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Palm Responding to iPhone?
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Palm, Cheap?!?! Ha! My fellow classmates & I paid over $400 USD for our Palm T5s and TXs (read PDA only, no phone capabilities) when they were first released. We are required to have them for work but since Palm keeps their prices so high and competitors the PocketPC devices have been dropping in price our school now allows people to buy either. Heck if Apple makes the iPhone where it can run our medical database apps, I would happily dump my Palm for it.
Heck you can buy a MotoQ for $99, some samsung for $150 but the Treos 700s cost $399. Somehow, I don't see Palm's $100 dollars less for a much more inferior device passing the muster of many users who dont need the specialized apps.
Whatever happened to the BE OS that Palm bought? I thought they'd have had a really good basis for a light but powerful hand held.
dr opp
What happened is that the bright minds at Palm decided to spin off the Palm OS division as PalmSource, thinking that would make it easier for them to license their OS to third parties because the third parties wouldn't be worried that Palm was getting a leg up with the OS. What happened in actuality is that all the high-profile Palm PDA makers dropped out: Handspring was bought by Palm so they could get the Treo, Sony dropped the PDA (at least in North America), and so on. Then some kind of infighting over the direction of Palm OS resulted in POS 5 being dubbed "Garnet" and POS 6 being dubbed "Cobalt" and Palm - the standard bearer for the OS, even if they no longer owned it - never actually releasing anything with Cobalt. So even more companies dropped the OS. Then PalmSource decided to replace the Cobalt kernel with a Linux kernel. Still nobody bought, not even Palm. Also, Palm stopped updating most of their product lines (the Tungsten C, which was popular on the high end, was NEVER updated, and has only been discontinued recently, after 4 or 5 years at the same specs). They tried releasing the LifeDrive, a PDA with a decent-sized HD, but how popular was it? It's no longer even sold from Palm's website. Eventually PalmSource was bought out by a third party, ACCESS, and it looks like Palm as a platform is collapsing into the Treo line - which still runs a 5 year old OS (except for one WidowsMobile-based phone) whose rights Palm recently bought from ACCESS.
Myself, I don't think that the PDA as a platform is dead: I think the management at Palm killed it by being too cautious about switching platforms.
hmm...
apple has made a revo though doin the iPhone..multitouch and all..and alot of it is patented..so..really..to make something that is to combat the iPhone...hopefully will be something that will be cheaper..by maybe even just a lil but make us all go 'WOW' like the iPhone did..haha 'you had me at scrolling' every1 remembers that quote..and i agree..the scrolling had me too! hahaha..if they had that in the new video iPod..wow..id be so happy..i can touch my music!YAY!but seriously..is palm that much of a threat?the treo isnt even THAT great...my parents had it...then my mum put it away and bought a nokia...and of course..the palm president must feel like an idiot saying that pc guys cant just walk in into somethin thats taken years for palm..apples got so much advertising schemes etc. to back up the iPhone that, really..the iPhone is gonna be..like the iPod in the end hopefully...if u have the cash to spare of course when rev b comes out...that will hopefully be another 'setting the bar' moment..good luck to palm
apple has made a revo though doin the iPhone..multitouch and all..and alot of it is patented..so..really..to make something that is to combat the iPhone...hopefully will be something that will be cheaper..by maybe even just a lil but make us all go 'WOW' like the iPhone did..haha 'you had me at scrolling'
every1 remembers that quote..and i agree..the scrolling had me too! hahaha..if they had that in the new video iPod..wow..id be so happy..i can touch my music!YAY!but seriously..is palm that much of a threat?the treo isnt even THAT great...my parents had it...then my mum put it away and bought a nokia...and of course..the palm president must feel like an idiot saying that pc guys cant just walk in into somethin thats taken years for palm..apples got so much advertising schemes etc. to back up the iPhone that, really..the iPhone is gonna be..like the iPod in the end hopefully...if u have the cash to spare of course when rev b comes out...that will hopefully be another 'setting the bar' moment..good luck to palm Amen! The iPhone isn't for EVERYONE (like us medical types...sorry, but I don't foresee ePocrates or Unbound medicine on iPhone OS ever), so it would be nice to see a little Apple design/usability injected into the best iPhone alternative. Lord knows the Treo could use it.
Why do people think it's terrible for there to be some competition to the iPhone? Do they really expect 100% of phone sales to be won by Apple, and anything less is abject failure?
Man that is so potentially funny. Let's wait until a great product (anyone of several) come out and then hire a former staffer to give us something similar. Why not innovate something yourself? Now is Palm comes out with a smoking great product light years ahead of anything else that is great. Competition is the next best thing in industry right behind innovation so don't just lag behind jump ahead. Just so everyone reading knows I don't plan on buying a iPhone. Considered it and now is not the time. I would simply love to see other companies giving us products ahead of the curve and hope Palm will do the same.
i'm also surprised why so many people see it as negative that palm tries to get their act together. more competition means more choices for us. i'm a fan Palm OS and i like to have a simple phone and a good PDA, not an expensive do it all iPhone.
so to me this is good news. i hope Palm comes up with a device that competes with the Nokia N800, the dell Axim and still is as simple and sleek as the Palm TX. and if they build a great phone that competes with the iPhone so be it.
I welcome the competition. Perhaps Palm could make a phone that's better than the iPhone and not locked to the worst carrier in the US
I have to disagree completely. I've had a WM5 based smartphone for the last year, and it's the best one I've ever had. My Palm experiences were good, but not as good, and my SonyEricsson P900 experiences were further short of what WM5 has been for me.
The only reliability issues I have with it are because I keep dropping the damn thing.
well this can't be that good. hopefully they won't come out with a copy of the iPhone though. we'll see
I actually think that if the iPhone is a success it will stimulate the luxury smart phone market and if Palm responds with good or cheaper smart phones, not necessarily like an iPhone, Palm will increase their sales.
Great! so Palms gonna come out with an old fashioned click wheeled iPhone killer that runs System 7?
lol, id buy it.
If that's true, then why are so many people STILL buying $300 budget-PCs? Customers ARE uninformed fools.
Just yesterday, I walked my dad through the building of two computes, one Apple MacBook Pro and one Dell XPS. He had a hard time believing the Mac was actually cheaper. All these years, he has maintained that Macs were more expensive. I said, "no, Apple, just doesn't sell crappy cheap computers. We'll build two identical computers and compare prices." Needless to say, I won.
He's stubborn enough to go buy another Dell, though. Don't think I made him a switcher. My fiancee, now that's a different story. I roped her in, and now she wants us to get matching MBPs... How can I argue with that?
-Clive
I think it's good that Palm is "responding to the iPhone" There are those of us who use the Treo's and love them. I don't see myself switching carriers, paying a termination fee, losing all of my "in" network free calls just so I can use an iPhone. To me, and this is totally subjective since I have not used one yet, I think that the "plasticy" keyboard that Steve Jobs kept making fun of on his keynote is a much better alternative to having to type ON THE SCREEN. That just seems like a bad idea to me.....
The iPhone is also aimed at consumers, not professionals like the Treo, Blackberry, etc. If I am at work, I don't need a fancy GUI getting in the way of my productivity and and iPod on my smartphone.... that is why I have an iPod!
And for those of you that say Palm is going down the toilet, lets not forget that they just bought back the rights to all of their trademarks for $44 MILLION. Would a company that is about to fold spend $44 Million to get back their trademarks?
I think its good that Palm is supposedly upping the ante, I think they definantly need new products, and that for the people out there like me, who don't want the iPhone and would rather stick to their Treo, I'm glad!
The iPhone is also aimed at consumers, not professionals like the Treo, Blackberry, etc. If I am at work, I don't need a fancy GUI getting in the way of my productivity and and iPod on my smartphone.... that is why I have an iPod!
And for those of you that say Palm is going down the toilet, lets not forget that they just bought back the rights to all of their trademarks for $44 MILLION. Would a company that is about to fold spend $44 Million to get back their trademarks?
I think its good that Palm is supposedly upping the ante, I think they definantly need new products, and that for the people out there like me, who don't want the iPhone and would rather stick to their Treo, I'm glad!
Wow... if I worked for Apple, Palm would have to pay me a whole crapload to leave! Palm just seems like they're going down the tubes to me.
I have a loyalty problem but I'm getting over it. I had to go to the dark side for a while until the Intel/Parallels release but always loved the Mac OS and happily bought a Blackbook and just got my second C2D (my first GUI was a LISA, so I go pretty far back).
Palm is becoming another story. I loved my first Treo 600, then a 650 (which I should have kept), and then to a VZN 700P for EV-DO which is cool but that's where it ends. There a long known white screen lag and a short freeze often making calls unaswerable or or other cute tricks. Palm has stiffed us for 10 months and I am done. Apple's iPhone may work for me, it's being billed as a consumer oriented device but phone and email centric which is what I need. I'm sure the apps will come but it looks like I may own my last Palm.
Palm is becoming another story. I loved my first Treo 600, then a 650 (which I should have kept), and then to a VZN 700P for EV-DO which is cool but that's where it ends. There a long known white screen lag and a short freeze often making calls unaswerable or or other cute tricks. Palm has stiffed us for 10 months and I am done. Apple's iPhone may work for me, it's being billed as a consumer oriented device but phone and email centric which is what I need. I'm sure the apps will come but it looks like I may own my last Palm.
Amen to that! I'm using a Treo 650 (just now upgraded from a 600) and would love to see a new, better option from Palm. I won't ever get an iPhone because they've chosen Cingular as a carrier and they don't cover my area. So I'm stuck with Palm until Apple adopts other carriers...
Exactly. My treo is the same way and it's driving me mad. So now I'm waiting on the Samsung i760. WM6 supposedly is a lot better than WM5, and Palm OS is just so stagnant it makes me wonder what in the world all those employees of Palm DO all day.
Babies & Integration
As both a Treo 650 & Mac user, Palm could hire the baby Jesus and I wouldn't be worried.
For starters, babies are no real threat. Even the "special" baby.
Secondly, until Palm has access to OS X code and can achieve the tight level of integration the iPhone can, they're dead in my eyes.
Sure, Palm will turn out some nice products in the coming years. But as long as Apple is controlling the phone experience for this Mac user, sorry Palm. Not interested.
And as many have stated, competition is good for Apple which is good for us.
Dare I say "go Palm?"
As both a Treo 650 & Mac user, Palm could hire the baby Jesus and I wouldn't be worried.
For starters, babies are no real threat. Even the "special" baby.
Secondly, until Palm has access to OS X code and can achieve the tight level of integration the iPhone can, they're dead in my eyes.
Sure, Palm will turn out some nice products in the coming years. But as long as Apple is controlling the phone experience for this Mac user, sorry Palm. Not interested.
And as many have stated, competition is good for Apple which is good for us.
Dare I say "go Palm?"
True, the Palm Pilot was an incarnation of the Apple Newton. Not a bad knock-off, but needless to say, a real light-weight. The iPhone will be one tough act to follow, especially since Apple is working on Rev B, as we speak
should we wait for revision B to buy an apple phone? Whats in this rev so you know?
The more competition the better for Apple, but I hope palm doesn't copy Apple's entire design and interface.
So how are they going to pay for all that new R&D, really big bucks, then weave a magic path and evade all the patents Apple has on their iPhone, meaning a LOT more R&D, and a lot of legal fees, then sell a *cheap* iPhone competitve product? Right.
We all know, those of us that use Palm Treo's, how hard they work at R&D, product support, and user friendly interfaces, don't we? All those R&D dollars at work, huh?
They are dead men walking in my opinion (disclosure: I own 5 Treo 700p's, and plan on replacing them with iPhones ASAP).