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The UI may look great but until customers fingers are on the screen, we won't really know which phone is more usable. From the videos I've seen, it doesn't loo

by ssharp 17y ago

The UI may look great but until customers fingers are on the screen, we won't really know which phone is more usable. From the videos I've seen, it doesn't look as intuitive as the iPhone. As for games, I can say that I've never played a native OSX game in my 6 years of using Macs. However, I have an entire page of games on my iPhone. They wouldn't be a deal breaker for me but they're pretty nifty to have around and the power of the SDK allows them to be much more sophisticated on the iPhone than the Pre. I'm also not convinced that the Pre is a business smartphone. It seems heavily designed as a consumer product. Your comment on the quantity of applications is misguided. Palm OS and Windows Mobile never had the popularity that the App Store does. The App Store changed the mobile app distribution game completely. Your comment on Blackberry and Nokia "outselling" the iPhone is also a bit silly. The Blackberry Curve was the #1 smartphone but they were also selling them as a 2 for 1 deal and on multiple carriers. And if you account for all RIMM models, of course they're going to have a larger share. They have multiple models on every carrier. What the iPhone has done as a single phone on a single carrier has not be duplicated and the Pre certainly won't be the one that matches its success. Also being a game-changer may not matter in the long-term. However, for a company like Palm that doesn't have a lot of money and is essentially going "all-in" with Web O/S, the short term is much more relevant. This company was essentially done with until the Pre was announced and they needed a substantial investor to come in to finance the launch of the Pre. Also, with cell phones in the U.S., we are used to 2 year gaps between changing devices and carriers. Being a game changer makes people switch. Doing something different but not necessarily better, does not.

halo 17y ago
We don't know until consumers reach the UI, but it certainly looks the part and seems intuitive, so it's making all the right noises. In some ways, it seems like an improvement, particularly for power-users - the hidden 'dock' bar and the use of keyboard shortcuts, for example. As for games, I play them on my PC (I have a hundred games in Steam), but I don't play them on my phone, which suggests we agree that it's of secondary importance and people only get them when they're available. Perhaps "business" is the wrong term, but I meant that hte emphasis is on "professionals". Those people who buy Blackberry's, those who used to buy Palm products, who have particular need for features like contact sync, multiple calendars, and other similar features, rather than real-time features like games. I think it will be these users who will really feel the benefit from multitasking on their productivity, because, for example, being able to flip between an e-mail and a calendar would be extremely useful. I think my main point about applications makes sense. The point is there may be more applications on Platform X than Platform Y, but as long as there are no "killer apps" and both have thriving developer communities that's all that matters. I think my comparison with Blackberry and Nokia was perfectly apt, because that's the market Palm are actually entering. Palm are going to be releasing many phones on many networks on multiple price points based on the same operating system - the Pre is just the first of many. If you were to believe the hype, you'd imagine that Blackberry and Nokia don't matter, rather than selling the millions of smartphones they do, and that Palm couldn't potentially have huge success without selling their phones to a single iPhone customer. I think it's only fair to compare it to other manufacturers on many carriers, not Apple's self-enforced network limitations. I'd be very interesting in reading what you personally think Palm should be doing, because apparently a relatively small company building something that compares favourably to the market leaders in their (expanding) product area isn't good enough. I think the Pre is exactly the product they should be making rather than forgettable Windows Mobile handsets, and I think the fact we're actually having this discussion and the hype over the Pre shows that to true.

by ssharp 17y ago

halo 17y ago

We don't know until consumers reach the UI, but it certainly looks the part and seems intuitive, so it's making all the right noises. In some ways, it seems like an improvement, particularly for power-users - the hidden 'dock' bar and the use of keyboard shortcuts, for example. As for games, I play them on my PC (I have a hundred games in Steam), but I don't play them on my phone, which suggests we agree that it's of secondary importance and people only get them when they're available. Perhaps "business" is the wrong term, but I meant that hte emphasis is on "professionals". Those people who buy Blackberry's, those who used to buy Palm products, who have particular need for features like contact sync, multiple calendars, and other similar features, rather than real-time features like games. I think it will be these users who will really feel the benefit from multitasking on their productivity, because, for example, being able to flip between an e-mail and a calendar would be extremely useful. I think my main point about applications makes sense. The point is there may be more applications on Platform X than Platform Y, but as long as there are no "killer apps" and both have thriving developer communities that's all that matters. I think my comparison with Blackberry and Nokia was perfectly apt, because that's the market Palm are actually entering. Palm are going to be releasing many phones on many networks on multiple price points based on the same operating system - the Pre is just the first of many. If you were to believe the hype, you'd imagine that Blackberry and Nokia don't matter, rather than selling the millions of smartphones they do, and that Palm couldn't potentially have huge success without selling their phones to a single iPhone customer. I think it's only fair to compare it to other manufacturers on many carriers, not Apple's self-enforced network limitations. I'd be very interesting in reading what you personally think Palm should be doing, because apparently a relatively small company building something that compares favourably to the market leaders in their (expanding) product area isn't good enough. I think the Pre is exactly the product they should be making rather than forgettable Windows Mobile handsets, and I think the fact we're actually having this discussion and the hype over the Pre shows that to true.