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

[QCassidy352]

Actually not. The strong points of the Pre over the iPhone is mostly it's multitasking and notification system. The Pre's notifications are far superior to the obtrusive iPhone Pop-up system that they didn't modify at all in 3.0, and it will only get worse with Push notifications. Just imagine if not only the SMS app, but any 3rd party app that wants to can interrupt your use with a message. I shudder to think what happens when you return to an unattended phone after a couple hours.

You're making assumptions. How do you know you can't turn off push notifications on an app-by-app basis? I don't know either way - do you?

The ironic thing is all the apps you mention benefit nothing from push notifications and everything from multitasking.

I think you missed my point. You're talking about how my iphone apps would benefit from the background app system on Pre (which they wouldn't... seebelow). I'm talking about how my apps are not available on Pre to begin with.

Frankly, I don't really care about push notifications OR multitasking. (if you really wanted to, you could search my posts and find plenty expressing exactly that sentiment over several months). The big announcements in 3.0 for me were landscape email and text, C&P, and to a lesser degree, turn-by-turn.

I'd like push for my IM client and multitasking for Pandora, but beyond those two uses, I really don't care. My point was simply that push notifications, while not the same thing as multitasking, will solve many of the same issues (the big one that I've seen on these boards being IM notifications).

but to respond to a few points:

stanza

Maybe multitasking would help, but not much. When I'm reading, I don't want to flip over to my web browser all of a sudden. I can still access the ipod and receive SMS within stanza, and that's really all I'd want to do.

Air Sharing

Your discussion on this has nothing to do with how I use air sharing (document viewer). The way I use air sharing it would benefit from neither push nor background apps.

iXpensit: Oops, benefits nothing from push yet again. What could be useful, however, is multitasking with a mobile banking app, product/price search, shopping list, etc.

I use iXpensit to record expenditures I've already made and then I close the app. No benefit from either push or multitask.

Pace: Uh oh, push useless again I'm starting to see a pattern. You know what could make a running app powerful? If it could integrate the GPS to track your distance and time - all the while doing such CPU intensive tasks such as changing your playlist :/

Haha, this one is too perfect. It's clear you didn't read what Pace does.

AccuFuel: Do I even have to say it or do you get it by now?

Again, I open the app, record my data, close the app. Zero benefit to either push or multitasking.

mSecure: Feel like I am beating a dead horse here about push. It would be nice, however, if you could multitask back and forth with the browser to copy/paste login or credit card information.

That would be a valid point if not for C&P. All I'm doing with mSecure is looking up a password. So if I can't remember it (and I can), I can now copy and paste it. I don't need (or want) mSecure open after that.

Now Playing

Built in management of netflix, viewing of trailers, and display of relevant information. No reason to ever leave the app.

Pandora

This one I grant(ed) you. It's the one use I can see.

Blackbeard's Assault: Hrm, maybe it could push a notification to you telling you when a new level is available to purchase through the app with the new app store model?

That's a separate thing from push.


It seems like you think I was trying to find ways in which push helps each of my favorite apps. I wasn't. IMO neither push nor background processes makes a bit of difference for the way I (would) use any of these except Pandora.

And again, even if there is some benefit to multitasking (i.e. "wouldn't it be great to just have iXpensit open all the time so you don't have to spend those few seconds waiting for it to launch"), what would the effect be on my battery life and system performance from having 3 or 4 of my favorite apps always running? If it's more than *minimal* it would outweigh the equally minimal benefit of saving those few seconds it takes to open the app.

 

[mcdj]

couldn't get past the awful thread title.

 

[Syrus28]

You're making assumptions. How do you know you can't turn off push notifications on an app-by-app basis? I don't know either way - do you?

You debate with the information given. Since Apple hasn't told us otherwise, it's rational to assume you can't.

I think you missed my point. You're talking about how my iphone apps would benefit from the background app system on Pre (which they wouldn't... seebelow). I'm talking about how my apps are not available on Pre to begin with.

Well obviously, since the Pre hasn't been released yet. However, given Palm's history of strong support in this area, I'd say Palm users will have a great selection.

Frankly, I don't really care about push notifications OR multitasking. (if you really wanted to, you could search my posts and find plenty expressing exactly that sentiment over several months). The big announcements in 3.0 for me were landscape email and text, C&P, and to a lesser degree, turn-by-turn.

It's evolution. You may not care about those features, but it's obvious the benefit it will provide.

I'd like push for my IM client and multitasking for Pandora, but beyond those two uses, I really don't care. My point was simply that push notifications, while not the same thing as multitasking, will solve many of the same issues (the big one that I've seen on these boards being IM notifications).

Yes, it solves the problems now, but what about in the future?

Maybe multitasking would help, but not much. When I'm reading, I don't want to flip over to my web browser all of a sudden. I can still access the ipod and receive SMS within stanza, and that's really all I'd want to do.

As mobile phones become more powerful, you will. I assume you use more than one program at a time on your computer?


[/quote]It seems like you think I was trying to find ways in which push helps each of my favorite apps. I wasn't. IMO neither push nor background processes makes a bit of difference for the way I (would) use any of these except Pandora.
[/quote]
Of course you would say that, since multi-tasking is not currently available to you. I have no doubt there were the same naysayers when commercial Operating Systems started to support multitasking and overlapping windows., "I don't need that". The objective is to look forward at what could be useful, not what currently suffices. Thats what brings progress.

And again, even if there is some benefit to multitasking (i.e. "wouldn't it be great to just have iXpensit open all the time so you don't have to spend those few seconds waiting for it to launch"), what would the effect be on my battery life and system performance from having 3 or 4 of my favorite apps always running? If it's more than *minimal* it would outweigh the equally minimal benefit of saving those few seconds it takes to open the app.

Don't put to much into clout in Apple's "80% less battery life" claim, considering other major mobile OS have been doing it for years.

 

[Eso]

Don't put to much into clout in Apple's "80% less battery life" claim, considering other major mobile OS have been doing it for years.

The app in question was also an IM app which means it had constant network traffic. I really suspect that is the major reason for cutting into battery life.

 

[benzslrpee]

just outta curiosity, about the Pre...

- low res camera (3mp) instead of the 5, 8 or 12mp that people whine for
- low iPhone resolution screen instead Omnia HD specs
- low battery capacity @ 1180 mAh...albeit user replacable
- an app store that has an approval process for security/stability/etc
- non expandable internal memory but only 8 gigs
- no video conferencing capabilities via front-faced camera
- no video recording capabilities upon release but may get added later
- no Office documents editing support (at least not that i've read)
- no Flash support but may get added on later
- according to Colligan, same $200 or higher price point...Hesse can change this perhaps
- no data tethering option (this _must_ be Palm's fault not Sprint's right?)

i just thought that since the iPhone has been out for a couple of years now they'd at least make a phone that doesn't share the majority of their competitor's deficiencies. sure hope that physical keyboard, multitasking, and LED flash keeps Palm afloat. that and Sprint's wonderful network.

 

[Agathon]

The Palm Pre is to the iPhone what the Zune is to the iPod. Too little, too late, and made by a company that doesn't have the right experience to do it.

This month it is the Palm Pre that is supposed to be super duper and an iPhone beater. A while ago it was the G1. Before that, the Samsung Touch Phone. Before that, the LG Prada.

The Palm Pre was beat before it was even announced. If you buy one, you'll be like the Zune people everyone laughs at.

 

[Saladinos]

Oh, the Palm Pre your new anti-iPhone saviour?

Just like the HTC Touch, XPERIA X1, T-Mobile G1, Samsung Instinct, BlackBerry Storm...etc before it?

Give it a few months after release. Nobody will even remember it existed.

 

[Masquerade]

G1 already had a notifications drawer.
PSP had better games than iphone.
Pré is the communicator missing in iphone.
Summer'09 iphone push notifications are obstrusive.

iphone killer? some people here seems driven by "trends" instead serious technology.
For sure, iPhone can't be killed like a Macintosh 512K can't be killed, but theres no use as desktop computer.

 

[NT1440]

If you buy one, you'll be like the Zune people everyone laughs at.

Thats a sad rational for buying things.....

 

[sellitman]

And AT&T doesnt? Sprints network is mad fast. I used to run EVDO card on my macbook pro and it screamed.

AT&T 3G is horrid and no coverage.

Sprint is fine if you are in a major city and don't plan on leaving it and using your phone. Otherwise it is worthless. I've had all three carriers and I travel extensively. Here are my ratings:

1 Verizon

2 att

3 Sprint (a distant 3rd)

 

[Goona]

Oh, the Palm Pre your new anti-iPhone saviour?

Just like the HTC Touch, XPERIA X1, T-Mobile G1, Samsung Instinct, BlackBerry Storm...etc before it?

Give it a few months after release. Nobody will even remember it existed.

We've heard them all..

 

[BaldiMac]

Well first of all it's important to distinguish between multitasking applications and background processes. Multitasking is where more than one app can be open at the same time and users can easily switch apps. Background processes is where an application still has a component that runs even after the user has explicitly closed the application. I think that is always bad and welcome push as an alternative.

Wow. I guess it helps to make up your own definitions.

Multitasking is the ability of a computer to run more than one process (application) at the same time. The iPhone OS is fully capable of multitasking.

Background processes are processes (applications) that run in the background. Again, the iPhone OS allows background processes. It simply limits which background processes it allows to select Apple-developed ones.

Having settled that, the only apps that really benefit from push notifications are apps that rely on the web for their content - streaming media, social networking, IM clients, RSS and news apps. That's it. Interesting that the alternative to multitasking on WebOS is pretty much only useful for web content.

How would streaming media benefit from push notifications?

Also, plenty of other applications could benefit from push notifications. Calendar apps, todo apps, server monitoring apps, security apps, weather apps... Anything that would benefit from notifications! Look into how many apps support Growl on a Mac.

 

[bremb0]

Sprint is fine if you are in a major city and don't plan on leaving it and using your phone. Otherwise it is worthless. I've had all three carriers and I travel extensively. Here are my ratings:

1 Verizon

2 att

3 Sprint (a distant 3rd)

Here's my ratings.
1 Verizon/Sprint

2 T-mobile

3 At&t

 

[slapppy]

I take it back, iPhone kicks butt!

After viewing how Apple implements cut, copy and paste vs how the Pre does it. The Palm Pre already looks archaic. Palm didn't even build any intelligence to the feature it seems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMEMEBiL_g

 

[Digital Skunk]

Here's my ratings.
1 Verizon/Sprint

2 T-mobile

3 At&t

1. Verizon
2. Sprint
3. T-mobile
4. Any cheap pay as you go or walkie talkie
5. AT&T (sorry, their network is/was just craptastic wherever I go)

 

[hippo206]

For those that even rated t-mobile you obviously don't travel, or travel lightly. I go to 27 major cities for 2 day spans 2 times a year. I had t-mobile for a little over 1 year, and it was so bad I ended up getting another phone plan with a different company and carrying 2 phones with me. I'm not saying Att is the best, but for people that need to get phone calls, its definite better than T-mobile. Sadly, I live in the city where the T-mobile hq is.....

Verizon is hands down the best (altho I have no experience with Sprint).

 

[Digital Skunk]

For those that even rated t-mobile you obviously don't travel, or travel lightly. I go to 27 major cities for 2 day spans 2 times a year. I had t-mobile for a little over 1 year, and it was so bad I ended up getting another phone plan with a different company and carrying 2 phones with me. I'm not saying Att is the best, but for people that need to get phone calls, its definite better than T-mobile. Sadly, I live in the city where the T-mobile hq is.....

Verizon is hands down the best (altho I have no experience with Sprint).

I agree, but I hope those that are rating are basing their experience off both reception, speed of network, price of plans, plan options, and customer service.

For me Verizon has won hands down on just about all of them. Sprint comes in second only because they fail at customer service IMO, but simply rock in all other areas.

 

[Primejimbo]

Sprint is fine if you are in a major city and don't plan on leaving it and using your phone. Otherwise it is worthless. I've had all three carriers and I travel extensively. Here are my ratings:

1 Verizon

2 att

3 Sprint (a distant 3rd)

I agree with your rating, but everyone s going to be different depending where they live. I have heard T Mobile is great in the Chicago downtown area, I had Verizon and the coverage was great until my daughter went to Kentucky with her mom. at&t so far is great and it works where I go on vacation, but so did Verizon (well for the most part).
So you will have different ratings from everyone.

 

[lillybeth]

are you people rating att before or after they took over cingular?

seriously Att is the best one i have been on..

verizon was ok but ATT takes the cake

tmobile was possible the worst provider ever.. i had to go outside of my house just to make a call or recieve a text . it was terrible.

sprint was nothing special not really that great

I have NEVER had a dropped call with att. never any problems

everyone is hung up on verizon ... yeah i will admit it .. IT USED to be the best well there is a provider taking over and its name is att

 

[iMule]

It's kind of like people who won't get a Martin guitar. The Martin dreadnought is the standard for dreadnoughts and modeled after buy all other companies. They will go out of their way to find any other company (regardless of known quality) just to get something other than a Martin. They envy it. They can't stand one company's dominance and innovation, so they make a lifelong commitment to flame and degrade something that they have no idea about.

Just an example... sure Taylors and Gibsons are good too and what not.

 

[shakenmartini]

If the Pre is supposed to land in June, it has already failed. Mix in the 6 month delay to Verizon and we are looking at 1 year from now before the Pre will have a decent audience making it worth developing for.

I can download the iPhone 3.0 SDK TODAY. I'll I have heard is rumor that a Pre SDK may exist and might be easy to program for, but I can't get it.

More important, any iPohne app I make today has an audience of 17-30 million potential users worldwide.

Apple paraded all those devs across the stage who built apps in two weeks to make a point. iPhone OS is easy to program for with little dev resources. This right here is what will draw users to the iPhone.

Moreover, they just took a huge stumbling block out of the mix for devs. If you have ever programed a net app for a mobile, you know what a pain it is to optimize it for battery life. Implementing IMAP IDLE for example is a huge PITA and requires a lot of optimization to keep it from destroying the battery. Apple has smartly made network notifications into an API, so that any programmer can let Apple do the battery optimization and all the dev has to do is treat network updates as a black box.

I cannot stress how huge this is. This makes just about any app able to get network updates with little battery overhead AND it is really easy to implement. Instead of only being able to run one or two background apps listening for updates over IP, you have only one service doing this for ALL Apps. This meas just about all of the apps on your phone have the potential to get OTA updates all with the same constant impact on battery life.

And don't say that Blackberry does this just fine. They cheat in their implementation and as far as I know it is not available as an API to any programmer.

Sure background apps have their utility (think Pandora app). I'm sure at some point there will be a solution to this and I'm sure the iPhone engineers are working on a solution. Probably won't make 3.0, but a solution will be on the horizon.

 

[pavvento]

If the Pre is supposed to land in June, it has already failed. Mix in the 6 month delay to Verizon and we are looking at 1 year from now before the Pre will have a decent audience making it worth developing for.

I can download the iPhone 3.0 SDK TODAY. I'll I have heard is rumor that a Pre SDK may exist and might be easy to program for, but I can't get it.

More important, any iPohne app I make today has an audience of 17-30 million potential users worldwide.

Apple paraded all those devs across the stage who built apps in two weeks to make a point. iPhone OS is easy to program for with little dev resources. This right here is what will draw users to the iPhone.

Moreover, they just took a huge stumbling block out of the mix for devs. If you have ever programed a net app for a mobile, you know what a pain it is to optimize it for battery life. Implementing IMAP IDLE for example is a huge PITA and requires a lot of optimization to keep it from destroying the battery. Apple has smartly made network notifications into an API, so that any programmer can let Apple do the battery optimization and all the dev has to do is treat network updates as a black box.

I cannot stress how huge this is. This makes just about any app able to get network updates with little battery overhead AND it is really easy to implement. Instead of only being able to run one or two background apps listening for updates over IP, you have only one service doing this for ALL Apps. This meas just about all of the apps on your phone have the potential to get OTA updates all with the same constant impact on battery life.

And don't say that Blackberry does this just fine. They cheat in their implementation and as far as I know it is not available as an API to any programmer.

Sure background apps have their utility (think Pandora app). I'm sure at some point there will be a solution to this and I'm sure the iPhone engineers are working on a solution. Probably won't make 3.0, but a solution will be on the horizon.

I agree with you, but I also think it's premature for people to say the Pre is dead in the water because of 3.0. As with any comparison, in order to accurately form an opinion both products need to be used.

People should freely state their opinions, but let's leave the 'facts' until after we have a chance to honestly compare them.

 

[Advance The Man]

PRE definitely KICKS BUTTS.

I started with the Treo 600 and moved up the line from there. Each one was released way before ready for primetime. I would average 10 or more resets a week. Yes there was a removable battery in them and I hear there is one in the Pre. It's there so you can quickly undo it so it can reset. I was fooled multiple times. The iPhone doesn't have everything yet, but 3.0 is very close.

The other really big difference is instead of creating a new iPhone to gain another amenity, Apple can update the software. Palm can't or won't. The few times they did update the software, it was incredibly difficult to do it. With the iPhone, you just sync it with iTunes. One misstep with the Treo updating and you bricked the phone. I suspect the Pre will be much of the same. If Pre doesn't succeed, say bye bye forever to Palm. Their entire business plan is relying on this one.

 

[shakenmartini]

I agree with you, but I also think it's premature for people to say the Pre is dead in the water because of 3.0. As with any comparison, in order to accurately form an opinion both products need to be used.

People should freely state their opinions, but let's leave the 'facts' until after we have a chance to honestly compare them.

That is my point, 3.0 SDK is out NOW and there still is no public Pre SDK. How do I even know if an App I have in mind can be implemented on the Pre if I don't have the SDK? Instead, Apple landed a vastly improved and updated API set on Tuesday. It is installed on my computer NOW and I am programing apps NOW.

If the Pre SDK drops in June with the hardware that means on Day 1 there will be no software other than from the lucky devs who got the SDK first. Then we have to wait 6 months, or 2010, until the potential market share even makes programming for the Pre worth it.

This is my point is that if Palm had launched the SDK and the Pre hardware to all major carriers (GSM and CDMA) closer to their MWC announcement they would have a fighting chance. Sadly, the real launch of the Pre is not June, but 2010 when it becomes available to Verizon and hopefully a GSM carrier. When this happens we will be talking about iPhone OS 4.0 and the Pre will be another "Blackberry Storm".

 

[NT1440]

I suspect the Pre will be much of the same. If Pre doesn't succeed, say bye bye forever to Palm. Their entire business plan is relying on this one.

I agree, if the pre fails, palm (which has been bleeding out money) may be done for in its current form. All the more reason to think they will have put as much effort as possible into it and release a great phone.

I hope the pre can save palm, but merely because i dont like when anyone loses a job.