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News

Can the Pre Compete with the iPhone?

Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 11:40 AM - by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Palm made a splash at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas when it unveiled the Pre, a touchscreen smartphone that runs the company's new webOS. According to Larry Magid of The Mercury News, who was able to take it for a test drive, the Pre is an impressive device that "could very well take a bite out of Apple's iPhone sales." Palm, which has seen its standing decline in recent years, is betting a lot on the new smartphone.

While no price point has been announced for the Pre, which is due sometime before June 30, it comes with the same 8GB of storage found in Apple's US$199 iPhone. Also like the iPhone, it offers a multi-touch interface, although the Pre allows users to run multiple applications simultaneously and switch between them by flicking the screen to the left or right. The iPhone doesn't have that functionality, nor does it have a pullout physical keyboard and a removable battery, both of which are also found on the Pre.

The Pre can also sync contact and calendar information wirelessly; the iPhone must be plugged into a computer to do that, although it will sync wirelessly with data via an Exchange or MobileMe account. It's even able to pull information together from various sources: Mr. Magid gave the example of grabbing a cell phone number from a Facebook profile and an office line from a Gmail account. Changes made anywhere also propagate everywhere else.

From the development side, Mr. Magid spoke with Pandora CTO Tom Conrad, who said his company was able to create a version of their application for the Pre in three days, versus the "three-month process" required to create the same thing for the iPhone.

1/12/09, 10:41 AM PST: Updated article with information about iPhone's wireless sync capabilities.

 

9 comments from the community.

You can post your own below.

Sir Harry Flashman said:

January 12th, 2009 at 12:28 PM

“According to Larry Magid of The Mercury News, who was able to take it for a test drive, the Pre is an impressive device that “could very well take a bite out of Apple’s iPhone sales.”

There is a different take over at Roughly Drafted

Not that the Pre isn’t all bad, and there some things it has that the iPhone does not yet have, but it is more like a pest than a Great White Shark taking a bite out of Apple’s sales.

   Quote

davebarnes said:

January 12th, 2009 at 12:58 PM

No.
Even if the phone is the greatest ever, it will take:
lots of developers creating interesting apps
lots of marketing money
to successfully compete with Apple and RIM.

Not going to happen.

   Quote

Tiger said:

January 12th, 2009 at 1:02 PM

It’s pronounced “pray”. As in pray that somebody takes notice and buys the thing.

The whole pull out keyboard is such a non-issue for Apple. Their focus groups responded well to the Touch interface, so they set out to create the best that they could and to push users away from the old-style keyboards with contacts that burn out and characters that rub off. In other words, they left the 1980s!

   Quote

Dave said:

January 12th, 2009 at 1:11 PM

First of all the “three-month process”  for iPhone development is complete Bulls*it. the 10,000 iphone apps speaks for themselves. we will see how many exist for Palm in 12 months. Second, i have to wonder how much experience Palm has at writing a web OS which compares with a desktop class OS. Finally, the Iphone OS is on more than iphones. The iPod touch is the top three selling media devices on Amazon. That is a much larger and profitable market than any single phone device for developers to write for.

Apple is going to drink their milkshake

   Quote

doug watson said:

January 12th, 2009 at 4:28 PM

First one to Verizon Wireless wins.  I’d love an iPhone but not if I have to use ATT.  I think I would love a Pre but not if I have to use Sprint.  The Pre looks pretty cool and pretty advanced—check the interactive clips that are around.  Hate to pass on an iPhone but I think I would, if Pre comes to Verizon first.

   Quote

robofly said:

January 12th, 2009 at 7:58 PM

Remarkable isn’t it, how much disdain Palm can bring down just by refusing to die quietly? Dan Dilger isn’t immune to this—his painstaking writeup would be no less thorough minus the hate speech.

I don’t think Apple fans need to be foaming over the possibility that Palm could save itself with an attractive, highly usable smartphone.

For one thing, that’s what Centro already is. If you consider Centro lame, do you also suppose Palm would have no idea how to top it decisively?

For another thing, in view of Palm’s feeble position and the whole gestalt of the Pre, this is no iPhone substitute. It can’t be, they could never get there in one step or in ten. It’s not an attempted iPhone clone, either. So what if it has icons and a touchscreen? Palm devices have had icons and a touchscreen since the original Pilot made a success in the PDA category, which Apple eventually abandoned following the long disappointment with Newton.

If the Pre succeeds—big if—it might turn into the platform that Microsoft was too encumbered to produce, RIM was too invested to produce, and Google was too laissez-faire to produce.

Not another iPhone; an iPhone alternative, OK? There could be such a thing. I wouldn’t bet the bank on this ever happening; but if it did, that wouldn’t pain me at all. I mean, *GO PALM!* And why not?

   Quote

deasys said:

January 13th, 2009 at 12:01 AM

the Pre allows users to run multiple applications simultaneously

No, it allows users to run multiple web pages simultaneously. Just like the iPhone.

and switch between them by flicking the screen to the left or right

Just like the iPhone.

The iPhone doesn’t have that functionality

Yes, it does.

nor does it have a pullout physical keyboard and a removable battery

I’m glad the iPhone doesn’t have those things. I’m also glad the iPhone is half the thickness of the Pre.

The Pre can also sync contact and calendar information wirelessly

So can the iPhone via MobileMe.

Tom Conrad, who said his company was able to create a version of their application for the Pre in three days, versus the “three-month process” required to create the same thing for the iPhone

What an utterly idiotic assertion.

   Quote

Brad Cook said:

January 13th, 2009 at 8:03 AM

deasys, from the article:

“Every task or application runs inside of a card and you can switch from card to card by flicking them to the left or right. It’s also multi-tasking, so you can have multiple programs running at the same time, similar to a desktop operating system. A task could be an e-mail message, a Web browsing session, an instant message or any other application.”

   Quote

Mannie said:

January 13th, 2009 at 10:56 AM

The iPhone is crap and locked-in to the worst software in the world - iTunes.

   Quote

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