Macopinion

Why Pre?

by Marc Zeedar macopinion@designwrite.com

Palm's new Pre cellphone is about to be available and the early reviews are mostly positive. In terms of checklist features, like many "iPhone killers," the Pre sounds great: it's got all the hardware of the iPhone plus a physical keyboard and removable battery the iPhone lacks. The design is stylish, and the operating system sounds like it's actually got a handful of innovative features. But I still can't figure out the appeal.

Basically the Pre is as close to a clone of Apple's iPhone as you can get. Palm has borrowed (stolen?) much of the iPhone's gesture user interface and design: with the keyboard drawer closed the thing looks like an iPhone, and many of the screens are nearly identical (like the Pre's "launcher" screen which has a grid of colorful app icons and four favorite apps on the bottom). Even the pricing is almost exactly the same.

So where's the innovation?

People who want an iPhone are going to get one. They don't want a cheap knockoff, they want the real thing. The only people I can see being attracted to the Pre are people stuck with Sprint for some reason, or people who are anti-Apple. With Sprint struggling and losing customers like I'm losing hair, I don't see either of those crowds being significant groups.

Yet the Pre has its rabid fans who are raving about it (most have yet to even see a Pre in person). I don't get it. What's the appeal?

Granted, the Pre has a few things that might be considered improvements to the iPhone, but are those enough to make up for its deficiencies? Remember, the Pre is a first generation device: it's going to be full of bugs, lacking in software and support, and missing key functionality for at least a year. Within that year Apple's iPhone will move substantially ahead (that will start with iPhone OS 3.0 being released this summer). Why get a Pre when the iPhone already has -- or will have soon -- everything the Pre offers and a lot more?

Many years ago I read an article in a Mac magazine -- back in the days of print -- which made an important point about the then Mac versus PC debate: for a new product to take on an established product, it can't just be as good, or even twice as good: it must be ten times as good. The article used that logic to explain why PCs dominated and Macs were a minority: Macs were better, but perhaps not ten times better (at least in the general public's mind).

This was a concept that made a lot of sense to me. Look at it yourself as a consumer: do you switch cars or detergent because a new one's marginally better? No, you want a dramatic improvement.

Today the same "ten times better" logic applies to Pre versus iPhone. This time Apple's product is the status quo, the Pre the contender, and while it's not a bad device, and arguably even better than the iPhone in some ways, it's certainly not ten times better. (I personally don't think it's even as good, let alone twice as a good, but that's me.) Without being massively better than iPhone, why bother?

Palm's leader are trying to downplay the "Pre versus iPhone" battle, stressing that the smartphone market is huge and large enough for many players. But what sort of role is Palm looking for? Do they want to be the next Zune? By all accounts a Zune is a decent music player. It works, though there are some flaws and limitations, but no one is interested in buying one. (Apple sells more iPods in a month than Microsoft has sold Zunes since launch.)

It's also important to remember the financial situation Palm is in: they are bleeding cash and desperate for an influx. Is a small amount of Pre sales going to be enough to keep them going until they can release updates and fix the early bugs?

Not Getting the Hype
There are some anti-Apple people who claim the iPhone was hyped by Apple. That's not true at all: the media and fans did the hyping, not Apple. Apple stated the facts. But Palm, since the Pre's announcement in January, appears desperate for the same sort of media frenzy as Apple received. Statements Palm has made -- like their chief investor claiming that "all" original iPhone owners would be switching to the Pre when their original two-year contracts are up this July -- border on ridiculous.

According to the dictionary, hype is "extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion" or to "promote or publicize (a product or idea) intensively, often exaggerating its importance or benefits." It's even sometimes "a deception carried out for the sake of publicity."

Apple's good at publicity, but I don't see their marketing as deceitful. Palm, however, seem to be somewhat underhanded. (The company's had to issue a lot of retractions about their statements so that they wouldn't get in trouble with the stock market authorities.)

Why was Apple's iPhone hyped? Mostly because it was a breakthrough product. It was something revolutionary and remarkable. A smartphone without buttons. A touchscreen device without a stylus. A new mobile operating system based on Mac OS X, the world's most advanced desktop OS. A revolutionary and intuitive gesture-based interface. Desktop-class web browsing and applications on a mobile device. Unique integration of hardware and software, providing features like device rotation-sensing.

What does the Pre have that's new? Very little.

Wireless charging (which sets you back an extra $70) is interesting and gimmicky, but not essential, and is available in other devices. The automatic merging of social media into a single interface is nice and potentially convenient (if it works, and early reports are that it doesn't work as well as advertised), but there are iPhone apps that do a similar thing.

The Pre supports multitasking and Palm tries to imply the iPhone does not (the iPhone does, only not with third party applications). Apple does not support multitasking simply because a mobile phone is not powerful enough -- yet -- to do that properly. The early reviews of the Pre show that multitasking does decrease battery life significantly and slow down performance considerably. I suspect most people won't bother to use this feature as the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. When mobile processors are powerful enough to support multitasking, Apple can easily enable this feature, since the OS already supports it.

The Pre's physical keyboard is nothing new (see: Blackberry). While some see a physical keyboard as a positive, I see it as a strong negative. The keyboard only works in portrait mode, which means a lot of rotating back and forth if you're looking at a website in landscape and need to type. Worse, Palm's OS makes use of the keyboard for important functions (such as copy-and-paste, which requires you to use the keyboard), meaning you can't access basic parts of the OS without being in "keyboard mode." Awkward!

The Pre has a removable battery, something I've never seen as a feature. Unless it uses standard off-the-shelf batteries (like AA or AAA), what good is it? It still requires I buy expensive, proprietary batteries, and I have to charge up those spares separately (probably spending even more on a separate charger). Replacing the battery presumably shuts off the phone, requiring a reboot, which sounds yucky. Isn't an external battery pack (or battery case) for the iPhone easier? Those charge both the battery and the phone simultaneously with your original charger and the extra weight is no different from carrying a spare battery.

Palm's new "WebOS" (a name that does nothing to convey "mobile") is undoubtedly the Pre's best feature. From the earlier reviews I've read it does a decent job and has some nice features. There are few things lacking and a handful of questionable decisions, but overall it gets positive reviews. But is it unique? Is it innovative? I'll be generous and say that it is. The "cards" feature, which allows you to shuffle through launched apps similar to Safari Tabs on the iPhone, is nicely done. But is that one feature ten times better than an iPhone? Certainly not.

The operating system goodness takes a questionable turn when you start to look at applications. WebOS apps are built using browser technologies, not true compiled applications like on the iPhone. A good comparison are Mac OS X's Dashboard Widgets, which are cute little apps made with web tech (like Javascript) that can do a lot of useful things -- but no one would confuse a widget with a real application. Without the WebOS SDK released it's too early to tell exactly what limitations WebOS apps will have, but it's pretty certain that you won't be able to write apps as sophisticated as on the iPhone. Early on, that's probably not a problem. Simple apps will work fine on WebOS, but as consumers become more demanding and their smartphone expectations rise (something the iPhone has already had a huge role in increasing), they'll want more and the Pre won't be able to do it.

When you combine limited app ability with a market of zero phones sold so far, the Pre's app store is a vast wasteland, especially compared to the iPhone's thriving App Store. With nearly 40 million iPhone/touch devices sold and proven app ecosystem, what developers are going to want to write apps for the Pre? And without apps that do the things people want, who is going to want to buy a Pre?

I anticipate many being interested in Palm's Pre. But I don't anticipate many actual customers. Many will wait for bug fixes and apps to become available. Others want to wait to see what Apple's going to do next. Others are waiting for the Sprint exclusivity to expire. Who's going to buy it?

Tell Me Why
I am genuine when I say I am mystified by the interest in the Pre. I really don't get it. I see a nicely done iPhone clone that I can't imagine anyone wanting. If you want an iPhone, get an iPhone. If you're anti-iPhone, since the Pre's such a direct copy, you should be anti-Pre.

I should stress that I'm a Palm fan. Or at least I used to be, before they went so far downhill. (Dropping Palm OS to produce Windows-based phones? Come on, Palm, that's sacrilege!) I don't have any particular interest in seeing the Pre or Palm flop. But I don't like Palm's attitude about the Pre, spreading lies about iPhone (like that it doesn't support multitasking), pumping up mediocre Pre features (like the hardware keyboard) without revealing the key disadvantages (portrait mode only, microscopic keys), or claiming that the very limited WebOS is somehow better than iPhone OS (which is a real UNIX computer). If Palm had marketed the Pre as a less expensive, simpler, and easier iPhone, that would be fine. Instead Palm is making claims that's better, and I just don't see it.

If you know why the Pre is better than iPhone, please say so. I don't just mean silly comments that "the Pre is better," but substantial details as to why it's better. And not just a little bit better, but whoppingly better. I just don't get the fuss.

macopinion@designwrite.com