MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Jul 09, 09 - 06:18 pm Comment from: mike_in_helsinki

Cost $3,000 to find out the Pre is a turd. LOL.

You've gotta be kidding me – these people buy a Pre, which touts as one of its great features a physical slide-out keyboard, and they're whining about NOT having a virtual keyboard?!?!?!?

That's almost as bad as iPhone users complaining there's no physical keyboard.

When iphone first launched how many apps were there? 0

Mdn should know better than anyone that a virtual keyboard could be added with nothing more than a software update. Mdn latches onto anything negative to spew crap. Give it up.

We all know pre is an imitation but at least bring something real to the table other than this crap, mdn. Your repputation has gone downhill dramatically.

proudly running on dell servers

pre-posterous! physical keyboards SUCK, I personally HATE my work blackberry. I email in english and/or spanish, and LOVE the fact i just TAP on the iphone globe icon to change language preference/spell-check/auto-correct. i want numbers-TAP, i want special characters-TAP. try that with a blackberry, wait u CAN'T.

I like when MDN rips on M$ because they completely and utterly deserve it for making such garbage products. But it doesn't make sense to rip Palm. Yeah they stole a lot of ideas from Apple; so what? Apple's not afraid to steal things either when it makes their products better (fast user switching, contextual menus, alt-tab, etc). At least Palm is trying to make a great product. Unlike M$, who could care less how good their product is as long as they can bully out all their competition.

Jul 09, 09 - 06:48 pm Comment from: Mac Daddy

When iPhone first launched, how many iPhone wannabees were there? 0.

So, yeah, Pre is also starting with zero apps, but Palm is two years too late. That's the point. D!psh!t.

@ Rob - Have you not been paying attention to the extremely braggadocious statements Palm has been making regarding their products compared to Apple's? The way they bragged that the Pre was going to be so great that all first-year iPhone users would switch to the Pre? Sorry, but they asked for this smackdown by making all kinds of false claims at Apple's expense.

@mdn is just stupid

Is everyone else getting sick of idiot statements like "When iphone first launched they had no apps".?

So I can bring out a car today that does 3 mph and point to the fact that when Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot unveiled the first self propelled vehicle in the 1700s it only did 2.3 mph?

Idiots. It's called progress and advancing further than the previous release or version. So yes, the iphone had no apps when it first came out, and now it has tens of thousands compared to what 30? in the Palm-shop. YOU figure out the relevance of your stupid question!

Jul 09, 09 - 07:03 pm Comment from: MikeK

Yeah they stole a lot of ideas from Apple; so what?
----------------------

Several of the key members developing the Pre were previous Apple employees, so I'm not sure if that qualifies as stealing.. It's just some of the same people using their ideas at two different companies..

I'm not endorsing the Pre, just saying...

It gets really boring: everyone has or should have iPhone. What is this, 1984?

Jul 09, 09 - 07:25 pm Comment from: Cubert

Oh, sweet, sweet irony.

Jul 09, 09 - 07:29 pm Comment from: Jubei

It's easy to type on the Palm Pee in landscape mode. Just tilt your head when you slide out the keyboard and you can probably type that way. After a few weeks, you'll need to see a Dr. for that painful neck issue. I got that solved also. Just tilt the Palm Pee the other way and your head the other way. Now your one side will heal, while the other side starts the painful process all over again.

Jul 09, 09 - 07:33 pm Comment from: Cubert

@+1 sick of MDN,

Dude, lighten up. It's all tongue-in-cheek.

Jul 09, 09 - 07:33 pm Comment from: LTD*

@+1 sick of MDN:

Don't let the door hit yer ass on the way out.

It's not MDN's fault that most of the industry has been half asleep for years, and STILL can't match Apple in Apple's key markets - which spans everything from computers to smartphones.

There can be no "balanced" reporting when the situation is so *unbalanced.*

"Beleaguered" is used for a specific reason. And it's a good one. Payback's a bitch.

Jul 09, 09 - 07:36 pm Comment from: LTD*

Plus, it's all in goo fun. MDN soesn't purport to be balanced anyway, nor is that really the site's purpose. Funny thing is, MDN is still right most of the time.

Jul 09, 09 - 07:41 pm Comment from: macerroneous

I have to say, I consider myself a reasonable man. So, I'm somewhat taken aback at the venom spewed by these MDN haters. While I place MDN near the top of my news sources, I also consider it an entertainment outlet. Beleaguered has become one of my favorite words. "You keep on using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means." This is SATIRE. Get used to it.

Jul 09, 09 - 07:49 pm Comment from: MacDailyNews Webmaster

Again, in case anyone missed it:

Unregistered users: Feedback from multiple usernames are subject to deletion.

"When iphone first launched how many apps were there? 0"

Wrong moron. The iPhone always had web apps from the beginning, and a hell of a lot more than 18 of them for sure. Sorry but the Pre is way too little and way too late. Palm hasn't been a factor since about 2000 or 2001 anyway.

@+1 sick of MDN

Wow, you feel embarrassed because, somebody who happens to own the same product as you do says things you don't like, and then you use multiple names to make your point of view look more popular?

You really have a problem with self-esteem and should look for help.

Jul 09, 09 - 08:08 pm Comment from: Anonymous©

Why do people expect MDN to be unbiased? Why do they expect MDN to be nice? MDN is not part of Apple. MDN is not part of a news organization. MDN does not say they are going to be nice or unbiased. So, why do people expect them to be?

Yep, I would buy a Pre if it wasn't for that crappy physical keyboard. It's the same thing that put me off b-berry. Typing on those things is a disaster. Fixed orientation, rubbish lil keys, having slip n slide just to type stuff.

Apple has gotten pretty good at thinking about how to make products better. Palm has done alright with their OS but their hardware - disappointing and antiquated.

When you visit a web site, cookies are placed in your browser and your IP address, the "number" of your connection to the internet, is displayed alongside your posts.

So when you change your nick, or forget it and use another, it shows up that your using a different nick and the same IP address.

So your posts gets deleted.

This might even be automated, which would account for even good posts disappearing and pissing you off.

SO! remember your nick or simply register and have to remember your nick and your password.

If you get banned, your IP is disallowed from posting, despite your nick. Once that occurs, it's rather difficult to change it, less you move or call your ISP.

If your a real pain, your IP can be used to track you down for prosecution in the courts by JudgeJudy.

MDN don't change your style, that is what makes me click
here 1st to find the latest Mac news and/or bashing of Apple
wannabes. I'm relatively old and have watched the rise, descent
and the awesome, insanely great business comeback pulled off
by Jobs and Co. In the past few months I've helped a couple of former winblows users buy a 24 inch iMac and a beautiful 15 inch MBP. Soon my screen name will be MacBook Screamer. Keep up the excellent
work MDN, and don't let Apple get away with BS, something you
haven't done in the past.

All of you over sensitive-types just go (MDN MW) away.

Isn't there just as many iPhone users who would like a physical keyboard? This place is a joke along with the same 10 zealots who post here. Great site for condensed Apple news - bad place for any meaningful insight.

Other then iPod I don't see that market sharing growing. It's a bubble of the saw users who upgrade / use / repeat.

Pre is a decent choice and as it's OS moves to other form factors (something you WON'T see with iPhone) it will be fine for many users who just don't want to be stuck in Apple's walled garden. If there is no App growth once the SDK is out Palm has an issue but that day is not here yet so I will just see how it shakes out.

This place is a joke along with the same 10 zealots who post here. Great site for condensed Apple news - bad place for any meaningful insight.

If you want condensed Apple news google for zicos, but no comments, posts or meaningful insights. For that you have to go to AppleInsider, but even then you still get the youngsters. MacRumors is youngster central.

"When iphone first launched how many apps were there? 0"

How many apps will there ever be for the Palm Pre? 0, because it can't run apps. It can only do HTML/CSS/Javascript widgets. WebOS is about as useful as a Mac that can do nothing but run Dashboard.

Hmmm,
I thought each icon on the iPhone was an app. There were several from day one. . . . Oh, and there's that little sidebar that says that any apps on the web could be accessed by a complete browser app, in Safari.
And with just six months notice, Apple opened a corner outside the sandbox of the 3G's OS, . . . and the App Store opened with about 800 apps, day one.

Jul 09, 09 - 09:05 pm Comment from: LTD*

I really don't think any iPhone user cares for a hardware keyboard.

It's easy to get used to the virtual keyboard. It's implemented beautifully. It's where the tech is headed, anyway.

Physical keyobards on smarthpones are a dying feature. The also-rans love clinging to it in the hopes of kow-towing to customers stuck in 5 years ago rather than moving forward.

As to Palm's OS moving to other form factors, that is EXACTLY the industry's problem. An OS running on a whole range of phones, from the cheap and dirty to the higher end models. Makes for an uneven user experience. The OS manufacturer has no control over how their OS is married with the hardware. Look at Symbian and Windows Mobile. Yecch!

Again, Apple has shown us the solution to this problem.

Jul 09, 09 - 09:22 pm Comment from: MacTony

Mark texas are you kidding? No growth? There's almost 800 million subscribers in China. I wouldn't be surprised to see a deal by the end of the year. Apple sold 1+ million 3GSs in the first weekend. There was an AT&T;memo that they had the best sales ever. If you go by the weekly numbers for the Pre, they may sell close to 2 million Pres in the first year. The iphone did that in the first week. I don't hear anyone even talking about the Pre. Well, except scratched and cracked screens.

Jul 09, 09 - 09:47 pm Comment from: Lolcat

Pre a quality product? Palm is cashing in on Apple haters. Once all these people are burned by the terrible hardware and dead end software, do you think they are going to turn around and buy palms next version... well, maybe the same people who believe windows will get better next time will, but the rest, the rest won't. One more thing™... Zero Apps? What about the web apps? Not real apps you say? Pot...Kettle.

Mind you, I still upgraded to the 3GS and saw this video before doing so. I still think the iPhone is where it's at, but check out the prize fight video on c|net where they compare the Pre, 3G and 3GS. The 3G holds its own against the 3GS for the most part, except the 3GS owns all in start up. The pre did e-mail and rendered web pages much faster under the conditions they were running. Don't sell the pre too short and plus, this kind of competition is great for Apple to build an even better product.

Stop dumping on products just to dump on them. The screen on the pre is too small for a virtual keyboard. Instead of insulting the product for no reason, just mention that users that buy the pre to use a virtual keyboard are not so bright. Just a couple of clicks will solve that problem for you. Same idiots that want a physical keyboard on the iPhone. Now it is fixed (for the most part with landscape mode for many apps, except CALENDAR), so those complaints fall to the way side about the iPhone.

Jul 10, 09 - 12:59 am Comment from: MacTony

That video is basically testing AT&T;vs Sprint. I don't really like any of these tests, but these guys did it over WiFi and the 3GS was 22% faster than the Pre.

http://www.mobilewhack.com/speed-test-iphone-3g-s-vs-iphone-3g-vs-palm-pre/

I don't hate the Pre. There are a few things about it I like about it. It just has a lot of flaws. I saw a report that running SprintTV on it drained the battery in 30 min. The multitasking is nice, but again a battery hog. Small keyboard, small auto-correct library, very few apps. There are a lot of reasons we dump on the Pre. It was suppose to be the iPhone killer. Don't get into the ring unless you expect to get punched.

I have the 3GS and it is noticeably faster than my 3G.

No Voice command on The Pre the BB blows it away and know SD slot either on the PRE - Junk for the price

I'm an iPhone wannabe, stuck on Verizon (because of AT&T;pricing) with an older Windows Mobile "smartphone"

The only time I use the sliding keyboard is when i have to reboot into the factory firmware and it requires hard keys. Otherwise i ony use the soft keyboard, which is pretty horrible but gets the job done.

Jul 10, 09 - 03:16 am Comment from: Macaday

"Palm is cashing in on Apple haters."

Very astute point made there.

Jul 10, 09 - 04:17 am Comment from: kevt

*cough* Number of Pre Apps is thousands. Way more than the iPhone on launch.

Ironic isn't it. Apple was the first to make transitions through emulations within the OS. First of all 'under the hood' 680X0 to PPC. Then on switch to OS X it had to use "Classic" mode as there was only a relatively small number of native OS X apps. Palm have managed this in a similar way.

Palm Pre can run the huge number of Palm OS 5 apps. I suspect that many purchaser of the Pre will be previous Palm customers.

What kept me from switching to the iPhone until a few months back was the lack of functionality via Apps on the iPhone.

Jul 10, 09 - 04:29 am Comment from: twilightmoon

mdn is just stupid:
Mdn should know better than anyone that a virtual keyboard could be added with nothing more than a software update. Mdn latches onto anything negative to spew crap. Give it up.

First off, MDN does latch onto a lot of negative spin for Not Invented at Apple™. However, the idea that Palm can merely stick a virtual keyboard in with a "software update" is completely false.

By that I do not mean they could not add one, but that it would be junk. There's a huge amount of work that goes into making a software keyboard usable. Specifically like the one on the iPhone.

I know it looks simple, but if you watched the original video where Jobs announced the iPhone they talked about a few things that made it unique. Specifically, it predicts what word you intended to type based on proximity of where you hit on the keyboard. So if you hit near the keys of the word you wanted and typed most of them correctly it nearly always finds the correct word. Another feature is it predicts what you want to type after you type a letter or two and slightly enlarges the target of the letters it thinks you might want to type next, making mistakes even less common.

Those two features together along with a few other things such as click and hold to pop up alternate characters, makes the iPhone keyboard hugely better than a generic "software keyboard". Because there are patents on several of these techniques, Palm cannot simple add them to the Pre. They will need to come up with some kludgy alternate version of a software keyboard.

Jul 10, 09 - 07:21 am Comment from: DanielM

When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, it came with 12 apps. http://www.macworld.com/article/58733/2007/07/iphone_rev.html

When Apple's App Store debuted, it had 500 apps. It now has over 58,000 apps.

When Palm debuted their knockoff, it had 18 apps. It now has 30 apps.

Jul 10, 09 - 08:33 am Comment from: Demon

@kevt

If you read through some of the Palm Forums what you'll find is most of Palms pervious customer did rush out and buy the Pre. The interesting thing is more then half (about 70% by my count) returned or planned to return the Pre before the Sprint 30 day return period ended. Why because the Pre does not run any version of Palm OS's Applications and most thought that the hardware was cheaply made, I didn't find one post that was positive about the Pre from former Palm owners. In fact most were going back to their old Palm device or thinking about buying an iPhone. Some of the loudest complaints have been from former Palm OS Developers that wanted to stick with developing for Palm but, were so put off by the Pre's cheap look and feel, lack of user base and lack of a proper Web OS SDK, that they are abandoning Palm. As one Developer put it, "Why should I work on moving my Palm OS App to Web OS when their is no real market and the only Web OS device is the Pre, which impressed me about as much as wet socks in the middle of winter." The developer then when on to list Palm's, Web OS and the Pre failures. That developer is moving their Palm OS Applications to the iPhone. Most of Palm's developers that had posted comments shared this sentiment.

So, if you have an old Palm Device and you're looking for a new smart phone, my recommendation is check the iTunes App Store for your favorite Palm Apps because they are likely already on the iPhone and if not, check the Developers web site because more then likely it will be coming to the iTunes App Store soon.

Jul 10, 09 - 08:38 am Comment from: ElderNorm

Just a thought here fellows.......

The Palm Pre has a very specific use.... Sprint.

So, lighten up on the Pre... OK? I mean...... those poor people that have to use Sprint (cause they get no ATT signal where they are) deserve to have a cell phone that is almost, sorta, kinda, an iPhone.

Don't you think?

Just a thought.
en

Yeah, can't blame the Pre, it's the users. Like someone else pointed out above... Just as dumb as people who bought an iPhone and complain about having no physical keyboard.

Personally, I have yet to hear one person complain about typing on the iPhone's keyboard and I run across a lot of people who own iPhones. In fact, I see them everywhere! I'm actually amazed by how many are around here.

Jul 10, 09 - 11:37 am Comment from: G4Dualie

I just typed 50 words in less than a minute on my Touch, so I'd have to say the virtual keyboard gets the job done. I can remember a time when that was all I could type using a full-sized keyboard.

As Twilightmoon has already pointed out, the OS and vKb work together to enhance the process. You can sense it when the OS is facilitating the typing process, especially when you know you missed the key you wanted by a mile, but the correct letter was chosen.

I don't use the anticipatory-word feature of the OS either, because I'm not looking at the screen as I type, I just bang ahead until I'm done.

I can't type on a virtual keyboard with my thumbs, but I type faster than I can think using my two index fingers. This is how:

Turn the device to Landscape and lay it on the table in front of you. Using your two index fingers, start typing and see for yourself, it's slick and quick.

Jul 10, 09 - 12:00 pm Comment from: Predrag

G4Dualie:

If you have some dexterity in your dominant hand fingers, you could also hold the phone in one hand and type with index and middle fingers of the other. I don't have either device (yet), but I tried typing like this in an Apple store and it worked remarkably well. Then again, I had played piano professionally for the past thirty years, so that may have helped...

Jul 10, 09 - 01:03 pm Comment from: G4Dualie

I should add, the landscape method works well in most circumstances unless of course your on MDN in which case the landscape feature does not work.

The alternative, for those of you who struggle to type with one hand is to hold the device between your knees and use the method I illustrated earlier.

In some respects, the typing is even faster because the portait kb is more compact.

There are always alternatives and just because you have settled on one way doesn't mean it's the best, just different.

Jul 12, 09 - 05:12 pm Comment from: Cubert

@ DanielM,
And all 12 of those apps were ones Apple made. How many apps does the Pre come with by default. Crackberrys? The App Store launched with just over 500.

You need to compare apples to apples. And, yes, pun intended.

Jul 13, 09 - 02:23 am Comment from: DanielM

@ Cuubert

I don't have to compare f**k all.

I was only pointing out THE fact to correct the previous claims that Apple had "0", or "more than 18" at the launch of the first iPhone.

I think everyone is a little ridiculous! If you want an iPhone, buy an iPhone. If you want a Palm, buy a Palm. If you want a Blackberry, buy a Blackberry. Are you guys seriously arguing on behalf of the companies?? Get a life!!