SharonW

Does Palm's Pre Have Anything on the iPhone or Storm?

Well then, I stand corrected. Nonetheless, a replacement program where I have to pay Apple $80 to replace my battery and pay to rent another phone in the meantime seems outrageous and I'm not about to purchase sodering equipment and take up sodering LOL (I'm sorry that's just plain funny) to do what should be a simple battery replacement.

And while Apple fans may constantly buy the next newest iPhones, I don't think you'll find a majority of people getting a new one every year, especially not in this economy, and especially not without the heavy subsidies generally only reserved for a 2-year contract renewal or becoming a new customer.

Listen, dudes, the iPhone is a cool phone, but that doesn't mean it's the end of the story, be-all-end-all without any flaws. There's room for improvement and from what I've seen the Pre is the improvement. Let's not forget that PALM was once the leader in this area back when Apple was still trying to cling to a vanishing slice of the computer pie. Leaders come and go and sometimes they rise from the dead.


On May 13 10:32 AM marv08 wrote:

> On May 13 01:41 AM SharonW wrote:

Does Palm's Pre Have Anything on the iPhone or Storm?

iPod?!?! Who the heck talks on an iPod? You're comparing apples to oranges.


On May 13 09:35 AM brewer wrote:

> "As for your "life integration" issues, this is exactly what I was
> talking about with sychronicity. YES, it will draw from all of your
> various sources as I listed above and integrate them, please see
> my other posts if you haven't. No other cell phone does this. Contact
> information, calendars, you name it. If you have multiple email contacts
> for one person, you'll find them all under their name. It will pull
> everything from your computer or the net."
>
> Uh, the iPod does a far better job of this than the pre will. Have
> you never used an iPhone, or what?
>
> It's simple to change the iPhone or iPod battery. I have done it
> myself on older iPods. Your watch has a non-replaceable battery as
> well. But you go to the store and they change it, right?
>
> The battery can be changed, there is just no door to fall off as
> there is on the pre. You just have to not be all thumbs to change
> the iPhone battery. Most people don't do the simplest things for
> themselves, like change the oil in their cars. iPhone is for this
> majority. Have it done at the Apple store ($59) if you can't manage
> changing your own battery and if you actually have the device long
> enough to need a new battery. It lasts for years, and by that time
> most people want to upgrade to the next model anyway. It's a throwaway
> culture, but you can still change your own iPhone battery if you
> are any good with your hands, etc...
>
>

Does Palm's Pre Have Anything on the iPhone or Storm?

> Battery life? Switchable battery is good. I with iPhone has it. On
> the other hand, our iPhones work just fine all day, no complaints.
> My children have theirs and no complaints. May be heavy users care
> a lot more than normal users? What percentage are heavy vs normal
> users?

Switchable? No I said replaceable. It's been my understanding that you can't replace the iPhone battery. Has that changed? When your battery completely dies, i.e. will no longer charge, so goes your iPhone from what I've read.

And, in actuality, I have no iPhone biases. I would have loved one if they had launched on Sprint. I hate both Verizon and AT&T corporate cultures as they relate to their cell phone users, and AT&T 3G, once again, really does suck by comparison. Perhaps you should try such a comparison. But I do keep up on as much news for the competition as I do for the investment. It really doesn't sound like anything earth-shattering is forthcoming for iPhone 3.0.

P.S. I don't think they're marketing this as a kid's phone although I'm sure kids would enjoy it just as much if not more than the iPhone, except for the possible cool, trendy factor of Apple. I think this is what the author was referring to with regards to the Paris Hilton reference. But kids are very into multi-tasking and would easily enjoy pulling and integrating contacts from Facebook with their Twitter and their Gmail contacts or whatever. Then again, it might just become the new cool, and the iPhone yesterday's news.


On May 12 09:50 PM SiliconValleyJoe wrote:

> Actually, cut-and-paste finally arrives in 3.0.
>
> Landscape virtual KB is for all applications. Some like it, some
> do not. It sells millions, so many must be able to live with it.
> My children can :-).
>
> Multi-tasking? A focus that is overblown. For an investor, if you
> focus only on multi-tasking, then you are risking a lot. Best learn
> what multi-tasking is and why it may not be as big a deal as you
> think.
>
> Battery life? Switchable battery is good. I with iPhone has it. On
> the other hand, our iPhones work just fine all day, no complaints.
> My children have theirs and no complaints. May be heavy users care
> a lot more than normal users? What percentage are heavy vs normal
> users?
>
> Nothing inspiring about iPhone 3.0? Sounds like you are letting personal
> bias taint your investor's "objectivity"? I use Mac's at home, PC's
> at work and I own AAPL and MSFT and RIM and ...... Investing is about
> using money to make money, personal emotional bias has no room in
> it. Emotion just cloud your thinking process, skew your decisions
> and could at times lead to losses.
>
> Good luck!
>
>

Does Palm's Pre Have Anything on the iPhone or Storm?

"Until someone can talk about the SDK and what developers can and cannot do on the Pre, we can say nothing about what sort of users will find Pre useful. Is Pre targeting management and integration of "life data" such as meetings, contacts, appointments, emails, voice mails and so on? Like the earlier Palm product? Is Pre into sophisticated games? business applications? Video editing? What?

As for "multi-tasking", it is a silly focus. Given Pre is a handheld device likely with limited RAM and favors lightweight threading models, can I write a resource-intensive application? How will my application impact other applications if I force intensive page-swapping? What is the point of multi-tasking if one poorly-behaving application slows down all other applications? Do we all know WHAT sort of "multi-tasking" we are talking about yet?"

Wow! So many questions, so little time. I know the product. I don't invest in something without reading just about everything associated with it. Like I said I don't invest on Bono whims regardless of who you addressing this post to, I'd like to answer.

Regarding your music question, the Pre will ship with the Pandora app for starters. However, Amazon for MP3 is, of course, available and not as constrained as iTunes. Heck, every MP3 on your computer is available to the Pre as well.

As for your "life integration" issues, this is exactly what I was talking about with sychronicity. YES, it will draw from all of your various sources as I listed above and integrate them, please see my other posts if you haven't. No other cell phone does this. Contact information, calendars, you name it. If you have multiple email contacts for one person, you'll find them all under their name. It will pull everything from your computer or the net.

As for the importance of multi-tasking, perhaps you should see a demonstration. Click Meet the Pre:

www.palm.com/us/produc.../

That's pretty much functioning like a computer where you have several windows open and your IM and email at the same time, but with everything completely integrated. Moreover, when you get a notification of an incoming email you don't have to exit whatever you're doing to read it, etc.

The "card" system employed by Palm to handle multiple tasks has shown it to do so with aplomb. Because of the structure behind it, nothing has proven to intensive to suck life out of other apps or crash the phone. In fact, app developers appear to be in love with the simple and standard Web development tools such as CSS, JavaScript, and HTML that run on a version of the Webkit engine.

Here:
Developers: Palm's webOS Is The Bomb

www.informationweek.co...;jsessionid=31WSI0NGHH...

In addition, it will do Adobe pdfs, Flash will be coming later this year, Docs to Go, Office 2007.

So check out some of the resources I've offered and see for yourself. It's really not hard to get information on this phone. A simple Google News search for Palm Pre will answer every question.



On May 12 09:14 PM SiliconValleyJoe wrote:

> It is easy to confuse business vs. technical details vs. end user
> experience.
>
> A user does not care about technical details. A user wants a phone
> that works 100% of the time, is clearly audible, has at least a full
> day's worth of battery charge for all that one wants to do and the
> device is capable of doing everything one wants to do such as playing
> games, listening to music, browse the web, use certain apps, take
> a few pictures or video and send a few MMS messages. A device that
> can do all these will certainly sell itself. So is anyone here saying
> that Pre overshadows the Berries and iPhone in all these areas, in
> every way? I doubt it. Pre is a solid offering with some nice features
> but that is it.
>
> Technically speaking, WebOS is no different than other UN*X-flavor
> OS. Palm did not run off to build a brand new OS from scratch. So
> toss the technically "superior" claim out the window. The real difference
> will be in how the WebOS performs its tasks and the Pre SDK. Until
> someone can say something about the WebOS architecture, performance
> characteristics and hardware requirements, all the back and forth
> about "multi-tasking" is foolish. All UN*X-flavor OS already does
> multi-tasking, and that capability dates back to the 70's. Until
> someone can talk about the SDK and what developers can and cannot
> do on the Pre, we can say nothing about what sort of users will find
> Pre useful. Is Pre targeting management and integration of "life
> data" such as meetings, contacts, appointments, emails, voice mails
> and so on? Like the earlier Palm product? Is Pre into sophisticated
> games? business applications? Video editing? What?
>
> As for "multi-tasking", it is a silly focus. Given Pre is a handheld
> device likely with limited RAM and favors lightweight threading models,
> can I write a resource-intensive application? How will my application
> impact other applications if I force intensive page-swapping? What
> is the point of multi-tasking if one poorly-behaving application
> slows down all other applications? Do we all know WHAT sort of "multi-tasking"
> we are talking about yet?
>
> Business wise, if all the doom and gloom is somewhat true of Palm
> then Palm is almost like a new but publicly traded Silicon Valley
> "start-up". Palm's VC-like investors probably has some sort of trigger.
> If Pre sells X-number of units within a certain amount of time, even
> without significant profit, these investors may consider putting
> in more case to keep the ball rolling because they can smell a profit
> looming. If Pre is slightly below investor (not public) expectation,
> may be there will be some hard negotiation for more shares, for more
> investors to buy in or for some changes before they sink in more
> cash. If Pre sales fall in the "red" zone, the investors may panic
> and start looking for merger propositions. This is where Palm seems
> to be at. So Pre has to sell like hot cakes right off the bat. There
> is NOTHING like a hot-selling product to put a big smile on the faces
> of VC's.
>
> As for public investors, you best know what to expect. Unlike those
> "VC's" who meet with the board (or sit on them) and the CEO, the
> VP, the architects and program managers, you have no insider information.
> Your Palm stock is subject to market turbulence. The market is very
> ignorant of these nitty gritty details. You may see share price sink
> like a rock because media reports that Pre is not selling well while
> internally, the VC's are quite happy with the sales. You may see
> share price rocket upward because of media rumor about new Pre-mini
> or Pre selling 10 million units or iPhone is dead while internally,
> everyone is worried.
>
> So before you sink money into Palm at this stage, be sure you really
> understand the technology, the product plan and the market in which
> Palm wants to play. It is folly to just focus on multi-tasking as
> a panacea or as an ultimate "weapon".
>
> Good luck to you all!
>
>
>
>
>

Does Palm's Pre Have Anything on the iPhone or Storm?

Yeah, right, Ayuh. I don't base my investments on Bono whims, but facts. It's a known fact that AT&T's network sucks nickels. AT&T just gave the boot to using the Slingbox app on their 3G (Wifi hotspots only) while other phones on other networks have no problem running it. Bandwidth issues, hmmm?

It's also a well-known fact that the iPhone won't multitask due to power issues for its non-replaceable battery. (Oh, and speaking of which, another Pre plus...a replaceable battery). And, BTW, if iPhone 3.0 rumors are true, there's nothing particularly new and inspiring coming out from them in June. Just a yawning reiteration of the old iPhone with a tad more power and compass living on the same, sleepy, barely 3G network. Gee, maybe you'll even get a landscape virtual keyboard that's equally slow to use. Think they'll finally get that cut-and-paste thingie down yet?

Honey, I don't need no stinkin' stops. :D

Does Palm's Pre Have Anything on the iPhone or Storm?

CGP, I couldn't agree with you more. The iPhone's sorest point is the network it's on. AT&T's 3G just plain sucks. Jeff Macke from Fast Money is always complaining about the iPhone's dropped calls and he works in NYC! If AT&T can't deliver in NYC where can it? However, he adores his Kindle which runs on Sprint's network. Even more so, when AT&T does do 3G, it's not nearly as fast as Sprint's. The following shows, exactly what I mean:

www.thestreet.com/vide...

When people changed networks to get the iPhone 1.0 and discovered the crappiness of AT&T's network, I think theyll be quite ready to jump ship as their now about 2 year-old contract expires especially if they spy another equal to if not better than cell phone.

And the Pre will be better. Multitasking is just one benefit, but sychronicity is a killer. Being able to grab all your contact data from multiple sources like Gmail, Outlook, Facebook and put it all together is phenomenal. Not only that but this sychronicity can be employed in a variety of ways for forthcoming apps.

Nor do we know if the Pre will be 4G ready or not for certain. The new NOW commercials end with "soon to become the only 4G network" and closes with a picture of the Pre. Could that be fortelling?

Regardless, the Pre has so much going for it including almost as much Pre-release interest in the tech world as the iPhone initially had. The Pre is too important to both Sprint and Palm to be done incorrectly. I think it's gonna blow people's socks off and I put my money where my mouth is buying PALM in the 8's.

BTW, rumor from BoyGenius has Sprint making their release announcement in the WSJ on May 19th. They've been pretty spot on with most of their rumors. I'm buying more PALM before then.