in the race, but they're not going to be able to coast to the finish line.

I'm not sure I buy that. Maybe it is, but it feels a lot like Steve Knows Best to me.


On a complete tangent, I don't understand at all why people like their Blackberries. (Not that I'm disagreeing with your assertion.) Mine gets poor service, the GPS sucks, there are about four useful applications, the UI is horrible, it's been RMA'd twice in six months, etc. I could go on and on. The only things good about it is that the email is decent and the battery life isn't horrible.

Log of GPS coordinates while sitting still on a table at home:

(Elevation here is about 300ft.)

What I think they're doing is completely dominating the platform wars by luring the most developers. This brings the most applications and with it the largest active audience. This takes into account iPod Touch users. Some of those iPod users might also have another smart phone. Users of other smart phones might also have a BlackBerry (for work for instance).

There is room for more than one smart phone out there. At least there is for what one might consider a traditional smartphone. The iPhone and some other products don't quite fit in that camp though. The traditional smartphone didn't make much of an impact in the larger consumer picture either.

I see the traditional (old) smartphone continuing to become more irrelevant as time passes. What will be left are mobile device platforms with a phone feature. Much more than a smart phone. And I expect that Apple will grow their business and dominate. It's not even a race. The whole big picture is already Apple's to lose. They'd really have to stumble hard to let their groundwork all fall apart.

I don't think Palm has much of a marketable image in the consumer space. They have very little name recognition and they're not going to be able to offer the content that is helping Apple to push its devices.

I think the BlackBerry and WinMo devices will be the smaller players, but I think palm is going to disappear completely. That is, products running on their own platform. I can see them staying in the handset business if they stick with someone else's platform (Android for the best shot).

Oh, I also forgot to rip on WebOS. Last year everyone was going ape-shit mad that the iPhone didn't have proper SDK. Now for this device a number of blogs seem to think developing essentially a web page as an application is a good idea. Yes, you get to install it on the phone (right?) but come on. Is this supposed to be a joke?

DEAD. IN. THE. WATER. I'll be flabbergasted if Palm can turn the Pre into any kind of profit. I mean, they may never recover from all the money they likely paid the blogs for all their recent coverage. I swear this little thing is getting more attention than Android did.

One possible counterpoint: each major cell service provider is angling to have its own snazzy smartphone. Verizon/BlackBerry. AT&T/Apple. T-Mobile/Android. And now, Sprint/Palm. If you assume that this isn't just a short-term fluke but actually represents some kind of long-term force to be reckoned with, we may well see all of these platforms around for a while.

WinMo and Symbian? Not so much, at least in the U.S.

Even if Apple allow full background apps in the future (not likely I think unless on a future revision of the hardware), I think the fact that they weren't allowed to start with has made the third party apps better than they would have been otherwise.

The lack of backgrounding means that third party apps have to assume the app will be quit at any moment. This means that 99.9% of them work brilliantly with respect to persisting exactly what the user was doing when they quit.

If the apps were backgrounded all the time, the vast majority of third party developers wouldn't bother with niceties like that. Us developers are typically lazy by default...

I suspect that the driver behind no background apps is as much memory as battery life. The iPhone clearly needs more memory. It has a desktop OS slimmed down to fit on a phone and because of that probably needs more memory than things like Windows Mobile. If Apple did what MSFT and leave all apps running in the background then the iPhone would run out of memory very quickly.

There are three apps where I really wish there was backgrounding:

- NetNewsWire my RSS reader (that gets it RSS feed information from the developers website)
- Chess With Friends (play chess against random humans around the world)
- GPS track logging

The first two can be addressed without true backgrounding, Apple's proposed notification system should work well for them. The GPS track logging is more of an issue...

Why a joke ? Running on the phone will make all the difference. If the SDK gives developers a decent javascript framework then WebOS could be a very attractive platform for developers.

Of course I come from the background of writing highly rich Intranet apps using javascript, so I may be a little biased...

The US market is large, but it hardly defines what goes on around the world. Look at Nokia for instance.

Android is also not a handset, but a platform to run on many handsets in the future. It would be highly short-sighted for the various carriers not to offer one phone or another running on Android as they are developed.

In Canada (at least) BlackBerry products and service are available with all three of the major carriers.

I fully believe that the efforts of carriers to self-brand the phone products is going to hurt the product's market share and in the end may even hurt the carrier. It's so prevalent, but it's yet another telecom practice I despise. If Apple's exclusivity contract with ATT was over you can bet the other carriers would be jumping to get the iPhone on their networks (those with GSM and UTMS anyway).

I'd like to see iPhone's carrier exclusivity go away, but I don't ever want to see an iPhone support other telecom standards like CDMA/CDMA2000 or whatever other else is being peddled today by those outside the GSM association. We need the remaining US carriers to get into step by standardizing on what the majority of the world has long ago decided is the best path. This shouldn't be as difficult as adopting the Metric system.

There's no doubt about whether the iPhone and its current subsidization brings Apple huge revenues, but it would be nice to see a contract and lock-free version at a palatable consumer price point for use on any carrier with the infrastructure to support it. Just sell the things like iPods. I don't think any other phone would stand a chance.

Anyone know how much RAM the iPhone actually has?

Stu

128MB

I don't think apps should run in the background all the time. I generally approve of the idea of having one program running at once, with a few exceptions. (An ssh client comes to mind. It's a pain to realize you need a piece of information from another app and have to logout and back in again in order to retrieve it.)

I was really commenting on the fact that there's no service/daemon framework. Developing one of those would increase difficulty. Apple could even design it so that they weren't allowed to have UIs, so that people who wanted them would be forced to write two applications that communicated with each other.

For anyone interested in how Android deals with this, here's what I've gotten from a developer I've been communicating with:


I don't totally disagree with this method of application management. It would be nice to have things running at all times in the background, but this isn't a desktop computer, so I don't expect the same type of multi-tasking experience.

Anyway, I've given up arguing in this thread. I'll admit a bias and rooting interest in the Android platform, and while I have a hard time seeing how it will get there, I think it's going to be pretty big. I certainly hope so, at least.

Oh, and on the original topic, there was one announcement Palm made that cannot be touched by any other phone company in the market: the Touchstone.

I'm only half-joking here. I would love to have a charger like that for my phone. I find it amazing that we've seen all these wireless charging mats pop up at CES for years now, with nothing great to show for it, and now Palm brings a real product to market. Who knew they'd make such hot hardware...

The problem with the Touchstone and why it's rather unremarkable is that it only handles a single device.

Induction charging is nothing new nor is it something uncommon in homes - my wife's electric toothbrush has charged this way for years.

But how much of a convenience is it? Contrast to my own electric toothbrush which just takes a normal AA. I keep a NiMH cell in it which lasts at least a few months. It's such little effort to swap out the battery every now and then that I don't notice any inconvenience of not having a charger. In fact it's a convenience because it's one less thing to keep track of, to clutter the counter, to clean, and of course to keep plugged in.

The wireless mats shown for years at CES are a "neat" concept because they'd ideally support a wide assortment of products, all or any of which could just be dropped onto the mat as you'd simply drop them on a table top.

The Pre's solution while convenient from the point of view where you don't need to make any careful docking connection isn't really such a big deal. Compare the docking experience of an iPod or iPhone. The thing just slips right into its dock without any fuss. It's not something you need to keep plugged in constantly either.

Now, if we had an entire desk's surface able to charge gadgets, that's something significant. If you included a charger in the box that worked through induction and didn't significantly add to the cost of the product, that too would be fine.

The Pre's implementation is more of a gimmick and that's why I didn't even blink when I saw it announced. Plus, they put magnets in the handset itself to hold it to the charger? It will be interesting to see if that idea comes back to bite them in the ass if people start finding other things getting magnetized or demagnetized because of their Pre.

Another complaint about the induction charger: do you want to haul that thing around in your travel luggage? Apple, particularly with the iPhone 3G, has done a great job of reducing the travel weight of the accessories you might need.

Also, I'm curious about power efficiency. How many watts does the induction charger consume relative to a wired charger?


I didn't realize they had magnets in the phone case. That's a potential disaster if somebody shoves a credit card into the same pocket as their phone.

Well, you can also charge it off of USB, so presumably you'd leave the induction charger at home.

Do you have a source for that? I can't find anything. The more logical assumption would be that there are magnets in the charger and merely ferrous plates in the phone. Or, even better, the charger would have electromagnets and some sort of sensor (maybe some sort of inverse reed switch?).


Until the contact slot gets jammed up with pocket lint. Or you have some sort of case or skin.

Any of the good cases come with a docking adaptor for the universal docks. The pocket lint issue is a good point though for any pocket gadget, as it is usually the reason my iPhone tells me the iPhone dock is not made to work with it.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/10/palm-pre-touchstone-eyes-on/



They could be wrong of course. I would have avoided the use of magnets for physically securing the unit. If they were in the base it would still require extra metal and weight in the unit. More bulk isn't a positive quality in this type of device.

Anyway, I really think the press salivating over this thing need a serious reality check. If they sell 1/100th of the units Apple is moving I'd be absolutely amazed. If they sold 1/1000th I wouldn't be surprised at all.

The Palm web site says you need an accessory backplate to make the magnetic attachment work, so there's no extra weight if you're not interested.

There are many people who still hate the iPhone's lack of keyboard. There are many people who hate AT&T, for both political and practical reasons. There are many people who hate Apple.

I think that you're right that iPhone will continue to have the largest sales numbers. But it still remains that they have virtually no competition.

And there are many people who hate (or at least dislike Palm) as evidenced by their poor performance over the past few years. Plus, there are other products besodes the iPhone out there and more coming. Those are the only ones Palm should be concentrating on competing with.

The ATT deal won't last forever. The initial deal will be over in about 3.5 years if the reported term of "5" was/is correct.

I see a lot of people banking on the iPhone's development to remain static. I can't believe it, but one of the bigger features I've seen talked about the Pre is that it has "cut and paste" - oh boy.

I don't have anything vested in the iPhone. I think there's a lot Apple has done wrong with it and a lot they're still doing wrong - as per my own desires. As far as the market in general goes and "everyman," I think they've been doing extremely well in balancing what the device is and does and what it should or shouldn't offer to joe sixpack. They've (obviously) done exceptionally well at marketing it as well. I don't think Palm will be able to execute on any of these fronts at all. No matter how much glazing is currently present in the media's eye (which i still can't understand), the public won't buy into it.

I'm still amazed Palm's CEO can state they have a better product than the iPhone when all they have to show is the Pre. That's not confidence, that's complete denial and delusion. If they can convince an unsuspecting populace, they might get some sales. But the device is about as underwhelming as they come. it's something I would have expected from Sky Dayton and Helios.

I don't expect the Pre to generate any buzz or response within Apple. I don't expect Nokia are worried nor do I expect Google to give a care. Palm can rest knowing they beat Apple's Newton with their Pilot, but this isn't the mid nineties anymore.

Given, this is an incredibly basic feature. It's only big because the iPhone lacks it completely.

You can continue to have your unwavering unevidentiary faith that Apple will continue (?) to dominate the smartphone market. They may; I don't know. But it's ridiculous to make these unwavering assumptions.

Anyway, I'm done arguing with your brick wall.

I'm really puzzled by your reception of the Pre. I'm a very happy iPhone owner, but I can see how impressive the Pre is.

From the launch video the user interface seems just as coherent, slick and easy to use as the iPhone. The extra gesture area looks like it will move things on as well, that page down gesture in particular looked very useful for web browsing.

From what I saw they had even sussed the Safari style zoom in/out in a way that Nokia and Google have not.

The card based UI looked like a big improvement on the iPhone way of doing things. Being able to quickly switch between two emails, contacts etc looks very handy.

Despite all that, I wouldn't want a Pre. For a start I don't want or need a physical keyboard. My last phone had a slide out keyboard (HTC S710) and the iPhone had taught me that a touchscreen keyboard can work better than tiny keys on a physical keyboard.

Compared to the Nokia E71 the Pre (and iPhone) looks like some sort of unearthy magic. I had a play for a couple of hours with my brothers E71 and I couldn't believe what a mess it was.

I always owned Nokia phones in the past (before they started using Symbian) and loved their ease of use and coherent UI. The E71 in comparison is awful. It is like they tried to cram as many random UI metaphores into a single interface as they could manage. It is also painfully slow when doing anything vaguely interesting.

It is kind of ironic, given that I loved my Psions before Psion lot the plot and went and got involved in Symbian.

Nokia need to do a lot of catching up on Apple (and the Pre) otherwise I reckon they will be in big trouble in a couple of years.

I'm making predictions based on the information that's out there, but I'm not arguing whether someone should personally like one product over the other. I don't have an iPhone now, I am almost always hyper-critical of Apple and I also don't intend to buy a Pre.

I'm also extremely technology jaded, so 99% of everything announced at shows like CES doesn't impress me in the least. The effect is even more pronounced when I attend the shows and wander as well as systematically hit up display after display.

This year didn't offer anything new at CES. And the Pre, fit right in there. It's not significant in my opinion. At least not to the industry. It is for Palm because they've been stuck in a vortex for years. It's better conceived than their Folio product and looks like it will actually make it into the channel, but I believe it's too little too late for them and don't have a problem sharing that opinion. I don't know why anyone would want to make me believe otherwise.

I also don't own stock in any of the companies mentioned in this entire thread so there's currently no financial stake riding on the product successes/misses.



I think Nokia will do okay for now and also come out in decent shape in the future. They have always had a large portfolio and I don't see that changing. The new class of media/communicator device isn't for everyone and Nokia (and others) will have plenty of financial opportunities in other categories even if their smartphone sales dramatically drop. I expect they can quite easily outcompete Palm on a global scale. If anyone continues to be in serious danger it's Motorola. I said it 4 years ago to friends - "these guys are going to be in trouble when their razr bubble bursts."

Okay, I know I said I was done arguing, and I'm not going to argue about the smartphone issue. But:


So you're allowed to espouse any opinion you want, with or without any evidence beyond your personal "expertise", but the rest of us aren't allowed to disagree with that opinion? How do you find hats to fit that head?

Of course you're allowed an opinion. In fact I normally concur with most of the opinions expressed here, and I certainly always value them, those are the reasons it's the only board I have kept as a regular online place to visit all these years.

Is the problem that I'm so firm in my beliefs about the Pre? Because I don't think I've tried to make a point that others aren't allowed to think differently. A lot of what I've expressed in these last messages is about what's going on in the press, not necessarily what's been mentioned by others here.

Anyway, I did have some additional points to add to the lest message so I'll add them here. It's become somewhat fashionable lately to dig on Apple so every time anything is released it's turning into some type of sensational headline as "an iPhone killer" or a "Macbook killer" or... You get the picture. Online, I find this really common in blogs that are accused by others of being Apple-biased. In the traditional press it's usually when they pick up a story that originated online, but it's there all the time since they're more corporate in mentality anyway.

All these "killer" products are simply variations on a theme and more often than not, very uninspired ones. Meizu M8 anyone? We've seen one giant leap in innovation in the past few years and it was the initial introduction of the iPhone. Period.

It bugs me to see people continually rip on a couple of Apple or iPhone faults while ignoring much more serious issues with their products. As an example, there's so much more that can be addressed or fixed with the iPhone before even considering spending any time on Cut and Paste. Don't even get me started on the massive amount of problems in Leopard and Apple's apparent inability (or unwillingness) to correct the vast number of small issues that plague daily use of the OS.

Nope, it's more important to rip on them instead (and try to sensationalize the issue) for wise ideas like non-removable battery in the latest 17" MacBook Pro. There's an insignificant amount of people that ever swap out the battery in their notebooks. Or even their phones for that matter. It's generally a non-issue.

Sometimes they get called out rightfully so, like their initial stance on iPhone development. It's acceptable they didn't have an SDK ready, but they should have just said that - that one was coming within a year. Plam comes along with a slightly souped-up variation on the web-as-an-application and I'm not seeing any such complaints. It's a nice alternative for those who want to make some light-weight software, but it's not a long-term solution and completely not applicable to any software designed for heavy lifting (games, visualization, audio, speech, mapping, etc..)

So when I hear Ed Colligan flapping his lips, all I want to say is STFU, pull the trigger and let's go. Let's see who's left standing at the end of the day. Jobs may talk in a grand fashion, but he's first backed everything up with success. Though it also doesn't impress me very much when he goes off either.

Apple should really just buy Palm and scuttle their entire product line:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/23/palm-responds-to-apples-veiled-threat-over-pre/

Prediction failure #1.

It's probably best to actually quote the dialog here. A lot of press people are making assumptions off this that are probably not correct. These questions came in during the Apple financial call earlier this week:

If anything, it wasn't the Pre, but Palm's loud-mouth CEO that would have prompted any type of comment. But that comment was by the media anyway, not Apple.

Maybe I should have written "worry" or something else other than "buzz" however. I suspect that plenty of people inside Apple have had a chuckle or all-out fits of laughter at the Pre and Palm lately. One might say that's "buzz" but it's not what I meant.

The only reaction or worry I see is from Palm who to this date have yet to show any type of real innovation - I'm going all the way back to the first Pilot here. Palm's reactionary development and twist on a theme worked for them over a decade ago, but it's going to fall flat this time around.

They're being praised mostly by media people who don't know much at all about the product. They're receiving more than their fair share of blog coverage because they're perceived as the underdog and a lot of people love the underdog story. However, Palm are acting like a bunch of arrogant dipsh*ts who are completely out of touch with reality - this has been going on for quite a few years (recall Colligan's comments regarding Apple's then-unannounced iPhone rumors).

I don't know how much more of a beating they need to take to knock some sense into them. Palm has a lot to be thankful for, but innovation isn't one of those things. Instead they need to acknowledge the deep pockets of friendly investors and Apple for providing the blueprint for their products. Not to mention Apple defectors within their company helping them stay afloat.

What on earth are you talking about? What comment? The one coming directly out of the mouth of someone at Apple? You're saying that was created by the media? If anything, that reporter was surprised by a comment that was slightly out of left-field.