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

[kdarling]

So Apple has no patents on anything, but other companies can patent "true push" and "visual voice mail"?

Apple has patents. Just not on the things most people think.

Btw, cool news: The lead designer of the iPhone touchscreen has formed his own company with capacitive touch-based devices running Android: Touch Revolution

I just bought my wife a new iPhone (3rd iPhone I've purchased). Before buying I checked out all the competition and nothing still comes close to the iPhone for ease of use (and in my wife's case that's very important ).

I have a similar wife If ATT had 3G or decent coverage around her job, I'd get her an iPhone.

The point is, there are all sorts of users out there. Some need simple. Some need more. For example, in the past year over 20 million Windows Mobile smartphones were sold worldwide. Obviously no one phone is best for everyone.

 

[str1f3]

i think the biggest problem with the phone is the same problem microsoft has with their phones - their taking a desktop approach to the UI. in fact this phone is taking a mac os approach. these are phones with tiny screens not computers with big screens. i think all the swiping will be confusing to most consumers. iphone's biggest asset is its ease of use. my 3 year old niece figured out on her own how to swipe to see the next picture in a photo album. without a user namual you will never figure out how to use this phone. the one thing i did like was spotlite - iphone needs to incorporate that.

i disagree. this not the same as windows mobile phones. those phones act as if you have a two button mouse and using an 20 in. display with running 15 year old software. as technology in the hardware increases, so will the technology in the software and thus its complexity. there is going to be increasing closeness of a cellphone to match a desktop's abilities. i think that palm has managed to solve the screen real estate with the cards interface. it's closer to mac os x than even apple has done on the iphone, at least visually. it's nice that kids can so easily pick up an iphone and start using it, but it's not meant for them. the same gesture that you use to swipe photos on the iphone is the same in palm's.

i'm a loyal apple fan typing on my 20" imac but what has gone on has angered me now with the introduction of the pre. apple has been taking too long with updates to the operating system. besides 2.0, the updates have been incremental with very little difference in the operating system since it was first introduced at macworld. i hope that they show incredible at wwdc
because i'm thinking about getting a pre. i'm getting tired of every other handset manufacturer coming out with basic abilities that should already be on the iphone. apple keeps talking about a list of priorities of features they want to add. well add them. i'm supposed to be jumping for joy because google street view is on the iphone when i can't do copy and paste, background notification or mms? love you apple but os 3.0 better be a killer or i'm going to show you the same love that you showed the macworld faithful.

 

[gkarris]

Doesn't sound like it.

Thanks, I just check the internet stories. Maybe $299 then for a 3 year contract to try to at least make that CEO and the public happy...

 

[str1f3]

Thanks, I just check the internet stories. Maybe $299 then for a 3 year contract to try to at least make that CEO and the public happy...

from electronista:

Palm Pre to go GSM, cost $399 at Sprint?
The Palm Pre is already poised to run on more widespread GSM networks but may be more costly regardless of network, according to separate reports. Company European sales VP Paul Ghent tells site Pocket-lint that while the initial version of the Pre is limited to CDMA, a version with at least GSM is enroute to the region for the second half of the year. No mention is made of UMTS or HSPA, though all new Palm GSM phones above the Centro have shipped with both 3G technologies in the past year.
More word of the adapted Pre should be available during the Mobile World Congress trade show in February, according to Ghent.

Separately, Palm may also charge a large amount for the phone when it goes on sale. A Russian blogger known for accurate reports of the now-canceled RAZR 3 is now floating a rumor that the Pre will go on sale for $399 at Sprint, giving a first possible clue regarding the phone's otherwise unannounced price. It's not known whether this is the contract or full retail price, though the writer also claims to know that the phone will sell free of any carrier in Europe for between $500 and $550.

The cellphone designer hasn't commented on this alleged leak but has taken a very different approach than its close competitor Apple to announcing its first full touchscreen phone, which is already being compared directly to the iPhone. Where Apple announced its pricing for the original iPhone over five months before its actual release, Palm has consciously avoided stating a price despite planning to ship its phone in the first half of 2009. The Centro and Treo maker is under pressure to at least match the iPhone 3G's $199 carrier-discounted price.

 

[anjinha]

i think the biggest problem with the phone is the same problem microsoft has with their phones - their taking a desktop approach to the UI. in fact this phone is taking a mac os approach. these are phones with tiny screens not computers with big screens. i think all the swiping will be confusing to most consumers. iphone's biggest asset is its ease of use.

That's exactly what I thought when I saw this phone. Although the Pre has a lot of features I wish the iPhone had I just hope that if/when apple implements them they do it in a more user-friendly way.

 

[dejo]

multi-touch, keyboard, amazing fluid web os with small footprint.

How are they doing multi-touch with a web OS (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)? I guess they would've had to enhance it, huh?

 

[kas23]

I think it's nice for Palm to finally develop something worth talking about even if they had to copy a bunch of Apple's ideas to do it.

Besides the multi-touch screen, exactly what other ideas did Palm take directly from Apple (and Apple technically didn't even invent this, either)? In reality, quite naturally, it is Apple who borrowed the majority of its ideas for their iPhone. Apple did not invent the touch screen, texting, internet/email on a smartphone, games on a cellphone, camera on a cellphone, youtube on a cellphone, nor maps, alarm clock, nor calculator.

 

[kas23]

this is all we know:

Peter Kafka on the Pre:

The biggest unknown is price, which went unmentioned during the demo. My assumption is that Palm would try to take market share by coming in significantly lower than the $200 or so Apple wants for its iPhone. But when I ran that theory by Palm CEO Ed Colligan, he looked at me liked I’d peed on his rug. “Why would we do that when we have a significantly better product,” he asked, then walked away.

Translation: Bargain hunters are going to be disappointed.

Well, actually, Sprint is going to determine the price at which the Palm Pre is sold to their customers, not Palm. Palm is going to come up with some ridiculously expensive price, like $400 and then it will be up to Sprint to decide how much they want to subsidize this price (just like they do with all their other phones) for public consumption.

 

[Shackler]

for get iPhone vs Pre
its Apple vs Palm

Everyone is trying to innovate the phone and Apple is innovating mobile devices. i am by no means an apple fanboy i own a Bold. Apple is making and powerful gaming device, one of the best mobile browsers, the best portable music devices and a thing that makes calls.

Everyone else is trying to get the phone part right. Apple is trying to get everything else right. I think if Apple took the time to make a viable Phone OS it would be unstoppable because its leaps and bound ahead of everyone else in everything.

A better camera, better speakers along with 3.0 and we have one amazing devices that will make me switch to Apple. Either that or im gone to n97 or the pre. The Blackberry OS is so outdated, they need to do what palm did in order to stay alive.

 

[kas23]

A better camera, better speakers along with 3.0 and we have one amazing devices that will make me switch to Apple. Either that or im gone to n97 or the pre. The Blackberry OS is so outdated, they need to do what palm did in order to stay alive.

I agree. Apple is in the perfect position to go for the jugular right now. They could hands down utterly destroy the competition right now if they wanted to right now (by implementing basic functions: real bluetooth, MMS, GPS, cut and paste), but for some reason they are holding back. (And don't say Apple is totally destroying the competition right now, as there are many many non-iPhones sold everyday than iPhones).

Maybe this is why Apple has been holding back with features. Sure, the Palm Pre is on the front page (in bold!) right now, but if Apple decided to add background-running apps, MMS, GPS, bluetooth, and cut and paste tomorrow with a new firmware, the Palm Pre would probably be kicked right off the front page.

 

[shk718]

i

i'm a loyal apple fan typing on my 20" imac but what has gone on has angered me now with the introduction of the pre. apple has been taking too long with updates to the operating system. besides 2.0, the updates have been incremental with very little difference in the operating system since it was first introduced at macworld. i hope that they show incredible at wwdc
because i'm thinking about getting a pre. i'm getting tired of every other handset manufacturer coming out with basic abilities that should already be on the iphone. apple keeps talking about a list of priorities of features they want to add. well add them. i'm supposed to be jumping for joy because google street view is on the iphone when i can't do copy and paste, background notification or mms? love you apple but os 3.0 better be a killer or i'm going to show you the same love that you showed the macworld faithful.

i have to disagree with you on this last point completely. there is no other phone manufacturer out there that has updated their software as frequently as apple has (and give it away for free). some updates have been small some large - but where we started from to where we are now is amazing. there are definitely things they need to give us but i have no doubt that they will. as competition heats up i'm sure apple will step up to the plate. how often did palm update their last software - never - how often are they planning on adding to this version (who knows)? apple redefined the ui for a phone - everyone else is copying apple and adding their own twists. as far as background applications goes - they completely destroy microsoft phones - both in terms of stability and battery life. has palm found a way to deal with those issues? we'll see...

 

[DavidLeblond]

Now imagine that with FULL FLEDGED APPS across the board. Even better than just having them active, you don't have to close out an app to use another.

By full fledged apps do you mean actual executables or glorified webpages?

Good luck making a decent game using Javascript and HTML!

 

[kas23]

i have to disagree with you on this last point completely. there is no other phone manufacturer out there that has updated their software as frequently as apple has (and give it away for free). some updates have been small some large - but where we started from to where we are now is amazing.

I definitely give credit for Apple updating their firmware. However, they only do a substantial update about once a year and usually with new hardware. All other cellphone manufacturers pretty much do the same thing. All the 1.x or 2.x updates haven't really introduced anything new, but they have brought increased stability.

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

Do me a favour and open Safari. Open about 5 pages, hell open 2.

Now zoom out by going to page view. Scroll between pages. Realize something? Only your current page is actually active. When you go to another page, it has to load from scratch. Sometimes you might go to a 2nd page and quickly switch back to the 1st and see web content loaded up there! But no that's just a preview, when you go into it, it has to load up all over again.

Imagine if Safari pages were all active so that you didn't have to load things up every time?

Now imagine that with FULL FLEDGED APPS across the board. Even better than just having them active, you don't have to close out an app to use another.

THAT'S how BADLY Palm has shamed the iPhone. Just accomplishing that level of multitasking is unheard of on the iPhone: even jailbreaking it gives you at the most an app called Backgrounder which allows you to run one app at a time in the background, and you have to remember what that was once you closed it.

We haven't even gotten to the vastly improved beastly UI interface, cross app integration (Super Search, Im+SMS etc), Off screen gesturing to prevent obscuring what you loking at while swiping, wireless charger, removable battery, microSD, physical volume control button, etc. It's basically EVERYTHING that the iPhone does, what jailbreaking adds, the wishlist that people wished it had in the first place, open source from Google's Android, and improvements people never thought of (like Page Cards).

Are you freaking serious?

Are you? You join yesterday and post this???? You do realize this is an Apple product forum.

Back to the Pre. It looks interesting, but I would have to see it in person before making a final judgement. The phone itself looks kind of funny and I would worry a bit about the development of an App Store equivalent. Plus it's on Sprint which is the worst of the worst in terms of cell phone service providers.

 

[shk718]

Besides the multi-touch screen, exactly what other ideas did Palm take directly from Apple (and Apple technically didn't even invent this, either)? In reality, quite naturally, it is Apple who borrowed the majority of its ideas for their iPhone. Apple did not invent the touch screen, texting, internet/email on a smartphone, games on a cellphone, camera on a cellphone, youtube on a cellphone, nor maps, alarm clock, nor calculator.

oh where oh where to begin. To my knowledge:

1 no other phone had a dedicated graphics chip in it
2. no other phone had a capacitive touch screen
3. no other phone could use a finger as a pointing device
4. no other phone could be used w/o reading a complicated user manual
5. no other phone had an SDK that you could write amaizing apps in days.
6. no other phone had multi touch in it
7 no other phone had built in GIG's of memory.
8 no other phone had a usable browser.
9 no other phone company told the carriers what to do.

i may be wrong on apple being the first with a couple of the above - but no phone out there when apple introduced the iphone had a product that was loved before you could even buy it.

 

[TheSpaz]

I wonder if this phone will force Apple to make changes to the iPhone's software to compete better. Copy and paste?

 

[shk718]

Are you? You join yesterday and post this???? You do realize this is an Apple product forum.

Back to the Pre. It looks interesting, but I would have to see it in person before making a final judgement. The phone itself looks kind of funny and I would worry a bit about the development of an App Store equivalent. Plus it's on Sprint which is the worst of the worst in terms of cell phone service providers.

i agree - how can you make claims about a phone and its abilities when you haven't even tried it - unless the guy is at ces and testing the phone. in the one video i saw it looked choppy - when music was playing it sloooooowwwwwed down - bottom line is these phones have a limited amount of ram - eventually they run out.

 

[Warbrain]

Let's look at that alone...does it have a large amount of built-in space? I think that's a BIG reason why the iPhone has taken off. I don't think the Pre does.

 

[Unspeaked]

I wonder if this phone will force Apple to make changes to the iPhone's software to compete better. Copy and paste?

After we've gone this long without c&p, I've given up hope.

 

[DavidLeblond]

5. no other phone had an SDK that you could write amaizing apps in days.

Heh that made me chuckle a bit, I agree (as a dev) that the SDK is great and you can get started on it easily, but you have to remember that when the phone came out it did NOT have an SDK. They assumed you'd just surf to websites.

Also other phones do have SDKs. Windows Mobile is quite easy to develop for. Blackberry also has an SDK (although I think it may also be Javascript, I haven't delved into it very far.) You can even get an SDK for writing BREW apps for Verizon clunkers.

 

[Unspeaked]

Let's look at that alone...does it have a large amount of built-in space? I think that's a BIG reason why the iPhone has taken off. I don't think the Pre does.

The Pre has 8GB internal memory.

That being said, I don't necessarily agree that's a big reason for the iPhone's success.

 

[kdarling]

i have to disagree with you on this last point completely. there is no other phone manufacturer out there that has updated their software as frequently as apple has (and give it away for free).

No other manufacturer HAS HAD to update so much. Apple's phone was brand new, was missing tons of things (still is), had many security holes, and Apple maintains full control.

As for free, not if you owned an iPod touch !!

I got free updates on other phones from WM5 to WM6 and WM6.1.

oh where oh where to begin. To my knowledge:
1 no other phone had a dedicated graphics chip in it
2. no other phone had a capacitive touch screen
3. no other phone could use a finger as a pointing device
4. no other phone could be used w/o reading a complicated user manual
5. no other phone had an SDK that you could write amaizing apps in days.
6. no other phone had multi touch in it
7 no other phone had built in GIG's of memory.
8 no other phone had a usable browser.
9 no other phone company told the carriers what to do.

i may be wrong on apple being the first with a couple of the above - but no phone out there when apple introduced the iphone had a product that was loved before you could even buy it.

Lots of phones are lusted after before they go on sale. Go join HoFo

Your 1,2,3,4,5 and 8 are incorrect. #7: many phones could add multi-gig memory cards. #9 is debatable, especially since Apple had to bow to ATT's demand for exclusivity, and since after a year Apple's royalty scheme failed and they had to go back to the usual subsidy method. That leaves pretty much #6, although previous concept phones had it.

 

[NT1440]

oh where oh where to begin. To my knowledge:

1 no other phone had a dedicated graphics chip in it
2. no other phone had a capacitive touch screen
3. no other phone could use a finger as a pointing device
4. no other phone could be used w/o reading a complicated user manual
5. no other phone had an SDK that you could write amaizing apps in days.
6. no other phone had multi touch in it
7 no other phone had built in GIG's of memory.
8 no other phone had a usable browser.
9 no other phone company told the carriers what to do.

i may be wrong on apple being the first with a couple of the above - but no phone out there when apple introduced the iphone had a product that was loved before you could even buy it.

Wasnt the prada phone, with full touchscreen out first?

Apple doesnt always do first, but they sure as hell do it RIGHT.

And by right I mean they do it with mass appeal.

 

[ksmith80209]

I think people frequently miss the point when comparing Apple products like the iPhone to the competition. With Apple, there are nearly ALWAYS competing products with better specs, more power, slick graphics, etc - but - with Apple, it's all about the ownership experience. How easy is it to sync? To back up? To add apps, music, and video? How does it recognize an incoming call, lower & pause the music you are playing, pick-up the call until finished, then bring back the music right where you left off?

I had the Treo 600, 650 & 700 and think the new Pre looks awesome, but until I see what the total experience is like, it's just a bunch of cool parts to me...

 

[shk718]

Heh that made me chuckle a bit, I agree (as a dev) that the SDK is great and you can get started on it easily, but you have to remember that when the phone came out it did NOT have an SDK. They assumed you'd just surf to websites.

Also other phones do have SDKs. Windows Mobile is quite easy to develop for. Blackberry also has an SDK (although I think it may also be Javascript, I haven't delved into it very far.) You can even get an SDK for writing BREW apps for Verizon clunkers.

thats why i began with with "amazing" yes i know wimo has an sdk - but does it offer the core graphics abilities that apples does. the winmo apps always looked flat to me. the iphone apps are alive and fun to play with.