Derailed Thoughts

The Most Awesomest Phone Ever

April 8th, 2009

I’m going to warn you… this is a very nerdy post about a really cool cell phone.  If that’s not your cup of tea, thanks for stopping by.  If you like gadgets, let me tell you a story:

A long time ago there was a company named Palm.  They made little things called Palm Pilots–remember those? Palm (back in those days) was known as an innovative leader.  As a matter of fact, they came up with an idea where they would put three things in one–a planner, a computer, and a cell phone.  They called it the Treo, and the first smartphone was born!

But then something weird happened… Palm turned all stupid.  I don’t know how else to put it.  Everything they made was lame.  Lame after lame after lame.  They even made a laptop once that did nothing but display your calendar and to do list (a few other things too… but honestly, it was worthless).

Two years ago, Palm made a drastic move.  They bought off the guy that designed the iMac and the iPod for apple–the creative genius that started off Apple’s cool factor, Jon Rubinstein.  And then all went quiet… for two years, the company released hardly a thing.  No more really stupid products… just (virtually) no products.  Investors lost confidence as they watched Palm’s cash disappear and foresaw the day that they would die.

And then they announced what Apple man had invented while the company sat quietly in the corner all this time…

The Palm Pre

By the opinion of many tech-savvy sources throughout the world, the Pre will be the iPhone’s first real competitor.  Wall Street seems to agree–Palm’s stock has risen nearly 600% since the day they announced their new phone.  With the right advertising steps from Palm, they may in time be able to stand up to the iPhone (the highest selling phone ever).  In my opinion, in fact, Palm is the first to invent a phone superior to the iPhone.  But you can decide for yourself.  Here are a few highlights of the Pre:

Similarities to iPhone

Multitouch – Just like the iPhone, you’ll be able to pinch web pages to shrink them, stretch them out with two fingers, spin stuff around by rotating your fingers… you know.  All that stuff.

Full Web Browsing – Browse the real web!  Yep.  Don’t know what else to say.  It works exactly the same as the iPhone’s web browser, except renders a bit quicker since the Pre has a faster processor.

Full Media Player – Another bit of a copycat here–the phone has the same music browsing style that you’ll find on your iPhone or iPod touch.  Scroll by throwing the list, tap the artist to hear and an album pops up.

GPS Capability – Satellites!  Space!  Driving!  Great.

Simple, snappy user interface – Check it out!  Looks easy.  Neato.

Copy and Paste – The next iPhone will be able to do it too so we’ll put that in similarities

Advantages Over iPhone

Multitasking – Unlike the iPhone, the Pre can run multiple applications at once, like your computer can.  They’re displayed in a “card” format that you can flip through (see picture to the right–the app has been pushed back into a window so other apps can be pulled up while it runs), with each window containing an active, still running application.  Listen to music off Pandora while copying text out of an email into a note on your calendar–they’ll all stay open for you.

Faster Web - Though the phone’s final version isn’t out for public testing, the test Pre has been consistently seen loading and rendering web pages in half the time that an iPhone does it.  This makes sense–the transmission technology used by Sprint and Verizon transmits twice as much data as AT&T’s does

Synergy - Palm’s name for their new philosophy of “why just have contacts on your phone–let your phone display all of your contacts from Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, and any other source you choose.”  Note how the person on the left’s contact info comes from both the phone and Gmail.  The link more profiles button allows you to sync the contact with Facebook and other sites as well.  The phone is built to constantly sync everything with everything.  Add something to your calendar and it shows up on your Google calendar (which shoots straight onto iCal or Outlook on your home computer, all automatically).  Click on an event on your phone and tell it to invite two friends.  It’ll make a Facebook event and tell them to come.  Just throw out the idea of having stuff that’s just on your phone–everything can now be immediately synced to another source, wherever you want it.

Messaging - The texting app on the Pre isn’t just for texting. It’ll show who’s on Facebook, who’s on Gmail chat, basically any internet messaging service.  Talk to a friend on Facebook, and if they hop off before you finish what you were saying you can just click the little button at the top of their chat box to switch how you’re chatting with them.  The conversation doesn’t go away–just keeps running right in line.  The conversation on the right just switched from text to Gmail to Yahoo messenger.

Flash - Apple has long said that the iPhone will someday have the ability to play those little embedded movies in web pages, but have never come around to doing it.  Palm has announced that webOS will have the ability to view flash on web pages by the end of the year.

Slide-Out Keyboard - A debatable advantage.  Some prefer a touch-screen keyboard.  As for myself, I would rather eat a spoon every time I text messaged.  Sure, it’s possible.  But I don’t want to do it.

Unintrusive Notifications - On iPhone, when a message comes in or any other sort of notification comes up, it is displayed mid-screen and must be dealt with.  The Pre simply shows a bar at the bottom of the screen that can be dealt with when you’re ready.

Better Planning Software – Try to find a businessman who says that an iPhone has better planning software than a Blackberry does.  Hard to do.  Now try to find one who says Palm has better planning software than a Blackberry.  Not hard at all–Palm was founded as a productivity company whose focus has always been electronic planning.  For what its worth to you, you can expect quality planning apps.

Disadvantages to iPhone

Looks – It’s not a bad looking phone, but when it’s next to an iPhone it looks like the ugly duckling, unfortunately.  What in the world could look good next to that thing?

Screen Size - The screen is about half an inch smaller than the iPhone.  Still a sizable screen, but a noticeable difference

Small Application Pool – While the Pre will be a very simple phone to program for (it uses the same technology as the web, rather than any new coding language), iPhone has a massive head start.  Palm demonstrated how quickly an app can be made when Pandora was able to port their website into an application for the phone in less than 3 days… but will that simplicity be enough incentive for developers to catch its application offerings up with the iPhone?

Games – Building off of the last point, the Pre will not be able to have any sort of graphical intensive games until it is able to use flash in the browser several months after its release (again, the entire phone, including all apps, runs off of web technologies).  The iPhone has sold millions upon millions of games for its extremely versatile system.  That could be a massive turning point.

iPod Touch – As my friend Chad pointed out, the iPhone has a little brother–the iPod touch.  Those who don’t want to buy an AT&T plan can still have all the fun apps available for the iPhone by buying themselves a sleek iPod Touch.  For now, at least, Palm has not announced any type of device that will be available like the Pre outside of Sprint.  The phone will, however, most likely be available on many more networks than one, after a short introductory period on Sprint.

Conclusion

Well, that’s about it.  Longest post I think I’ve ever written, and one of my strongest declarations of my nerdhood.  But my goodness I’m excited for this thing to come out.  When, you ask?  Good question.  All Palm will say is “the first half of the year.”  Jeepers.  Put some pants on and tell us when the phone will be out.  Will it defeat the iPhone?  Almost certainly not, with the steam the iPhone has going already.  I’ve always hated the phrase “iPhone-killer.”  But the Pre will most likely be found on all other carriers before the iPhone is.  That larger audience will help massively.  Maybe with a little time the Pre can vie for even ground…iPhone’s new buddy!