Palm Pre Gives Hope That iPhone Will Face Real Competition
11:55 pm, January 8th, 2009, Pete Mortensen
I have a guilty secret to confess: I’ve been secretly hoping that one of the zillions of so-called “iPhone killers” might prove to be. After all, if the rest of the mobile industry continues to crank it crummy wannabes like the BlackBerry Storm or the Samsung Instinct, Apple will have far less incentive to actually take their own product to all-new heights of greatness. Apple makes awesome stuff, but they make even more awesome stuff when threatened.
And so it was that I was very heartened by the announcement of the Palm Pre at the Consumer Electronic Show. If you haven’t had a chance to read up on the phone, I highly recommend that you do. It’s small, relatively sleek, has a nice keyboard, and it’s got the best UI for a mobile phone that I’ve seen outside the iPhone. And for some tasks (app-switching, most notably), it’s already better.
Now, have no fear, I have absolutely no intention of buying a Pre. The music syncing looks suspect, there’s no video support of any kind for the version set to launch this year, and I don’t need a full keyboard to be happy. All that, and it’s going to be Sprint-exclusive, and I travel enough that a GSM phone is pretty much a necessity for me.
I am excited that the Pre is good enough to actually make Apple work hard, particularly on the software front. The Palm Web OS has a clear point of view, an attractive look, and some genuinely innovative features, such as the gesture bar and the very cool “wave” application launcher shown above. The Pre cribs a lot from the iPhone — not to mention OS X’s Expose feature — but it brings these ideas together in a way that even Apple hasn’t yet.
And the good news is that now Apple has a reason to go beyond the interface created for OS X iPhone 1.0. I wouldn’t be even slightly shocked if we see an Expose for iPhone update in firmware 3.0, or even before. And Apple needs to get more serious about rolling out the multitasking Push API it promised last July.
Kudos to Jon Rubinstein and Palm for pulling off a far better phone than I thought them capable of. It’s the first serious mobile platform that’s even coming close to besting the iPhone (sorry, Android), and it’s clearly going to have a life beyond its initial release. And hey — it’s got cut, copy, and paste!
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Hardware, News, iPhone | Comment on this article
The main problem for Palm is they’re way too late too market! This phone should have been released at least a year ago, but isn’t even out yet! Just seems like too little, too late.
Also, why do all phone makers seem to try and compete with Apple on the iPhone’s features (or lack thereof, just like MP3 makers tried with the iPod). As with the iPod that will fail because Apple has the whole “fun” user experience, the App Store (using native apps not very basic NTML/Javascript web apps – and i though Android was limited!) and full iTunes integration with proper desktop syncing ala iPod. Most people won’t buy a smart phone because it can do copy and paste or has a keyboard – did most people buy a Creative or Sandisk PMP because they were cheaper and had more features that the iPod?
nizy, on January 9th, 2009 at 12:48 am
The Pre’s UI and hardware make the iPhone look old and seem outdated.
Miles, on January 12th, 2009 at 12:58 pm