Will Apple Kill Palm’s Hype “Pre”maturely?

Bwana — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:21:13 +0000

Pun intended.

So Palm had it’s big day yesterday (June 6th) with their release of the Palm Pre and early reports are that they had a good day in terms of sales. Most stores were sold out by noon and others followed later in the day. Early reviews of the Palm Pre are generally positive and the community is rallying behind Palm in a big way.

We’ve also had some controversy surrounding the Pre already! First, we found out that the Palm Pre is recognized as an iPod in iTunes for synchronization. A lot of us don’t think Apple will like this, especially since a lot of former Apple engineers worked on this phone. Some high profile technology experts have gotten into it surrounding ethics and integrity surrounding receiving review units. Right or wrong, Palm gets free press out of all of this.

Press is good, until you’re faced with an Apple keynote. Even though it’s a Steve Job-less keynote (maybe), tomorrow’s kickoff of Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) is expected to bring a lot of fresh technology news. Now if Apple didn’t have a particular phone in their lineup, I think Palm wouldn’t have to worry about the possible buzz kill surrounding the Pre. But alas, we have a confirmed release of iPhone 3.0 software (either tomorrow or later this month) and a ton of rumors surrounding new iPhone hardware.

Photo courtesy of Gear Live

On top of all the coolness that’s coming from the iPhone’s software revision, we’re hearing rumors about the new iPhone hardware that include:

Video recording capability
Front and rear camera
Larger Capacity (32GB)

You gotta love the rumor mill before these Apple events. They almost have the ability to kill Palm’s hype on their own. Palm has their hands full. Apple still has the mind share on the “cool” smartphone market, but I believe Palm has what it takes to steal some of it. A new Apple phone 2 days after your release could be insurmountable.

Will tomorrow’s announcements squash Palm’s buzz? We will have to wait and see. I can’t wait.

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iPhone 3.0: Let’s Get Real

Bwana — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:56:27 +0000

Apple is hosting an event tomorrow, March 17th, to discuss the new features in the upcoming iPhone OS revision, 3.0. A whole lot of people have speculated that features such as copy/paste, internet tethering, and MMS messaging will be included. At this point, that’s all it is: speculation.

Let’s get real.

Let’s look at iPhone 2.x and what absolutely needs to be improved. My first thought was Mobile Safari which is clearly the weakest part of the experience, and I posted it on Twitter:

Bwana: I can't figure out why people want copy/paste so bad on iPhone 3.0 when Mobile Safari crashes every session.

about an hour ago

Mon Mar 16 18:20:30 +0000 2009

davepearson: Can't say it's ever crashed for me.

about an hour ago

Mon Mar 16 18:22:04 +0000 2009

jrblaze: I want Flash, stable Safari, and easier app organization.

about an hour ago

Mon Mar 16 18:22:05 +0000 2009

JordanPatterson: All I would like is background applications, and lockscren and task bar notifications.

about an hour ago

Mon Mar 16 18:24:34 +0000 2009

delmauriow: I want copy paste as a way to forward parts of text messages and the like or copying links from websites and posting them on Twitter

about an hour ago

Mon Mar 16 18:25:32 +0000 2009

miclothing: I turn off JavaScript and Mobile Safari behaves. Granted a lot of web sites dont work but for the ones I need it on I turn it back on

about an hour ago

Mon Mar 16 18:25:36 +0000 2009

virustricks: do you no if iphone 3.0 will be for ipod touch?

about an hour ago

Mon Mar 16 18:26:13 +0000 2009

brandenwill: Agreed. All I want is MMS. I hate that my friends phones that cost a piece of gum and a shoelace can send MMS but my $200 phone cant.

about 58 minutes ago

Mon Mar 16 18:35:11 +0000 2009

Here’s my list of “must-haves” for iPhone 3.0:

Mobile Safari stability - For me, my wife, and many, many others that actively use Mobile Safari on their iPhone, we find that it crashes pretty much every single session. Now if you stay inside of iPhone optimized websites, the probability of a crash decreases, but if that were the case, it’d be just like any other mobile browser. Apple should absolutely address this in 3.0.

SMS improvements – Basic features in SMS are missing which is kind of embarrassing. SMS forwarding should be included in iPhone 3.0 at a minimum and maybe even MMS. I’m hoping they merge SMS with Mail.app and give us a Pinger like application which includes social apps like Facebook and Twitter. But that’s really REALLY reaching for the stars and we’re keeping it real in this post

Better organization of applications – The longer you own an iPhone, the more applications you’ll obtain. Given the incredible amount of applications available, the current pagination system is reaching a wall. Usability becomes a bit clumsy as you have to scroll through 10 pages of applications and there needs to be some sort of organization/categorization/folder system in iPhone 3.0

Background notifications/processes – As I stated on TWiT 186, Apple absolutely has to make a statement regarding the status of their promised background notification system shown in 2008. Tomorrow, Apple either has to announce plans to keep it, scrap it, or discuss other alternatives. Right now, it’s embarrassing for them since it stands as vaporware at the moment

I believe these four absolutely have to be addressed in some form or fashion before any new bells and whistles are added. As for the copy/paste ninjas, I’ve never used copy/paste on a mobile device and don’t foresee myself using it if it’s implemented. I wish the noise was around the instability of what’s there instead of the missing features.

We’ll see tomorrow after Apple lets us know what they’re going to do.

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Will Apple Kill Palm’s Hype “Pre”maturely?

iPhone 3.0: Let’s Get Real