Palm Pre set to upstage Apple iPhone on June 6
After months of bluster, poaching and shots across the bow, this year's battle of the smartphones is set to begin.
Sprint (S) on Tuesday announced that it will begin selling Palm's (PALM) long-awaited Pre on June 6 — two days before Apple's (AAPL) big annual developers conference and precisely at the iPhone's price point: $199, after rebate, for a two year contract.
The Pre — Palm's answer to the iPhone — is seen by many as the most direct challenge yet to Apple's dominance of the touchscreen smartphone market.
It's also viewed as a bet-the-company product for Palm, which once owned the handset market but has been steadily losing share, first to Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry, then to Apple's iPhone.
Palm's share price, which was bouncing around $17 in Oct. 2007, fell as low as $1.42 last December before climbing back as word spread that the new device might be a winner. The stock closed Monday at $12.06.
The Pre was first unveiled in January by Palm chairman Jon Rubinstein — one of Steve Jobs' closest aides for nearly 16 years and now among Apple's fiercest rivals. His device bore an uncanny resemblance to the iPhone, including the ability to interpret multitouch gestures hitherto seen only on the iPhone and iPod touch. It also had several features Apple customers had been clamoring for, chief among them, cut-and-paste and a physical keyboard.
Some attributed the resemblances to the number of former Apple employees on the Pre team — including senior vice president for product development Mike Bell (a 16-year Apple veteran), director of software Chris McKillop (of the iPhone and iPod team), and spokeswoman Lynn Fox (out of Apple PR). In addition, Palm received a $325 million cash infusion from Elevation Partners a few weeks before the iPhone was launched. One of those partners is Fred Anderson, the former Apple CFO and board member who left the company in the Apple backdating scandal.
All of which may help explain the heat in Apple COO Tim Cook's replies when asked about the Pre at the company's last two quarterly earnings calls.
“We think competition is good," he said in January. "It makes us all better. And we are ready to suit up and go against anyone.
“However,” he added, his voice rising, “we will not stand for having our IP [intellectual property] ripped off, and we’ll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal.” (link)
Palm was quick to respond to what it perceived as a shot across its bow.
“If faced with legal action,” a spokesperson told Digital Daily, “we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves.”
In March, Apple unveiled the iPhone 3.0, a new operating system that includes some of the features the Pre will have, including cut-and-paste and, through push notification, something like the ability to run third-party programs in the background.
The company is also widely expected to introduce new iPhone hardware this summer, perhaps as early as June 8.
The Pre will be available at Sprint stores, Sprint.com, Best Buy, Radio Shack, and select Wal-Mart stores.
In a note to clients, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster said that distribution network is wider than expected and may help offset what he describes as the Pre's "Achilles heel" — Sprint's relatively small addressable market of subscriptions. Sprint has about 35 million post-paid subscriptions. AT&T (T), Apple's exclusive U.S. carrier, had about 60 million subscribers when the iPhone launched.
See also:
After reading the comments below, I hope you all realize that the Pre is NOT running WinMo. It is running a brand new operating system, webOS.
Too bad they stole the technology. Oh, and Sprint? No thanks. Garbage network. The Sprint/Nextel merger was the worst of both worlds coming together.
I manage a team that does software testing and support for winmo devices. I own an Iphone for personal use and several winmo ppc's from multiple vendors.
MS Active Sync and Sync center are both disasters. Sync center being the greater offender, both drop connections randomly and partnerships are regulalry lost. The relationship between the devices and the my doc's folder requires users to have separate partnerships for separate user logons which would be fine if AS or SC supported more than two partnerships per device. Frequent hard resets are par for the course and data loss is so common that we had to write replication into our software that is absurdly redundant and a serious drain on system resources.
I was sad to see that palm went with winmo, I was hoping for some real competition for my Iphone so I could get off of AT&T.
As far as I can tell, handset insurance is not available for an iPhone. If you lose or break it before your 2 year contract is up, are you stuck paying full retail to replace it?
I pay the extra $4 a month for insurance. When the screen of my Touch Pro got smashed to bits I paid $50 to get a new phone sent to me overnight.
You may not want to pay extra for insurance, but I like to at least have that option.
I'm not an Apple fan at all or Windows either. I love unix and linux, but Apple's OSX redoes the usual linux file system in an odd and bad way, putting directories and files in weird places. There are other problems with Apples OS too.
I tried the Iphone last year, and did not like it. The onscreen keyboard was iffy and hard to type accurately on. So, I need a better keyboard or an additional keyboard like the PRE has. I'd also like a larger screen, 4-1/2-5 inches. This would help with all the features and especially with the squished on screen keyboard.
Additionally, I want a PDA that you can write program for in perl, php, C, or whatever I choose. The phone also must be capable of handling java applets because my stock acct program and others requires this, though I don't like java personally.
Finally, the phone should have a corrective lens like old VHS cameras use to have. That way we could adjust the screen so that we could see the screen display clearly without having to wear glasses or contact lenses.
If someone makes this for less than $300, I'll be the first in line to buy it.
folks what you see in iPhone/iPod touch is a shell built on OS X(stripped down version). most of the phones which have WinMO don't have the shell built or properly implemented. It is not MS responsibility, it is responsibility of the Phone manufacture.
Martin, you must be stoned to the bejeezus. Nobody outside of Bill Gates or Ballmer thinks WinMo is anything but a big giant Baby Ruth in the pool of smartphone platforms. Whatever you're smoking, I want some of it.
Hurray for WinMO! Screen shots for that analyzer are not very impressive, however, because of the poor graphics compared to the iPhone. And I did not find a diff. eq. solver on handango. In fact, there were very few titles under math or under computer science. Whatever plotter (not just solver) there is under WinMo, however, it's very unlikely that the zeros of a function, its derivative, and its integral could be found without a manual because of the missing GUI.
The question must be answered: if WinMO 2003 is so powerful, why didn't developers flock to it in droves? Capability means nothing if it's not exploited. Having 25,000 apps is measurable progress. Arguing capability for an OS that's never used that capability means nothing. Software offerings are paltry under every mobile OS except Apple. The newest development for the iPhone OS is to use it as an interface to devices, like that one that will measure blood sugar. Is WinMO ahead here too? Then where are its products?
The Pre will be another player in what is becoming a great improvement in technology. The mobile tech lifestyle is growing faster than 90% of industry out there, and wireless is one of the only stable retail sectors in these tough times.
One platform that hasn't been mentioned is the Android platform created by Google. Its still in its infancy but it's what Apple, RIMM, Win-Mo, & Palm should fear. The open source platform and the fact that its not tied to one manufacture will help propel it ahead of most. T-Mobile sold 1 million units in the first 6 months the G1 was out. Not iPhone numbers, but it didn't have the Apple name backing either. Now, add more carriers, more manufactures (do a quick search and you'll see several upcoming devices for this year), and you'll see it sneaking up on the rest. Thats where I'd put my money.
Cool. I've always used Palm phones (with Palm software), and look forward to the Pre.
Then again, I'll only buy it when it cost $100 unlocked with quad-band GSM, like every Treo I've owned.
Dan – Sound specrum analysis and Solving dif. eq. was available for Windows Mobile back in the days of WinMo 2003 – google it
(for example, this WinMo App available in 2003 and still being updated – http://www.handango.com/catalog/ProductDetails.jsp?storeId=2218&productId=26550
and there are lots others to choose from.
Screen too small? I think not. Whenever I see an iPhone screen I'm struck by the jagged edges on the icons and poor quality of photos on it. I gave up that kind of resolution over a year ago! My Fuze screen is a bit smaller than the iPhone's but at 480 x 640 you can see a lot more detail than on the iPhone's paltry 480 x 320, and HTC has been selling the HD with it's 3.8 inch 800 x 480 (!) screen for almost a year! That's twice the information on the same size screen.
Of course, you may like the 'simple' home screen on the iPhone, well don't thank Apple, the same layout's been available on WinMo since at least 2003.
Simply put, other than funding Steve Job's lifestyle, there's nothing the iPhone does that hasn't already been done on WinMo – YEARS ago!
iPhone = Living in the Past
WinMo = Living in the Future
The C language on Apple machines is often used to write OS, compilers and interpreters, server and client codes, seevuces, device drivers, firmware, hardware level microcode etc whereas Java based programs are simply limited and impotent.
Apple is a better and more powerful software platform than Microsoft and Sun.
Apple will unite the universe.
I'll be expecting your June 8th entry to be entitled "Apple iPhone upstages Palm Pre."
Seriously, there's still so much unknown about the Pre. For example, why won't Palm tell us about battery life? I hope some tech journalists will write about it before June 6.
I cant wait for it to come out. with Sprint for a year and a half.. and their service is no worse than TMobile. Plans are cheaper and the only concern is Customer Service, I guess they have to be rude to get hired.
Anyway, Apps are no big concern as I spend 10 hours a day on a PC, Yes PC.
Very funny article. Everyone swears their allegiance to phones and companies. Not me I am just a consumer, who wants a product that works and works for me not just the company. If there isn't a phone that does that, then maybe I should make my own phone. I am not owned by Apple, Sprint, Palm, AT&T, or T-mobile. Too many fanboys here.
Typed on my iPhone 3G
Every month there is a new article about the next phone that will "compete" with the iPhone……..
I'm still waiting.
Anderson didn't actually lose his Apple job over the backdating scandal, unless you mean his position on Apple's BOD was his job. As you wrote in a previous entry, Anderson retired as CFO in 2004.
And it is likely Rubinstein quit (i.e., took his one year non-compete) after losing out on the COO position to Cook. As you wrote in a previous entry, his disagreement with Jobs about an iPod becoming an iPhone likely cost him the promotion.
ex ped: You're right about Anderson. I've recast that sentence.
Companies offer rebates in hopes (and with knowledge that) most people will either forget to mail-in the rebate or send it in too late or incorrectly and they get to keep the extra money they originally paid. So, Sprint is VERY hopeful that most buyers who pay $299 will screw-up the rebate offer and they can keep the extra $100. That is why almost everything in Best Buy comes with rebates, it's just a sales and marketing scam that most people fall for. Don't get fooled America!!
As for the Pre, it looks nice, but no landscape view, no landscape typing, extra small keys, and a smaller screen make it a no, no, no for me. Also, Sprint is last in users, I don't know how many will switch from their carrier to join the #4 carrier. We'll see. BUT competition is good, so I welcome it.
I have been on Sprint for over 10 years now. I have absolutely NO problems with it. Most of my family is on it, again with NO problems.
My son recently switched to AT&T for the iPhone and he is ALWAYS losing calls. We have AT&T at work and there isn't a month that goes by that I don't have to call AT&T because they have yet again messed up our bill (of course they are always overcharging us, never undercharging).
I'll stay with Sprint no matter what phones they have!
Martin,
Advertising would not motivate programmers all over the world to write code for the iPhone. For example, can you solve coupled 1st order diff. eqs., and 2nd order diff. eqs. under the WinMo OS and plot the solutions? Where do I get the WinMo app for a spectrum analysis of sound? WinMo screen too small for these apps? Not on the iPhone.
Pre vs. iPhone is typical "journalistic" hype. Technically savvy people know that the performance (i.e., speed) and flexibility of Web 2.0 and Java are greatly inferior to that of a compiled language like Objective C.
I see alot of people within the comments stating that Sprint is the problem of this relationship. Honestly speaking, I was with Tmobile for 6 years and throughout with Love for Tmobile, I was getting annoyed with the Lack of phones and Brick like G1. I decided with switch to Sprint because of the plans amount. I am suprised on how good and fast the network is, throughout all the rumors of poor service and drop calls. Im happy so far, and I will be getting the Palm Pre but Im not sure if I will be paying the full amount of $500+ or $400 hopefully $400 and less.
Software is not like a drug…you only know if it infringes AFTER you see the commercial application. By definition, infringement happens when an entity uses another entity's IP without consent. In the phone world you can't prove infringement until you see the device, how it's put together, and what it uses. Until the thing hits the market, design and functionality (meaning how it really works, not what Palm says it will do) are likely trade secrets.
Don't sleep on Sprint. Their EVDO network is waaaaaaaaaay faster than AT&T's 3G, they do an "all you can eat" plan, and with the right positioning could really have "Pre + Sprint" competing with "iPhone + AT&T".
I was a loyal Treo user on Sprint until late last year when I switched to the iPhone. I do love my iPhone but no one should get fat and happy on it. If anything the Pre keeps the price points low on all good smartphones which benefits consumers.
Sprint: Way cheaper unlimited family plan, good signal where I live, free roaming (on Verizon) included with my plan, finally some interesting pda's (have a Touch Pro, getting the Pre).
AT&T: More expensive, horrible signal (what good is an iPhone with no signal), no roaming, a lot of cool phones. Many of my iPhone friends complain about their coverage.
Verizon: Way more expensive, great signal, no real need for roaming, not great phones with disabled features and running proprietary "brew" platform. Verizon will run me $720 more over the span of a 2 year contract.
With the Pre and the Touch Pro, Sprint is making ground on catching up to AT&T's coolness factor with its phone lineup. Add that to better pricing and good coverage, Sprint is the way to go for me. Can't wait to get my hands on the Palm Pre!
1. I think Pre will hurt RIM more than iPhone. Pre looks more like a much better professional tool which RIM resides.
2. It seems no one can match iPhone's form factor yet even though it's already 3 years old. And sadly no one can match iPhone's 8/16 G built-in memory. I don't understand why they dare to charge the same while offer less.
3. For those who didn't check the detail, you should know iPhone's data plan is only $30/month extra. These days even Verizon charge extra $30/month for any of their Black Berry. And Verizon even disabled Wi-Fi for all their Black Berry phoness.
4. My choice is still iPhone after the disappointed Pre price and only from Sprint.
Palm Pre emulation for Palm OS, you want it, you got it, see these articles:
http://www.precentral.net/palmos-emulation-webos-confirmed-will-be-done-motion-apps
Sprint. Nuff said. Thats like buying a Lamborghini for its speed and driving it on the 405 in LA during rush hour.
iPhone is straddling the UI, Logic, and the integration layers. And Apple is the only one who can pull it off as the universal device capable of collaborating with any platform, as well as executing CPU intensive local-on-the-device critical applications.
Web applications do not offer any distinct advantages. You only get high pays for providing high value and distinct services. Web applications are for the Joe the Plumbers who number in the billions.
iPhone is already miles ahead of anything else in terms of universal usefulness. iPhone is now only 3 killer applications away from being more ubiquitous than it already is.
RIM RIP
Finally a release date. Yes, the Sprint/Nextel network may be laughable to some, but don't sleep on it. Sprint still has the "one price" plan for voice/data/txt msg etc. that AT&T doesn't have as yet. What good is an iPhone if you don't have the data plan…which is quite costly $30+ a month on AT&T.
Now back to the phones. For those who are saying that the Pre App Store will be lacking, know that it will only be a temporary setback. Some of you have forgotten Palm's history and the app development over close to 15 years. If Palm wanted to leverage the app dev playing field, all they would need is to put a PalmOS emulator in the Pre along with the Web 2.0 stuff and the developer network would grow exponentially. I've heard talk of this before, but because of what they want the Pre to do and the overhead, it was shelved for now. I would expect though that the successor to the Centro would have this technology!
Also note that sometimes app dev can be overated. With all the WindowsMobile apps out there, these type of phones haven't made the dent that folks would've expected either. Competition is good. Unless Apple can at least do the unproprietary thing and allow folks to replace the battery or insert a memory card themselves, a new iPhone won't help.
Thanks to the Pre, blackberry is perhaps going to offer Buy1 Get3 Free blackberries maybe Free data plans also. Rim seems to be sensing impending doom and Rim's resigning to become the Coyotes.
Come on! The iPhone is hopelessly outdated compared to Windows Mobile. There's NOTHING that can be done on an iPhone that I haven't been doing for years on my WinMo Smartphones. Only effective advertising by Apple and hopelessly poor advertising by the balkanized WinMo community has allowed Apple to hoodwink the public into thinking they have a unique, or even up to date, product. Now the Walking Dead team at Palm thinks they're going to 'challenge' the iPhone? Puh-Leeze! Technically the Pre is about 3 or 4 years behind WinMO, with almost no applications for it. Palm signed their death warrant years ago by sticking with their clunky Treo form factor and outdated OS. Unless they've got a fe billion to spend on advertising, and filtched Apples Marketing Dept, there's no hope for htem. Anyone who ponies up for this phone will be abandoned beside the road when Palm can't service their debt anymore – which will be VERY soon.
Save you're money, swith to AT&T and get a Fuze if you want to be up to date and have cutting edge functionality. And you don't have to ask Steve Jobs for permission to put programs on your phone!
Dane,
I can run 3rd party apps in the background already…I fail to see your issue.
It needs more ram I guess.
Nothing but a one trick pony. Price competition is going to be a killer here and Palm won't do well from it.
The Achilles heel is the fact that it's just running with a glorified web browser….It's going to have wonderful web applications … with multitasking (think tabbed browsing)….that's not impressive.
The best paint job can't make a Pinto into a Jaguar.
This phone seems all fine and dandy. One problem, it's on Sprint!! Who uses Sprint anymore!? If Palm really expected to give the iPhone a run for its money, they should've released the Pre on multiple networks… Sprint, Verizon, etc. I think everyone is going to forget about the Pre as soon as Apple releases the next gen iPhone in June.
Palm has lots of apps. Why would you think otherwise? Where is Verizon in all of this? They don't have any phones that will stand up to the iPhone or Pre.
Actually, Palm does have an app store and late in 2008 it was already half the size of Apple's. Plus, since apps are written in html, java and css, the potential for it to eclipse Apple's developer network is certainly looming.
Query: For maximum effect, if you were going to drop the hammer on a product that's infringing on your patents, would you do it before the product hit the market or after?
IMHO, you'd wait until after the product hit the market.
I'm just sayin'….
I thought the whole raison d'être of Push Notification was to prevent Third Party Apps from running in the background?
Once again I (as an Apple investor) think this is great. While Pre will undoubtedly take some customers from Apple, I think most of their share will come from other players. The Pre will, essentially, further fragment the net-phone market. This will leave Apple and RIMM as the only really dominant players.
here is my point: where in teh article does it mention what a 2 year contract will cost? everytime there is a story about the iPhone and its two year contract, which seems to be pretty standard, there is mention about how much the contract will cost. All i see in this article is how much the Pre will cost, after mail-in rebate, why not immediate?, and how well Spint stock is doing since the annoucement.
Unfortunately, Rim blackberries will suffer the most losses in crossfire between iPhone and Pre, the newest number one iPhone clone contender that pushes down the blackberries.
I am no Apple fanboy (no Apple hardware at all), but a piece of Palm hardware deploying to Sprint will make very little headway against the iPhone juggernaut.
'and the ability to run third-party programs in the background' Really? Something you know that we don't??
ex ped: Push notification. See here.
Palm still doesn't have the App store and thousands of insanely creative developers worldwide making new and innovative applications. The true key to the iphone success is the app store, without it the Pre will be just another piece of hardware with limited functionality. Good luck.
Look, we should know that WinMo has applications to do almost everything that the iPhone does. The difference is that the iPhone does these things better and with far more stability. Handango has thousands of apps for WinMo phones, but the price is prohibitive in many cases ($25 for a cell phone app?!?!?!?!) and, despite their attempts to check compatibility, more times than not the program will not work properly or will crash randomly. You have to sync it to your computer to install, and, as mentioned earlier, SC and AS aren't exactly world-beating (although I HATE iTUNES as well…). iPhones are DEFINITELY not perfect, but, overall and considering the alternative, it is currently the best.
If the Pre can come with something to challenge this conception, I will buy one as soon as the system isn't linked with Sprint anymore (I think we can all agree that Sprint Nextel should go the GM route and give up…).
In addition, the OS on the Pre is WebOS, new from the ground-up. Word is that it is what iPhone OS should have been from the beginning.
The point is I haven't synced my iPhone for months, but I haven't missed anything because of it, because I can get whatever I want online.
Also, yes, the Fuze does have superior screen resolution, but the phone is also very slow and laggy (read any review you like to get a second opinion). The glacial movements of these "HD" screens won't be overcome by ANY phone until manufacturers decide to pay the extra $0.50/phone for newer ARM licenses and bulk the power up, or add additional chips for each high power requirement…which would kill the battery. Give and take.
Anyway, the iPhone's screen is gorgeous for a cell phone. This comes from someone who has owned an 8525, Exec (640×480), Pantech Duo, Blackjack II, and an HP 6515 (PPC 03 Second Edition). I currently own a Dash (wow, what garbage, but it is company-paid) and an iPhone. I have used Crackberries for previous jobs. Even with it's shortcomings, I won't convert from the iphone for some time to come.