5 reasons why the Palm Pre wont beat the iPhone…yet
My first smartphone was a Treo 650 and I loved it to bits, treating it like an It girl treats her chihuahua. I accessorised it to death with a load of expensive add ons – leather case, spare battery, desktop charger, infra-red keyboard, wifi sled, styluses that doubled as pens. Most of these items didn’t come close to justifying their cost but I didn’t mind. My beloved Treo was worth it.
I tried other smartphones – a couple of HTC windows mobile handsets and a Nokia N95 but none of them gave me the perfect mix of functionality, ease of use and style that I got from the Treo and I always ended up going back to it.
Eventually, inevitably, it did get too long in the tooth, unable to compete for my affections with the bright young things on the block: first a Nokia E71 and then the iPhone on which I’m typing this post (which activity is in fact making me yearn for that lovely Treo keyboard).
The point to all this nostalgic rambling is that I was hyped into a state of near frenzy by Palm’s promise of the ‘New Newness’ to be revealed at this years CES in Las Vegas. Could it really be true? Could I again own a Palm device that would fill my heart with joy and also hold it’s own in the current smartphone market?
Well, as you may have gueesed from the title of this post, yes and no. I can’t claim to have been in Vegas last week and obviously it will be some considerable time before I can get my hands on a Pre, but I’ve spent enough time reading blogs, watching YouTube videos and listening to tech journos debate the device on podcasts over the last few days to have formed a solid opinion of Palm’s new baby.
So please find below for your consideration the 5 reasons why I don’t think the Pre is an iPhone killer:
1) Palm is old news
Palm used to be a big deal but latterly the company’s fortunes have declined to the extent that many commentators were calling their CES keynote a last stand. Whereas Apple had built a strong reputation for delivering cool, well designed and manufactured consumer tech in the few years leading up to the iPhone launch Palm seem to have unwittingly done the opposite. In the UK at least the fat middle that Palm are aiming for with the Pre have probably never even heard of the company.
2) No games!!?
Palm seem to be taking the firm stance that the WebOS platform and the Pre are not about gaming. Indeed by the sound of it the OS as it is at the moment will make it nigh on impossible for developers to produce the kind of 3D games that fill the iPhone Appstore. The Pre clearly has the grunt to run some pretty impressive games and I can’t help but think that Palm are making a big mistake underestimating the appeal of casual games to modern phone buyers. Showing off games is certainly a way in which people share the capabilities of their phones and having some impressive looking games on a platform is therefore a very good way to gain word of mouth endorsements.
3) Price
Admittedly the price of the Pre has yet to be confirmed but the early indications are that it won’t be cheap. It’s worth remembering that the iPhone only really hit the big time sales wise when the cheaper 3G model was released. Should the Pre launch at a higher price point it seems likely that it will be destined for the kind of niche audience that the first gen iPhone had.
4) Apps
Apple have been deliberately strict about what they will and won’t allow on the iPhone apps-wise. Palm seem to be taking a much more open approach (albeit WebOS is not fully open source like Android); a decision that is being widely praised. The downside of this is that it makes it all to easy for developers to get apps onto the platform that adversely affect system performance. As a former Windows Mobile user I can testify how frustrating an experience it can be to completely screw up your phone and have to restore it just for the sake of trying out a new app.
The other side of the apps issue is the sheer volume of competing smartphone systems in the market. Palm are coming to the party late and will have to compete against Apple, Android, Windows, RIM and Symbian to persuade developers to build apps for WebOS first.
5) Complexity
The WebOS interface is clearly beautiful and very cleverly designed but it lacks the elegant simplicity of the iPhone. In Europe at least the smartphones that have most successfully made the transition to mass popularity (devices like the Nokia N95 or the iPhone) are the ones that keep things simple for their users. Tech journos may love WebOS but will it prove to complex for Joe Public?
Now all that said a few could reviews in the right place nearer launch time could certainly sway me and Palm have a history of effective product placement. Pretty much every US TV show a few years back seemed to have at least one Treo user in it – even Jack Bauer used one and this kind of publicity may be enough to sway the public too.
It’s also worth noting that the nature of the cellphone market means that people tend to replace their phones regularly. If the Pre launches in an otherwise quiet smartphone market it could quickly build a big enough user base to get the ground level free advertising that can make or break a new product.
However things turn out it’s been fun witnessing Palm’s comeback from has been underdog to genuine contender.
Random gadget review: Goatee Saver
This is one of those things I never knew I wanted until I discovered it existed. I’ve had a goatee for over 10 years and have always had trouble keeping it even, not to the extent that anyone ever commented on it but enough that I have frequently felt that it was a bit lopsided. It’s all too easy (in my experience at least) to catch the side of the goatee with the razor when shaving, slicing a chunk out of it that means I have to take corrective action on the other side. The cumulative effect of this over the course of a few weeks is that my goatee often shrunk and shrunk until I was forced to let it grow out again, enduring a few days with half grown in fuzz surrounding my otherwise dense beard.
I’m sure that there are thousands of goatee’d men in the same position and the Goatee Saver fulfills a very simple need that we all share. It “guards” the shaver’s face fuzz against the kind of slip of the razor that can ruin your S, S and S and indeed your whole day. And it does a good job too. The 3 rollers in the middle of the device allow you to increase or decrease the width at different point, ensuring that it accurately covers the goatee and nothing but. The user then bites down on an orange rubber bit to hold the Saver in place, anchoring to the face whilst shaving. Admittedly this isn’t that pleasant an experience, but I’ve found that the security of having the saver in place means that I can shave more quickly. 
The proof of the pudding is of course in the eating and I have to say I’ve found the Saver easy to use and effective. I can now leave the house in the morning confident that my facial hair is as symmetrical as my face allows it to be.
It’s not 100% perfect, the fact that the sides are made of plastic means that occasionally the razor catches on and digs into the Saver occasionally but on the whole I’m hugely impressed and genuinely can’t imagine life without the Goatee Saver.
For non-US residents (I’m in the UK) it’s also worth noting that although the company is based in the States they deliver internationally. Their website is easy to use, the postage is reasonable and the delivery was quick. Full marks all round!
Visit the Goatee Saver website for more details.
iPhone app review: Manifesto
I’m a big fan of RSS as a means to keep up with both regular and tech news and subscribe to a number of feeds. I’ve tended to use the newsgator in the past as it allows me to synchronise my reading across various systems (I have it installed on my desktop PC, MacBook and had a mobile version on my 2 previous phones). Unfortunately the iPhone app (NetNewsWire) gave my nothing but grief, it was always slow to load and felt clunky; worse still, lately has started refusing to load at all.
As a result I started looking at other options, I tried some of the free apps but none of them gave me what I wanted. Ziibii was kind of interesting but too gimmicky to be practical; RSS Runner was nice and light and worked well but has too many limitations – I wasn’t able to add all the feeds I wanted (you can’t enter feed address just search for the website) and the only way to mark a post as read is to read it.
As a result I did a bit of googling and elected to try a paid app. Manifesto seemed top of the pile so I handed over my £1.19 and dived in.
It was money well spent, the app is full featured with a clean design and is beautifully responsive.
Unlike NetNewsWire it’s quick and stable and even manages to through in some nice graphical transitions. You can flag posts for future reading and easily view the full web page associated with the post. Adding new feeds is simple (you can even import your feeds from a Google reader account although you can’t synchronise read posts), handily the home screen icon also gives an unread posts tally.
I guess the only things it lacks is the ability to add a feed directly from a page when browsing in Safari but this of course is a limitation of the iPhone OS rather than Manifesto itself.
All in all this is a very nicely put together app and I unreservedly recommend it.
More info is available at the developers blog:
http://www.mayorjustin.com/2008/08/19/introducing-manifesto-10/
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