

Palm's Pre smarthpone vs. Apple's iPhone 3G - technologizer
http://technologizer.com/2009/01/09/palm-pre-vs-apple-iphone-3g/

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ardit33
as a consumer, this looks good. As a mobile developer: f@ck, yet another
platform to support!!!

I hope supports the android platform (Dalvik and all, on top of their OS), in
the future for native apps, in addition to the current web app framework it
has. It would be very competitive to iPhone.

~~~
numair
I would have to disagree. If this thing supports Flash, which is likely, it is
Apple's greatest fear; there are far, far more people who can develop
compelling Flash games, than people who can develop stuff for the iPhone.
Also, as a Palm device, they are likely to create many different versions, so
penetration into other markets / user segments is likely.

This is game-changing. Jobs was betting that nobody would produce another
elegant device, but guess what? One of his own (Rubenstein) showed him it can
be done. That's another thing, you know - behind all of this is a great ego-
war that is likely to fuel a lot of great innovation from both sides. As both
a consumer and a developer, you should be excited.

Google's offering will go nowhere. Mark my words. They're already trying to
save face by looking at putting the OS into other things, like set-top boxes,
but that doesn't replace the fact that it kinda sucks. I bet Google (and
Cisco, and Motorola, and a couple other companies) are thinking about buying
Palm right now (have fun trying to do that, guys - Rubenstein's not going to
want to let you ruin his game with Jobs).

~~~
ardit33
i think android has a much brighter future. Speaking from some inside
knowledge, there are two large carriers that will introduce android devices
this year.

Plus, all the Asian manufacturers (Samsung, LG, Kyocera, and some smaller
Chinese ones ) don't have any good OSs in the plate. So they are already
working on android devices.

Here is a rundown of the mobile world:

iPhone -- we all know it. Developing for it is not easy, and the process is
not friendly at all. Good for games, but very restrictive APIs, and what you
can do. There is so much more this device can do, but Steve Jobs doesn't want
you to. So, some good competition is always welcome, as it will force Apple to
open up.

Blackberry OS (semi-niche. Popular, but an OS with only one manufacture. Plus
J2ME is going to be phased out, the BB Api is not that great (UI wise).

..

Symbian - Will be open source in a year. It is old, (based on work from Psion
two decades ago), and development for it is not great (plus the UI is
horrible).

..

Winmo - Has been around since 2002. Hasn't chagned much in years. Development
for it is ok (not that hard), but overall it is Microsoft yucky interface. It
was good for coorporates that didn't want to pay the Blackberry extra costs,
but right now it is way behind.

..

Android -- The new kid on the block. Programing for it is easier, (performance
is ok, not that great for games), it is open, and it runs on top of Linux, but
it can run everything.

..

Palm -- Used to be hot 5 years ago. And now trying to come back. I really
don't know any companies trying to work on anything on palm. They need to get
a good app dev environment going, but they are not big enough to create yet
another platform to develop for. Android/Dalvik, (or maybe Flash), will be
great choices.

..

Linmo -- DOA. I have seen a couple of Motorola Linmo handsets, and they are
crap. Just give up. The OS doesn't really matter anymore, the APP Environment
is the one that matters now. Users really don't care if the underpinning of
the OS is Linux, OS X/BSD, Symbian, or whatever. They just care for shiny
things (flashy and animation), and running apps.

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bdfh42
A good point by point comparison.

Other sources indicate that this phone could be very attractive to developers.
At the right price it should go down very well with consumers.

Now what is Google going to do with Android to respond to this?

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apgwoz
Looking at the sound formats it plays, why does it not include OGG? I mean,
aside from "not knowing about it" I can see no reason to not put it in your
feature set.

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ardit33
Sorry but 99% of the user don't even know what OGG is.

~~~
apgwoz
I realize that. How do you educate people if you never expose them to it? How
did people learn what MP3 was?

I guess the short answer is that people only know MP3 as, "it's what my MP3
player plays. sound files."

But the kicker here is that there is a huge tech crowd, with blogs, who
influence people to buy products, that would write rave reviews about the
product if it played OGG. It'd be absolutely free publicity seen by millions
of eyeballs!

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metatronscube
I really like the look of this, great comparison...only thing I would like to
see is what they are going to make of the battery.

In the past I have always had palms, but now I'm sticking with Apple (its just
where I would prefer to settle really). This is bringing some much needed
competition into the fold. The UI looks amazing too.

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mattmaroon
They forgot the most important line item.

Billion Dollar Marketing Budget: No || Yes

~~~
ROFISH
I've started to see a lot of iPhones around campus where I'm at and asked a
lot of people why they got theirs. It's word of mouth about the easy upgrade
from an iPod. At least 50% had their iPod die for some reason or another and
decided to spend the $200 on an iPhone instead of a similarly priced Nano.
Especially people who always carry both an iPod and their cell phone around
all the time. It's not the direct marketing but more of a coattailish the "I
have to go to the Apple Store to buy a new Nan... oooohhh! shiny iPhone"
factor. It's just my conversations, your mileage may vary. (Also 'daddy' pays
the $30/mo, so it's a non-issue.)

All the extra features like games from the App Store, Google Maps, GPS, and
other junk this list goes through just sweeten the deal.

~~~
kylec
I wish the iPhone plan was $30/month. It's actually $70/month minimum.

~~~
ROFISH
I hate it when people quote the $70/mo. Do you not pay for a regular cell
service? If you actually look at the numbers, the pricing is exactly the
standard AT&T plans + $30/mo unlimited data plan. (If you can get regular AT&T
at a discounted rate, even better!)

~~~
kylec
I currently have T-Mobile prepaid and average about $10/month. I really want
the iPhone, and can easily justify spending $200 for the device, but I don't
want to be locked into a 2-year contract paying $70/month (totaling $1680)
when my needs are met with a much more modest price.

~~~
mattmaroon
Could you go prepaid if you got an unlocked one? I have no idea how that
works.

Unfortunately the only reason that device is $200 is that they upped the plan
price to cover the hardware cost.

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quantumhobbit
I'm glad to see the micro USB connector. I know it is a minor complaint but I
hate traveling with two charging/Docking connectors Ipod for the phone and USB
for everything else.

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DanielBMarkham
Very interesting. It just might be my next smartphone.

I also like the idea of a new AppStore to compete with Apple.

How does app development work for PalmOS? Anybody have experience? Is there a
windows-based emulator and SDK? Anybody have a link(s)?

~~~
chops
In the current and former version of PalmOS, they've always had Windows based
hardware (em|sim)ulators and a decent SDK (I used to develop software for old
PalmOS 3.5 and 4.0). Natively, the languages they were written in were C and
C++, though, there've been some scripting platforms written for PalmOS in the
past.

With the new Palm WebOS, supposedly it's supposed to be Javascript, CSS, and
HTML (though not sure how that translates into certain things like opening
sockets and whatnot).

I've always been pretty impressed with Palm's Developer Network.

~~~
bmj
Yeah, they have been always been generally responsive with help.

I'm curious to see if their app store model is any more amendable to
enterprise applications.

