Ruby: Droid Beat Us to the Punch

Yes, that's basically what I was alluding to. The Droid has lots of "gee whiz, look at me!" features. Starting with its small, relatively low-res screen, the Pre definitely lacks that "wow" factor. Just because it wowed us at CES last year (when we were basically expecting Centro 2.0) doesn't mean it's going to impress the general public after nearly 3 years of iPhone mania. Coming from an older 32x320 Palm OS or WinMob device, yeah the Pre screen is relatively huge. Compared to iPhone, Droid, Storm or basically any other newer smartphone, the Pre has a low-res and/or small screen in comparison.

Also, the WebOS devices have this HUGE area of empty space on the front that is uses for the gesture area. Your average sales drone isn't going to know, care or bother explaining that. People want to see as much screen as possible on their devices these days. Barring that, they want to see cool LED-illuminated touch sensors or buttons. If you just have a big strip of black plastic, people are going to to think Palm was lazy or cheap and could've installed a bigger screen. Heck, I KNOW very well what the gesture area represents and I think it's a huge annoyance and could have been put to better use for something else...like a larger screen!

Finally, the Pre feels good in-hand but lacks the rock-solid build quality that the Droid, iPhone, BB Bold and Nexus One have. It feels and looks cheap, especially the power button, keyboard slider, and the microUSB port cover. That's unfortunate, as the Pre is actually a more comfortable device to hold & use than any of the above devices.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid

RattyUK on Mar 19, 11:56 AM said:

Hmmm. Creepy advertising - scared the customers away? Bad network? Blanket release of Android phones? Store monkeys couldn't demonstrate the product? Lot's of technical effort in making it sync with iTunes while not actually doing a deal with Apple? Designing a product that was a list of bullet points that the iPhone didn't have? Ran out of geek purchasers? There may be others.
--------
Sammy the Walrus IV on Mar 19, 12:15 PM said:

oh how I love this. Everyone and their mother has been saying how webos is not bad and a great interface. blah blah barf.

people..wake up. no one is buying webos.

either all these non-buyers are just plain stupid and are missing this wonderful webos

or

compared to other phones, palm's offerings are just sucky and underwhelming, regardless of webos.

Its the same beat that all these people are marching to calling for someone to buy Palm. Why would you pay $4 for a stock that can very well be under a $1 in a few months time?

----------------

ilo on Mar 19, 12:28 PM said:

They tried to quickly hack together an OS that would look falsely "good" on the surface so that someone would buy them during the smartphone hype bubble (Microsoft, RIM, Nokia, Motorola, etc.) Didn't work. The OS is riddled with shortcuts and compromises that would require an enormous amount of effort to fix for the long term health of the platform. Trying to hack a connection to iTunes by impersonating an iPod, instead of building a proper sync client like everyone else, is a perfect example of this. They filled the channel with product because they new their last gasp chance was to get bought in late 2009, so they wanted to make the numbers look good then. Once you are toast (as they are in 2010) who cares? All that being said, the real problem must be a poor IP portfolio, and the perception that Apple would sue the pants off whoever owned Palm if they ever were purchased by a serious competitor.

--------

Con -

1. tablets are a low volume niche product. any market that forms will be created, self-fulfilled, and thus dominated by the iPad. let it go.

2. the Pre/Pixi/webOS gesture area is an unnecessary, silly, unintuitive, confusing, clumsy, weak, display-reducing gimmick.

Mike;

By "huge" I primarily meant relative to the available screen space on the Pre or to the Pixi's screen & keyboard. The iPhone at least has nearly a half-inch more screen space than the Pre and maintains its hard button. The Pre, especially the button-less Pre Plus, is just so...barren under the screen. Otherwise, yeah, what Gekko said about the gesture area. It just seems SO last decade and SO unintuitive. Yes, there is and will continue to be a need for off-screen "stuff" but NOT at the expense of the very screen itself!Perhaps it's time for a reintroduction of the old Clie or BB jogwheel or some sort of pressure-sensitive area on the side or backside of the device? I've always maintained that the expanse of black plastic around the earpiece would make a good area for doing at least basic forward & back gestures.

I also agree with your sentiment about only Google using Android in 2 years. OR, at best, only Google will be using Android 4.0 (or whatever) and everyone else will be farting around with 2.x or 3.x. Google is using those droves of Android licensees now to stir up developer interest and to build market & mindshare for Android just like how Palm used to "use" the Palm OS faithful as paying beta testers for their latest FrankenGarnet device. They'll fragment the market a bit more than reel everything back in for themselves and exclude everyone else from the big party in the name of tightening their focus etc.
Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p->Verizon Moto Droid

The Foleo was basically a TX with some GPU thrown in, all lipsticked up in a mini-notebook case. That it couldn't do YouTube made it DOA.

Now I wonder ... what if the Foleo had gone on. Where the hell would it have fit with the Pre and Pixi of today?

Now I also wonder ... could that be why the designs of both Pre and Pixi are so small? They expected people to buy -- or already have -- a frikkin *Foleo* to type emails?

Now I triply wonder ... would they have switched the OS on the Foleo to webOS?

And finally I wonder, wtf would they have called the Foleo OS? Did it ever really have a name?

I think Engadget is just naive here - they are totally forgetting the condition Palm was in and Palm's NEED to go with Sprint AND come up with something with "differentiation" to separate them from the ALREADY-present HTC et al WinMob and Android devices.

Sometimes you really DO have to do what ya gotta do, even if it is almost-guaranteed fruitless.

Furthermore, Engadget is ignoring that the REAL fact that the Pre was a total-pre-beta device at that CES show with nothing behind it (the story of why the CFO left Palm on the eve of the show is probably WAY interesting). THere was NO WAY for Palm to get it out faster.

And finally, MANY believe the whole Pre thing was a total farce from the beginning - it was DESIGNED to get Palm BOUGHT but, due to Palm-the-stock's a-MAZ-ing exuberance, the stock skyrocketed and the plan backfired on Palm and they actually had to come out with a REAL DEVICE!

mistakes per engadget -

1. late launch
2. sprint only
3. no SDK
4. awful advertising
5. itunes sideshow
6. pixi
7. shiit build quality
8. dated hardware

Gekko. If journalists would write like that, the world would be a better place.
Pat Horne

long day - i meant to write -

why wouldn't they push it more??????

Con - WTF???

my point is that of course Verizon would push the Droid phone. it's their brand and their EXCLUSIVE flagship phone. they have a vested interest for it to succeed.

Palm died when they stopped supporting Garnet. The quote about positioning Palm for a sale after flooding the market with units in late 2009 is telling. It was all about the masters of the universe destroying another company with the stuff they learned as MBAs, and not about how to run a business. The irony is Palm's demise will probably become a case study in B-School. Perhaps the B-school lesson will be how to destroy a company more profitably next time....

Regarding timcane's incessant rants about Nokia's death, they still sell more than a million phones a day, every day.

Is it time for a Palm classic? A reunion of what is and was best of Palm. A pioneer that shows those that doubt all that is good about an enterprise that brought vision to market and a great products to the world.

A Palm classic.

E-T

By not supporting Garnet after the WebOS release, Palm abandoned loyal customers many of whom would have moved to Pre. The blogs are filled with angry people who would never buy a Palm product again due to non-existent customer support for Garnet. Just google "Palm Centro freezing" and you will find a few of these blogs. I had this problem for a while and finally gave up on ever getting any customer support. Is this a way to build upon past success?

Of course Garnet is outdated and Palm took an eternity to bring WebOS to market but did Palm need to kill their existing customer base in the process? And couldn't WebOS have been developed to enable some reverse compatibility other than Classic so existing customers and developers could migrate easily?

Why attack the smartphone industry? You're all over the industry from Palm to Nokia. Have you ever brought concept to market or tried or just benefited from the industry that provides you something to comment upon.

E-T

stop blaming Sprint! people forget AT&T was/is a shit network but that didn't stop the iPhone.

and it won't stop the Supersonic! in fact, the Supersonic's whole reason for living is Sprint 4G!

Con - that was a pretty good piece by JLG. somewhere he along with Yankowski and Nagel and relishing in Palm's new management's debacle.

JLG outta know. wasn't he the guy who was offered many many millions of dollars ($25M+ in his pocket?) by Apple (CEO Gil Amelio?) for BeOS Inc. but he got greedy and foolishly turned them down only to be then later snubbed by new CEO Steve Jobs and ultimately bought by Palm years later for ~$1M (in his pocket)?