Multi-Tasking: The biggest advantage the Palm Pre has over the iPhone. You can run multiple applications at once and seamlessly switch between them. The iPhone can only one run app at a time.
This is not completely true. The iPhone OS supports multitasking of the bundled apps because they have been extensively tested for with each other and coded for relatively low CPU/battery usage. As a developer of business desktop software, I can tell you that it is very difficult to write bug free code of a high level of complexity and one can easily make a mistake that takes up a lot of processor time. I would not want to see a third party app running in the background locking up the UI because had a memory leak or spawned a runaway process. Multi-tasking is fine on a desktop platform but it does not really make sense on a mobile platform outside of utility functions like a built in music player bundled with the OS.
Syncing: Another shining area of the Pre. Palm calls their technology Synergy. Basically, it takes contact information from ALMOST everything your heart could desire (Facebook, Google, Outlook) and puts them all together as one. So when someone changes their phone number on their Facebook account, it changes in your phonebook.
Again, that is your subjective opinion. I think that would be confusing to a non-geek and people might not want to mash up everything into one ball of wax. That sounds like a feature looking for a use case. AKA featuritis.
Network: Sprint has a faster and larger 3G network than AT&T, but that's it. As far as cell service for calling, AT&T probably has the advantage.
Nobody outside of the coverage area in the US cares about some American provider. It is irrelevant to the device and the fact that the Pre is launching as a CDMA device means that it is useless outside of the US and possibly roaming in Canada. The primary use of a phone is for calling.
Also consider that CDMA phones usually do not come with WiFi which is often much faster while GSM based devices have no restriction on offering WiFi features.
Pricing of Phone/Plan: The Pre is $200 after a $100 rebate. The iPhone is $200 and you don't need to fill out a rebate form.
Sprint's plan is better, hands down. The iPhone's plan starts at $70/month for 450 minutes, unlimited data, and that's it.
Again, that is absolutely meaningless to non-Americans. You are comparing service providers when I thought this was about devices. Also, unlimited data is never limited and I've yet to break into the 500 MB of transfer range on my Fido 6GB per month plan.
Notifications: I used to think the iPhone's notification system was the best a notification system could be. But the Pre does it better. Instead of making you dismiss a text message notification, it just scales your current app down slightly and puts the notification at the bottom, not unlike a weather warning on tv. Very smart.
That is your subjective opinion. It seems cheesy to me. Why should the app scale at all? Is it lacking overlapping windows?
Gestures/Multi-Touch: Both the iPhone and the Pre have fantastic gestures and support similar Multi-Touch capabilities (pinch to zoom etc), but again, the Pre takes it a little bit further. Instead of having to press back/forward buttons in the browser, you just swipe left/right, respectively, on the gesture area of the Pre. This is just one example. I should also note that the Pre's gesture area has white LEDs behind it that trail behind your gestures. Kind of like Quicksilver's Abracadabra for OS X. Very nice touch.
So how is a complete noob supposed to figure that out in the browser? That gesture area at the button below the screen seems a but unintuitive to me.
App Store: At first, you'd think the iPhone is a sure winner for this. It has a very impressive app store and it's so easy to find an app you want an install it. Apple pioneered this; it's undeniable.
But the deal breaker is in the SDK. Don't get me wrong, XCode is a great tool that apple provides to all of its developers, but the iPhone uses Cocoa and C++, which are both great, but not as widely used as HTML, Javascript, and CSS, which is what the Pre uses.
You have got to be joking? Are you really serious? I'm guessing that you have never developed software in your life. By software, I mean not just farting around with dreamweaver to create a webpage with some javascript on it. Before the SDK came out, Apple had a.... wait for it.... web based SDK that allowed you to create web based apps with the Apple look and feel complete with touch and some gesture support.
http://www.apple.com/webapps/whatarewebapps.html
http://developer.apple.com/safari/mobile.php
By the way, I hope you are not suggesting that people who have invested in the app store go out and dump their iPhone for a Pre after downgrading from a GSM provider to a CDMA provider effectively throwing away all of their investment in apps.
Right now, it seems like the Pre is a better phone.
The iPhone is a better phone because as it is a GSM device, you can make calls virtually anywhere in the world with it. It also has WiFi which no CDMA devices seem to have.
But I also have to say that everything I've written about the Pre has not been tested in the wild. So we'll have to wait and see how it truly works once it's released (June 6th); not just in tech blog's youtube videos and Palm's walkthroughs. For instance, maybe the Pre's screen isn't totally scratch proof like the iPhone's screen is.
I see. So you are gushing over a bunch of specs and videos and have never even used the device but you are convinced that it is a better phone.
