Where in the World Is the Palm Pre???
Posted on 01 April 2009, at 1:14 pm, by Mark Vlastelica
“Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” was an awesome show, but I’ll save my opinion on that for another time. Announced nearly three months ago at CES, the Palm Pre made a huge splash at the show. Palm had been written off as a failure by nearly everyone except Bono. Innovation seemed non existent, they couldn’t for their life make a device that was thin when thin was in, a new OS was years away, and in the years leading up to a new OS all they could produce was the Centro.
Palm, and Sprint for that matter, seem to have placed a lot of faith in the Pre because so far a neither a price nor a release date have been announced, though they say they are on track for Q2. I’m a little nervous for Palm and Sprint.
You’re probably asking yourself “Why is he nervous?”. Well the answer to that question is…..APPLE!! Q2 practically belongs to Apple and the iPhone. Apple is expected to release the next hardware iteration of the iPhone at WWDC this summer. This is practically becoming a tradition for Apple. The iPhone already has this aura surrounding itself. I see one practically everywhere I look. With OS 3.0 Apple is addressing many of the issues, except for true multi-tasking, that people have with the current iPhone OS. Apple may surprise us all and add a physical keyboard to counter the Pre, though there’s a better chance of hell freezing over. The Pre will more than likely come to other U.S carriers eventually, hopefully Verizon (I’m a Storm user……Stop staring at me!!), so that’s not really a problem.
The point is this thing should get released in the very NEAR FUTURE, like within the next month or two!!! But not if it’s going to end up being a situation like the BlackBerry Storm. Apple may be packing a punch in June that could take out Palm and Sprint. This kind of reminds of the movie Million Dollar Baby. Maggie started off a little down on her luck and worked her way to the top of the boxing world only to be paralyzed by a sucker punch and eventually euthanized. I don’t think I have to tell you who Palm is in this analogy. Ah what the hell. PALM = MAGGIE
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April 1st, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Agreed and I think that Palm has to hit a grand slam — and even then there is a real danger of them being either taken over or going out of business.
This is a super competitive business and Apple has raised the bar very high.
So far there are a lot of predictions about the success of the PRE based on exactly zero people using it in the field.
That means there’s a lot of expectation that could potentially deflate very very quickly.
April 1st, 2009 at 2:10 pm
There is alot of speculation in this. Unless Apple puts a keyboard on the iphone, it’s still a product with a different target market than the Pre. OS wise, we know not much is going to be new. OS3 is a big snoozer IMHO. Without true multi-tasking, it’s still a last generation OS.
Blackberry actually should be more worried. Blackberry OS is not much farther ahead than the old PALM OS. The storm was more like a sunshower… People stick with blackberry due to Verizon and due to solid email experience. If you took email out of the equation, Blackberry has virtually no real competitive advantage. The main reason people like its email is it has a real keyboard.
The other albatross on the iPhone is the crappy and very overpriced AT&T network and iphone tax. Paying $30/month extra just for the privilege to use a slick UI on a keyboardless phone can only go so far.
I’d rather Palm wait (assuming they have the survival cash) the extra month or two to make the launch a splash, versus have the train wreck the Storm was by releasing a product before it was really ready. Palm won’t get a 2nd chance at favorable reviews so this has to be a homerun, or it will be game over.
Palm better be lining up the dinner reservations for Mossberg at the nicest of restaurants to hand him his new review unit
April 1st, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Actually, your assertion is not quite correct – the iPhone OS does, in fact, support multitasking – they are simply not allowing access to the service to 3rd party developers – a very different thing.
I also wouldn’t go out of my way to dismiss the importance of the changes in iPhone OS 3.0. Many of the things appearing are things that users and critics have been requesting. Hardly a snoozer. Since the iPhone became popular in part due to Apple’s perceived responsiveness to user concerns, the upcoming changes are likely to strengthen that perception.
I like what I’ve seen of the Pre so far – but frankly the information is really limited and highly subject to interpretation at this point. I say this frequently, but we simply don’t know what we don’t know yet. My bigger concern with their situation has a little more fact behind it, though: What will be the effect of the precipitous drop in Sprint subscribers? – a 10% drop last quarter. My fear is that this could be a bigger problem for the Sprint/Palm combo than anything else, especially if Sprint starts running into problems supporting it’s infrastructure while facing decreases in revenue.
Let’s hope Sprint’s pockets are deep enough to shrug off the losses and the Pre is strong enough to boost the Sprint subscriber base! But it really needs to happen soon or, like the risk MS faces with Windows Mobile 7, they’ll lose the window of opportunity!
April 1st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
“The storm was more like a sunshower”… My favorite line on the Storm was that it was “downgraded to a mild depression”–I think that was David Pogue’s headline.
On Palm, I agree–they have to make this one count. That said, they also have lots of people sitting on edge waiting for the Pre after all the buzz from CES and since. We want Palm to get it right; we also want them to get it out! As in “in *our* hands”–it’s all well and good to see demos on Jimmy Fallon’s show and hear that Howard Stern is getting a demo… however, Palm needs to get to the point where Joe Techie can get a Pre. And unless it’s a surprise announcement at CTIA (since everyone’s been watching Palm and Sprint, with no word yet), when will there be an announcement?
Bringing in ex-Apple people has been good; this is one part of Apple, though, that I think Palm would do better *not* to emulate.
April 1st, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I really can’t wait for the pre to be released!! The information about the pre is limited like Christopher. I think Sprint’s pockets are deep enough. If they had enough for the Instinct then I’m sure they have enough for the Pre. I personally just think that Palm and Sprint may loose the interest of some potential customers if new iPhone hardware is announced in June. Like last year with the Instinct. The Instinct lost a lot of it’s swagger once the iPhone 3G was announce. Especially with the ads Sprint was releasing touting the faster internet connection and GPS, but then again the Instinct didn’t really have people salivating at the mere sight of it or the hype of the Pre.
April 1st, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Palm sure has a lot of people telling them what they HAVE to do these days. I picture them smacking their foreheads and saying “Wow, we should ship this thing. Why didn’t we think of that!”
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:11 am
LOL! That’s a very good point! I’m sure they are doing what they can to get this thing out ASAP, but then again, it appears that Palm hasn’t always been aware of what they should do (or been able to execute) in the past. If they HAD been listening to outside comments earlier on then maybe they wouldn’t be in the make or break state they find themselves in today!