iPhone Killer

Yes, the Pre might annihilate the iPhone. It is possible that the pre will completely dominate the smart phone market. It seems unlikely when the Pre available only on Sprint but it’s possible. But what isn’t possible is that the Pre will dominate the smartphone market because of the six reasons in the video.

Reason the 1: Multitouch much improved.
The thinking here is that the Multitouch on the Pre is so much better than the iPhone that people will flock to it. It makes sense, people love pinching and zooming and all but the Multitouch on the Pre is more complex. More complexity is better for geeks but not better for consumers. Palm must keep the Pre intuitive. Whi knows how that will play out.

Reason the 2: It’s built to multitask.
The video narrator explains that the Pre is built for Multitasking, see it has linux at the heart of the operating system. Two things here: first most consumers, and that is what the iPhone is aimed at don’t care about multitasking. Secondly, the iPhone is based on OS X… more...

Apple doesn’t want other folks using multi touch on iPhone competitors. The position is understandable, Apple sees multi touch as proprietary intellectual property. The problem with relying on patents and such to protect your product is that someone will come along with something better. That something better might be on the way.

Some folks at MIT have put together a borgish looking device that responds to hand gestures and projects the screen onto a flat surface. They call the tech Sixth Sense and the device that takes advantage of it Wear Ur World. One supposes that naming things isn’t the strong point of MIT types. Taking a look at the thing and generating a mental image of the device after some industrial design will give you a distinct feeling that you might be looking at the next big thing.

via Cnet

There are rumors everywhere that Dell is getting ready to release an iPhone competitor. Why just check this passage out:

If launched, the phones will be based on Google’s Android operating system and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software, it said. One model will even feature a touchscreen, not unlike the iPhone’s, the Journal reported.

Wow, those are some quality rumors. Not only is Dell going to release a phone but it is going to release an (apparently) dual boot phone. The thing being that Android and Windows Mobile are both OSes so unless Dell has something interesting up the collective sleeve you have to wonder about the quality of the rumors.

Which brings us to the last time Dell tried to ape Apple. Remember the Dell DJ? If course you don’t. The only people that remember the Dell DJ are the suckers, umm unfortunate souls, that actually bought one. Why did the DJ fail so miserably? You can blame the hardware, the interface, the buttons, the marketing or the packaging and you’ll be able to make a good case for each reason. But the real reason the Dell DJ failed isn’t any… more...

You’re familiar with inexplicably popular things. You know, stuff that sucks yet remains popular. American Idol, Nickelback, Garfield. Stuff like that. If you thought the Storm would turn out to be one of those things you don’t have to worry, the Storm not only sucks it isn’t very popular.

Just how popular is the Storm? About 500,000 units popular. Compare this to the number of iPhones sold in the same quarter (about 2 million) and you see the trouble. The Storm started out looking like a sure thing. It was made y a company that normally makes fantastic products (RIM) and was coupled with a carrier many people find superior (Verizon). So what went wrong?

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Other users complain of glitches and features buried deeply in multiple menus.

Who’s to blame for the setback? Well, Verizon did manage to run out the Storm so logistics were obviously not optimal. Most opine that the real culprit is the usual suspect: corporate greed. The idea being that RIM rushed the Storm out for the Christmas quarter to move a few more units. Also likely is that RIM didn’t fully… more...

The Palm Pre is getting a lot of hype. Not as much hype as the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G but more hype than just about anything other smartphone. Just like the original iPhone the hype is a little unjustified, no one knows much about the Pre except what they could glean from a few demos at CES. That won’t stop the speculation because like the iPhone the Pre has a aluable name behind it. Palm is teetering on the edge of insovency but people still remember the glory days when Palm was cranking out PDAs that people couldn’t get enough of. If Palm can recapture that early magic then the Pre can be something special.

So how does the Pre stack up in the pre release smackdown? Avi Greengart who used the Pe for an hour had this to say:

It builds on Palm’s heritage of building the best personal information management devices. And they’re extending this beyond a single data store, to all the places [on the Web] where you have information, like LinkedIn or seven different e-mail accounts.

Sounds like a winner. PC World also covers the more perfunctory spec… more...

Imagine you’re Dell Computer. Here’s the situation: Business is off, you’re losing market share and the stock price is way down. Do you:
A) Find some under appreciated market segment and try to expand it ala the iPod?
B) Crank out compelling new computer designs and crush the competition?
C) Cut back and hope to weather the economic storm?
D) Blatantly ape Apple and release a smartphone?

Right now there are no wrong answers but analysts are saying that Dell could be coming out with a smartphone as soon as next month. Shaw Wu says this:

We believe it is likely inevitable that Dell enter the cellphone space given the cannibalization of PCs by smartphones and highly functional mobile devices.

We all know analysts are never wrong so take that to the bank. To make the deal even sweeter for wanna be DEll smartphone users the speculation is that Dell will skip Android and use the third or fourth tier of Mobile OSes: Windows Mobile. Good luck with that Dell. We predict flashbacks of the Dell DJ and Dell Ditty.

On the other hand if Dell cranked out a really nice netbook with a persistent 3G… more...

Remember Sprint and Palm? Sure you do, they used to be big players in the smartphone/cell provider arena. That started changing even before the iPhone came out but once the iPhone 3G was released the decline of Sprint accelerated.  So, you’re getting kicked all over by competitors what do you do? If you’re Verizon and RIM you try to copy the iPhone as closely as possible. If you’re Sprint and Palm you try to copy and address a shortcoming or two.’

iPhone’s number one percived shortcoming? No physical keyboard. So what are Sprint and Palm coming out with? The Palm Pre. Touch screen and physical keyboard! Wireless charging (nice) and (as you would expect) specs that outpace the iPhone. Can the Palm Pre really be a legit competitor to the iPhone? Palm has made some great software before (Palm was started by folks from Apple way back in Newton days) so the company has it in them but it is difficult to say if this will be the device that will force Apple to really work on the iPhone. One safe bet it is that the thing will be better than… more...

The G1 from Google and T-Mobile hasn’t set the world on fire (the phones do make nice Christmas bonuses however) but the real promise of Android (the OS that powers the G1) isn’t a single phone it’s in the openness of the OS. Anyone can download the code, go crazy and make something really great.

So even if you’re not impressed by the current android powered offering doesn’t mean every phone that comes along will be like the G1. Imagine what a company that has mastered hardware and software could do with a mobile phone and some open source code. Well, you know what Apple did (OS X Mobile is based on OS X which is based on BSD which is open source) when the company applied the assembled lobes to the problem but could another company pull off the same trick?

Maybe. But you have to wonder what company has the skills to challenge the iPhone. The go to company is Nokia, they know all about phones but for some reason the phones have never sold well in the US. Another company that cranks out some great… more...

Everyone wants in on the iPhone action. Better than catching the iPhone in America would be beating the iPhone to market in China. that is just what Lenovo seems to be trying to do with the yet to be released oPhone. You can see the pic by following the link to Macaround.com. If you don’t like following links the oPhone looks slickish, a little like a squarer iPhone.

The cell phone market is huge in China so developing a phone specifically for/with China Mobile makes a lot of sense. When will Apple get the iPhone to China officially?

There’s a certain segment of people out there who are jealous of the iPhone’s success so they are always looking for something better. Today’s something better is either the Nokia N95 or N97 depending on who you’re listening to. Well, if you listen to Robert Scoble it is the N97, if you listen to Paul Bradshaw it is the N95. And, to prove their points they have lists.

Nokia is better because it has a 5 Megapixel camera, the iPhone’s camera is only 2 Megapixels. Wow, five is 2.5 times bigger than two si that’s a clear win right? In Scobles case the N97 is all about FaceBook so let’s think a bit about the image size. How big do want your images on FaceBook? A five megapixel camera generates a 35.8” wide picture at 72 DPI (what a lot of monitors use). A two megapixel camera generates a 22.2” wide picture at 72 DPI. Both are a bit overkill for posting photos to Facebook. Sure, more pixels are better especially when it comes to printing but for posting to the web 2 megapixels is plenty.… more...