RoughlyDrafted is infamous for making up "facts" and then basing bogus opinions and predictions on them.
ArsTechnica is another site in the same vein, but with pseudo-engineering as the highlight.
Both are often cited as factual sources, when they're rarely anything of the sort. They play to the naive and uninformed.
Dang... But you know what, Daniel makes a good reading article. Care to demonstrate some examples? Those are large slurs against him.
He makes some interesting points, you have to give him that. (e.g. see the fawning Scoble et al had over the Pre). No price point, and coming in a few months? It has fancy graphics, for sure, but then the iPhone could if it wanted to, match that. It goes for a simpler, clean UI approach.
Catchy title: The emporer's new phone
Palm simply showed up with a copycat iPhone interface two years late. - Not exactly
He has a point about how people complained about the SDK till it came. A lot.
The concept of calling the apps widgets. Which, they are in a way - they'd run as a widget effectively.
Interestingly, if they are just HTML, js web apps, then presumably they could run on the iPhone also, with minor tweaking.
Can the Pre do gaming? Any word on GPS? Deals with Google?
The Pre is just being announced. It doesn't have a price, or a release date. It's version 1 near the time iPhone will be turning version 3.
There are great things about Palm products. There have been cases made showing that the iPhone, Touch lack some of this functionality. But in the end, it's late to the party, and having to catch up.
Case in point - anyone still crazy over the N96? N97? Blackberry Storm? What happened to the XPERIA?
"The iPhone runs real apps and processes concurrently, it just doesn’t allow third parties to install background servers and apps that refuse to shutdown when the user hits the home button. That’s not a “missing feature” that can be improved upon with competitive bullet point marketing fluff, it’s a purposeful engineering decision Apple made that might someday be answered by the availability of greater resources."
Another point - will Palm gain a significant chunk of the market? Well, how's the Android G1 doing? Blacberry Storm? How's Microsoft's response with Windows Mobile coming along?
Is the Pre like the Android, in that "every time you ever want to enter a character, you’ll need to slide the keyboard down and start thumb typing, except your key targets will be far tinier than even the mini-keyboards of phones like the Android-based G1." ?
How about a touch screen that you have to click? ...
Where are the Pre's key assets? Software, at a pretty basic in some eyes level. And it's twice as thick as the 3G iPhone.
Let's not forget Daniel did actually share a few small positives for the Pre, rather than slur his name and say he didn't:
"Palm has remixed a few iPhone features to make them different and arguably improved (such as a fancier view of tabs in the browser, or integrated mail and instant messenger inboxes)’"
Did he give no backing for saying why Palm was being a copycat? Hmm:
"And the Pre is a shameless clone; Palm has copied the iPhone’s design down to even minor details, from oval number badges to many of its icons. This isn’t innovation as much as imitation. The iPhone is a good starting place, so there’s nothing really wrong with copying the elements it got right. What’s really wrong with the Pre is that in areas where Palm has introduced something new, it has created a bland, flat interface that appears minimal but is really just lacking."
So that'd be design at several levels. Not a comprehensive list, but a good starting point to make your own judgements.
Maybe his use of copy is harsh - as Apple got in their first pretty much, comparisons are made to what it did first.
"Palm has accomplished step one in defeating Apple: introducing copycat hardware that apes some of the iPhone’s features....that’s not enough to claim victory.
The real test will come when Palm reveals how well it can execute in copying Apple’s business acumen, marketing savvy, customer support, ongoing software development, security refreshes, and industrial design enhancements. "
Replace "copy" with "be as good as", and the article might sit better with some of you.
I think the press missed a trick when they didn't see that iLife 09 and iWork 09 may well have to be viewed in the context of use both with Macs, but also via iPhones creating or editing content for those suites. Does the Pre have that integration?
Wireless charging. So the charger is wireless? Hmm, nope, you just put your phone on the charger dock, rather than place it into a charger dock. Except the Apple charger dock, you can reuse that cable. And have it running from mains, or USB.
You know what's simmering underneath this? The press, and us, don't have the ruddy foggiest what Apple could pull out of the bag with OS 3.0, and v3 iPhone (Janus points this out also in the comments). Will they keep the momentum? My sneaky feeling is the iLife (e.g. video stabilisation, geotagging photos etc) is a great asset to link in with an iPhone that has video. Hmmm, that'd be in a few months potentially, right about when the Pre comes out.
Except Apple will have sold on average, in all likelihood, ~ $1 million a day in sales of apps. Remember in the same breath of the lauded reviews were comments that this was a play to get bought up.
Finally, as Daniel points out:
"I should point out that this article isn’t a review of the Pre as much as a castigation of the media for being so quick to overlook any obvious problems in order to hail every new product as an iPhone Killer.
I mentioned the Gesture Bar (essentially a touch sensitive Home button that allows for more interface complexity than just a single or double click as the iPhone’s does) as an interesting feature, and the Pre says it supports copy/paste, global search, and integrated messaging.
However, before anyone makes any feature comparisons to the iPhone, keep in mind that Apple is already well ahead in other areas that are more significant, and that the Pre isn’t on sale yet. Once its finished, priced and ready for sale later this year, we can see whether the Pre still has any features that the iPhone lacks, and how much of a pricing premium those features carry."
Let's not forget Dan has a spleen that needs regular exercise. And he's getting back on form

He seems happy to talk if you leave a comment on the post.