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Jan 12, 09 - 11:30 am Comment from: Jimithy

It coulda been a contendah...

It's all psychology. Apple has gone out of it's way to show itself in a smarmy way - look at us - we're great. Personally I love that - but I like showoffs. There's a large percentage of people that hate showoffs. I like the new ads, though - they went a long way toward toning down Apple's "holier than thou" ads from 1984.

It's all just pure jealousy of Apple and their success.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Finally someone gets it. I've been thinking this ever since the demo. Why would anyone go gaga over such a device. I remember loving my iPhone from day one, but yearning for the day when native apps would be available. I didn't even bother with 3rd party apps until I could install them natively as of version 2.0.

Convenience. Performance. Functionality. Good luck with web-based anything. Anything short of native apps is a dismal failure and a patch. Perhaps the Pre implementation will be different / better, but I am supremely unimpressed.

Jan 12, 09 - 11:57 am Comment from: Predrag

What was quoted from Dilger's article here is difficult to refute. In other words, it may have been fanboyism, but it was certainly with a lot of merit (at least this time).

I have no problem with Dilger's articles. He clearly and eloquently articulates the advantages of everything Apple over the non-Apple competition, and as such provides Apple community in general a valuable service. Without Dilgers (i.e. what in the 90's used to be called Mac Evangelists), we probably wouldn't be exactly where we are now. They have kept spreading the word and informing the uninformed.

This may be the best quote ever from Daniel:

"This is just another gagging example of how the tech media can complain about the downsides of getting Christmas ponies from Apple while marveling at the potential of diamonds from the chunks of coal thrown at them by other tech companies."

So true, and hilarious as well.

PS - @ Jenson, you make your arguments look foolish with the over the top characterisations like "inane dribbling" etc. No one should or will take you seriously as long as you engage in that sort of ridiculousness.

Great writing, Daniel Eran. I was thinking the same thing when I watched the QT of the Pre introduction:

"Hey, didn't Apple get railed for (initially) only having Web Apps on the iPhone." Yes, they did.

No wonder the Pre allows for so many "apps" to be running simultaneously -- they're just browser tabs/Dashboard Widgets.

So, Palm's version of the App Store is going to be like visiting the iPhone Web Apps section on Apple's website. How...very...lame.

I'm impressed by the Pre. But then again, I'm not the usual lemming.

Any psychologist will tell you, people are easily fooled because they don't have logical, deductive minds in general, they're emotional. 95% off all detractors who ever post here - have negative emotional feelings about Apple, MDN, or Roughly Drafted.
(All men aren't logical, like all women aren't emotional, the lines cross - not calling anyone a girly-man, but I'm just saying)
Marketers use logic to deal with the public in an illogical manner.
Watch 'Century of the Self' and see how simply the public is influenced. MDN cracks jokes, but they mainly cut through the fog. time after time after time. Compare Apple's 5 year history, and products with any other company side by side, and the innovator is clearly defined. Emotional arguments aren't results orientated so all competitors are rendered equal, which is not reality.

Jan 12, 09 - 12:24 pm Comment from: dimplemonkey

Looks like Palm's been borrowing from M$'s playbook. Hey, if it worked for them, why wouldn't it work for Palm?! lol!

Jan 12, 09 - 12:27 pm Comment from: Willie G

Thank God someone finally sees this. I've been saying it since the Pre was announced, that it is ironic how people are applauding Palm for something the booed Apple about a year and a half ago

There is another excellent evaluation of the Pre at:

http://counternotions.com/

He goes at it from a different point of view than Dilger, pointing out some of the cool things Palm has done with the OS, but nevertheless also pointing out the huge mountain of barriers they face to become successful.

1. Great Developers program
2. Great business program
3. Great App store
4. Sprint? Sprint! Are you kidding me?
5. $$$$ Sprint and Palm don't have a lot of money to throw at this thing—as opposed to Apple, Goggle, MS and RIM.

Pre might be like a restaurant with great food (great OS), but a terrible business plan. Three years ago, it would have been great, but now they have four other restaurants across the street who have already paid off their mortgages, locked in their supply chain at rock bottom prices, hired all the reliable help at high wages and goten their customers to buy two year long gift subscriptions.

The Pre will have to be phenomenal to succeed.

From Wikipedia: "The Pre will be one of the first smartphones to feature wireless charging..." Is this true?

It seems to me that Pre is the tech industry's first serious response to iPhone. While the iPhone is superior to Pre in several categories, the Pre is might be superior to iPhone in other areas (e.g. wireless charging). Opinions...?

This is a good article, and is true.
What's bad is that the pre, with it's limitations, is STILL better and more intuitively thought out and designed hardware and software than the Blackberry Storm anything past push email.
If Apple does landscape keyboard, cut and paste, pumps the capacity and improves the graphics processor of the iPhone/iPod Touch to Carmack standards for games, etc., and apply their new battery technology. then they truly will be 5 years ahead as Steve said. All those things are not that hard to achieve, if not already in lab testing. I think multiple apps running will be later, as the Home button simplifies everything. iSight/H264 integration will happen, but only when Apple decides the market is ready to really use it and AT&T;can increase their bandwidth capacity. Wise first, then slow and incremental releases with both eyes wide open will sustain Apple longterm.

Jan 12, 09 - 12:50 pm Comment from: Randian

In deference to his Excellency Mr. Ballmer . . .

Vaporware, vaporware, vaporware, vaporware.
Vaporware, vaporware, vaporware, vaporware.
Vaporware, vaporware, vaporware, vaporware.
Vaporware, vaporware, vaporware, vaporware.
Vaporware, vaporware, vaporware, vaporware.
Vaporware, vaporware, vaporware, vaporware.

Just wait until real people with real issues get ahold of this thing! THEN we'll find out what it's made of. (Promises, mostly.)

Jan 12, 09 - 01:10 pm Comment from: Crabs

Except CES attendees weren't blown away by the stupid phone. IT WASN'T AT CES!

I'm really quite upset by this. How does the stupid phone win Best of Show when it wasn't really on display there!

Freaking ridiculous. The stupid phone may be amazing, I don't even care. I'm just pissed that it won Best of Show without being on display there. I walked through the entire show trying to find the stupid thing, only to find that halfway through the day on Saturday (the day before the show ended) Palm had left. And they'd never had a display to begin with, they'd had their little press conference (at the Venetian, not one of the main venues of CES), and then had a little reception in a bloody meeting room upstairs in the North Hall hidden away down a little hallway.

So freaking ridiculous. Screw CEA. Best of Show is apparently up for sale to the highest bidder.

I didn't get to read Jenson's post, which is noticeable by its absence.

That's bad news.

I hope MDN isn't going to adopt the standards of the U.S. mainstream media in matters of censorship - e.g. the media's refusal to cover any legitimate and scientifically grounded criticism of the official 'conspiracy theory' of 9/11, which has long since been shown to be false and illogical.

As a Sprint user, I'm interested in seeing actual reviews of this phone. As Palm hired away many iPod/iPhone designers and engineers from Apple, it SHOULD have many of the same features of the iPhone and avoid many of the same problems. It does have Cut & Paste while the iPhone still doesn't.

What will be the most important factor will be the apps for the device and how it will dock to a computer. Could it ever be as smooth as using iTunes?

This is the equivalent of Palm's Dreamcast.

Jan 12, 09 - 02:23 pm Comment from: G4Dualie

He butchered Palm. But it's like shooting fish in a barrel and if you're going to be accused of bashing, you may as well do a proper job of it, lest you be criticized for sandbagging.

He laid open the real weakness behind the curtain; those running the show are a cheap knockoff of Barnum & Bailey who are using wasted, emaciated animals. The kind that make you wince when they hit em with the spotlight. These are the very same people Ed Colligan was referring to when he said, these guys aren't just going to walk in here and start selling phones! Well guess what Ed, they're right there in your camp, you idiot!

Like Madoff, the private backers will pound their drums incessantly for six more months with a well-choreographed marketing campaign that will prove its oven-baked goodness and then they'll take their fscking money and run.

Perhaps Sprint will pick up the tab for the media blitz. It's in their best interests. They're not just looking at a phone here, they're looking for their own salvation. They can pour all their resources into turning Sprint into a wonderland of choice but if you can't sell them a device that can multitask like nobody's business then why are you still drawing air?

If the lines outside the Sprint stores aren't teeming with enthusiastic fans for this iPhone killer this summer it's because we all know Sprint doesn't sell clothes!

Jan 12, 09 - 03:09 pm Comment from: Derek in Milan

Dilger good.
Pre bad.

Life not about truth, about marketing.

Human mind not know difference between truth and fantasy.

Doo Wop - life is but a dream......

Dilger speak truth.
Pre speak doo wop.

Jan 12, 09 - 03:42 pm Comment from: bobchr

@Sarasota
In the interest of a level playing field in the criticism ballpark, it has a bunch of promises just like the IPhone did before it was released. They seem to propose doing a couple of things differently but you still have an unreleased product with vaporware competing with a fully released product in it's second generation, a vast ecosystem of apps and entertainment content. If the Pre ever comes to reality, and is as robust a performer as promised then I hope Sprint is ready. I remember the howls at AT&T;and Apple when the IPhone 3G hit the nascent AT&T;3G network with a crescendo. Massive complaints of dropped calls in key areas and 2.5G like performance for data transaction. As far as I can recollect Sprints 3G performance taps out at around 800Kbps. I hope it can handle a bunch of web enabled web app based cell phones. Of course maybe the Pre will just be a hand held dumb terminal with a cell phone attached. I say good luck to you and hope it works out

It will be months before the phone is available which should leave plenty of opportunity to see if the phone is any good.

Jan 12, 09 - 05:49 pm Comment from: hagar57

Pre, like premature ejac..., I mean presentation. Some of the folks can't hold it long enough.

Palm... Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice... nope, Pallm you will never get the chance. I'll never spend another penny on Palm junk - Pre, Post or otherwise.

Gosh, I wish some of you would just stop whining. Palm has released a beautiful phone and a worthy contender to the iPhone. I have an iPhone and bought it because I found nothing, out there that could compete with my Palm Lifedrive until it came along. Now, if they had released this before, I would have definitely thought twice about buying the iPhone.

However, for many Palm enthusiasts, the love affair may finally be over. I do not see Palm making concessions to please the millions of people presently using Palm OS 5.0. This is where there will be a major problem for Palm. They have thousands of Apps that will need to be re-written. If they're running the platform on Linux/Unix, they may get away with emulation, but that is going to be very slow.

In regards to multitasking. I really feel that you're asking for trouble here. I always want to know what the heck is going on in the background. What if something nefarious is running in the background without my knowledge? And can I finish a Bagel and Cream Cheese before the battery runs out at breakfast during my Multitasking endeavours. (And will it have the same battery management nightmares that the Lifedrive had if you left the machine off, but left the wifi and bluetooth set to 'on" with wake on bluetooth and wake on lan? ---- 3 hrs tops)?

But onto pragmatics. Palm thus far has not really given us an indication of 3rd party applications. If that is coming then great, but just telling us that html, java, css etc. are all supported developer tools, begs the question, what else is there? And are we going to be seeing very intensive software design with database management based on the above? Java has never been fast, so there are many questions to be answered.

But for the love of technology, I do applaud Palm for providing a real competitor to the iPhone. Choice is what will drive Apple to lower prices and compete. It will also force them to make the most powerful handheld device since the introduction of iPhone come June. I bet you a latte that you will see COPY AND PASTE during the next software update. Heck, you might even see MMS, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. I bet you'll also see a better camera, with real zoom and better close up focusing.

So stop your whining and support Palm. Without them we would see Apple stagnate (Remember Amazon's music program? I bet you a bunch of donuts that's why they got rid of DRM and introduced variable pricing).

/rick

Jan 13, 09 - 01:09 am Comment from: Hipcheck

Bagels, lattes, donuts...what's with all the food references? Hungry, rickw?

i am sad to piss on the parade, but the pre excels in some respects where the iphone lacks:
- copy & paste
- camera
- web integration
- search
- messaging
- email

of course the iphone is superior in many other fields, but i hope apple comes up with 2.3 soon to adress some of these shortcomings.

sorry folks, once again, here is kind of a reality check: the pre is an amazing device and in many respects ahead of the iphone, especially ui und usabilty (i never though i would one day say that about a non apple product).
see for yourself:
http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/palm-pre-ces.html

@hipcheck Yes, I was freaking hungry when I wrote that last night .

@ralph Very good points. As I said I think that version 2.5 or infinity or whatever has to be excellent. I am happy that Palm is raising the bar, because it will mean a better product and force Apple to tackle these issues that have remained ear fodder for the past 8 months. I think we'll see cut and paste a lot sooner than you think. My prediction: June or a few weeks before Palm releases its Pre.

My pet peeve is the camera. For the type of device that this is, I would like to see at least a 4 mpx camera and focus with attention paid to getting close up shots. All of the bar scanning programs are useless because of the inability to focus at these short distances.

I'd give a bagel for that :).


/rick.

@ralph

" ahead of the iphone..." er, let's not go that far! If it weren't for the iPhone, Palm would have had nothing to base their new phone on. I would bet you a can of green beans that the model that they dreamed of with Linux had nothing to do with what eventually came out due to the iPhone. I would also bet you a beer that it was the release of the iPhone that caused a significant delay in the phone being put out in the first place.

/rick