Revised: Palm Pre Release Set for May 17th.

[=MuLti-CeLL=]

I know, I know, it's an iPhone forum.

Just thought some of you would like to see this.

http://www.edibleapple.com/rumor-palm-pre-looking-at-april-30th-release-date/

"Take this one with a grain of salt, but a guy named Jim Van has apparently gotten his hands on a Palm Pre for testing purposes, and he recently tweeted some of his initial impressions which included, ”Battery’s going strong after 8 hours of mixed use” and ”Pre seems 2 work so well w/ Facebook. Can’t seem to get it 2 play w/ Twitter yet.”

8 hours of battery life? That sounds too good to be true! I sure would like to be proven wrong, though.

But the juiciest nugget of info sheds some light on a possible release date for the Palm Pre. In a tweet sent 2 days ago, Van stated,

We do a lot of betas 4 Sprint. Also testing WiMax fones. Not sure if Pre is final. Release dte of 4/30, so I’m told.
Well this sure is interesting. Palm has thus far been extremely vague regarding launch dates for the Pre, and has only said that it would come out sometime in the second quarter of the year, which at the very latest implies a late June release. Palm continues to bleed money, and they desperately need the Pre to get off to a fast start. That said, a June release would pose a number of problems for Palm as Apple is poised to make a few big announcements of its own this June.

Specifically, Apple’s new iPhone OS will most likely go “live” sometime in June, and there are also rumors that Apple is planning on announcing a significantly upgraded iPhone at this years WWDC, which takes place in early June.

If the launch of the Pre coincides with Apple’s announcements, there’s a good chance that it might get lost in the shuffle. It therefore makes sense for Palm to aggressively try and launch the Pre as soon as possible. At the same time, Palm is keenly aware of what a botched or buggy launch might mean for the company, and Palm executives have repeatedly stated that the Pre will not launch a day before its actually ready.

So will April 30th be D-day? Possibly, but if that’s the case, will Palm have enough time to initiate an advertising campaign to support the launch? I suppose they might already have a number of ad spots roaring to go, and are just waiting for the OK to let em loose.

UPDATE: In a recent tweet, Van wrote that a source told him the Pre will sell for $299 with a 2 year contract. Thoughts?"

 

[The Governor]

too bad it's on sprint.

While I highly doubt it would ever happen, I would like to see the next "iphone killer" be released on AT&T and see them go head to head.

 

[=MuLti-CeLL=]

too bad it's on sprint.

While I highly doubt it would ever happen, I would like to see the next "iphone killer" be released on AT&T and see them go head to head.

I agree. Don't throw that thought out though. I remember them saying there may be a gsm version released later. Could very well come to AT&T, ya know?

 

[eastercat]

While I highly doubt it would ever happen, I would like to see the next "iphone killer" be released on AT&T and see them go head to head.

It'd be great to see someone release an iPhone competitor--something that can go head to head with the iPhone.
I'm curious to see what happens with the Pre. It's the first touch screen phone I've heard about that didn't sound as if it'd be lame.

 

[ravenvii]

It'd be great to see someone release an iPhone competitor--something that can go head to head with the iPhone.
I'm curious to see what happens with the Pre. It's the first touch screen phone I've heard about that didn't sound as if it'd be lame.

Same here. Wonder how significant the slide-out qwerty keyboard will end up being in the competition with the iPhone.

And how Apple will react.

Good times! (Well, not so good if the Pre turns out to be a flop - Palm would be kaput, and Apple would do ****.)

 

[megapopular]

Meh.

It doesn't matter when they release it, it doesn't matter if the phone were to sell for only $50 with a 2 year agreement. The Pre just isn't cool enough to make the big splash to crush the iPhone. iPhone 3.0 software blunted enough of Pre's wow factor. Pre has background processing? Enjoy the battery life, lol. Also, to those thinking that the iPhone will get the new Apple battery tech... I don't think so. If they did, they probably would have added background processing. It will be nice whenever the Pre launches, just to see peoples thoughts on if its a game changer or not. I feel bad for Sprint, trying so hard to succeed when they're very likely to still fail.

 

[VoodooDaddy]

I wish it were coming to VZW. I need something to replace this God-awful Blackberry Storm.

The Pre just isn't cool enough to make the big splash to crush the iPhone..

Nothing is going to "crush the iPhone" but I think you are selling the Pre short. It looks very nice to me and to alot of other people that have actually seen hands on.

 

[Aurial]

... Pre has background processing? Enjoy the battery life, lol...

Background processes only seem to cause Apple problems. Their figure of reducing the battery life by 80% by just running an IM app and not sending/receiving is utter pony! I've had smartphones running Series 60, WinMob and UIQ for years and I've never experienced anything as severe as this. In fact on my N95 I could happily have Fring open all day, along with about a further 3/4 apps and the battery would still last the whole day easily.

The truth is more likely that the iPhone's resourse hungry OS is the problem when it comes to the battery life.

 

[Luke1robb]

I too would love to see there be a "Real" iPhone competitor, but fear that even the Pre will fall well short of the iPhone, not only cuz its on Sprint. I feel like its got some great features, but not the same attractiveness to the masses that the iPhone does. Techies love the Pre, but regular folk would probably be scared away by some of the, what they would see as, difficult maneuvering of the Pre. Case in point, every first time user of my iPhone, young and old, goes into an App and then asks, how do I get back... to which I respond, "Hit the only button on the whole phone." The Pre will confuse many, resulting in not so great sales in the long run, unfortunately.

 

[Roessnakhan]

To be fair, the iPhone is on ATT, which is not notorious for great coverage. 😛

I think the Pre will find its audience. Palm has a lot of avid followers, or at least from what I've seen at the University I work.

 

[MrGadget28]

All in one, the iPhone is a great device. For multimedia use, I find it hard because using apps will drain the battery a lot and then there's no use for the "phone" when on the road.

The best thing for Apple to do is to find a way to implement a better battery into the next generation of iPhone. If they could make an iPhone with a 24 hour battery life (for all uses), it would kill (not like were ever gonna see that in the next few years).

 

[Luke1robb]

All in one, the iPhone is a great device. For multimedia use, I find it hard because using apps will drain the battery a lot and then there's no use for the "phone" when on the road.

The best thing for Apple to do is to find a way to implement a better battery into the next generation of iPhone. If they could make an iPhone with a 24 hour battery life (for all uses), it would kill (not like were ever gonna see that in the next few years).

Even if they made it a full feature device for 12 hours, that would be HUGE! If you're using a device that much and that intensely for 12 hours or more, you can't expect it to last more on battery life. But I agree, if they can enhance battery life... and they WILL, then it will kill other "competitors".

 

[Luke1robb]

To be fair, the iPhone is on ATT, which is not notorious for great coverage. 😛

I think the Pre will find its audience. Palm has a lot of avid followers, or at least from what I've seen at the University I work.

ATT's service isn't fantastic, but I would challenge people to go check with the Apple Store to see their dropped calls rate, its almost never above 1-2%, which isn't terrible with an expanding 3G network. Nevertheless, it could definitely see some improvements.

 

[Gathomblipoob]

The best thing for Apple to do is to find a way to implement a better battery into the next generation of iPhone. If they could make an iPhone with a 24 hour battery life (for all uses), it would kill (not like were ever gonna see that in the next few years).

Or at least use a higher capacity battery than the 1150mAh that's in the 3G now.

 

[plumbingandtech]

UPDATE: In a recent tweet, Van wrote that a source told him the Pre will sell for $299 with a 2 year contract. Thoughts?"

Yah, That (subsidized?) price better be wrong or the PREE is toast.

 

[kdarling]

The Pre just isn't cool enough to make the big splash to crush the iPhone.

It's not available on ATT (yet), so it's hard to compare.

iPhone 3.0 software blunted enough of Pre's wow factor.

3.0 definitely helps. Yet the Pre still has some "wow" that the iPhone doesn't (and can't) have, such as pre-fetching information to help you through your day.

Pre has background processing? Enjoy the battery life, lol.

Do you "lol" at Apple as well?

The iPod app was made to run in the background. Battery sucker right there, but people expect it. Same as running Pandora in the background on other phones.

The email, phone and text apps do it all the time. That's what the battery is there for... so the phone can be on all the time, not just when you want to initiate a call.

 

[t0mat0]

It's not available on ATT (yet), so it's hard to compare.
3.0 definitely helps. Yet the Pre still has some "wow" that the iPhone doesn't (and can't) have, such as pre-fetching information to help you through your day.
Do you "lol" at Apple as well?
The iPod app was made to run in the background. Battery sucker right there, but people expect it. Same as running Pandora in the background on other phones.
The email, phone and text apps do it all the time. That's what the battery is there for... so the phone can be on all the time, not just when you want to initiate a call.

It has to be wondered how hard pre-fetching is really -

Seeing as Safari 4 can guess your most frequently accessed pages, the phone knows your (wake up alarms) etc.

Some Pre features are darn cool - but how many aren't codable by Apple, if they fitted with their plans for the iPhone?

April 30th? The Palm Pre is stuck between a rock and a hard place launch date wise - too early, and you'll get buggy launch potentially, too late, and who know's what will get demo'd and announced by Apple, RIM, Nokia...

 

[=MuLti-CeLL=]

April 30th? The Palm Pre is stuck between a rock and a hard place launch date wise - too early, and you'll get buggy launch potentially, too late, and who know's what will get demo'd and announced by Apple, RIM, Nokia...

I agree. If its April 30th don't they need to really begin marketing this thing, like, now? Commercials, Cameo appearences in sitcoms, etc...

 

[plumbingandtech]

I agree. If its April 30th don't they need to really begin marketing this thing, like, now? Commercials, Cameo appearences in sitcoms, etc...

That post, while the source may or may not be true, brings this up well, Palm is f-d no matter what they do, they had a cycle that would bring their phone to market at the very time apple was likely to do an update.

I understand when you are running out of cash and about to go under like Palm is you don't have the luxury of time like apple did.. but still, they are launching their must sell BIG product or palm is sunk at the same time apple will be rolling out the THIRD version of their phone with their third OS at the same time as the PRE.

Palm are not master marketers, they are not the darling of the press, (except for bloggers that make these assumptions on a 5 minute hands off demo at CES, they do not have a brand that comes anywhere near as close to apple.) and on top of this they are asking people to jump to Sprint?!? right.....

And yet they need to ship this thing in that storm... and while I don't believe the $299 price at all, if they do keep to that price, sell all your palm stock (ok this only applies to the twelve people outside of elevation partners that even still owns that stock), that ship is sunk...because you are not going to get the volume palm needs with a $299 phone that is definitely not an iPhone.


I expect good press for the PREE initially, just because "journalists" like to be contrarian. But by end of summer when the glow has worn off, the numbers for the PRE are going to be looked at cold and long, and they have to be BIG, not good, not great but BIG..

Short of a heavily subsidized $99 phone, I just don't see them selling much beyond the palm treo 4 ever club and the first wave of alpha tech people that like the latest thing. (note, I did not say latest and greatest because IMO once this thing is out on the market for a couple of weeks, people are going to see just how much their limited SDK and lack of 3D , and itunes integration gets you in the form of software, and by then they are going to look at the 35K shipping apps in the apps store and wonder about their choice.

 

[kdarling]

... people are going to see just how much their limited SDK and lack of 3D , and itunes integration gets you in the form of software, and by then they are going to look at the 35K shipping apps in the apps store and wonder about their choice.

Some of the same arguments (no SDK, third party apps, or a lot of common features) were made against the iPhone for its first year. Many dire predictions.

One big difference is, lots more initial Pre owners should be able to easily write a neat little custom app, which seem to be the most common kind in Apple's store. And unlike iPhone apps, they reportedly can access local services, share info, and run in the background.

I think the big key for Palm, will be getting the Pre onto as many carriers as possible.

 

[plumbingandtech]

Some of the same arguments (no SDK, third party apps, or a lot of common features) were made against the iPhone for its first year. Many dire predictions.

When those arguments were made against the iPhone, there was:

...not another "iphone" like device on the market,
...with 30K apps
...with a public name recognition thru the roof
...costing $199 (esp. important if the $299 rumor is true)
...massively millions of users in the form of the iPod installed base
... 20 million (by June with a further sales bump on iPhone 3.0 launch) units in the channel
... on a network that had a larger install base
...On a network that would not requre the customer to switch to Sprint AKA we are losing billions each quarter
...and whatever "neat" apps they make, will almost always be second rans to the vibrant commercial apps on the app store.Because given the choice between coding my own or spending a buck with a developer (or developers) that have a vested in updates etc to make money, ( and have the added benefit of the iTouch API, and 3D,) I'll just pay the buck rather then code one up on my own.

The same thing would apply if we were talking about Desktop OSes and OSX was going to debut in "June" against windows... So much intertia the iPhone that they are sucking all the air out of the market, leaving precious little for all but RIM to breath.


Palm is not in the same position as apple where as carving out a little niche can be profitable and keep them going, Palm needs to get major market share just in order to survive....

Dire indeed...


That's going to be tough unless they do a hail mary and get a $99 subsidized PRE out there and point all their marketing messaging to a campaign that would basically say, "it's a better texting phone" and go for the low end of the market.

I think the big key for Palm, will be getting the Pre onto as many carriers as possible.

basically that's it, get the GSM out there as fast as possible and sell like hell to other markets (latin america, asia, africa) but that plan only works if they can get the subsized price down to $99.

Edit:

Worse,

Forgot to throw in the "current economic times" as something that was not around during the iphone launch...
...and the itunes ecosystem..
... and of course the 30million + base of the Mac OS to which to draw sales from...

 

[kdarling]

When those arguments were made against the iPhone, there was..

... WM with 12 million sales a year (now 20 million and climbing)
... 15K apps on WM, 3K on RIM, xxK on Symbian, and 15K Java apps

(The zillion apps for any device are mostly dups or mild variations. The iPhone even more so. I'd say there's never more than a few hundred really unique categories on any platform.)

In other words, the iPhone faced well established competition as well.

Palm has had good name recognition. Palm Treos were the favorite of many people. And even just a few years ago, most people still called every PDA a "Palm Pilot"... not an "Apple Newton". We're not all teenagers out here. Many buyers have long memories.

Because given the choice between coding my own or spending a buck with a developer (or developers) that have a vested in updates etc to make money, ( and have the added benefit of the iTouch API, and 3D,) I'll just pay the buck rather then code one up on my own.

You missed the point. There will be tons of very useful apps available. Probably for free, because anyone and their brother can code them. (Depends on if Palm wants in on the store idea, of course, and/or decides to charge for an SDK. If they're smart, they won't.)

The idea of the "fill in the blank" needing to be an iPhone-killer is just bogus. Palm can sell millions in spite of Apple, and without having to take sales directly away from them:

For whatever reason, Apple has locked themselves out of most of the USA market. Palm just needs to expand into territory where Apple won't go, and they'll sell plenty. (And I bet even ATT picks up on the GSM model. They're certainly not shy about selling other iPhone competitors.)

 

[plumbingandtech]

When those arguments were made against the iPhone, there was..

... WM with 12 million sales a year (now 20 million and climbing)
... 15K apps on WM, 3K on RIM, xxK on Symbian, and 15K Java apps

Those apps and phone OSes were for lack of a better term. Geeks. They almost might as well not have existed compare to the consumer apple was going after.

The iphone is selling to people that never were in the "smart phone" market. Normal people.

And I am not saying it was impossible for a phone maker to succeed with some of those points against it on launch, I am saying the more points against it (from my list above) the LESS chance of it succeeding.

Palm might be able to match one or two of the points above, but no way can they match all of them, add on top the fact they are running out of money faster then light and are launching at the worst time to launch in the mobile space in the past 3 years, hope they keep that hot line open with elevation partners, because they will need it.


And now, with the help of the list above, apple leads them all (except RIM) in the smart phone space.

Despite those arguments apple DID do this because apple is unique and had many many advantages.

Palm does not and is not.

Palm has had good name recognition.

Only among geeks. The iphone is selling to "normal" people in droves. Because of the apple name / brand / and built in advantages listed above. Palm (dropping like a rock more and more each quarter as people abandon the platform, can only compete with a very low priced version of the phone. People (normal) will buy it off price, the moment the price gets to $149, people will just buy the real thing with the iphone.

For whatever reason, Apple has locked themselves out of most of the USA market. Palm just needs to expand into territory where Apple won't go, and they'll sell plenty. (And I bet even ATT picks up on the GSM model. They're certainly not shy about selling other iPhone competitors.)

Apple did not "lock themselves out". Then needed a partner to get the price down to the eventuall $199. How in the world would they get the market share they have now with $599 phones? answer is: they would not have.

Palm needs to do LOTS of things, my original point was that they don't have the competivie advantages apple had or can NOT pull off the things apple did without the laundry list from above.

Good luck with palm "selling plenty" as they a) need to move massive amounts of units just to stay solvent, (not "plenty") and b) can not even begin to sell the the PREE to other phone companies until Jan 2010.

That's six more months for them have to stay afloat just till then can start to see real $$ because people are NOT going to switch to sprint in drove. Bet on that.

And they better hope apple does not have a $99 price point for an entry level model.

 

[Eso]

... 15K apps on WM, 3K on RIM, xxK on Symbian, and 15K Java apps

And now, with the help of the list above, apple leads them all (except RIM) in the smart phone space.

Actually, they don't.

According to a report by Gartner on Worldwide Smartphone Sales, published this month, Apple trails behind every other major platform no matter how you look at it.

Considering the marketshare of smartphone OS's in all of 2008, the iPhone is 4th place, holding 8.2% of the market. Symbian leads at 52.4%, followed by RIM with 16.6%, then there is Windows Mobile with 11.8%.

If you think that the iPhone has a low marketshare because it is new, but that it is outselling it's competitors, think again. In 2008, RIM sold twice as many devices as Apple. Phones with Symbian? Nearly 6 and a half times as many. Even devices running Windows Mobile sold 1 and a half times as many as the iPhone. For what it's worth, the iPhone did sell 5 times as many devices as Palm OS. That's no different than by how much Apple trails Nokia. Now consider that the iPhone is considered booming and, as you say, Palm OS is "dropping like a rock" and it's not very impressive. In other words, the iPhone only managed to sell 1/6 as well as Symbian despite being so popular, yet Palm OS managed to sell 1/5 as the iPhone despite being a "dead" platform.

For 2007 and 2008 (which covers the lifespan of the 3G as well as a portion of sales of the first generation), Symbian outsold the iPhone OS by 10 times, RIM by nearly 2 and a half times, Windows Mobile by 2 times. Overall, every other major platform has sold 15 times as well as the iPhone in the last two years.

I am not sure who you think these "geeks" are in that the iPhone caters to normal people, but from the numbers it appears the geeks outnumber the "normies" 15-1.

 

[FearNo1]

Whats so bad about the storm? Other than its lack of wifi...

I wish it were coming to VZW. I need something to replace this God-awful Blackberry Storm.