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Palm did it: better experience than Apple

scobleizer.com

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: Palm did it: better experience than Apple

#33
post #10

I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy, but you need more than a pretty phone to dethrone the iPhone. The App store is the best thing since sliced bread. The ever-growing developer enthusiasm for the iPhone is a huge factor too. And if webOS is basically web-based, that means that all of Palm's apps will be available on the iPhone, but none of the iPhone's apps will be available on the Palm Pre. Not exactly a winning p…

You're an Apple fanboy :) 5 million devices sold isn't a dominant market position in the mobile market. It's a drop in the ocean. The market is still wide open and Palm may just have invented the best crossover device for casual users (small form factor) and business users (real keyboard). The app store issue is moot. There isn't a killer must have app that would keep people on the Apple platform. Facebook is the kil…

form the specs I've seen of the Pre, it is about twice the thickness of the iPhone and the other dimensions are only slightly less. I guess you will find the Pre also large and clunky.

Re: Palm did it: better experience than Apple

#34
post #10

I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy, but you need more than a pretty phone to dethrone the iPhone. The App store is the best thing since sliced bread. The ever-growing developer enthusiasm for the iPhone is a huge factor too. And if webOS is basically web-based, that means that all of Palm's apps will be available on the iPhone, but none of the iPhone's apps will be available on the Palm Pre. Not exactly a winning p…

I would happily trade everything in the app store for a faster UI and decent phone service (AT&T is unusable at my office and home).

Re: Palm did it: better experience than Apple

#35
post #15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And if webOS is basically web-based, that means that all of Palm's apps will be available on the iPhone, but none of the iPhone's apps will be available on the Palm Pre" You are counting on webOS being nothing more than a WebKit browser. I am sure that's not the case. I am also sure the iPhone is not the primary target the Pre is aimed at. There is a host of Windows Mobile, RIM and Symbian slightlycleverphones (it t…

"You are counting on webOS being nothing more than a WebKit browser. I am sure that's not the case." Even if it's not, the fact remains that apps written in HTML+CSS+javascript (what's more, HTML+CSS+JS tweaked to run on WebKit) will be trivial to port to the iPhone -- not just because the iPhone has a fantastic webkit browser, but because the apps themselves will be trivial. The Pre, at best, will be a phone of widg…

what it's gonna come down to is the price of the phone. if the Pre can not compete in terms of price, it will not fair well. this is the same thing that happened to the ipod. there were a lot of competitors, who essentially had a very similar product, but just could not compete in terms of price. also, the fact that iphone has a running start in the app development market, just makes it more unlikely for the pre to complete effectively. also, from what i hear inside palm, they are still trying to make webOS "smoother".

by the time Pre comes to the market in a few months, apple will have the iphone 2.0 to announce. i'm just really glad, we are finally seeing some competition in this market space. this will drive the service providers to compete for my data plan purchase.

Re: Palm did it: better experience than Apple

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're an Apple fanboy :) 5 million devices sold isn't a dominant market position in the mobile market. It's a drop in the ocean. The market is still wide open and Palm may just have invented the best crossover device for casual users (small form factor) and business users (real keyboard). The app store issue is moot. There isn't a killer must have app that would keep people on the Apple platform. Facebook is the kil…

form the specs I've seen of the Pre, it is about twice the thickness of the iPhone and the other dimensions are only slightly less. I guess you will find the Pre also large and clunky.

Palm Pre is .19 of an inch thicker than the iphone, and over half an inch shorter. Great size for an average hand or a pocket. Here are the numbers:

http://palmpre.org/palm-pre-vs-iphone-storm-g1

Re: Palm did it: better experience than Apple

#37
post #16

"Palm’s bet on social networking integration is a game changer ... That is huge and not many people will get it." Umm, how can a social anything be huge if not many people get it? The Zune wasn't just social, it was The Social -- and no one got it.

"not many people" are the writers/reviewers. Scoble has a good point. The Zune network assumed you were within proximity of another Zune user. That would be cool if everyone had a Zune, sort of. If you're under 35 most of your friends have Facebook accounts and the network doesn't partition when you move 30 feet ;)

Re: Palm did it: better experience than Apple

#38
I am very interested in all this talk about third party apps for the phone being written in Html + Javascript.

If executed well, it means an army of developers ready to start coding away and tons of libraries and existing apps ready to be plugged in.

If executed the iPhone way, it means mostly crappy mini websites, masquerading as apps, for a while and then a decent native SDK a year later.

Re: Palm did it: better experience than Apple

#39
post #10

I hate to sound like an Apple fanboy, but you need more than a pretty phone to dethrone the iPhone. The App store is the best thing since sliced bread. The ever-growing developer enthusiasm for the iPhone is a huge factor too. And if webOS is basically web-based, that means that all of Palm's apps will be available on the iPhone, but none of the iPhone's apps will be available on the Palm Pre. Not exactly a winning p…

"And if webOS is basically web-based, that means that all of Palm's apps will be available on the iPhone, but none of the iPhone's apps will be available on the Palm Pre. Not exactly a winning proposition."

And you'd be right, if they do it the way original iPhone apps were done - scaled down websites running in a browser.

But not if what they actually have is a rendering engine as part of the OS and a Javascript API for things like location, sound, data, etc.

Then you have a powerful SDK that everyone and their little brother already pretty much knows how to use.

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