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Jul 17, 09 - 03:44 pm Comment from: Mormegil

People aren't going to flock to buy "nice" apps on "mediocre" hardware. With today's economy, the iPhone is the best bang for the buck, with a strong following and a VERY bright future.

Jul 17, 09 - 04:00 pm Comment from: MacTony

What?!?!?! but but but..... the Pre can multitask.....

And it mult-tasks very well. I thought Apple would be the one to come up with a multi-tasking solution like the Pre Cards system but Palm beat them to it.

That's one area where Apple needs to catch up. They can limit it to five apps or something for all I care but we should be able to multi-task with third party apps.

Jul 17, 09 - 04:27 pm Comment from: Predrag

I have this nagging feeling that the next year's iPhone will implement some ingenious way of pseudo-multitasking that will completely silence those who keep parroting that particular bullet-point. Perhaps sending the application to the background, saving the memory content to the storage area (clearing RAM for active app)... You open an app, then open another one, and the first one remembers the status; you keep opening others and previous keep remembering where you leave them. When you switch back to the previously opened one, RAM is re-populated from storage seamlessly and you resume where you were (in the middle of Level 3 of your game, or in the middle of your online banking session, or in the middle of your AOL chat...).

As for the SDK, the yardstick here is the iPhone SDK. Anyone coming to Pre development today will most likely be coming from the iPhone development. Having worked with that SDK for over a year, they'll surely feel hobbled by the shortcomings of the Pre SDK. To justify extra effort to work around those shortcomings, one would really need strong motivation (large untapped market space). Unfortunately, that won't exist until Palm sells at least 4-5 million devices. By then, the total number of iPhone apps will likely reach the total number of Windows applications, and the total number of iPhone users may well reach the total number of WIndows users...

There was a rumor a while back that Apple might provide some way the user could pick which apps they wanted to remain running in the background.

That might not be a bad way of doing it, though of course then you'll have endless complaints from people whose batteries die too quickly or have overheating iPhones as a result. (Which reminds me, we haven't heard much of anything on that story lately, have we?)

In any event, Mr. Hunter's baseball analogy is brilliant, and excellently illustrates the predicament Palm is currently in. A bunt with nobody on base almost always results in the batter being thrown out... at this point all Palm can hope for is a bad throw to first so they can stay alive.

man this just keeps getting better by the day. LOL

Hopefully Apple will be able to continue to develop battery and power management technology to allow for background apps. I don't know if I'd want an app like a banking app to save it's settings in memory like a previous poster mentioned- that seems like a perfect avenue for an attack. But for stuff like games, non-https web browsing, etc., being able to "save your place" sounds like a great idea to me.
Having something like Trapster running in the background whenever you're driving around sounds like it could be useful. I'm sure there are a ton of other possibilities as well.

Jul 17, 09 - 04:50 pm Comment from: Predrag

Could somebody explain for us non-Americans these baseball references? What is a bunt? What is the meaning of stepping to the plate, nobody on a base and getting to first? Based on the tone of the article, I can surmise that Palm's effort was lame, half-hearted and won't be enough, and they need to score a perfect ten (I assume that would be the meaning of " home runs swinging for the fences").

MDN would be surprised how many non-Americans follow the site. Vast majority of us have no clue about baseball...

@Predrag,

In baseball, bunting is when the field goal kicker is fouled and fails to score a two-point conversion.

Jul 17, 09 - 05:14 pm Comment from: sparkplug

@Predrag

As an American I enjoyed R2's toungue-in-cheek definition of a BUNT, however, you can view a video of a baseball bunt on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYdBkOGVZ3k

Jul 17, 09 - 05:25 pm Comment from: Davewrite

craig hunter

"In my quest to re-experience the early days of app development on a new mobile platform, I didn't rewind one year like I was hoping -- I went back two years, back to the days when we could only develop web apps on the iPhone. I wrote this piece back then, bitching about the limitations of web apps on the iPhone. It seems we're right back in the same boat with webOS."

"Palm might have had a chance against the 2007 Apple SDK, but not the 2009 version. Not even close"

THIS is touted by many tech writers as the iPhone killer? 2 years behind? lol.

I think a MDN 'beleaguered' is fitting.

@R2

"And it mult-tasks very well."

No, it doesn't. Ever have been on the phone with somebody and suddenly felt the need to send an e-mail to that person? I do it frequently. Well, with the pre you have to hang up, send, then dial again. Last time I did that was when I was on dial-up. I wouldn't call that well done multi-tasking. It's not a limitation of the device, but of the Sprint network. Still, why would you go with a carrier that cripples basic functionality?

Jul 17, 09 - 06:01 pm Comment from: ken1w

The iPhone multitasks already. You can be listening to music. The music player is still running in the background as you get a call. You answer the call. The caller asks you to email him something, so you go to email while still on the call. You need to look up something on the web, so you use your browser, while still on the call. You hang up and the music comes back up automatically. That's at least three apps working together, and it was demonstrated six months BEFORE the first iPhone ever shipped, on a pre-launch version of the iPhone OS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT3wc0kQQOQ

What the iPhone does not do (yet) is multitask on whatever apps you want. That is not a technical limitation of the iPhone OS, it is a limitation Apple intentionally imposed, to ensure a great user experience, due to current hardware limitation. Apple wants to keep multitasking situations strictly controlled for now.

Just a semi-almost-realistic viewpoint...

We know that the iPhone CAN do multitasking, it's just that they aren't ready to implement the feature yet. Why? Because playing games and stuff will kill the battery in less than 4 hours. Apple did a nice little refresh with the iPhone 3GS, but it's basically the same unit. Perhaps next year they will then be ready to implement new battery technology which will allow them to add more multitasking features.

Think about this too. Apple doesn't tell anyone how long the battery will last if you go ape wild on recording video on the new 3GS. Hummm, wonder if the iPhone will even last a few hours with that.

Jul 17, 09 - 06:10 pm Comment from: cogitoergomac

Excellent points ken1w. As long as I am at least on an Edge network, I multi-task all the time. And even when not on Edge, I can SMS while on the phone. I do exactly what you described: keep on talking even as I check and send email and look things up on the web.

Personally I believe Apple will eventually allow users to allow applications to remain open through some sort of verification as they currently implement in the location services framework.

I also think Apple has intentionally withheld 'multi-tasking' to train developers to use the Push Notification Services rather than rely on their application being open and running all the time. It will only lead to having an OS that's much more efficient than anything else out there after 'multi-tasking' is allowed. In the end users and developers will be able to to choose to either leave the application open or letting the PNS service deliver notifications.

Having the PNS service as an option will give the iPhone OS a huge performance advantage.

Jul 17, 09 - 06:39 pm Comment from: Jubei

The Palm PeePee can't match anything. Oh their one big argument, "I can run Pandora in the background" Big whooopeeedoo. I can run all my favorite music that I want to hear, from a playlist that I want to hear in the background too.. Yeah while playing games.

Jul 17, 09 - 07:32 pm Comment from: zek

They call it an OS, but it all runs from a web server. What's the web server running on?

I am outta here once Palm adds apps like fastdue and skype. Iphone was fun, but its too restrictive for most business or freelance apps.

I just want to run Pandora or XM in background while I browse safari or use Maps or GPS. That shouldn't be a problem. I can do that with my iPod music or audiobooks. It is already being done ..... Just selectively. Seems like Apple just flexing their machismo because ... Well they can. What other lame reason can there be? So unless I what to devote 100% attention to Pandora or XM or The Dead spring concert tour, I have to devote a portion of my drive space to iPod MUSIC to get music and browsing together. This will have to change soon or they will face scrutiny by the press for simply strong arming their developers. It is obvious that without some extraordinary event that no HARDWARE maker is going to threaten Apples' dominance of the iP thing.
iPod dominates music players using iTunes as it's base station. iPhone dominates smart phone sales that are just in infancy. They are vertically integrated. They make the operating system, the device, apple stores sell them for real and virtually. No one does that.

They are well aware that they need to be wary of being accused of being a monopoly. iPods are almost used as a generic mp3 player. Like Kleenex and tissue. Ok. Sorry too many beers.

Although that may have sounded like I am griping, but thruth be told you are going to have to pry my iPhone out of my cold dead hands unless someone can create a phone that will import all of my current 10 screens of apps and provide better service more functions and a much much lower price, because ....I  my IPhone man.

Jul 17, 09 - 08:43 pm Comment from: Kamaro

Anyone remember the "Switcher" program from way back when (System 4?)?

The Mac menu bar had prev/forward arrows that moved you from program to program. This was the state of multi-tasking in the mid to late 80s.

That's what the webOS solution looks like to me.

Blah blah blah. What excatly do people want multitasked?

Jul 17, 09 - 09:49 pm Comment from: bobchr

The IPhone already does crutial multitasking very well. Examples include being able to handle a phone call and call up google maps to describe directions to the caller on speaker phone. Streaming apps like Joost video and pandora audio are impractical to multitask because if you interrupt the stream to answer a phone call a memory buffer has to be employed to collect the data missed while the phone call is ocurring. How long will the phone call be? How much memory do you need? How much power is the cacheing process going to consume? What if you now need to call a third process like looking up a contact while the phone call and cacheing process fo a media stream is running? Do you all now understand why Apple chose to limit these process? With things like games that are wholly on the phone and can be suspended the programmer may chose to suspend that app, but any kind of streaming app should be terminated. Also suspending an app is not multitasking.

Jul 17, 09 - 09:51 pm Comment from: bobchr

Damn spell check on the fritz again.

Jul 17, 09 - 10:03 pm Comment from: amyhre

To continue the baseball analogy, Palm was hoping for a grand slam with 3 balls and 2 strikes. Schwiiiiiiiing!!!!! Strike three! You're out!

Jul 18, 09 - 08:18 am Comment from: DLMeyer

This seemed like a positive review to me. Not a GREAT review, but still pretty good. Too bad for Palm that "pretty good" may be good enough against the vast majority of the market but not nearly good enough against the iPhone. They can easily fix the complaint about the hardware, that's surmountable. The problem seems to be the SDK, which is harder to fix. It's the second best SDK out there, far ahead of third and fourth place finishers but as far behind the first place finisher. I don't know if there are areas where it might outshine the iPhone's, but if it really does fail at motion-sensitive game-play, that's a huge loss. All these people who claim to "need" an iPhone for "business", and the most popular 3rd party apps are motion-sensitive games? Who do they think they are kidding? But, it's what sells ... it's the market definer. You can't "fail" there and expect to win.

Jul 18, 09 - 09:20 am Comment from: flappo

@bobchr

spellink is overrated

what you wrote was interesting and enlightening , well done !

that's miles more important that twaddle like spellink , punktiationa dn all that grammatikal dros$

Jul 18, 09 - 09:45 am Comment from: Road Warrior

Predrag,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunt_(baseball)

The Palm Pre can't match what the iPhone does:

http://www.clipaday.com/videos/magic-baseball-bat

and they say cricket is difficult to understand

marco.org: serious doubts✪
Marco Arment on developing for the iPhone:

[N]ow that rejections for very minor issues are common, nearly every app update gets rejected at least once and needs to wait in the queue again. …

Trying to communicate with Apple is like talking to a brick wall. The ADC phone reps can’t do anything, emails are rarely answered, and nearly every response that actually gets through just tells you to keep filing duplicate bug reports (that rarely get answered) until the problem goes away, which may never happen. …

Apple thinks this is good enough. …

Because it’s working for them. They’re making a killing taking their 30% commission on the 1.5 billion copies of $0.99 top-25 games that they’ve sold. Who cares if the App Store discourages good developers from putting serious effort into it? Apple doesn’t need to care. And, clearly, they don’t.

This is why I don’t agree with John Gruber’s proposition that Apple needs a Nikon. Apple needs to be the Nikon. When Apple is coming second, it’s clearly in their interest to advocate transparency and open standards, to take good care of the people developing for the platform, and a variety of other Good Things that also diminish the power of a monopolist like Microsoft.

But give Apple a monopoly and it feeds into the worst aspects of its corporate culture—the obsession with secrecy, the autocratic approach to design, and the pervasive self-image as the guardians of the One Right Way. A monopolistic Apple would be in very real danger of disappearing up its own exquisitely-designed ass.

I love my iPhone. But the innovation on the platform—the things that make it feel like a chunk of the future in my pocket—is not coming out of Apple. If they erect so many arbitrary barriers that indie developers can’t make a reasonable living on the iPhone, it won’t just be the users who suffer; the long-term effects on the platform will be just as poisonous.

You are so correct and I will support apple 110 percent after all they bought to me this wonderful phone that does things you could only imagine 10 or even five years ago people should be thankful and supportIve of this device because as time goes by who knows what apple will give us next