Zobby

Update on the Pre and the Fate of Palm

@Aryamehr:

First you claim that 95% of iPhone apps are junk and then said Fortune backed you up. I checked the article and replied the Fortune article merely quoted Kleiner Perkins mentioning that 95% are from small companies or hobbyists. (And K.P has a 100 m fund for iPhone developers so believes in the platform). Taking 'small company and hobbyists" comment to equal junk is stretching the truth!! - did you think people would just take your word and won't check the article? I already showed you that some hobbyists like the bird watching app developer has made excellent apps. Apps which are reviewed positively, in high demand and featured in commercials. Other developers like Trism developer (more or less a one man show) has made hundreds of thousands of dollars. But even free gaps can be great. After I have shown you misquoted Fortune and the 95% you now claim from thin air that 98% is junk "in actuality 98% + of those applications are useless ". Again where is the impartial reviews or statistics to back up your 98% claim , making it up in your head doesn't prove anything. LOL!!

You say "you can rest assured the Pre will have practically every applicaiton worth having in a shortwhile." That's a personal opinion, but where's your factual backing of this? On the other hand factually I can point out there are only tiny handful of apps now and already reviewers who own Pres are saying they are bored with the Pre as there are no apps, for example : Ars Technica "Why the iPhone which beats the Pre for Air Travel", I quote: "What I found is that the Pre is a pretty boring travel companion who tires way too easily." (tiring too easily part is the 'famous' multi tasking phone's battery).

Again factually Palm says SDK won't be out until late summer and then after that developers will have to want to write for a tiny platform like the Pre vs the iPhone OS (iPhone and ipod Touch) and even if they do it'll take more time. By then there'll be more iPhone apps and people will be awaiting iPhone 4.0. As for AT&T, there's just as many complaints about Sprint (Sprint is the one losing millions of customers the last few years you know) and AT&T is only in the U.S, iPhone sold in dozens of countries. Also AT&T contract expires next year and Apple free to do whatever it wants. (Right now AT&T also gives Apple very high profit percentages back as they want the exclusivity to drive customers to AT&T.)

As the above article shows Pres are no longer hot selling items while latest news is that Apple (with the AMR number one rated supply and manufacturing chain in the U.S) is not meeting demand of iPhones, white ones are still selling out.

Update on the Pre and the Fate of Palm

@Aryamehr

read my post carefully before commenting.

You mention repeatedly that I said the 3GS was 'light years ahead', I never did (although it might be accurate), I said the Pre had to be light years ahead of the iPhone to beat it (as the iPhone is the market leader).

Saying that 95% of iPhone apps is junk is just wishful thinking of iPhone haters. Any statistical or impartial review to back up your claims? You mention Fortune magazine "a recent article in Fortune magazine will corroborate" but you're misleading, the article I believe is "iPhone apps: For fun and profit?" and it doesn't say 95% is junk, it says investment firm Kleiner Perkins thinks 95% are from small companies or hobbyists. Small companies and hobbyist can't make good apps? They're all junk? Small companies have made BIG bucks on the iPhone, a 99 cent app to several million buyers is a lot of money. A recent featured app on iPhone commercials was a bird watching app which is big seller made by a hobbyist. Kleiner Perkins has a 100 million fund (100 million!) for iPhone developers and is very bullish on iPhone application and previously has said that the iPhone was the birth of New Platform like the birth of the PC revolution. Talking about the 95% is probably K.P putting down it's iPhone competitors as now hundreds of new developers are jumping in some with millions of dollars in funding. Do you think K.P one of the top tech investment firms in the U.S is going to put 100 m into iPhone app development if it thinks iPhone is bad? really!

Talking about Fortune, Apple is No.1 on Fortune's 2008 most admired companies list!

Also What makes you think all Pre or Google apps are wonderful? This is so indictive of iPhone criticisms: 'we'll make something up from our minds i.e 95% are junk'. It's silly reasoning with no impartial factual studies to back it up. But even if it was true which it isn't that means there are still plenty apps which are good there! (5% of 50,000 is 2500. There are only 30 or so Pre apps). Also is it logical that developers only write good apps for the other Phones while junk for the iPhone, does that make sense? Of course not.

As the for the Touch Diamond, did it sell 1 million in a 3 days? The HTC Touch Diamond runs Win Mo which is a from many sources a sucky OS, even Sony and Samsung (big Msft. customers) have ditched Win Mo for their flagship phones this year and gone to Symbian. Having features but as some said "you don't have a good OS and can't use them easily what the point?" Again any Touch phones sell over a million in 3 days?

And you miss the main point of my post . You say "This time next year there will be millions of Pre users and thousands of applications to choose from"
Exactly, one year! iPhone has 50,000 now. By next year like I said iPhone will be one year ahead again, with iPhone 4.0, so how will Pre ever catch up?

10 Reasons Not to Buy Apple

One of the dumbest articles on Apple ever.

"No room to grow in wireless market" ? The smartphone market is one the fastest expanding markets around. Apple sold more iPhone 3GS in a shorter time, 1 million in a weekend although launched in fewer countries in a recession than the 3G. People are upgrading from normal cell to smart phones. People changing from Samsung, Nokia etc to iPhone. The mobile computing market, small powerful computers like the iPhone, iPod Touch and the rumored iTablet are the next big thing in computing. While others are saying it's equivalent to the birth of the PC and internet revolutions you've got "no room to grow". Forbes: "Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar estimates Apple shipped 6.8 million phones in the June quarter alone" , remember when the iPhone first came out Apple hoped to sell 10 million a year.

You say "Apple's slice of the U.S. computer market fell to 8% in the fourth quarter of 2008, from 9.5% in the third quarter of 2008, according to Forbes (source)." Did you actually read the data that's been coming out the last week or so? Morgan Stanley : " "Apple began to outperform the broader commercial PC segment -- with commercial Mac shipments up 25% month-over-month in May versus market growth of just 1%," That doesn't even fully take into account the spectacular sales of the new Macbooks, the new 13" Macbook Pro is selling out. Apple Insider: "Apple's newly-coined 13-inch MacBook Pros appear to be off to a hot start, with the company reportedly having difficulty keeping some of the new models in stock as it enters the heart of the back-to-school buying season. In a note to clients Tuesday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster pointed out that the Apple online store is currently reflecting lead times of 7 to 10 business days for the faster of the two 13-inch MacBook Pros. He notes this is the most extensive delay affecting the company's 13-inch notebook models ever.

The analyst, which regularly tracks and records lead times for products on the Mac maker's online store, said he had to look back more than two years into his records to find similar delays, and even then they spanned just 5 to 7 business days. "

As for iPod Saturation. Many people are shifting to the higher priced iPod Touch due to the thousands of apps available. Yesterday numerous articles e.g. at least 3 articles on Zdnet (a PC oriented site) alone! said that the Touch if it gets the rumored camera (Tech blogger Michael Arrington reported Monday that Apple has placed orders for a "massive number" of camera modules for the iPod.) it will be a 'disruptive', a category killer. Read Forbes "Why Apple Could Kill Your Camera". In short a camera equipped Touch will sell like hotcakes.

Won't bother to comment on the rest but the above is enough to show how poorly researched this article is.

Update on the Pre and the Fate of Palm

Pre apologists don't get certain things.

They say that the Pre is doing well, iPhone outselling it is not a big deal as the Pre is being sold only in one country. But that's just it, by the time Pre moves to other countries and other carriers and by the time it gets its SDK out and then apps it'll be months. By that time iPhone will be out in more countries like China and people will be anticipating NEXT iPhone (4.0.)

Already the iPhone has more 'consumer attractive' features like video, tap touch autofocus, google maps that orient with magnetometer etc. (lots of general consumers don't understand Palm advantages like 'synergy') and by the time Palm gets SDK carriers together iPhone will be 4.0 and further ahead. Apple is right when they say they're way (years?) ahead of the others.

People ask what iPhone can do that Pre can't, some people answer video etc. but the real answer is 50,000 things. That's apps in the app store that Pre doesn't have. And by the time they do have significant numbers (and many developers are not very keen as the installed base is so tiny vs iPhone. 1 subscriber for about 300-400 iPhone OS) iPhone would have moved the benchmark further ahead.

If video comes to the iPod Touch later this year as rumored the iPhone OS base will explode even larger. Outselling Pre 10-20 to one means that Apple will also always have more cash for R&D and marketing.

Also currently although the Pre and iPhone 3GS are having teething problems the Pre seems to be significantly more: build quality resulting in cracks etc. Note since the iPhone is outselling Pre 10-20 to one if iPhone problems are equal are more than Pre the number of complaints should be 10-20 times more in the forums but that's not the case, in fact complaints from Pre owners seem to be outpacing iPhone 3GS owners. Palm needed a light years ahead phone (but is missing things like video camera) with competitive number of apps, superior build quality and cheaper to compete with the iPhone, it doesn't have it.

The Palm Pre: Can One Device Save Two Companies?

When Roger McNamee a Palm investor
made extreme claims for the palm in public, Palm legal
was completely terrified and hurriedly filed 'corrections',
(SIX PAGES of it!) to the SEC!

Here's what Palm Legal said to the SEC (vs. all the
marketing hype)

About claims of Palm's much greater speed than the
iPhone.

Palm Legal:
"the Palm Pre is still under development and it is
premature to state the speed at which the device accesses
the web or the relative speed of the Palm Pre compared to
the smartphone products of competitors."

About the Superiority of the Palm vs other smartphones

Palm Legal:

"the Palm Pre is designed to be the first phone based on
the Palm webOS platform and as a result will have different
operating characteristics and features than other phones,
however; the Palm Pre is still under development and it is
premature to compare its full functionality with that of
other phones"

About the better reception to iPhone's AT&T 3G network

Palm Legal:

"regarding the relative development and stability of
Sprint's, Verizon's and AT&T's 3G networks are
generalizations regarding wireless cellular network
performance that may or may not be true depending on a
variety of factors specific to geographic regions"

About McNamee's claim that iPhone users will flock to the
Pre.

Palm Legal:
"an exaggerated prediction of consumer behavior pattern
and is withdrawn"


About the superiority of Palm Web Os vs iPhone i.e that it's
more 'advanced' and 'newer' than OsX.

Palm Legal:
"estimating one specific age for the many technology
components underlying any mobile phone is inherently
imprecise and these statements are withdrawn"

------

Seems like the only thing Palm Legal didn't dismiss were
McNamees statements that the Pre wasn't a real competitor
to the iPhone but something else, the Pre as sitting
between ordinary cell phones and high end smart phones.

McNamee said "I hope people will be excited about the Pre"
although "it won't be fantastic for playing games like the
iPhone." !!!!

i.e the Palm can' run CPU intensive stuff like high end
games!

That bit that the Pre won't be good at games like the
iPhone Palm Legal didn't change! :)

People should chew on all this awhile before wafting in the
Pre hype.

Will the iPhone Eat Blackberry's Business Lunch?

OsX, OsX, OsX!

OsX which runs the iPhone, iPod touch etc. took something like 20 years to create (from Next Os).

OsX is a modern Unix operating system (unlike windows) and is extremely powerful with a phenomenal rendering engine etc. that's why it can run multi-touch, a full page web browser, games like the Spore (watch the iPhone SDK presentation) and complex programs that would bring a Windows mobile device to its knees.

Because of OsX the iPhone is much more than a phone, it is a MOBILE COMPUTING platform - like a mobile mac. (John Doerr said it's a new platform "bigger than the PC").

Eventually Apple can get whatever it needs like 3G etc. but it's competitors will NEVER MATCH OsX. If Microsoft with its billions can't do it, PHONE makers like Rim building a "iPhone killer" i.e superseding OSX in " a few months or a year " is ludicrous. That's why all the "iPhone killers" so far function badly, they might have the iPhone looks but not the OS.

Also OsX allows iPhones and Apple mobile devices to seamlessly integrate in a computing environment, some other "smart-phones" can't even be hooked up to a computer!

With iPhone software 2.0 coming in June the iPhone will be a platform like no other.

I own Google stock and I yet I don't think even Android will be much of an iPhone threat.

Smart Phone Wars: iPhone vs. Blackberry vs. ...Android?

The iPhone is a MOBILE COMPUTER that can also make phone calls. Some other so called 'smart-phones' can't even be hooked up to a computer.

It took something like 20 years to create OsX (staring as Next Os), a modified version runs the iPhone. Many don't get how sophisticated Unix based OsX is. Microsoft can't match it, doubtful if any PHONE maker can do so. That's why so far every "iphone" killer has fallen flat on its face. Apple will fix whatever iPhone shortcomings there is like 3G, GPS, no sweat just a matter of time but their competitors will never get OsX.

With iPhone software 2.0 and SDK apps. coming in June the whole game is going to change. The iPhone and future Apple iDevices are going dominate this whole new 'mobile computing' category, nobody is going to come close. As John Doerr Google and Amazon financier said it's whole 'new platform' and he added 'bigger than the PC'. John Doerr biggest tech financier is so sure of this he's setting up a 100 m fund to finance iPhone application development.

I won Google stock but my bets still with iPhone vs. Android.