While TiPb is still waiting for an iPhone 3.1.1 bug-fix update, not to mention iPhone 3.2 betas to start dropping, it looks like the competition is getting their OS on this week:
Palm webOS 1.2 didn’t re-enable the iTunes hack (kudos Palm!) but did bring some nifty new features including Amazon MP3 downloads over 3G, the foundations for paid apps in the App Catalog, improved cut and paste, and much more.
Android 1.6 Donut is expected to hit now’ish as well. A new Android Market is coming with it, but not multi-touch — at least not yet.
BlackBerry OS 5.0 still doesn’t seem to be official, but is leakingoutallovertheplace (would that Apple had such porous pipes!). It’ll make your Berry more Berry, though it doesn’t seem to integrate a real browser yet, despite what the commercials say…
Windows Mobile 6.5 might be on 30 Windows Phones by 2010, though even Ballmer is finally admitting Windows Mobile 7 should have been out this year. Bottom-line, it’s a skin-job, and even though it looks hawt’er than a old style centurion, it’s still a machine on the inside.
What does that mean for the iPhone? Even if RIM looks locked in stasis, Palm and Microsoft appear to have up-hill battles re-gaining their traction, and Android is still slowly ramping up, Apple can’t afford to coast. A new OS from RIM, a Palm-style rebirth from Microsoft, and webOS and Android gaining marketshare are all possibilities. Many of these updates have interesting new features that hopefully Apple is looking at and working their own magic on.
So, let’s get on with the 3.2… and 4.0. March is only 6 months away, after all, and Apple needs something else to wow Smartphone buyers with at the next SDK event…
The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry group that oversees the Universal Serial Bus standard, has finally responded to Palm’s (PALM) claim that Apple (AAPL) is “hampering competition” by repeatedly disabling the Palm Pre’s ability to sync with iTunes–and it’s not looking good for Palm. In a letter submitted to Apple and Palm today, the group dismissed Palm’s claim that Apple has violated its USB-IF Membership Agreement. Worse, it took issue with Palm’s alleged use of Apple’s Vendor Identification Number (VID), which it says violates USB-IF policy.
Palm’s response?
“We engaged with the USB-IF because we believe consumers should have freedom and choice in how and where they use the non-rights managed media they already own. We are reviewing the letter from the USB-IF and will respond as appropriate.”
We’ve already weighed in on the situation in general (we think Palm has more important things to spend their limited funds and resources on), and PreCentral.net has posted up the whole sordid history along with their take, but what do you think? Is the USB-IF making the right call?
New Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein was the debut guest on the brand new The Engadget Show, and host Joshua Topolsky asked many of the questions that needed asking. Starting off with some of Ruby’s history at NeXT and Apple with Steve Jobs and his role in resurrecting the latter with products like the iMac and iPod, they segued into Palm talk for a bit, before bringing in back around to more controversial topics like Palm holding product announcements/releases right before annual Apple iPhone/iPod events, and the ongoing Palm “hacking” iTunessync saga.
Fascinating interview, and awesome start for the Engadget crew. Congrats on the new endeavor, and we can’t wait to see if Jobs, Schiller, Cook, Joz, or Forestall show up next…
As former Palm users (I had a Treo 600 at the time), we still remember Bill Gates and Ed Colligan taking the stage together at CES 2006 and showing off the first-ever Windows Mobile Treo 700. (Talk about cats and dogs living together!) Picture speed dialing on the today screen was an immediate sign that Palm was working their “secret sauce” (TM, TreoCast) magic to customize WinMo and give Palm users as much Zen as they could. It was equally evident when the razzle dazzle ended that Palm’s own PalmOS was reaching the end of its useful life and with Cobalt vaporizing, Palm needed something to pin their immediate future on.
A couple years and one long walk in the desert (TM, TreoCast) later, and now webOS is a fresh new take on the smartphone space, and Windows Mobile is the OS in danger of being left behind. Add to that Palm’s limited resources, and the focus makes sense. It’s also gutsy, going all-in on webOS, and Palm needs to be gutsy at this point. No better way to make people believe in your future than believing in it yourself.
In the video embedded above, which we’re offering now in tribute, we argued the Palm Treo Pro was neither a Palm, a Treo, nor particularly Pro (it was an HTC running WinMo with a tiny keyboard). Now maybe they’re a Palm with some new Apple blood and still stuck in tiny keyboard land, but give them a year or so of distance and pure webOS differentiation, and we’re excited to see where they go.
We sympathize with Windows Mobile Treo fans, but cheers Palm. Now bring the competition, Apple needs it, and Apple’s customers will benefit from it in the long run.
Check out PreCentral.net and WMExperts.com for ongoing coverage.
We’re not surprised. Obviously. Apple plays the product cycle and media hype engines to perfection. Still, it’s interesting to see Electronista’s take, based on ChangeWave data:
A mid-June study from the research group has 14.4 percent of those tracked looking to buy some kind of smartphone within the next 90 days, a record high and a large jump from 11.2 percent in March. Of these, a full 44 percent now plan to buy an iPhone compared to 30 percent just three months earlier.
As the above graph shows, Palm went from 4% to 8%, BlackBerry from 37% to 23%. Android, Nokia, and Windows Mobile weren’t shown
Other device makers likely know this, explaining why we’re seeing so many iPhone-style devices hitting the market. TiPb still thinks it’s more than a set of features, however. Sure, iPod halo and Apple brand help, but in the end the iPhone is all about usability and user experience for the consumer market, and that’s not as easy a task to duplicate.
It’s been suspected for a while now, but PreCentral.net let us know that Palm has gone and made it all official-like:
Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) today announced that its board of directors has appointed Jon Rubinstein to lead the company as Chairman and CEO upon the departure of Ed Colligan, who is stepping down after sixteen years of leadership at the company. Rubinstein, who joined Palm as Executive Chairman in October 2007 to help bring innovation back to the company, assumes his role as CEO on June 12. Colligan plans to take some time off, then join Elevation Partners.
As mighty Zeus did before him, Rubinstein came from Apple to slay the titans of Palm past and bring a powerful new pantheon of WebOS devices into their own.
So the former head of iPod hardware becomes the new head of Palm every-ware, and Ruby brings his vision of the iPhone-come-Pre head-to-head with the actual iPhone — and more interestingly — his once and former master, Steve Jobs.
Best of luck!
Meanwhile, TiPb would like to bid a fond farewell to Ed Colligan, who helped found the very industry we hold so dear. Many of us have owned many Palm Pilots and Visor and Palm Treo devices (and Dieter likely still has every single one of them on his desk!) and each was wonderful and innovative in its own time. Enjoy your much-earned respite and here’s wishing health, happiness, and much success with your future endeavors.
Standing ovation
(And who knows, a year from now Colligan might just pop up at RIM with a new OS of his own — how’d that be for poetry?)
Our good friend, Dieter, over at PreCentral.net has just got his hands on a leaked internal AT&T document that puts our beloved iPhone 3G into the ring up against the yet to be released Palm Pre. We are beginning to wonder what will happen first, Palm going out of business or the Pre actually being released… (Yes, we kid because we love…)
While some of the things that made the list are cold hard facts that every Palm fan will have to swallow, AT&T seems to be reaching on a few as well. Here are a some of the better ones:
The iPhone has a “thinner, lighter, bigger screen; metal and glass design” compared to the Pre’s “plastic casing”.
The iPhones App Store has over “25,000 Apps” while the Pre has an “Unproven App Catalog app store”.
The iPhone sports “Global GPS; aGPS for maximum speed, accuracy and reliability even in built-up areas” while the lonely Pre “Can’t receive map updates or location assist information in most of the world due to lack of GSM capability”.
What also caught our eye was:
The Palm Pre “Touchscreen control gestures not intuitive” whereas the iPhone features “Patented Multi-Touch screen” and “Fast and responsive navigation.”
If the Palm Pre cloned some of the iPhone’s UI interactions, didn’t AT&T just dash our chances for some lawsuit action?
Seems McNamee thinks iPhone Mobile Safari ain’t all that, compared to the Pre (even though the Pre uses Apple’s open-source WebKit foundation — which we know comes from KHTML/Konquerer…):
“Our product is just going to run rings around them on the web. If you want to go the web, it’s going to be a million time faster, well, not a million times, several times faster and that’s a huge deal for most people.”
Really? And since Sprint can’t do simultaneous voice and data, the minute you answer a call, your speed drops to zero. How much faster is that?
Apparently, however, McNamee’s hurt turns to heart for Apple’s Mac platform:
I’ve been an apple fan for years and I would never use any other kind of computer!
Bulletin: Some may just feel the same about the iPhone, b’okay Roger? See the whole crash-and-burn on video at Bloomberg…
Hey, it’s nice to see Palm getting back into the game! No, not with their admittedly compelling — if Apple inspired — Palm Pre handset set to land sometime in the first half of 2008. But with their rhetoric. You know, the same rhetoric that had Palm CEO Ed Colligan, when asked about the iPhone before it’s launch say, Apple wasn’t just going to walk in and figure smartphones out.
This time time it’s not Colligan however, but Palm uber-financier and Bono-buddy Roger McNamee, he of the coolest utility belt since Batman, who’s firing the mouth-cannon Apple’s way. McNamee tells Bloomberg (via Daring Fireball):
“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two-year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone,” McNamee said today in an interview in San Francisco. “Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”
Not one? Really? We’re certain some die hard Palm faithful and curious technophiles will become Pre-verts come launch day (we even suspect an editor-in-chief we know might just be waiting in line already…) but not one?
Given Apple’s statement that June is also iPhone product cycle, and that the Pre has fairly shamelessly glommed Apple’s iPhone style — and several high profile members of the iPhone development team — we’re certain Steve Jobs won’t make it a point to have a shiny new iPhone 3.0 ready for just about the same time, so that original iPhone owners have an easier, maybe even moe compelling upgrade path available. Can’t see that happening, can we…?
Confession: it was a pretty boring call from Palm CEO Ed Colligan today. No Pre release date. No Pre feature update. No assault on Apple. Nothing and pretty much more nothing. We kinda wish Steve Jobs had crashed the event and gone all Christian Bale on Palm. At least that would have been interesting! Still, PreCentral caught this tidbit, for what it’s worth:
On the issue of PATENTS, Colligan made sure to note that there are no pending legal actions with Apple right now. More pointedly, he noted that Palm has 15 years worth of patents (over 1500 of them in total) and that in patent fights often go like this:
The reason you do that is to have a defensive position. It’s like two little porcupines going around, and you don’t want to touch each other because you might get stung. You peacefully coexist and everything’s OK and you keep working together. We’re very respectful about people’s intellectual property, we believe we’re huge innovators and have been for a lot of years and that this product has an enormous number of innovations in it. If something does happen there, we do have the portfolio, we think to defend ourselves and to be successful doing that. But nothing’s happened to date, so we’re really just focused on getting the product out the door.
Note to Palm: while you fancy yourself a prickly little rodent, Apple’s totems are the big cats, so either you’ll bloody their mouth and run them off, or they’ll use those quills to pick their teeth clean after they’re done eating you.
