Palm Responds to the iPhone

Several people noted a NYT piece about Palm's response to the iPhone. Essentially, their response appears to be to hire a former Apple engineer and a couple other folks -- while also pursuing plans to perhaps sell the company. Nothing like a dual approach to the problem.

why competition is good

[UnknowingFool]

Whether you like or dislike Apple or their products, Apple is a catalyst for change. Personally I applaud Apple's entry as it may encourage all phone makers to reevaluate their UI. The UI on my phone sucks but they all equally suck.

Re:Destiny

[Apple Acolyte]

I don't disagree with much of your post, but when you say you're not interested in the iPhone because it's too costly and has too little demand, I have to ask what you're basing that opinion on. I'm betting demand will healthy - the iPhone will be a major status symbol. And as far as price, people often point out how expensive the iPod was when it debuted. Most claimed it would fail due to price, but few if any are saying that about the iPhone. I bet within a couple of years you'll be counted among iPhone owners.

no subject

[UnixSphere]

It'll only be destiny if they make it right, nobody but business clients are going to pay 500 dollars for a phone, UNLESS it has mp3 capabilities and big storage like the ipod does, but it's gonna be hard to cram a phone and decent sized hard drive into a small unit, and make all of this a quality product(apple has been falling behind on quality on the ipods). On top of that, only Cingular carries it? They're going up a hill, but I'm not going to damn them before the product even comes out. We will see.

Ex-Apple?

[dr.badass]

Palm seems to be very proud of the fact that they hired an ex-Apple engineer, which seems rather silly considering that Apple has thousands of them. It gets better when you consider that ex-Apple in this case means that he last worked for the company about ten years ago. No story here, unless the subtext is that Palm OS is going to start looking like System 7

Re:allinone

[Paulrothrock]

All in ones are not the future. All in ones are good for a few things. Playing music, showing photos, making phone calls. Would you want to do photo editing or management on an iPhone? Would you want to do video editing or web browsing or email only on an iPhone? Of course not. You want a nice big screen and a real keyboard and mouse to do those things.

What Apple gets, and what I think is the future, is making all of these things work together. The iPhone syncs to your desktop at home. The Apple TV gets its content from your desktop at home. It's not about replacing your computer, it's about extending it.

Re:allinone

[tomstdenis]

Good points. Should point out that many phones TODAY are capable of sharing files via bluetooth/usb. It's mostly the telco's that lock the phones down so you have to use airtime to transmit files (or worse, only buy content from their services).

So you'd need to see BOTH the telco's and hardware designers lose their greed.

Tom

One Hand Clapping

[Doc Ruby]

Palm is dead. Over 2 years ago Palm sold its OS to the Japanese "Access" corp that makes so many Japanese phones and their most popular web browser. So Access could finish their long heralded "Cobalt" OS, and switch to a new OS which was Linux, under Cobalt (retained as just GUI and compatibility layer). They were supposed to release Linux (+ Cobalt GUI) phones last Fall, before anyone had heard about the (real) iPhone.

But they didn't. Just as Palm let the Blackberry come from behind and eat the market Palm created, Access has let PalmOS keep it from even reaching the market before Apple is eating it, without even a released product.

It's all too bad. The PalmOS approach, focused simplicity on tasks, designed as a tough peripheral, with the most natural interface, writing on the screen, was the right paradigm. Handled properly, it should have forced all computing, whether workstation, mobile, phone or mediaplayer, to "just work", adopting many of its friendliest innovations. Now that job, as usual, is up to Apple.

iPhone as a phone

[Anonymous Coward]

While I covet the iPhone for its beautiful hardware and interface design, as a phone it has some quite major shortcomings compared to the current top of the line devices. While it's true that this may not be important in the US mobile phone market, to succeed in Asia and Europe the iPhone will need to become a more capable device. Steve Ballmer had it exactly right: Apple's share of the phone market is currently zero and will remain that way for at least another three months. For all the hype around the iPhone, there's still the real possibility it could fail internationally if not at home. In contrast there are millions of Windows and Palm phones out there so I don't think Palm needs to panic just yet. Improve yes, panic no.

Re:Destiny

[Jeff DeMaagd]

A lot of phones had a very pricey debut, the first RAZR was about the same price, now they can be had for $30 with service sign-up. I don't expect that the iPhone will drop that much, but I sure hope it drops to half its current price pretty quickly. I'm tempted to look at the Moto Q to pass the time until the price gets to something that's realistic.

Re:allinone

[kad77]

That is an "interesting" comment these days? WTF?

Re:How wise is industry wisdom?

[hey!]

Oh believe me, I do understand the engineering aspect -- both hardware, software, and communications. I've been involved in mobile product development for over ten years now, so I understand the business end of things.

Most normal, non early-adopter people don't see converged devices as platforms. The pragmatic adopters see them as phones with better address and to do lists. They see them as one less device to carry. Apple has realized this, which is why their phone is not a PDA in the sense that we have used the term. This is what makes the notion that Palm's problem is that they haven't added enough new features to their platform ridiculous. The PDA features are becomeing less and less important.

This is speaking as somebody whose tried many permutations of phone/pda/smartphone. I've tried smart phones that were simply PDAs with phone capabilities built in. They were fine PDAs, but no person in his right mind would buy one. They weren't the right shape or size to be a decent phone. You need to compromise between being a PDA and a phone, and any time you combine a phone with something else, the phone functions have to be the driving concern.

Speaking as a person who has used many different PDAs and converged devices over the years, the best compromise device I ever used was the Treo 600/650 series. But I found that I never used anything but basic PIM functions on the Treos. There were two reasons for that: first I just didn't find it as convenient as on a straight PDA. But most importantly, I stopped doing things like reading eBooks on the device so that I would not waste precious battery. They offered me a smart phone at work, and I said not to bother. Anytime a phone gets combind with something else, phone wins. It was more important to get a tri-mode phone, for maximal coverage.

So, as an early adopter of converged devices, after using several I decided to go for a plain old phone when the time rolled around. There wasn't any point. I now carry an old PDA I fished out of our junk draw at work, which I used for eBooks and a number of useful utility programs. But I don't keep addresses or to dos on it. Those go on my phone.

No, I don't think that phone is a killer app for PDAs. A PDA is a platform on which you can install and run applications. The most important applications are the built in PIM functions. Those, it turns out, are better on a phone.

Re:How wise is industry wisdom?

[0xdeadbeef]

No wonder you keep insisting on using a marketer's definition for the market segmentation. That "ZOMG the PDA is dying" shtick got old three years ago. The PDA went to Finland, got an operation, and is now the "smartphone". We call it that out of politeness. It's still the same device.

I've developed for practically every major PDA / smartphone that's come out in the last five years. I personally use a Nokia 6600 for no other reason than it's small, slurps my address book from Outlook, and with Opera I can surf the web during the commercials before a movie.

You are forgetting about email. The enterprise lubs them some email. That more than anything drives smartphone sales.

And you're complaining about the shortcomings of individual devices. Do you think Apple isn't addressing battery life? It's a music player!

Convergence isn't happening because people are demanding it. Like you said, most people don't even know what these devices can do (yet). Convergence is happening because the components are getting so good and so cheap the manufactures can only distinguish themselves by how much they cram into their devices. The one good Apple will do for this industry is by refocusing us on the quality of features, not just the quantity.

Re:Destiny

[gig]

> As cool as I think the iPhone is, I'm currently leaning toward the second option. Too expensive, too little demand.

You are out of your mind. Everybody already wants one. The demand is already there. Not from just the geek crowd, either.

People asked for this device. Millions of iPod users have already asked Apple for "an iPod phone" because they like their iPod better than their phone.

When comparing the price to other phones, notice that the iPhone also does not have a hardware subsidy. Instead, the service is going to be discounted. In other words, instead of getting a few hundred dollars off the phone, you will get a few hundred dollars off your service contract. So you have to compare the $499/$599 price to the unlocked price of other smart phones. There are many that are more expensive than iPhone right now, including two WinCE models that are over $700 and do not offer Web browsing or an iPod built in. Also iPhone will save the user money because its Wi-Fi will enable free access to the Web whereas other phones are always on the cell network only.

The iPhone replaces a PC in many ways that other phones don't because there is a real Web browser in there, there is real audio/video playback in there, there is real email, a real OS. Many people are going to look at it as $500 off a notebook computer.