Pre Me A New iPhone Competitor
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I do not think there is any real question that the Palm Pre is going pretty compelling. But what is still on the minds of a lot of people is why its UI looks so much like the iPhone when it is clearly supposed to be pushing their own envelope? Despite the look-a-like issue, one thing is clear - it appears to have a better chance of doing better with multi-tasking than the iPhone. Because frankly, the iPhone pretty much drops the ball on background processes at the moment.
For me, I cannot really see the clear advantage with the exception of two key areas in contrast to the iPhone. One, the Pre can easily multi-task between applications. Two, it can also alert you without completely sucking you out of what you are currently doing.
One unbeatable area that Apple will win in, still, is in the App Store market. As the G1 and BlackBerry users will tell you, their app offerings are amazingly limited when compared to that of the iPhone. I guess this is perhaps why it is so important to be first. Hence, Apple wins here.
3 Comments
Knick
May 7th, 2009
at 11:22am
Interesting take on the Pre. The app store issue may be a slightly flawed argument though. With the added ability of emulating the Palm OS of the past, that allows for a whole range of apps. Certainly they’re not as flashy as any of the apps the iPhone has, nor are they as flashy or probably usable as anything that will be created for the Pre, but they work and people have relied on them for years.
Sven LL Rafferty
May 7th, 2009
at 11:41am
It becomes a competitor when released. BTW, when is that going to be? :)
Unwired
May 7th, 2009
at 11:58am
Palm had an app store long before Apple even considered getting into the phone business. Its a given that a large part of the iPhone hype is the app store, but its not that significant a gap - once WebOS is realized by end users there will be plenty of developers hopping onboard. In fact, word from the development community is very positive.
A second big advantage the Pre has over iPhone is physical keyboard. Not an issue for some, but for many this feature is a winner.
Yet a third, arguablyhttp://www.lockergnome.com/osx/w… as important, is that AT&T quite frankly sucks. From dropped calls to oversaturated 3G network, this is what caused me to drop AT&T in the first place, and without improvement prevents me from jumping on the iPhone bandwagon.