Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Palm Pre DEFINITELY KICK BUTTS (puts iphone on shame)!

kdarling said:
Other phones sell amazingly well without iPhone-sized hype.

As I've commented before, the first iPhone was the most hyped device in years. Yet in the period that it sold its first 5 million, HTC quietly sold 3 million of their first Touch model.

In the latter part of 2008, Apple sold 4.4 million iPhones (although if they counted as they usually do, 1+ million of those are "in the inventory pipeline", not actually sold to end users). At the same time, HTC sold 1 million G1's, 2 million Touch Diamonds, and unknown million(s) of their Touch Pro.

Competitors don't need a "killer". They're doing just fine as is, getting free smartphone PR fallout from the iPhone, and selling on carriers that Apple has ignored.
Click to expand...

I agree with everything you write. There really doesn't have to an iPhone killer - other cellphons are selling just fine. I'm sure HTC and Nokia sell more combined phones than Apple. However, for a single phone to outsell or sell similar numbers to the iPhone and sustain these sales, it will need the hype. This is reason the iPhone sells so well - its hype. I'm sure there are millions of iPhone users who bought there phones before even trying it out - just because there is an Apple logo on it.
 
kas23 said:
I agree with everything you write. There really doesn't have to an iPhone killer - other cellphons are selling just fine. I'm sure HTC and Nokia sell more combined phones than Apple. However, for a single phone to outsell or sell similar numbers to the iPhone and sustain these sales, it will need the hype. This is reason the iPhone sells so well - its hype. I'm sure there are millions of iPhone users who bought there phones before even trying it out - just because there is an Apple logo on it.
Click to expand...

I think it goes hand in hand. There needs to be hype/great marketing, but the phone also has to perform which the iPhone does and the Pre looks to be doing.

If everyone bought the iPhone, and it sucked, then the 3G wouldn't have caught on. As a Sprint fan, and diehard tech lover, I can say with confidence that the Instinct was a failure IMO. They marketed it more than the iPhone, probably more than any other handset, and it was just okay.

For me, it was boring, and not as smooth to use as other Windows Mobile phones let alone the iPhone. Great marketing there, poor phone that didn't perform. I think Sprint and Palm need to go head to head with the Pre. Palm is doing a great job giving users what they want, and what the iPhone doesn't have, now Sprint needs to pair the Pre with their far cheaper and just as good if not better than AT&T plans and insurance and wicked fast EVDO with $15 tethering option on data plans starting out at $60 with unlimited text.

kas23 said:
In order for the Palm to be successful, they will have to market the crap out of it. This is where every other phone maker has failed. This is probably why there is not "iPhone killer." They need to build-up the hype around this phone and keep the hype going.
Click to expand...

Good marketing yes, but I say leave the hype for the forum boards and fanboys like myself. I want Sprint to stay as competitive as they are, and I want Palm to put all they have in WebOS, applications, syncing with Windows, 3rd party apps, and Mac OS X, and other handsets and devices running the OS.

kdarling said:
Other phones sell amazingly well without iPhone-sized hype.

As I've commented before, the first iPhone was the most hyped device in years. Yet in the period that it sold its first 5 million, HTC quietly sold 3 million of their first Touch model.

In the latter part of 2008, Apple sold 4.4 million iPhones (although if they counted as they usually do, 1+ million of those are "in the inventory pipeline", not actually sold to end users). At the same time, HTC sold 1 million G1's, 2 million Touch Diamonds, and unknown million(s) of their Touch Pro.

Competitors don't need a "killer". They're doing just fine as is, getting free smartphone PR fallout from the iPhone, and selling on carriers that Apple has ignored.
Click to expand...

Beautiful and well said. Don't forget that the Touch was announced a solid 3 months before the iPhone.
 
One other comment:

I think Apple needs to start advertising like "iPhone, the one and only". As with scotch tape, xerox, kleenex, palm pilot and ipod... it could become a generic term.

Already I've seen many people look at a WM smartphone and ask if it's an iPhone. Unlike us geek/tech types, they have no idea what one is, other than the name.

Speaking of generic terms and such: Microsoft is just plain dumb. For years, they had the terms Smartphone and PocketPC pretty well tied up to their OS. Then they just threw it all away and started using "WM Professional" and "WM Standard" and other catchy names.... NOT.
 
kdarling said:
One other comment:

I think Apple needs to start advertising like "iPhone, the one and only". As with scotch tape, xerox, kleenex, palm pilot and ipod... it could become a generic term.

Already I've seen many people look at a WM smartphone and ask if it's an iPhone. Unlike us geek/tech types, they have no idea what one is, other than the name.

Speaking of generic terms and such: Microsoft is just plain dumb. For years, they had the terms Smartphone and PocketPC pretty well tied up to their OS. Then they just threw it all away and started using "WM Professional" and "WM Standard" and other catchy names.... NOT.
Click to expand...

I think people can use the word iPhone generically, as they're usually unsure what an iPhone actually is - they know the word, but don't strictly associate it with just the Apple iPhone product.

However, it does show some sort of awareness of the product. As Little Britain might say, "I want that one".. The simplicity of the line up does seem to help a lot. It shows that they're already showing preference, without even knowing the market that well. I don't know about other iPhone users, but i've certainly seen a large number of people ask about the iPhone when seeing it, asking to have a go, or generally ask a bit about it. Is that normal for a phone? I'd imagine the Pre will be more like that.

You want an Apple phone? Great, which size, smaller capacity or larger? That's it. You can play with one in the store for a decent time, to see what it's all about. Hopefully Palm gets this.

Just a sidenote - With some of the studies showing general people off the street being flummoxed about smartphones, could the Pre be too niche, through it's interface? People sometimes slam the iPhone for it's cuteness in UI, but could that be a good thing? Would Apple change to a more deck of cards analogy UI? Could that UI actually work when you have >8 pages of apps?
 
Digital Skunk said:
If everyone bought the iPhone, and it sucked, then the 3G wouldn't have caught on. As a Sprint fan, and diehard tech lover, I can say with confidence that the Instinct was a failure IMO. They marketed it more than the iPhone, probably more than any other handset, and it was just okay.
Click to expand...

However, for Sprint, the Instinct was a huge success. It broke Best Buy's all time cellphone sales records, as well as becoming the best selling cellphone in Sprint's history.

http://www.intomobile.com/2008/07/09/sprints-samsung-instinct-breaks-best-buy-sales-record.html

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2008/06/23/daily23.html

The problem was that the phone sucked. These sales were not sustainable because word got out that the phone was crap. Just imagine if it was actually a good phone or a great phone.

It looks like Sprint has one more chance to actually deliver a decent phone as the Instinct left a horrible taste in a lot of peoples' mouths. So many people were tricked by the Instinct and what it would potentially become. They held an app contest and were supposed to develop an app store - none of this actually materialized and a lot of people felt lied to. I was monitoring the whole situation (because I was looking for a new phone/contract at the time) and when I saw that it was never going to materialize, I jumped ship to AT&T. The Instinct may have set records, but it may have done more harm than good in the long-run.
 
kdarling said:
Already I've seen many people look at a WM smartphone and ask if it's an iPhone. Unlike us geek/tech types, they have no idea what one is, other than the name.
Click to expand...

That's funny. When my wife and I were in the Sprint store looking at the Instinct a few months back, my wife asked the salesman if it had an iPod in it. Well, of course, the salesman responded "yes, it does." That was when I said "c'mon honey, we got to go" and left.
 
From the earnings call. I think sometimes Apple fans give Apple a hard time. After the initial announcement of the iPhone, people were disappointed with the iPhone 3G keynote. However, in retrospect, the keynote was developers, developers, developers, bringing them on stage. We still await push notification. People talk about the calculator update, but forget about how Chinese language characters can be drawn with a finger. MobileMe was a disaster. But then it seems Apple might be building on it, and finally ironing out most problems. Took them 80 odd minutes to get to the iPhone 3G. Hopefully they can bring it a bit earlier and have more hardware & software to talk about come WWDC 2009.

Tim Cook:
We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make, and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.

We believe in saying no to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot.
Click to expand...

Tim Cook - iPhone market
We still believe that we're years ahead of the competition from a software point of view...Our objective is not to be the unit share leader in the cell phone industry. It's to build the world's best phones.
Click to expand...

This is a bold claim, in the face of Pre's demo. Palm said they'd started work on the Pre 2 years ago, and it's not yet to market, so they could be ~1 year behind, if Apple's been working on the iPhone's software & hardware at a decent rate.

Tim Cook:
I would say first of all, it's difficult to judge products that are not yet in the market. But the iPhone has sold over 17 million units thus far. It's received the highest overall customer satisfaction of products from many different surveys. And, we've said since the beginning software is the key ingredient and we believe that we're still years ahead on software. And I would include in that software umbrella, the Applications Store, and you can see the explosion that has happened in applications with over half a billion downloads.

If you look at others, I think when you think about having multiple variations of displays, multiple variations of resolutions and input methods, and many different forms of hardware, it's a big challenge to a software developer and is not very enticing for them to build a different App for every one of these things. But, we shall see what people will do.

We approach this business as a software platform business, and so I think we approach it fundamentally different than people that are approaching it only from a hardware point of view. And so, as I've said before, we're very, very confident with where we are competitively. We are watching the landscape. We like competition. As long as they don't rip off our IP and if they do we're going to go after anybody that does.
Click to expand...

Apple's take - bring it on - "we're very, very confident with where we are competitively".
And hopefully others will bring better things to the table - I think Pre deserves to get attention in this light. There has been a lot of crying wolf over "iPhone killers", unduly so for many of the models.
 
kas23 said:
However, for Sprint, the Instinct was a huge success. It broke Best Buy's all time cellphone sales records, as well as becoming the best selling cellphone in Sprint's history.

http://www.intomobile.com/2008/07/09/sprints-samsung-instinct-breaks-best-buy-sales-record.html

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2008/06/23/daily23.html

The problem was that the phone sucked. These sales were not sustainable because word got out that the phone was crap. Just imagine if it was actually a good phone or a great phone.

It looks like Sprint has one more chance to actually deliver a decent phone as the Instinct left a horrible taste in a lot of peoples' mouths. So many people were tricked by the Instinct and what it would potentially become. They held an app contest and were supposed to develop an app store - none of this actually materialized and a lot of people felt lied to. I was monitoring the whole situation (because I was looking for a new phone/contract at the time) and when I saw that it was never going to materialize, I jumped ship to AT&T. The Instinct may have set records, but it may have done more harm than good in the long-run.
Click to expand...

This is how I felt as well. More so on just the use of the phone and the lack of what makes a smart phone top notch. It was basically an iPhone redux with Sprint yellow and black highlights. It was useable, and it was fast, and browsing the web was much faster on it than on the iPhone 3G by a good margin, but it all got left behind by the suckiness of the UI.

I mean, it just SUCKED. The Windows Mobile UI was much more welcome, and why I just kept my Touch and hoped for the Touch HD, or anticipated the purchase of the Touch Pro.

I think the Pre adds that UI and software flare that's kept the iPhone on top given it's limitations, as well as kicked out the limitations that the iPhone has. To me, it looks like Palm went back to its roots and decided to give users a real desktop in your hand experience. Not just a toy that does lots of things in a flashy way.

Real competition is the end result.
 
iphone or palm?

I'll keep my iPhone. Apple is going to be just fine.

It seems that Apple leads in ingenuity and creation that addresses the users needs directly (Phone, email, sms, internet... that looks like the internet) and should I mention there is an app store that is cutting edge and unique?

Apple came out with the iMac, then Dell with the XPS One (wanted a piece of that success). Apple came out with the iPhone and here comes the other companies trying to get a slice of the action. I mean, it's to be expected, but Apple has (since they came out with the iPhone) solidified there platform as, arguably, the coolest flippin phone out there....
 
NGMstudios said:
I'll keep my iPhone. Apple is going to be just fine.

It seems that Apple leads in ingenuity and creation that addresses the users needs directly (Phone, email, sms, internet... that looks like the internet) and should I mention there is an app store that is cutting edge and unique?

Apple came out with the iMac, then Dell with the XPS One (wanted a piece of that success). Apple came out with the iPhone and here comes the other companies trying to get a slice of the action. I mean, it's to be expected, but Apple has (since they came out with the iPhone) solidified there platform as, arguably, the coolest flippin phone out there....
Click to expand...

...What?!!??!!??! BREW apps have existed for phones before the iPhone was even announced. And, plus, why does it seem like half the people say "APPLE IS BEST CAUSE APPLE WAS FIRST". The other half are smart and say "APPLE IS NICE BECAUSE THEY DO THINGS GOOD".

To the former, I slap. Look up "LG Prada".....
To the latter, I pat on the back lightly. Yeah, apple does a lot of things right. But some things they just don't do.....

Anywho.... iPhones have plans that are expensive compared to equal plans from Verizon and Sprint, which is why I have an LG Dare with unlimited data....

EDIT: An, as many have noticed, many people don't buy iPhone's. They buy Logos. Specifically, the Apple logo. They don't buy it cause it's "good", they buy it because it's a status symbol. Source? 75% of iPhone owners I know....
 
Digital Skunk said:
I think the Pre adds that UI and software flare that's kept the iPhone on top given it's limitations, as well as kicked out the limitations that the iPhone has. To me, it looks like Palm went back to its roots and decided to give users a real desktop in your hand experience. Not just a toy that does lots of things in a flashy way.

Real competition is the end result.
Click to expand...

I just hope Sprint doesn't demand putting its crappy logo all over it and putting all of its crappy software (including the Sprint Music Store) on it. Sprint has a tendency of turning their phones into Sprint phones (not HTCs, Samsungs, Palms, etc.)
 
Gyrferret said:
...What?!!??!!??! BREW apps have existed for phones before the iPhone was even announced. And, plus, why does it seem like half the people say "APPLE IS BEST CAUSE APPLE WAS FIRST". The other half are smart and say "APPLE IS NICE BECAUSE THEY DO THINGS GOOD".

To the former, I slap. Look up "LG Prada".....
To the latter, I pat on the back lightly. Yeah, apple does a lot of things right. But some things they just don't do.....

Anywho.... iPhones have plans that are expensive compared to equal plans from Verizon and Sprint, which is why I have an LG Dare with unlimited data....

EDIT: An, as many have noticed, many people don't buy iPhone's. They buy Logos. Specifically, the Apple logo. They don't buy it cause it's "good", they buy it because it's a status symbol. Source? 75% of iPhone owners I know....
Click to expand...

Ahh, touche... I was not familiar with these BREW apps... I stand corrected.

As for smartphones, they are all a little more than just smart. The technology has advanced in light speed measurements since the first flip phone. Let's be honest, Apple put the technology for what iPhone (and yes, many others) can do on the map. Including an app store that provides consumers with way more than just a phone. And now, most manufacturers (again, a little honesty, please) want the same success through the same interface for themselves.

As for Sprint and Verizon, I don't get a good signal anywhere where I live and the service in my area seems weak as AT&T may be for others in other areas.

Yes, most do buy logos. You're so right about that. They pay no attention to who they are buying from. This will definitely get them into trouble one day.
 
NGMstudios said:
Let's be honest, Apple put the technology for what iPhone (and yes, many others) can do on the map. Including an app store that provides consumers with way more than just a phone. And now, most manufacturers (again, a little honesty, please) want the same success through the same interface for themselves.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't agree that Apple put the Smartphone's technology on the map. I would say that Blackberry did this. They were the ones that really put out a quality "phone" that was way more than just a phone. And it was very usable and not clunky like the stuff Palm was putting out (Palm Pilot with phone). Blackberries were the rage at one point, but they never really caught on with the general public. They firmly entrenched themselves in the business world though (wanna read another story about Obama's Blackberry?).

However, what Apple did do is bring the smartphone technology to the general user. Sure, there were others before this - but these were mostly Win Mo based phones that weren't very appealing to use. The iPhone is very appealing and is a pleasure to use. But, most importantly, I think Apple has propelled the general/personal use smartphone technology light-years ahead, where it was just plodding along before. It has really pushed the market forward to the point carriers are actually demanding better phones from the manufacturers. And they really can't put out crap anymore. The iPhone is sort of like the gold-standard in which all other smartphones are compared to.
 
Gizmodo has put together a really nice FAQ on the Pre that sort of covers things inside and out that are known today;

http://i.gizmodo.com/5133554/definitive-palm-pre-details-and-faq

They are saying launch in 2nd half of 2009 where as I thought that Palm had inidicated the device would be available around June/July.

Interestingly they also plan a full range of phones running on the new Web OS. This lines up very similarly to what Blackberry is doing with an entire line of touch phones announced. Apple is going to have a very hard time continuing to sell large numbers of handsets if they insist on only offering a single model in the phone market! There's also some interesting remarks that Palm made about why the Web OS will run circles around OSX on the iPhone;

http://i.gizmodo.com/5130785/palm-os-x-is-too-fat-to-run-well-on-phones

Personally I think that the iPhone is going to continue to do fine after the launch of the Pre, but I do expect the new Palm to sell extremely well. This is the first phone to bring a truly desktop like level of functionality to the mobile user. The use of cards and the gesture area (as well as a real keyboard) are brilliant. While the Palm won't be as good of a media player, as good at running games, etc... it does look like it's going to do a fantastic job for productivity types since it looks to have a super nice email/browser/contacts system that will tie in to GPS for location awareness and presence applications like Twitter.

The multi-app capability, if implemented as seen in demos, is going to be huge. True push, background notifications, etc. This is going to turn the heat up on Apple since people are going to ask why iPhone can't run more than one app at a time, can't do push, IM, etc, all of which the Pre is probably going to do very well.

Unfortunately it's only going to have 8GB so I can't even consider it, although if it integrates to iTunes, has a halfway decent media player, etc, then I will really consider it when they bump the storage up down the road.

The battery life on it will probably suck too, but seeing as I usually get 2 days or more on a charge on my iPhone, not such a big deal for me.
 
Apple's biggest problem is itself.

This exact same situation has happened to them in the PC market and the outcome will end up being exactly the same. Early dominance of a market where they innovate with a new product and take things by storm.

Years of closed systems and ass backwards policies towards their software and hardware which place artificial limits on what people can and can't do with the device. Slow updates and next to zero significant changes except on new device upgrades cycles around every year or two.

Apple innovated and came out with a great product. They are now content to wallow in their own juices and success except other companies will not only copy what they have done (Windows anyone) and improve on it, making it open, free to modify and eventually winning out because who wants to work on a closed system when there are tons of open platforms available that are as good or better.

Apple had a huge advantage and they are squandering it while other companies catch up and pass them. In 3 years the Iphone will be a distant memory and while it brought the masses to mobile computing it will end up sharing the same fate as the Apple II and Macintosh's which did the same for PC computing.
 
In 3 years the Iphone will be a distant memory and while it brought the masses to mobile computing it will end up sharing the same fate as the Apple II and Macintosh's which did the same for PC computing.
Click to expand...

Thank you.

This alone will provide me with enough laughs, guffaws and chuckles to last the entire weekend.

:rolleyes:

Hey maybe I should turn this into a PreQuote app.

Html + javascript = BEST APPS EVAR!!!!

forget that Objective C and cocoa touch api.

It's PRE-Historic!!!!


Palm is the new amiga, a drastically dwindling user base of the clueless grasping at straws for a shred of good news to fluff up their flattened egos.

Wonder if Sprint will have any employees left by the time the PRE ships.
 
Palm is going to need to launch an advertising BONANZA to drown out the iPhone noise.

I mean ... I want the Pre to be be cool and all that. But damn, I don't envy Palm's position right now. Especially considering they're in the hole to Elevation for like half a billy.
 
Some dude from Engadget was on Jimmy Fallon's show the other night and he had a Pre with him. He demonstrated some of the features and I have to admit it looked pretty cool. The biggest advantages I see are the hard kb and the multi-tasking. If Apple would at least add multi-tasking to the next iphone, that would be a huge plus.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back