'Palm Pre' Smartphone Announced: WebOS, Wireless Charging, App Store

[lftrghtparadigm]

Could you apologist please explain me, what your ***** problem is with MMS?

I want it with my next phone and I'm in the market. I won't use a phone without MMS, as, you know, basically the world around me all of a sudden doesn't have eMail-compliant phones.

You think MMS is obsolete? O.K., your view.

You think I'm stupid to pay for a MMS, when my eMail is free with the data flat? O.K., again your view.

You don't have to be so bloody rude to people using MMS. You know, sometimes I feel like a complete moron, just because I use MMS. So I'll give you my view, and I'm gonna be rude in the end.

I personally send about 10 MMS per month and receive them. Receiving MMS on the iPhone via Safari Mobile is a PITA as I can check on my wife's iPhone. That's the main reason, my wife doesn't get any nice spontaneous pix from friends. And it's also the main reason, why I am not considering an iPhone to be my next mobile.

You know, it may be an unneccessary and totally stupid luxury for you, to take a pic and send it instantly to your friends on their mobile...

...but I think the same about most parts of the iPhone.

Mobile Safari - You know, when your outside, enjoy outside. You don't log into the internet when lying on a beach, do you?
Mobile Video - You really watch flix outside? You should get some perspective.
Mobile Music - well, my good old 20 GB iPod 4G does that job extremely well.

Oh, I forgot, you got all these fun Apps like 'Ocarina', 'iFart', 'iPint' or these great games like 'Super Monkey Ball'. Maybe it's time to take an advice:

If you want mobile gaming, get a Nintendo DS or a PSP. They were tailored for the job, you know. They blow your precious phone out of the water. Sure, no accelerometer, but don't you really think you look stupid on the bus, when whirling around your phone? Trust me, you look bloody stupid.

So back on MMS: Every, and I really mean it that way, EVERY other phone on the market has MMS. So basically I can take EVERY other phone to have a feature I request.

I want some more features, and maybe you can tell by the list with the handsets I will chose from this year, which features these are:
Nokia N97
Samsung Omnia
SE C905
SE Xperia X1
Samsung Innov8

Palm Pre has to be added to the list now, if it's available in Germany by then and they maybe manage to put in a better camera.

MMS is pathetic joke of feature that was included on old phones in lieu of better technology to integrate with the world.

Please tell me which of the follow integrates with the world better?
E-mail?
or MMS?

The answer is clear and definitive. Most of us would prefer to see MMS die off completely, or be entirely "linked to this website" based until it finally dies. Most people don't even know what "MMS" is, even if they use the feature occasionally. They know what EMAIL is, however.


Honestly, in your post, I hear nothing but WHAAAA. I'm sorry but its true. 10 MMS per month and its SUCH an inconvenience to open Safari. Give me a break. This is THE whiner of whiners.

 

[daneoni]

I'll probably get one when it debuts in Europe. I have always been a palm fan and have been rooting for them. I'm excited about the device...looks VERY promising and looks good to me, no more ugly than some of the things Apple has churned out recently and i wouldn't mind ditching my iPhone for it as long as it has:

Decent battery life (unanswered)
Responsive Interface (seemed responsive in the demos)

If these two are answered, i'm sold. Glad to see Palm is coming back seriously and taking no prisoners. I just hope they don't screw up and actually get a good finished product to the market soon and price it appropriately

Thank you Palm and Jon Rubinstein for making things more interesting

PS-MMS is not dead...no matter how many times you apologists repeat it, it won't become truth/fact.

Stop defending Apple...its inexcusable for a high end smartphone not to have basic functionality.

Its two years later and STILL no decent Bluetooth stack EVEN THOUGH the hardware supports it, no search functionality in email or iPod, getting ringtones on the phone requires some kind of workaround or paying extra and more recently Turn by Turn directions. Pretty much every phone out there with a GPS chip supports turn by turn but iPhone?...NO...that would make too much sense. Please let me see how you want to defend that one.

I like Apple as much as the next guy but lets call them out when needed and not just blindly drink the Kool-Aid.

Also there's no time restriction on the market hence Palm isn't late to anything nor are they dead given by what they've presented

No matter how much you guys try to spin it, the Pre is a worthy competitor and will hopefully make Apple step up their game

 

[bruinsrme]

MMS is pathetic joke of feature that was included on old phones in lieu of better technology to integrate with the world.

Please tell me which of the follow integrates with the world better?
E-mail?
or MMS?

The answer is clear and definitive. Most of us would prefer to see MMS die off completely, or be entirely "linked to this website" based until it finally dies. Most people don't even know what "MMS" is, even if they use the feature occasionally. They know what EMAIL is, however.


Honestly, in your post, I hear nothing but WHAAAA. I'm sorry but its true. 10 MMS per month and its SUCH an inconvenience to open Safari. Give me a break. This is THE whiner of whiners.

MMS and email have their uses and place.
MMS is a quick modified email function that bypasses the clutter of email, it's instant and seperate from the email functions.
Even a Non-techie can snaps a picture and send it up to 10 phones. Not take a picture, then open up the camera roll to select email this picture, wait for the email to open, select the contact, then send the email.

IMO MMS is only dead to those that don't have the feature. For the rest of the world is a useful tool.

I send at least 75 MMS (or in the case of the iphones email). I am adding another line just for MMS funtionality because the most advanced phone doesn't offer its users some of the basic functions less capable phones have.

It's like buying a new car and it not coming with a radio. The slaesman tells you well portable palyers are the wave of the future, having a radio is so passe

 

[kdarling]

Nonsense. 18 months ago, when the iPhone came out, the only way to write iPhone applications was to create web applications. We all know how well that worked. And that is exactly what Palm will have when their phone is released.

Utter nonsense. The iPhone web apps were normal web applications. They totally relied on remote web servers. They unfortunately had almost no access to onboard services.

The Palm SDK creates local standalone apps, that can run in the background, use local services and connect to the internet if they wish.

This is the next generation of development. Here in our labs, we've been using HTML apps for almost eight years with tens of thousands of field users.

And the guys who I know who are writing for the iPhone learnt Cocoa in less than a week (without even any Macintosh experience).

You don't learn anything well in a week.

Best thing: people won't have to buy a Mac to do Palm development. That alone hugely multiplies the developer base. WebOS is also based underneath on Linux. I woudn't be surprised to see some neat hacking later on.

 

[kdarling]

MMS is pathetic joke of feature that was included on old phones in lieu of better technology to integrate with the world.

MMS has several rather large features in its favor, especially for the masses:

1) It doesn't require a data plan
2) It doesn't require having an email address
3) It uses no extra battery for its push <- huge advantage

In short, it's ideal for mobile phones, at least until bandwidth is free. Not everything on a desktop can be shoehorned into the mobile paradigm (yet).

 

[swagi]

MMS is pathetic joke of feature that was included on old phones in lieu of better technology to integrate with the world.

<snip>

Honestly, in your post, I hear nothing but WHAAAA. I'm sorry but its true. 10 MMS per month and its SUCH an inconvenience to open Safari. Give me a break. This is THE whiner of whiners.

Yap. I'm whining about MMS, as I am whining about the missing flash (both SW wise and on the camera), the pathetic 2 MP and the sometimes really high latency of the SW keyboard.

Remember the 2.0.1 Firmware? Was great, huh?

Your Jesus Phone is not the pinnacle of mobile handset industry, get over it.

And this MMS-discussion reminds me of the crappy EDGE-defendants. 3G was so unneeded, just until Steve glorified the 'faster' part, wasn't it?

Oh yeah, I can see the Steve-note, where the RDF kicks in when he introduces MMS and Bluetooth-file transfer:

"We now have a new spectacular thing built into the iPhone. It uses two universal protocols to share data. So I'll give you a quick demo of it.
First we built in something really spectacular. We use the iPhone mic and let it save the data to MP3. We call that feature 'Reporter'."
*opens up Reporter*
*records the verse "Phil...Phil...would you please pick up the damn phone"*

"Now isn't that nice. "
*crowd laughs while he plays that audio snippet two more times*
*choses the MP3 file*
"Look, now I just have to hold down the button on this MP3 and select send -> via bluetooth.
BOOM
Phil has this nice audio recording on his handy. Isn't that spectacular?"
*Phils mobile set confirms the data transmission via bluetooth*
"But what am I to do, if Phil is not close enough to use the Bluetooth protocol. Well, we thought about that, too. Look."
*selects send -> via MMS*
"There you go. Nice and easy. And you know the best thing? It's directly on Phil's mobile. No downloading via an eMail-attachment. It's just there. Isn't that wonderful. So nice and clean without lags."

And all of a sudden the iPhone-crowd will use their MMS- and Bluetooth-protocols more often than eMail and tout it as the best since sliced bread.

Happened with 3G, didn't it?

 

[chaosconan]

Don't be fooled. You're just looking at the front view. I bet the depth is 1 inch thick.

 

[bruinsrme]

If the iPhone is so beautiful why are there so many covers, cases and skins so readily available? I can't see non-iphone users buying these cases so that lends me to believe that iphone users are buying such items.
Just a thought.

 

[ITGuy]

MMS is pathetic joke of feature that was included on old phones in lieu of better technology to integrate with the world.

<snip>

Honestly, in your post, I hear nothing but WHAAAA. I'm sorry but its true. 10 MMS per month and its SUCH an inconvenience to open Safari. Give me a break. This is THE whiner of whiners.

Man, that RDF is somethin'....turns ordinary people into sheep.

 

[Bigdaddyguido]

too many questions

Thank god competitors are starting to progress from the iPhone and not just copy parts of it. If anything will push the market forward this is the way to do it quickly.

That said, I have far too many questions about the future of both products to say if this phone is better or worse than an iPhone. Namely, it has a lot of high power devices in there, strong unicore processor, accelerometer, gps, 3g AND a flash capacitor (this is no tiny power draw) with all of that the battery life for this device is highly suspect. Especially since the topic was broached not at all at the expo.

Plus the release time is interesting. If this comes out in the spring, then wouldn't that pit apple in a great spot to release a quad-core phone running snow leopard and give us stronger video usage etc. Plus a usable battery?

Finally there was no mention of the music software. I am sorry but a device this size needs to be a music player first, an email/Internet device second because when a laptop is present I email/surf web on the lappy but still listen to tunes on my mobile device.

 

[bruinsrme]

Man, that RDF is somethin'....turns ordinary people into sheep.

Bhhhhaaaaaa Bhaaaaaaaaa.

I will never forget the day when I told my wife about the inability of the iphone to easily handle MMS.
Her reply "Whatever"

 

[chaosconan]

If the iPhone is so beautiful why are there so many covers, cases and skins so readily available?

Cause we don't want to scratch a perfectly beautiful case. Simple as that.

If you had a beautiful girlfriend with a perfect figure would you let others see her in a bikini. Of course not. So, what do you do? You cover her and don't let her out of your pocket.

 

[MacbookSwitcher]

That's really interesting. What's your source on that?

....lips sealed..... You'll just have to take my word

The lead product designer for the touchscreen has also left and formed his own company making touchscreen devices based on Android:

Touch Revolution company

Sounds like the iPhone developers needed more freedom. And Apple is infamous for overworking people... relying on the "coolness" factor to keep employees even after Jobs has subjected them to one of his temper tantrums.

Yes, Apple does indeed work folks to the bone. However not all departures are due to bad blood. Some of them just have an entrepreneurial spirit and want to make millions. But in the case of Palm, there was bad blood, snatched guys, and probably a few ingredients of the Apple Secret Sauce (tm) in the hands of Palm.

But, gotta to hand it to Ruby, he is very shrewd and very smart. Palm was horrid at product execution and vision just 2 short years ago. I mean awful. But Ruby has created a new culture in a very short time-frame. Fired tons of people, held most to the gun, promoted and gave huge raises to the top stars, and created a whole new roadmap of "WOW" stuff, almost all single-handedly. I don't know if people appreciate how hard that is. Colligan doesn't have the chops for anything near what we saw in the Pre announcement.

 

[bruinsrme]

Cause we don't want to scratch a perfectly beautiful case. Simple as that.

If you had a beautiful girlfriend with a perfect figure would you let others see her in a bikini. Of course not. So, what do you do? You cover her and don't let her out of your pocket.

Well, I bought the iPhone for one reason, to integration of itunes and phone.

i have mine in a shell. Working on robots,extremely large laminators, paper delivery systems and other large machinery there is a lot of leaning into machinery and working in tight places so the extra protection is needed.
When I am not at work it still resides in the case.
Usually the phone resides in a pants pocket, tool bag, jacket pocket, or on top of a machine.

I didn't buy it because it was beautiful, or because its the cool phone, its convenient to ahve my music, web, phone in one device.

Scratches, I would have to look. I do have a zagg cover on the screen to keep the screen from being scratch from metal shavings and so on.

 

[lftrghtparadigm]

Bhhhhaaaaaa Bhaaaaaaaaa.

I will never forget the day when I told my wife about the inability of the iphone to easily handle MMS.
Her reply "Whatever"

Because it couldn't possibly matter less.

I can't take any MMS defenders seriously, especially when it comes to answering, in your opinion, "Why it was not included on the iPhone in the first place, and has not been added in 1.5 operating years?"

The answer, the ACTUAL answer, is clear as can be.

The answers that MMS-whiners come up with, are so hilarious I forget we're talking about something boring to begin with.

ie: "It was a vindictive move by Apple to see if we could tolerate missing a popular feature in exchange for Appleness."

LOL

The real answer? Since the iPhone was built from the ground up as a Mobile CPU (more or less) running OSX, the phone aspects of it were designed secondarily. Many people have wanted a device designed this way for sometime, rather than the other way around (like, perhaps, the entire cellphone industry). There are thousands of phones that imitate other things. The iPhone is a mobile cpu that imitates a cellphone. I accept and love that, because I could care less about having a "phone", honestly. I need one for work, but could care less about actually owning and using one.

What I do care about are having real, useful features, that allow me to connect to my cloud. MobileMe or Exchange, either way, having a device with Push services for my Mail, Contacts, Calander, and even access to my iDisk (Mobilefiles.app) are why I, and most others, own the iPhone.

We didn't buy an iPhone for MMS

I can't even imagine a scenario where I would legitimately NEED MMS, and I REALLY can't imagine a scenario where I actually couldn't send a picture to someones phone if I need to ( as a 3G connected CPU, the iPhone has about a dozen other ways of accomplishing this.

 

[PowerFullMac]

Palm *yawn*

The last Palm device I owned sucked hairy monkey balls, which is why I have my iPhone 3G now.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Thanks
You more than most on this forum are great at telling it like it is and pointing out Apple's faults and for that I am very appreciative of you.

No problem. It only started recently, when iPhone junkies made me realize that owning Mac products didn't make you different at all. It made you the mindless brainless sheep Apple wants you to be.

Sure there are those out there that don't fit that motif, but the most I see do. Especially when they drop their delicate iPhone and it shatters to pieces, then they head right back to the Apple store to buy another one full price.

1. Put in an improved, haptic response touchscreen (one even better than the touchscreen used on the Blackberry Storm) that works correctly even with fingers that have longer fingernails.

2. Allow typing in of messages when the iPhone is turned on its side (landscape mode). This allows for bigger typing "keys" on-screen

The real sadness about the iPhone's keyboard is that HTC made a much better version months before the iPhone. The HTC Touch and all other HTC Touch phones have touch keyboards with XT9. They have both predictive and automatic completion which blows the iPhone keyboard away hands down.

You can actually type on them with one hand and complete messages faster than an iPhone user. I know that many will disagree simply because they own an iPhone, but they should really get out there and see what they are missing in phone tech. Much like what a Mac user is missing in computer tech these days.

If the iPhone is so beautiful why are there so many covers, cases and skins so readily available? I can't see non-iphone users buying these cases so that lends me to believe that iphone users are buying such items.
Just a thought.

Because they shatter under pressure. My brother in law dropped his from his shirt pocket...... DONE! Not only did it crack but while he looked at it in shock and awe the crack got bigger.

He went out and paid full price for another phone...

Not to mention his bill went from $80 to $150 just switching to the iPhone plan.

Palm *yawn*

The last Palm device I owned sucked hairy monkey balls, which is why I have my iPhone 3G now.

Look at the Pre UI videos. If you say *yawn* after that then there's nothing anyone can do to impress you unless it's on the iPhone.

The UI is hands down better than the iPhone. Some things are useless in it, like moving app windows forward and backward, but the fact that it's there and you have the option shows that Palm is actually thinking about usability, and not just iFart apps and Super Hairy Monkey Balls games.

Two years with the iPhone, and the only innovation we've gotten was Apple putting all user devices together into a package that was far from perfect, but a work in progress.

Palm went from the Foleo, four useless Treos, and my fiancee (Treo lover) and I cursing them out... to a somewhat awkward phone with a UI that makes the iPhone look like a Mattel toy in the same amount of time.

Time to wake up everyone.

 

[chaosconan]

What's palm? The palm of my hand?
Never heard of them. Are they still in business.
My god. Microsoft must be funding them to keep them alive .
The last palm I saw was at the bottom of a trash can. And there it should stay

 

[PowerFullMac]

I watched the Palm Pre UI videos, the thing looked horrible and it failed to work properly quite a few times. The accelorometer on my iPhone works fine

 

[bruinsrme]

Because it couldn't possibly matter less.

I can't take any MMS defenders seriously, especially when it comes to answering, in your opinion, "Why it was not included on the iPhone in the first place, and has not been added in 1.5 operating years?"

The answer, the ACTUAL answer, is clear as can be.

The answers that MMS-whiners come up with, are so hilarious I forget we're talking about something boring to begin with.

ie: "It was a vindictive move by Apple to see if we could tolerate missing a popular feature in exchange for Appleness."

LOL

The real answer? Since the iPhone was built from the ground up as a Mobile CPU (more or less) running OSX, the phone aspects of it were designed secondarily. Many people have wanted a device designed this way for sometime, rather than the other way around (like, perhaps, the entire cellphone industry). There are thousands of phones that imitate other things. The iPhone is a mobile cpu that imitates a cellphone. I accept and love that, because I could care less about having a "phone", honestly. I need one for work, but could care less about actually owning and using one.

What I do care about are having real, useful features, that allow me to connect to my cloud. MobileMe or Exchange, either way, having a device with Push services for my Mail, Contacts, Calander, and even access to my iDisk (Mobilefiles.app) are why I, and most others, own the iPhone.

We didn't buy an iPhone for MMS

I can't even imagine a scenario where I would legitimately NEED MMS, and I REALLY can't imagine a scenario where I actually couldn't send a picture to someones phone if I need to ( as a 3G connected CPU, the iPhone has about a dozen other ways of accomplishing this.

I am working in a factory where we are installing a new manufacturing process and equipment. Just because the design worked on paper it doesn't necessarily work in the field.
When I had my voyager, I was taking pictures of things and sending them to engineers at the vendors sites inside the production areas. Next to real time pictures, right to their cheapo phones. No need to log onto their computer, make sue they had a strong signal, boom next to immediate images. Not have to wait and hope a push works, wait for multiple emails to download and so on.

There are a lot more non-iphone users out there using MMS. Palm is incorporating a proven, convenient, popular service regardless if the function may be out of date. Out of date what about text messaging


I

 

[Digital Skunk]

Cause we don't want to scratch a perfectly beautiful case. Simple as that.

If you had a beautiful girlfriend with a perfect figure would you let others see her in a bikini. Of course not. So, what do you do? You cover her and don't let her out of your pocket.

What's palm? The palm of my hand?
Never heard of them. Are they still in business.
My god. Microsoft must be funding them to keep them alive .
The last palm I saw was at the bottom of a trash can. And there it should stay

Can you actually add to the conversation please?

I watched the Palm Pre UI videos, the thing looked horrible and it failed to work properly quite a few times. The accelorometer on my iPhone works fine

Look here, you are wrong.

I am working in a factory where we are installing a new manufacturing process and equipment. Just because the design worked on paper it doesn't necessarily work in the field.
When I had my voyager, I was taking pictures of things and sending them to engineers at the vendors sites inside the production areas. Next to real time pictures, right to their cheapo phones. No need to log onto their computer, make sue they had a strong signal, boom next to immediate images. Not have to wait and hope a push works, wait for multiple emails to download and so on.

There are a lot more non-iphone users out there using MMS. Palm is incorporating a proven, convenient, popular service regardless if the function may be out of date. Out of date what about text messaging


I

What! Real work with a phone.....! Psshhh... just use iFart.


Nevermind chaosconan, I have one for you.

 

[SkyBell]

I watched the Palm Pre UI videos, the thing looked horrible and it failed to work properly quite a few times. The accelorometer on my iPhone works fine

I don't understand how you think it looks horrible. A lot of the UI could be compared to the iPhone, some of the functions certainly look that way.

As far as it not working properly, why do you think it's being released in six months and not now?

 

[PowerFullMac]

I don't understand how you think it looks horrible. A lot of the UI could be compared to the iPhone, some of the functions certainly look that way.

As far as it not working properly, why do you think it's being released in six months and not now?

Exactly, it's a horrible iPhone knock-off! Why not get the real deal?

 

[SkyBell]

Exactly, it's a horrible iPhone knock-off! Why not get the real deal?

I will say that it does look a little iPhone-esque in some areas, (which is obviously what I was pointing out) but overall, it looks like a very solid device on it's own.

My personal preferences lean more towards this then the iPhone, a lot of which has to do with my experiences with my iPod Touch.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Exactly, it's a horrible iPhone knock-off! Why not get the real deal?

I hope by this you don't mean the three column home screen which has been Palm since 95, or much of any of the interface which is much more OSX/Ubuntu like than iPhone like?

Not to mention the smoothness of the UI when multiple apps are open can't be a question. The iPhone barely handles one app at a time.