Why I want the Palm Pre to succeed
Palm Pre
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)Ever since Palm introduced the Pre at CES a few weeks ago, rumors have been swirling over the possibility of Palm butting heads with Apple in a courtroom over the Pre's functionality.
Critics say the Pre's use of swiping the screen to move between windows, and multitouch gestures to zoom, make it a logical legal target for Apple, which has engaged in some posturing over the past few weeks.
In Apple's quarterly earnings call last week, COO Tim Cook said that his company "will not stand for having our IP ripped off," but he wouldn't "talk about any specific company."
It's no secret which company Cook is talking about and in an interview with All Things Digital, a Palm rep said that if the company is "faced with legal action," it's confident that it has "the tools necessary" to defend itself against any Apple lawsuits.
Whether or not Palm has a case is in doubt. Apple was recently awarded a patent that covers many of the iPhone's multitouch functionality, including the zoom functions and swiping currently found in Palm's Pre.
Will Apple use this new patent to its advantage? The company has yet to make a statement. But if takes Palm to court over the Pre, I'll be rooting for Palm.
Why support Palm? It's simple: I believe in competition and I think Apple has cornered the touch-screen mobile phone market with superior software and an outstanding App Store. And although that may suit iPhone owners just fine, I think a viable Palm Pre would be good for all of us.
Now, I know that there are other touchscreen devices on store shelves. But let's face it: none of them are really that compelling.
Based on my testing, the BlackBerry Storm is a mess. Its "click" touchscreen is annoying and impractical and when I tried to type anything on the device, it was much harder than it should have been. Suffice it to say that the BlackBerry Storm can't compete on any level with the iPhone.
The T-Mobile G1 Android phone isn't much better. It offers some nice Google apps (it's a Google platform, after all) and some of its touch-screen functionality works well. Worse, the Android Market isn't nearly as appealing as the iPhone App Store and the device's design leaves much to be desired, in my opinion.
What's left? Devices from phone-heavy vendors like Samsung and LG? They were never really considered iPhone competitors and none bring much new to the fight. Because of that, we're left with the iPhone.
But when I saw the Palm Pre announced at CES, I was thrilled. Sure, some of its functionality looked similar to the iPhone, but it also provided enhancements to the iPhone's design and made me believe that for once, we have a possible "iPhone killer" coming our way.
It's not that I dislike the iPhone--it's the phone I use every day and I'm extremely happy with it. But I still believe that if the Palm Pre hits store shelves in its current state, we'll finally have a real competition in the market and both Apple and Palm will be forced to improve their devices to stay one step ahead of the other. And in the process, the consumers win.
Competition breeds innovation. Litigation does too, but not usually the right kind. If Palm can hold its own in a battle against Apple and bring the Pre to store shelves, I think we'll see dramatically improved products from both companies. That's my ultimate hope when the dust settles.
Did Palm's Pre, legally speaking, copy the iPhone? That's not for me to say. But as long as it didn't, I want to see the Pre succeed.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
but anyways, where does apple get off really? i didn't realize they invented cellular technology, sms, push email and electricity ..they need to stop ******** and moaning and make the iPhone less of a toy and more of a productivity tool
Talk is cheap and any action against Palm will just make them money.
I had an iphone, and I can say the palm treo is soooooo much better than the iphone for a million reason.
Palm was the king 10years ago and now is time to do it again.
Freedom prevails!!!
P.S. The Touch Pro screen has three (3) times the resolution of the iphone.
I'm for competition as much as the next guy, but only if a company truly comes up with something new, on its own merits.
The patent system is hopelessly broken in this country. The patent clerks are overworked and underfunded. It is no wonder that many patents are almost rubber-stamp approved rather than closely examined.
Now to your assertion that everyone is copying Apple! Bullocks. Just because Apple implements someone else's idea before anyone else, doesn't make "anyone else" a copier of Apple ideas - they just copied the same things Apple did. I'm not saying that Apple hasn't invented anything, but a fair number of their "ideas" are just excellent implementations of someone else's ideas (e.g. multi-touch, the Mac's user interface - which, ironically enough, Apple tried to sue MS over a few decades ago - despite the fact that Apple just took the idea from Xerox Park research!) Apple is not half the innovator that many Apple fan boys think they are.
Innovation within the smartphone market can't be "something entirely new and different" which is the guy's point in the article. Both companies will push the envelope if there is some sort of competition.
engadget has an in depth analysis which should prove interesting reading for those interestef.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/apple-vs-palm-the-in-depth-analysis/#continued
well bell labs doesnt exist anymore so we have to look to someone.
How about Lucent?
It may be the next Blackberry Storm that had people excited until they started using it and the realized how buggy it was.
I welcome the Pre. I am not so fond of the Pre's javascript/html/css applications, but that was like the iPhone's first year. Maybe before year two, they too will have a real platform. Whatever the case, I like what I have seen so far.
God forbid they come up with their own ideas. Funny how all the big companies (auto and computer) are complaining now.. when it was them that didn't have the foresight to innovate.
I like Palm too... but that was 8 years ago... They are more behind the game than Microsoft.. and that's saying something.
It's interesting how people also didn't care that there was no competition in the smart phone and hand-held markets for the last 8 years or so... I say "no competition" because all of the OS's were pretty impotent compared to what they could have been.
If you want to play capitalism.. you have to be willing to lose.
I don't get it, why you'd root for a lousy team called Palm, who chucked the handheld, failed on Foleo, and abandoned OS development for Windows Mobile, only to turn the clock back to develop WebOS.
Way to go, to support a company that doesn't know which direction its headed.
Palm made all those deals with other companies for lots of features on the Pre, Apple needs to follow suit. Get a deal with TeleNav or someone for some real GPS navigation and get some other deals, Facebook and AIM can push to the phone or something special.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/apple-vs-palm-the-in-depth-analysis/3#comments
Copy/Paste, expandable storage, miltiple program options for the same function (more than one browser option more than one music player etc), a largerscreen resolution (love it for moble web browsing really wish the Touch HD was more available in the US), physical keyboard (I know not everyone wants one but I prefer it for long emails and there are modles without the keyboard if you want a thin device) Turn by turn GPS (and not just the one provided by your carrier but Garmin or TomTom versions as well), changable interface (SPC moble Shell or the default Touch Flo 3d as well as others though I'll give this one to the iPhone as well since you can jailbreak and change the gui)
while the iPhone had a great App store and support there's just more you can do with other devices and that was more important to me as well as only paying $30 a month for web/phone/texts
I might just jump on the Pre when it's out, it looks great and seems like everything runs even smother than the iPhone and I just love the idea of the constant sync to the cloud. iPhone's great till you have to deal with iTunes to sync it. Just wish it had an MicroSD card slot on top of the internal storage.
I have an HTC Touch Diamond, a really sleek phone. It's smaller than the iPhone, so the screen isn't as big either, but it certainly does beat the iPhone in many other ways, from camera functions (better resolution, video recording) to worldwide unlocked availability, going through the Windows Live integration thanks to Windows Mobile-Windows Live interaction (which is for free instead of paying a monthly fee as in MobileMe) or the GPS functions metioned above as well. And the HTC Touch HD, following up on the Diamond and Pro, has an even bigger screen than the iPhone.
I'd say that the ability to choose between different versions of the same model (smaller screen, bigger screen, physical keyboard or not...) is quite a big advantage over the iPhone and it's "one size fits all" model.
- by CristGarage January 28, 2009 12:22 PM PST
- I agree with some of the others here, Apple should go after the bastards if it's proved Palm ripped off their years of R & D. This could adversely affect Palm and it's comeback, so it'll be interesting to watch it unfold.
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- by rapier1 January 28, 2009 12:27 PM PST
- Apple ripped of Palm R&D as well. If Apple goes after Palm its very likely that Palm will return the favor. Considering that damages are based in part on the sales of the infringing device Apple has a lot more to lose if they pull the trigger. What will likely happen is a cash free cross licensing deal of the IP.
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- by whois101 January 28, 2009 1:38 PM PST
- Remember that it was Handspring (now Palm again) that made the first Smartphone (the Treo) that was accessible for regular consumers in 2000. And Palm had the first widely used PDAs. Most of the concepts of PDAs and PDAs combined with telephones, we know as Smartphones now, were taken from these original Palm and Handspring units. Apple was nowhere at that point. Palm could probably easily go after Apple to get money for that, if Apple tries to go after Palm. Chicken, egg, apple and tree.
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- by ResinNation January 28, 2009 3:32 PM PST
- Ummm... and Palm (Handspring) ripped off Apple first for the first of the Palms... anyone remember the Newton? Yeah...
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- by DrtyDogg January 28, 2009 4:58 PM PST
- If you want to keep going with this we can. Remember Apple ripped off AT&T for the newton. yeah. . .
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- by tm_anon January 28, 2009 8:52 PM PST
- Or you could all realize that, in the software world, everyone's "ripped off" everyone else. They just charge different prices and implement it differently.
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- by homercles82 January 29, 2009 8:15 AM PST
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Showing 1 of 4 pages (121 Comments)The Newton was a piece of crap. Palm saw the idea, made it actually work and made money doing it. Get over yourself and go back to sipping lattes while musing on how Apple products are better because they look cooler.