
Dear Palm, it's just not working out - blasdel
http://jwz.livejournal.com/1108212.html
======
blasdel
It's too bad, I thought the Pre's card metaphor, along with its pervasive
notifications and multi-input open-API contact/message/lifestream datastore
was the best hope yet for a great multitasking handheld.

The Verizon Droid is the only hope for an iPhone competitor at this point. It
looks like it fixes all the hardware issues with the previous devices:

    
    
      * shipping the latest virgin Google build — no carrier or manufacturer fuckery
      * CPU + RAM as good or better than everything else (600mhz OMAP3 + 256mb RAM)
      * a capacitive touchscreen with 3x the iPhone's resolution
      * only a bit thicker than a current iPhone
      * a motherfucking headphone jack
      * nice hardware (landscape) and software (portrait) keyboards
      * 16gb of built-in flash AND a micro-SD slot
      * a camera that they made a cursory attempt to make decent (a flash!)
    

Now the only problem will be the Android software — the spartan builtin apps,
the craptacular APIs, and the abysmal/non-existent third-party apps. Hopefully
that will all improve quickly once Verizon is shipping millions of the things.
Having hardware that's not worse than the iPhone will be a huge help.

~~~
davidw
Oh come on. It's easy to piss on stuff that could be better, but Android is
actually a fine platform to develop for, and plenty of applications are
showing up. Sure, not as many as iPhone, yet, but there are some pretty cool
ones out there.

And it's not "the only hope" - there will be more Android phones out, and the
whole thing will only continue to improve.

~~~
unalone
Fake Steve Jobs illustrated the biggest Android problem: When your operating
system is designed to be modified for each individual phone, and each phone
runs a modified version of the system, then you can't reliably develop for it
in the way you can for the iPhone.

If I make an iPhone app, then it'll work for _every_ person with an iPhone and
_every_ person with an iPod touch. The same's not true for Android, which is
why developers are reporting failures with the applications they're designing
for it.

I've never used Android, unfortunately—can't find people with the phone to
irritate/mug—but I'd imagine it's good, and I like that Google's released an
OS with some focus on being good, because cell phone companies showed in the
last decade that they don't give a damn about good when left to their own
devices. Where I don't have faith in it, though, is in its attempt to make a
developer haven that the iPhone doesn't offer. It seems that there're integral
problems to its developer experience that won't fix themselves easily.

~~~
Daishiman
Yeah, until the next tech refresh for the iPhone. So then you have iPod Touch
1st and 2nd gen, iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G and 3GS. Bear in mind the 3GS has a more
advanced graphics card, and then you need to bear in mind some of these have
compass, camera, GPS, etc. That's not a small target by any means.

I seriously wonder what will happen when Apple upgrades the screen resolution
to 800x400 or attempts to fit in new functionality such as multitasking
without altering the current applications' VMs.

~~~
herval
the point here is that the iPhone is a lot less 'fragmentable' than Android
since it's controlled by one single manufacturer. Sure, it will eventually
change features so much that apps made for the latest hardware will no longer
work on previous ones - but it will probably be a lot easier to manage than
having a thousand different versions of the hardware, all being released at
once...

Plus, AAPL's "throw away and buy the shiny new one" ethos has kept the
majority of users constantly updating their already new ipod/iphone/mac for
quite some time, so this fragmentation might as well be yet another strong
point on their evil marketing plot. "1st gen iphone? Sheesh, that's too old,
go get a new one"

~~~
unalone
Is that really the ethos you see Apple emanating? Because I've always seen the
opposite. One of the things that I thought coolest about Apple back when I was
on Windows were the people who talked about installing Leopard on a Powerbook
and having it still work perfectly. Ditto the iPhone now. In fact, the line I
hear directly from Apple is "Because we have no physical controls, we're
allowed to keep our 1st gen iPhones in line with our freshest models, so the
iPhone will outlast many of the other phones its age." Certainly my iPod is
showing no strain in its second year. I haven't even upgraded to 3.0 and it
still feels great.

------
archon810
Absolutely agreed on the lag. My fiancee has the Pre and the experience has
been going downhill from day 1, worse and worse each day.

The lag is absolutely unbearable and one thing jwz forgot to mention is the
shit battery life (< 1/2 day).

She just uses her work old blackberry now with like a 5 day battery life. It
gets the job done.

I can't agree on jwz's Android opinion based on some random baseless rumors. I
have an Android phone and it's a lot better than Pre (almost no comparison)
and to me it's better than the iPhone. With Droid's muscle, it will be the
best phone (unfortunately it won't be available for Sprint).

~~~
JoelSutherland
It's a quality control issue for sure. I got a pre on day 1 that just had its
touchscreen stop working. Sprint replaced it with no questions asked.

The performance on this new one is better in every way:

2 Day battery life (up from 1/2 day)

Many cards run at once with much less lag

The slider actually feels solid

------
wavesplash
JWZ isn't being dramatic. The slogan should be "Plam Pre: your life, just
slower". I had a Pre for a month, returned it on day 30. It was like living in
molasses.

Plus the hardware was way way too cheap (fragile plastic screen, sharp edges
on the keytray, poor fit between the sliding halves). I was afraid to use the
phone for fear of breaking it. You could hear the plastic crunching everytime
you typed on the keyboard.

~~~
jodrellblank
_I was afraid to use the phone for fear of breaking it. You could hear the
plastic crunching everytime you typed on the keyboard._

O/T: I'd like a concise term for this "author switches from 'I' to 'you' and
ends up suggesting the reader's involvement where there couldn't have been
any. (This reader couldn't hear the author's phone crunching).

It's like the reverse of the "royal we". Maybe the "common you" (meaning: I).

Hopefully after this drawing of attention to it, you will see and hear it
everywhere and you, er, I can promptly forget about it.

~~~
davidw
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you>

------
davidmurphy
I love my Palm Pre, but I agree, the calendar load time is really absurd. One
of the things I loved about my old Palm Treo was being able to be out and
about and quickly add an event to it when I came across an interesting flyer
or article about something that was happening. It's such a royal pain on the
Pre.

The phone features on the Pre are horrible and utterly unacceptable on the Pre
-- you often can't conference two calls together, and if there are two calls
on the line (conferenced or not), you can't hang up only one of them.

But I still think it's a fantastic device overall.

~~~
mattmaroon
Yeah, I'd agree. I don't find it slow for a smartphone other than the Calendar
app, which is abysmal. I wonder if he did something to the unit when mucking
around with it (I know I've applied a couple hacks that really messed it up)
and just needs an OS Doctor reinstall.

------
paulbaumgart
I haven't tried the Pre myself, but if jwz's experiences aren't unique (most
likely), it's really a shame. The specs don't look so bad- is it webOS
dragging it down?

It looks like Motorola's Droid is the best hope at this point to drive some
innovatin' by competing at the level of the iPhone.

Or is there another contender I've missed? Is the HTC Hero/G2 worth looking
at?

~~~
scythe
If all webOS applications are coded in JavaScript (so I've heard; didn't look
into it too much), the VM overhead could well be dragging things down. Even V8
is ten times as slow as Java or C#, and v8 isn't even available for ARM.

~~~
ingenium
Yeah, the problem is that every single app is written in JavaScript. It works
better if you open the apps you use frequently and just leave them open. Then
the page remains rendered and is much faster.

Interestingly, it would be possible to code native apps on it via browser
plugins. Some parts of WebOS do use this it seems, but only to interact
directly with the hardware.

------
TwoSheds
Why does everyone think Droid is the only hope? Nokia's Maemo-based N900 looks
promising as well.

Their latest Symbian/series60 phones (e.g. E71, E75) are also pretty decent
nowadays, although I would compare those to Blackberry rather than the iPhone.

~~~
blasdel
The N900 is full of cool hardware but _it's 2cm thick_ , will cost $700+, and
is unlikely to ever be available subsidized in the US.

Edit: <http://gigaom.com/2009/10/19/nokia-n900/> \- An early review

Nokia is doing a full rewrite of Maemo for the upteenth time after buying Qt —
the software platform is constantly going in different directions. They're so
proud of shipping a Mozilla browser, but how the fuck are they going to
integrate that with Qt? Don't they also maintain multiple Webkit ports for
their other platforms? The mind boggles...

~~~
pavlov
_They're so proud of shipping a Mozilla browser, but how the fuck are they
going to integrate that with Qt?_

I don't see the contradiction there. Mozilla and Qt are at different levels in
the GUI stack. (KDE is a Qt-based desktop, yet it runs Firefox just fine.)

~~~
blasdel
You have 256mb of RAM to work with, most of which you would like to use for
rendering webpages. Do you really want to blow a huge chunk of it on something
that just gets you an inconsistent look-and-feel? A handheld device is the
last place you want two completely different file-picker dialogs, and you
can't cover that shit up with theming.

Do you really want to be shipping second-party Gecko in the when Webkit is
better and you're already paying people to work on it?

~~~
pavlov
_A handheld device is the last place you want two completely different file-
picker dialogs, and you can't cover that shit up with theming._

What does Mozilla have to do with file picker dialogs? Firefox uses native
dialogs on the platforms it runs on, and so does Nokia's Gecko-based browser
on Maemo.

 _Do you really want to be shipping second-party Gecko in the when Webkit is
better and you're already paying people to work on it?_

What's preventing them from switching to a WebKit-based browser when it's
ready for production? Why should they have tried to squeeze that into the
Maemo 5 dev cycle, when they already have a fine browser?

I don't understand your argument at all, because OS and device vendors switch
browsers all the time as new alternatives become available. Mac OS X 10.2
still shipped with Internet Explorer 5 as the default browser...

~~~
blasdel
_Firefox uses native dialogs on the platforms it runs on_

All three of them -- Win32, Carbon, and GTK+

 _What's preventing them from switching to a WebKit-based browser when it's
ready for production?_

Inertia is a bitch

------
bhousel
I agree about the poor performance. I really hope they can fix that somehow,
but it's starting to look like the heavy reliance on javascript was a design
mistake.

However I don't have any problems with Mac sync. I've always used Spanning
Sync to keep my Mac synced up with my Google account. Once there, the Pre just
finds everything automagically.

It has been a bit of a shift in thinking to go from the old model of "I need
to sync my device with my Mac" to the new "My device will just find what it
needs in the cloud". But after using it for a few months, I'm really happy
with the change. Palm synergy just works, and I don't at all miss the old way
of doing things (cross your fingers and hit the hotsync button).

~~~
rbanffy
"but it's starting to look like the heavy reliance on javascript was a design
mistake."

They can always compile it to binary code. Or drop in a faster interpreter, a
persistent JIT perhaps. Or even something that spits bytecode to files as
needed (like Python)

------
malte
I got my Pre last week. I really like the UI and the idea of multitasking.
However, I already sent it back because of the spacebar and the power button
not working properly (aparrently not only an issue with my Pre). From my
experience from using it for a few days all I can say is that the battery life
really sucks. You can't get through a day with moderate use of email, twitter,
phone...

I am also a little disappointed by the build quality. It just does not feel
smooth when you slide out the keyboard. I, however, did not experience any
issues with the calendar. It takes some seconds for every app to load but I
did not see a big difference in the loading time of the calendar and the other
apps.

Now I have to wait two weeks before I will get it back since they would not
just give me a new one. Reading this article really makes me wonder if I made
a bad decision buying the Pre.

~~~
mbrubeck
In my experience with mobile development, disk I/O is especially slow. So the
calendar load time might depend on how much data you have saved in your
calendar.

------
mhd
The Pre needs a serious software upgrade. The processor itself should be fast
enough, the application layer is a bit too webby, so probably wastes a few
bogomips with all those layers -- but still, with some clever load optimizing
and caching, at least launch time should be faster (and/or appear to be
faster).

I just got one yesterday, and both speed and build quality are slightly
disappointing. One of the main reasons I got one was due to the fact that it's
much cheaper on a monthly basis (well, here in Germany), and I thought about
having another mobile platform to develop for (my iPod touch should suffice
for most iPhone dev work I'm going to do).

But the app catalog is somewhat disappointing. That should've been settled
before the device was released, especially if you want to be compared to the
iPhone.

------
kylecordes
I had some of the same issues. Happily (sadly?) I had them so badly and soon
that I was able to return the Pre for a refund. Details here:

<http://kylecordes.com/2009/06/06/palm-pre-first-impressions/>

------
anateus
Not sure why suddenly jwz is considered to be a consumer electronics guru?
There's always churn and any particular device isn't for everyone. He's just
very vocal about it.

The Pre suffers from some slowdown issues which as some commenters point out
is almost certainly a software issue, which means it's fixable :) Would like
to see Palm take up the community created patches, but it's the wealth and
quality of these open modifications (tweaks/patches) as well as the rate of
new additions to the app catalog that leave me hopeful. It isn't gonna be a
market buster, but I think webos is fairly solidly staying around.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
_Not sure why suddenly jwz is considered to be a consumer electronics guru?_

You're right, it's shameful that we listen to a guy who might not even have
filled in all the application forms to become an officially recognised
certified consumer electronics guru :-)

~~~
anateus
Eh, I meant exactly what I said. An opinion from a person is an opinion from a
person. There are ways to become an expert in something. I'd be stupid not to
listen to at least some of the things he might say about browser design.

This isn't about empty credentials but about track record. Dude has
demonstrated to do X,Y, Z well. I will value his opinion on such matters
highly. But just because of XYZ, valuing his opinion on Q doesn't make sense
to me. Because most people don't have XYZ, perhaps I'll weight his opinion on
Q a tad higher than the average, but not much more than that.

Does this not make sense?

Edit: I should add that any and all complaints of his are valid. Some of them
are objectively accurate (loading the calendar app is slow) some of them are
subjective. The issue is that both kinds seem to be weighted by people to be
highly representative.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
_This isn't about empty credentials but about track record._

His track record is that he has used the device, that he has written software
for it, and that he helped investigate the issue. He says the device is slow,
and he says what he considers slow in terms of seconds.

I don't think reporting a simple observation like that or paying attention to
someone reporting it lays claim to any kind of usability expert status. He
credibly said Q. I don't know what that has to do with X, Y or Z at all.

If someone tells me the traffic light is red, I don't reply by asking whether
he's a traffic lights expert.

But if you're just expressing general astonishment about waves of popularity
and public attention, I'm with you. It's futile to resist that though. I think
the only way to deal with it is to judge each statement on its own merit.

------
msb
I have had similar experiences with my Pre, but FWIW not consistently. As
expected, the more apps left running load times for new apps definitely
increase. I tend to keep most apps closed when not actively using the phone
and rarely experience more than a one or two second delay. For example, I just
took a picture and capture to view was less then 5 seconds. I closed the
camera app as a phone call came in and saw the keypad immediately. On the few
occasions where the phone has started creeping, I popped out the battery. Once
the OS reloaded all was smooth again.

------
philjackson
I just had a play with this in a local shop. The bottom of the pre keypad is
knife like in its sharpness and the interface is cricket ball like in its
sharpness.

------
suhail
For a guy complaining about iphone and palm, he sure fails at a good argument
against the G1--it's probably what he actually wants.

------
jcapote
Hm, I would've taken jwz for a G1 kinda guy...

~~~
blasdel
As someone who'd previously been on the business end of subpoenas for data and
legal discovery during the Netscape lawsuits, he's paranoid about giving any
of his data to Google.

That's why he was trying to get his Pre to sync solely to his local computer,
despite that really not being what its makers intended.

~~~
spot
I am curious. As plenty of business people use gmail/docs, what are the
subpoena implications of that?

~~~
protomyth
I am sure the first case with a tech-clueless judge and an overly broad
subpoena will be hilarious. The subpoena will probably bring back every
document they have on the service since google will not likely be able to
spend the time / money or have the obligation / right to edit the request.

------
jawngee
That's disappointing to hear, but sort of inline with what I expected.

Too bad, looked nice :)

------
tpiddy
my pre has been pretty snippy and fast most of the time, but was getting
progressively slower and doing weird email syncs. after a wipe and reinstall
the device its back to being fairly fast.

------
DanielBMarkham
I love my Pre. It's not perfect, and I've given up writing an app for it
because of Palm's crippling of the O/S, but as a phone it's cute and works.

Sure load times suck. I just keep frequently-used apps open all of the time,
then I don't have to worry about it.

------
c00p3r
They still think it is possible to write apps in javascript? Good luck!

~~~
bhousel
Actually you're probably right on the mark..

Acceleroto's blog post about their experience with developing the Pre version
of Air Hockey tells the full story:

"Memory management (aka Garbage Collection). WebOS is allows users to run
multiple apps at once. Users beg for multitasking. You think it impacts game
performance? Absolutely. Even if every app behaves nicely, they all consume
memory. Memory management is handled by the OS without any direct say of the
individual applications. Whenever the OS decides, it does a Garbage
Collection. Currently, this takes about 300ms (about a third of a second). Air
Hockey contains specific code to lessen the impact of these pauses, but
developers can’t turn them off. A lot of time was spent making sure objects
weren’t needlessly allocated to minimize the frequency of the Garbage
Collections, but you’ll see the pauses. That may change in the future – we
don’t know."

[http://blog.acceleroto.com/2009/10/06/the-first-paid-app-
is-...](http://blog.acceleroto.com/2009/10/06/the-first-paid-app-is-air-
hockey-for-webos-questions-answers/)

~~~
vsync
Stop-the-world? Really??

Shameful in this day and age especially for the slick multimedia experience
they are selling the Pre as.

