Palm Releases the Treo 750 on Cingular

Bogus packet switching is not supporting UMTS. Windows Mobile is Palm's future. We don't need/want any more poorly-conceived, unstable hacks of FrankenPalmOS. After the tragic embarassment of NVFS, Mr. Combee - of all people - should know better than to be trying to extend an already-overextended OS. What does Palm think carriers will do if its devices ALL crash and are returned by customers? It's one thing having Joe Blow calling Palm's India Script-Reading Center Technical Support to complain about their buggy Tungsten 5, but it's entirely another issue if 100,000 Cingular Treos are recalled due to UMTS failure. Do you think carriers will keep cutting Palm slack for its buggy hardware? We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto Beersy.

TVoR

What if I could sell you a Windows Mobile Treo that also happened to run all of your PalmOS devices flawlessly. Would you sign your soul away to me, Son?

- Ed "Beelzebub" Colligan

Sexy looks, new design, slow speed, locked-down platform, high price, single carrier and Apple name vs. homely looks, old design, high speed, open platform, low(er) price, multiple carriers and Palm name?

1) iPhone crushes Treo on looks. Even people that don't know the first thing about smartphones are drooling over the iPhone. The Treos, on the other hand scream "Geek!".

2) iPhone's flashy navigation system may LOOK cool, but the Treo's combination of 5 Way navigation pad with hardware keyboard is extremely FUNCTIONAL. Add McPhling to a PalmOS Treo and you almost don't miss multitasking. On the other hand, the iPhone's screen apppears to make more sense than the Treo's for a multifunction device to have.

3) iPhone loses in a big way to CDMA Treos in data speed, but GSM Treos are still slow speed like the iPhone. Of course, Palm hasn't had the vision to exploit the pairing of CDMA's EVDO connection with something like "SlingBox for Dummies" that the average Joe/Joanne would be comfortable configuring and using. If Apple can figure out how to stream music/video at low speed over GSM (or high speed using Wi-Fi) and actually integrate this all with iTunes, etc, then this will be yet another example of Apple's ability to leverage ease of use as a way to overcome limited specs.

4) iPhone seems to lose out BADLY to Palm's Treos when you look at the number of apps that users can easily install on a Treo. But then again, how many users actually search for, pay for and install apps on a Treo? And what if Treos came configured with all the apps that 99% of users would routinely use on a daily basis? The iPhone will likely ship with a full suite of well designed apps that will cover most of the functions that its target market would want to have on a smartphone. Suddenly Palm's apocryphal "30,000 PalmOS application library" seems like a meaningless boast.

5) iPhone's "ambitious" pricing seems to be a fatal flaw. Until you look at how many clueless sheep have also bought overpriced Apple iPods over the years while ignoring competitors with better performance/features/price. Apple marketers could sell Jobs' iPoo™ to the Apple Cultists and fashion victims, so selling $599 iPhones should be an iBreeze™.

6) iPhone's availability on a single carrier also seems to be a fatal flaw. But if the iPhone becomes a success and in turn increases subscribers + profits for Cingular, then Apple can force further concessions from the carrier and make them dependent on Apple. Palm, on the other hand, has played the field, but runs the risk of being dumped like an aging porn queen as soon as the market tires of the Treo and it stops selling. Despite regular announcements here at Palminfocenter about how this or that carrier in an obscure rat-infested country has signed on to carry an obsolete version of the Treo, the degree of commitment that the MAJOR carriers around the world have to the Treo franchaise remains suspect. Palm NEEDS the carriers, while the carriers DON'T NEED Palm. Palm is the carriers' biotch and is therefore treated as such. When the Treos stop selling, the carriers will all dump Palm without batting an eyelash. And since Palm has responded to competition by lowering prices, where will its profits come from as sales decrease? Surely not from the standalone PDA market (which Palm savagely gutted in an effort to push users into its more-profitable smartphones).
Steve Jobs is crafty enough to not be ANYONE'S biotch unless doing so serves his purposes (at which point he'll strut out at MacWorld in full drag, Mike Cane-style). One can assume he's negotiated a ton of concessions as well as a long-term contract from Cingular in return for the promise of exclusivity and the potential of drawing in MILLIONS of NEW USERS to Cingular. TVoR is betting that the iPhone and Cingular will have the last laugh.

7) The Apple name still generates warm feelings for millions of Apple Cultists around the globe, and Apple is unmatched in its ability to generate buzz about its products. The Palm name, on the other hand has now been tarnished by the stigma of 5 years of substandard/buggy products. In fact, the Treo name is now becoming the focus of Palm's brand identity. Advantage: Apple.

One could argue that the iPhone and Treo compete for different market segments - consmer vs. business, respectively. One would be wrong. Palm's inability to package a proper turnkey "push" email system for businesses resulted in the company surrendering the lucrative business market to RIM's Blackberry. Why couldn't some dumba$$ exec at Palm in charge of software development not simply have bought out the rights to Chatteremail a year or two ago? (Buying Chatteremail in March 2007 is akin to locking the barn door after the cow has bolted, been rounded up by the rancher next door, slaughtered and sold to market. Palm ain't got no mo' (cash) cow to milk. Just a barn full o' hay and thoughts of what COULD have been...)

TVoR
- Pundit, poet, philanthropist

A Samsung i500 with PalmOS 5 and the Treo's 5 way navigation pad isn't rocket surgery or even Jeff Hawkins-style brain science. Why Palm has failed to offer this form factor and a tiny candybar shaped PalmOS phone is truly a mystery.

(2) Yep. All that's needed here is a landscape-screened Treo. (As for McPhling, Palm have stolen that idea in the 680: hold down the Home button for the recent-apps menu. With the speed at which most apps open in PalmOS, you might as well be multitasking...)

So they FINALLY copied McPhling! Only took Palm 6 years or so. Well done. Is there a way for the Treo 680 to quickly switch back to the previously used app? Pat Horne's legendary Treo 800g could have put Palm over the top 2 years ago. Instead, all we see from Palm now are a bunch of excuses and 3 or 4 warmed-over variations of a 4 year old design (the Treo 600).

(3) Well, the GSM WinMob 750 is 3G. Actually, the only 2G Treo left is the 680... although that's the one that will be competing for the same consumer market as the iPhone. Wi-Fi, however, is something Palm no longer have any excuse for leaving out.

I was referring to PalmOS devices. In the world of Windows Mobile smartphones, Palm can't keep up with the specs + designs of its competitors, so it will soon be blown out of the water in that segment. The lack of Wi-Fi no longer excusable. No Skype for you! Now get out!

(4) To quote that silver-tongued devil freakout:

...possible, albeit unlikely, is the reverse effect: people look at this expensive device with all these impressive features [iPhone] and wonder "Why can't it do X?"

People don't mainly compare FEATURES on phones. First they look at STYLE (are my friends going to be jealous?), SIZE (is it too big?), and PRICE (can I afford it?). Then they look if it can do cool stuff. For the average user that will mean playing MP3 (integration with iTunes and Apple's store will be a huge selling point), playing videos, SMS, email, photos, digital camera/camcorder, games, downloading ringtones. Everything else is a bonus. Since people's (functional) demands from their phones are so limited, it all comes down to who can put together a cool-looking phone with integrated, intuitive software. Right now, that's no one. If iPhone nails the ease of use angle like Apple traditionally has done with its products then it will clean up on the strength of that, hype/buzz, looks, peer pressure and the herd mentality of Apple Cultists.

I reckon the key to making consumers embrace the idea of mobile computing is making it easy to download, try and buy software without having to scour the net or a bunch of different online software stores. What Palm really needs is an iTunes-style online store, except for software. Round up every single one of those thousands of applications they so often refer to in press statements and throw them all in. Turn the Palm Desktop into a sync center for not just PIM stuff, but media and software too. They're already halfway there for media with some fairly decent photo & video management software. Trouble is it all looks terribly outdated and doesn't support nearly enough formats or music. And why can't you manage your device and the applications installed on it from your PC? ... iTunes is Apple's secret weapon that no one has yet been able to neutralise. That's where I'd hit 'em first, if I was Palm.

Nope, the key is to give people all the software they could ever need straight out of the box. Only geeks will hunt for applications. Regular people only will download ringtones, wallpaper and (occasionally) games. What Palm needed to do was license (or copy) the best of breed application in most of the major app categories and include them in the ROM of each of its devices. Show users what the devices are capable of: Chatteremail, Comet, Crash, Directory Assistant, Documents To Go, GoogleMaps, HandyShopper, McPhling, Pocket Tunes/AeroPlayer, Resco Backup, Resco Explorer, Resco Viewer, TCPMP/CorePlayer, TealLock, Uninstall Manager, VideoHound/Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, Weatherman, ZagatToGo. Failing that, at the VERY least Palm could have created an interactive CD/DVD showing the top 100 or so PalmOS apps and included a $2 16 MB SD card that could be used to allow one-click installing of these apps.

We know that people are willing to install extra on their phones: look at the skyrocketing sales of crappy, overpriced ringtones and wallpapers. The key is to make extra applications just as easy to find and manage.

Ringtones sell because they are being crammed down the throats of users by carriers. (And carriers have gone out of their way to prevent users from installing their own ringtones/wallpaper. Carriers hate the fact that open OSes like PalmOS give users the power to upload their own ringtones/wallpaper. Kiss one of their few major sources of revenue goodbye...) The average Joe/Joanne has no interest in researching and trying out 10 different application launchers, photo viewers, note programs, backup applications, file managers, etc. Just give 'em ONE free app in each category that works reasonably well and they'll be happy. Ask companies competing with VersaMail, Desktop To Go, Pocket Tunes, etc. how their businesses have fared since Palm started packaging those apps with its hardware and you'll realize the much-ballyhooed "Palm Economy" was a deck of cards just waiting to collapse. And Palm never gave a rat's a$$ about developers, despite their laughable claims to the contrary. Helloooooo, Michael Mace...

(5) I dunno... the most expensive iPod is $399. Are people really going to spend an extra 200 bucks to get one with less storage?

They will when they see their neighbor/classmate/co-worker strutting around with an iPhone. And remember: that extra $200 gets you a phone, email, wireless Web access, SMS, a nice screen, and a (lifetime) membeship in the Apple Cult. Plus a free 8 ounce sample of Steve Jobs' iPoo™.

PS3 comes to mind when I think of the iPhone: late to the game, overpriced, and expecting all the sleek looks, Sony brand and marketing hype to do the rest. And we all know PS3 sales haven't exactly gone through the roof.

PS3 is competing with XBox, PS2, etc. Who is iPhone competing with?

I suspect that Apple will be learning the same lesson Sony has been: it doesn't matter how slick your product is or how impenetrable you thought your brand was, if it's too expensive, people won't buy it. Especially when there are cheaper options available - and in the phone market, the $599 price tag will be competing with $0.

Do you REALLY think anyone looking at a "free" cellphone will be in the market for an iPhone? The people buying iPhones will be:
1) Apple Cultists
2) Technophiles
3) Apple Fashionistas
4) Cellphone Fashionistas
5) People who gave up on Palms/Treos
6) People who gave up on Windows Mobile
7) People who like its feature set
8) People who were considering an iPod Video and a) realized that they honestly don't need 30 GB or 80 GB of storage (most people) and b) think all the extra features are worth an extra $150 to $250 + Cingular contract.

I'm betting that those 8 groups will include a sh!tload of people.

(6) We'll wait and see. I'm very surprised Apple chose to go through a carrier at all - they have their own strong retail presence and no shortage of funds, so why not just sell them unlocked and cut out the middle man?

I agree, but partnering with the carrier means Apple can negotiate concessions from the carrier that will make their product even more attractive. Plus, the carrier actually WANTS the device to succeed, since it becomes the carrier's device - not Apple's. For some users, the Visual Voicemail feature by itself could make the iPhone worth buying. If Cingular + Apple have more features like this (e.g. browser with a permanent one-click link to Apple's iTunes Store, free songs/music videos for iPhone owners, GoogleMaps with GPS, an app like Rick Whitt's Directory Assistant, Vindigo etc.) then the Apple-Cingular relationship becomes win-win.

(7) Sadly true. One hopes that Hawkins' new device will be enough to make the company exciting again.

Unfortunately, Palm shot its wad with the Tungsten 3 (though some would argue the Palm Vx was the last good Palm). Palm has stayed in the circa 1999-2000 mindset of fleecing a captive (and doting) fanbase for so long that it forgot what it takes to innovate. Just look how little has changed with the Treo since Handspring handed the design over to Palm several years ago. Look at how many quality control problems we've seen with Palm's hardware. Look at how many bugs and incompatibilities have been introduced into PalmOS. Look at how slow Palm has been at fixing bugs (in fact, often NOT fixing them at all). Do you REALLY think this is a company capable of producing an impressive new device? The original Pilot impressed me. The TRGpro impressed me. The Treo 600 impressed me. The UX50 impressed me. The TH55 impressed me. The Zodiac 2 impressed me. The VZ90 impressed me. Nothing I've seen from Palm recently has impressed me. Jeff Hawkins' STB is a sham. Wake up, Toto.

I do think the iPhone and the Treo target different areas of the market. Palm actually can attack all segments with their current line-up: big WinMob focused enterprises with the 750 and 700wx, smaller business and professionals with the 700p and upcoming 755p, and so-called "prosumers" and the like with the 680. It's the latter market they'll have to fight for. I don't think RIM is bullet-proof in the enterprise segment as most put it: a few more nation-wide outages like last week's gaff and they could very quickly find themselves losing the momentum they've built up.

What about the the gay market with the upcoming pink "Twink Treo 755p", the S&M market with the upcoming rubber coated "Black Cuffs + Tie(s) Treo 680", and the homeless with the clearance-priced "Po' Boy Treo 600" that Colligan ordered dug up from the landfill behind Palm's headquarters? If you think all of Palm's permutations and combinations of the Treo franchaise are really different then it looks like Ed Colligan managed to pull the wool over another sheep's eyes. I pray he doesn't come out to the barn and do baaaad things to you tonight, Timmaaaaaaay.

TVoR

(1)A Samsung i500 with PalmOS 5 and the Treo's 5 way navigation pad isn't rocket surgery or even Jeff Hawkins-style brain science. Why Palm has failed to offer this form factor and a tiny candybar shaped PalmOS phone is truly a mystery.

Yep.

(2)So they FINALLY copied McPhling! Only took Palm 6 years or so. Well done. Is there a way for the Treo 680 to quickly switch back to the previously used app?

Just the McPhling-style menu, although since the last app used is at the top of the list, it's pretty quick anyways.

Pat Horne's legendary Treo 800g could have put Palm over the top 2 years ago. Instead, all we see from Palm now are a bunch of excuses and 3 or 4 warmed-over variations of a 4 year old design (the Treo 600).

I want to see what form the new mystery device takes before I put the boot in on this one. But even so, the 600-style design, perfected in the 680/750 (save thickness) is an excellent one for a smartphone.

(3)I was referring to PalmOS devices. In the world of Windows Mobile smartphones, Palm can't keep up with the specs + designs of its competitors, so it will soon be blown out of the water in that segment. The lack of Wi-Fi no longer excusable. No Skype for you! Now get out!

The 750 has been getting some major promotion over here in Oz, for Telstra's new 3G network. By all accounts it's been very, very popular - and when these things are finally sold with cheap unlimited data plans like in the US, who cares about wi-fi? (Note I think these devices should have wi-fi simply as a matter of keeping up with the times, but I've never thought they really needed it.) And as I said earlier, the classic Treo 600 design is a good one, and there's no reason to get rid of it. There just need to be additional choices in Palm's line-up.

(4)People don't mainly compare FEATURES on phones. First they look at STYLE (are my friends going to be jealous?), SIZE (is it too big?), and PRICE (can I afford it?). Then they look if it can do cool stuff. For the average user that will mean playing MP3 (integration with iTunes and Apple's store will be a huge selling point), playing videos, SMS, email, photos, digital camera/camcorder, games, downloading ringtones. Everything else is a bonus. Since people's (functional) demands from their phones are so limited, it all comes down to who can put together a cool-looking phone with integrated, intuitive software. Right now, that's no one. If iPhone nails the ease of use angle like Apple traditionally has done with its products then it will clean up on the strength of that, hype/buzz, looks, peer pressure and the herd mentality of Apple Cultists.

PRICE (can I afford it?) The answer is no. $499 is not mass-market pricing and $599 most certainly isn't.

Nope, the key is to give people all the software they could ever need straight out of the box. Only geeks will hunt for applications. Regular people only will download ringtones, wallpaper and (occasionally) games. What Palm needed to do was license (or copy) the best of breed application in most of the major app categories and include them in the ROM of each of its devices. Show users what the devices are capable of: Chatteremail, Comet, Crash, Directory Assistant, Documents To Go, GoogleMaps, HandyShopper, McPhling, Pocket Tunes/AeroPlayer, Resco Backup, Resco Explorer, Resco Viewer, TCPMP/CorePlayer, TealLock, Uninstall Manager, VideoHound/Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, Weatherman, ZagatToGo. Failing that, at the VERY least Palm could have created an interactive CD/DVD showing the top 100 or so PalmOS apps and included a $2 16 MB SD card that could be used to allow one-click installing of these apps.

I agree that geeks only hunt for applications. But is that because people really don't care that they can do more with their devices, or because it's too much of a pain to sift through the net searching for an app that meets your needs? I think that a Palm software store with an easy-to-navigate UI that was built-in to a revamped Palm Desktop would greatly encourage people to try it out.

Ringtones sell because they are being crammed down the throats of users by carriers. (And carriers have gone out of their way to prevent users from installing their own ringtones/wallpaper. Carriers hate the fact that open OSes like PalmOS give users the power to upload their own ringtones/wallpaper. Kiss one of their few major sources of revenue goodbye...) The average Joe/Joanne has no interest in researching and trying out 10 different application launchers, photo viewers, note programs, backup applications, file managers, etc. Just give 'em ONE free app in each category that works reasonably well and they'll be happy. Ask companies competing with VersaMail, Desktop To Go, Pocket Tunes, etc. how their businesses have fared since Palm started packaging those apps with its hardware and you'll realize the much-ballyhooed "Palm Economy" was a deck of cards just waiting to collapse. And Palm never gave a rat's a$$ about developers, despite their laughable claims to the contrary. Helloooooo, Michael Mace...

Again, I think a big part of it is that that people can't be bothered googling around for alternatives, and there's virtually no advertising for these programs apart from a few text ads here and there. If there was a flashy iTunes-style start page that offered special deals, "app of the week" style segments, top 10 lists etc then it might encourage people to experiment further. And if you could add/remove these apps from your devices with one click on your desktop, could further soften the scare factor.

(5)They will when they see their neighbor/classmate/co-worker strutting around with an iPhone. And remember: that extra $200 gets you a phone, email, wireless Web access, SMS, a nice screen, and a (lifetime) membeship in the Apple Cult. Plus a free 8 ounce sample of Steve Jobs' iPoo™.

You get all those extras you mentioned in virtually every WinMob smartphone out there, and all the Treos, and in most cases for much less than $499. With contract. There was a guy who drove a really nice Audi at my last workplace that I would have killed to own, but I sure couldn't afford one myself.

PS3 is competing with XBox, PS2, etc. Who is iPhone competing with?

The Treo 680, the BlackJack, the new Walkmans, the Upstage, the Blackberry Pearl... to name a few. Are any of these as slick as the iPhone? Nope. Is that going to matter? I don't think so.

Do you REALLY think anyone looking at a "free" cellphone will be in the market for an iPhone? The people buying iPhones will be:
1) Apple Cultists
2) Technophiles
3) Apple Fashionistas
4) Cellphone Fashionistas
5) People who gave up on Palms/Treos
6) People who gave up on Windows Mobile
7) People who like its feature set
8) People who were considering an iPod Video and a) realized that they honestly don't need 30 GB or 80 GB of storage (most people) and b) think all the extra features are worth an extra $150 to $250 + Cingular contract.

I'm betting that those 8 groups will include a sh!tload of people.

I'm betting they will too, but nowhere near as much as the hype has it.

(7)Unfortunately, Palm shot its wad with the Tungsten 3 (though some would argue the Palm Vx was the last good Palm). Palm has stayed in the circa 1999-2000 mindset of fleecing a captive (and doting) fanbase for so long that it forgot what it takes to innovate. Just look how little has changed with the Treo since Handspring handed the design over to Palm several years ago. Look at how many quality control problems we've seen with Palm's hardware. Look at how many bugs and incompatibilities have been introduced into PalmOS. Look at how slow Palm has been at fixing bugs (in fact, often NOT fixing them at all). Do you REALLY think this is a company capable of producing an impressive new device? The original Pilot impressed me. The TRGpro impressed me. The Treo 600 impressed me. The UX50 impressed me. The TH55 impressed me. The Zodiac 2 impressed me. The VZ90 impressed me. Nothing I've seen from Palm recently has impressed me. Jeff Hawkins' STB is a sham. Wake up, Toto.

If they've been developing a new Linux OS in-house for the last coupla years, it would go a long way to explaining why they're so slow to update existing devices. I'm very, very keen to see what we get in May. Why dismiss it as a sham when we don't even no what it is yet?

What about the the gay market with the upcoming pink "Twink Treo 755p", the S&M market with the upcoming rubber coated "Black Cuffs + Tie(s) Treo 680", and the homeless with the clearance-priced "Po' Boy Treo 600" that Colligan ordered dug up from the landfill behind Palm's headquarters? If you think all of Palm's permutations and combinations of the Treo franchaise are really different then it looks like Ed Colligan managed to pull the wool over another sheep's eyes. I pray he doesn't come out to the barn and do baaaad things to you tonight, Timmaaaaaaay.

3G, 2G, to WinMob or not to WinMob... looks like plenty of difference between products to me right there. :P

Anyway Voice, I live for late-night barnyard violations. Baaaaaaaaad ones especially.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

You get all the stuff I mentioned with the 680 too, which ranges from $199 to free. Easy to use, highly versatile, and in general a superior product. As long as it doesn't break in the first month of use...