Are You Ready for a Thing Called Pre?

Techwriter10 0 288 Views

According to multiple sources, the Palm Pre is set to launch on June 6th, which happens to be the 65th anniversary of . I guess we can call this the Pre-Day invasion. Instead of storming the beaches of Normandy to take on Nazi Germany, Palm will be taking on the mighty, mighty Apple Corp., and its Juggernaut iPhone. At $200 (after $100 rebate with two year agreement), it has a similar price tag to the current 8GB iPhone. But can it really take on the iPhone or even compete with the BlackBerry, which itself has been giving Apple a run for its money?

Is The Cell Phone Market Changing?

Every few months a new phone comes along and we are left wondering if it will be "The One" to take on the iPhone. Interestingly enough, earlier this month, indicated that the BlackBerry Curve outsold the iPhone in the US for the first quarter this year. BlackBerry has long been a business favorite and brought out several new phones recently include the Curve and the Storm.

In fact, BlackBerry occupied three of the top four spots for sales in the list. But the BlackBerry had several things in its favor including being business friendly along with a loyal and large installed base. But Palm can at least take heart that it's possible to get people interested in a phone besides the iPhone.

Can Palm Make a Dent?

At $200, the Pre is priced just about where you would expect a smart phone with to be priced. It has the advantage at least out of the gate of being something new and the cell phone market always likes a new toy. While I don't understand why cell phone manufacturers give any carrier exclusive rights, Palm chose Sprint to be its dance partner in the US and it remains to be seen whether this will affect them positively or negatively.

Whither iPhone 3.0?

Palm of course shouldn't care when Apple plans to release its next generation iPhone, but there are persistent rumors of announcements at the WWDC in June with a summer release expected. It's unknown whether Apple will break its exclusivity agreement with AT&T and take on other vendors (as I think it should), but a new iPhone means more hype and the longer the gap between Palm's release and Apple's, the better off Palm will be.

It's hard to say how this plays out because most people are locked into their providers. Will the Pre (as the iPhone has done for AT&T) encourage defections to Sprint? Will it meet high expectations (I think so)? Even if Pre takes the market by storm it's hard to say it will be enough, but the cell phone market is certainly heating up and it could be an interesting summer.

Dani AI

Generated

As guessed, the Pre mattered because it pushed a genuinely different phone UI rather than because it dethroned Apple. The device’s webOS introduced the card-based multitasking and some modern UX patterns reviewers liked, but launch‑era reports also called out battery, supply and build problems that limited momentum. (Wired — Palm Pre review and launch analysis)

That early buzz didn’t translate into long‑term commercial success. Palm remained financially fragile and was acquired by HP in 2010 as part of a strategy to build a broader devices/software play. (PCWorld — HP to buy Palm for $1.2B)

HP briefly tried to scale webOS (notably the TouchPad tablet) but moved away from consumer phones and tablets within a year, effectively ending webOS as a mainstream phone platform; the code and team were later sold and repurposed for other devices. (WebOS history) HP ultimately sold webOS assets to LG, which repositioned the technology for smart TVs rather than smartphones. (CNNMoney — HP sells webOS to LG)

Practical takeaways for anyone reading this years later: the Pre and its webOS apps are functionally obsolete as everyday smartphones — app support, updates and cellular compatibility have all but disappeared. Major carriers shut down legacy 2G/3G services in the years after Palm’s run, so older phones that don’t support modern LTE/VoLTE networks won’t work as primary cellphones on many networks. (CNN Business — 3G shutdown context) If a Pre is on a shelf, back up contacts/media over USB or Wi‑Fi, use it as a Wi‑Fi‑only media/retro device, or preserve it as a collectible — the real legacy of the Pre is design influence, not market share, and that’s worth remembering alongside ’s point about Apple‑level expectations.

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Techwriter10 42 Practically a Posting Shark

Blog post says that next iPhone due for July 17th (for what it's worth).

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carlyse_09 -4 Light Poster

It is always high expectations when we heard the word apple for technologies.They always provides great high technological devices around the world.

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