Palm to bypass apple

[sumito]

Something i've hated about the palm pre, is anybody with an iphone to automatically get more attention than me, and its assumed its a better phone. personally i think this is because there is an iphone app for EVERYTHING.

well, if there is anything i think we can do to bypass apples sales of the iphone, and increase the revenue around palm, its to develop more apps. But so far, the palm apps seem to be catching up with apples, not bypassing it. Which is why i want to start a group of people dedicated to making sure we keep up with what apple has, so the bigger developers can focus on BYPASSING and coming up with apps apple has never though of.

Anybody have an iphone? ipod touch? you guys know the app falling balls? dumb isnt it? yet it has more downloads now than any app in the palm catalog. prob around the number of all the apps combined. thats because the iphone came first. it gets the credit for those, so what can palm do? simple really, exploit weaknesses and go for the new. what can the palm pre do that a iphone cant? a palm pre has a keyboard. theres a start. that means any simple game online using WASD as movement and clicking (tapping) for shooting instantly becomes a fun easy (simple) game to make playable on a palm pre.

So any developers, youtubers, forum runners and general palm fans, comment, and say what you think should be done. please include in your comments the following.

1. What you like more in the palm pre than the Iphone
2. The One app in the apple store you wish the palm pre had
3. The most important thing you think palm needs right now
4. The most important thing you think the app developers should know

[japomani]

A good PIM. (especially tasks)
Iphone has pocket informant
Having this app would turn my toy into a tool

[dirtygreek]

If it ever happens, which I doubt, Palm will take a long time to bypass apple. They have so much more money, more advertising, and worldwide notoriety that to bypass them in the eyes of the people will just be almost impossible. That doesn't mean nobody can make a better phone than apple - I'd argue palm is close to doing that already. However, there will always be more iphones and more iphone programmers, not to mention users, so there will always be more and better apps for it.

1.) Physical keyboard, not tied to itunes, more hackable
2.) Shazaam
3.) More and better marketing
4.) If you build it, they will come

[rc46]

Palm has always been a small, cult, niche company. They have always had great products but never more the 2000 employees. Thats not going to change. Palm will always be the number 4 or 5 smartphone on the market. Even if there was "iphone like demand" for the Pre there is no way they could ever deliver even a 10th of that demand. Its just not their business model.

If you want to use the most popular smartphone out there then you better jump ship now because thats never going to be Palm. The way the smartphone market is growing if Palm just maintains a small piece of the pie they will be very healthy and make plenty of money.

Unlike the OP, I like using a unpopular phone. I like showing people everything that this phone they never heard of can do. I dont want to have the most popular phone out there. I want to have a Palm.

[dirtygreek]

Same. I mean I'm hardly "loyal" to any company, but I do like that Palm is practically a large family rather than a huge corporate machine. You'll never see Apple thank its homebrew community at a public event; you're more likely to see them sue the people who have tried to expand their device through jailbreaking etc.

[Insp_Gadget]

Popularity can be a dual-edged sword. On one hand you get lots of developers making all sorts of neat applications for the platform. That ensures longevity.

On the other hand, the added attention also increases the risk of negative exposure (e.g. Windows gets attacked because of its popularity).

I hope that Palm can find a happy medium. I want webOS to succeed. For that to happen, more people need to invest in using it, supporting it, and spreading the word.

[Garrett92C]

Iphone: There's an app for that.
Verizon: There's a map for that.
Pre: There's a patch for that.

[cashen]

IMO, The iPhone is nothing, its a brick on a crappy carrier. What makes the iPhone so successful are the developers that make very innovative apps for the phone. If you took away all the 3rd party apps on both phones what would you get? They would be very similar and i think the Pre would actually edge out the iphone in many categories.

So what needs to happy? Palm needs to release the PDK/SDK and the needed APIs so the developers can do their amazing work.

Remember, its not steve jobs or apple that made the success of the iphone, it is the innovation of the developers which made the iphone. No one buys the iphone for just the phone.

IMO

[zonyl]

Originally Posted by cashen

No one buys the iphone for just the phone.

IMO

Sadly, a lot of folks I knew stood in line for the original, when Handango was the big app store. I was tempted because it ran *nix, but luckily dodged that bullet.

[SirataXero]

Originally Posted by zonyl

Sadly, a lot of folks I knew stood in line for the original, when Handango was the big app store. I was tempted because it ran *nix, but luckily dodged that bullet.

I'm about 90% sure there were only 2 good reasons for that:

1. Apple phanboi-ism
2. (above mentioned people) being ignorant of the fact that not ONLY the iPhone is an "Internet communications device"

My Treo 650, 4 years ago, could do everything the iPhone can now. Just because Palm respected its consumers by not using fancy keywords like "Internet Communications Device" they didn't get as much publicity. Also, Apple had a huge following for releasing the alternative to Windows as well as for having the iPod.

I'm positive no one really knew what they were getting into, as they stood in line for hours to get their hands on a revolutionary new Internet Communications Device.

[sumito]

Okay well i never knew of some of the views shared to me on this forum thread, and i supposed its a (saddening) fact that apple may always be ahead of palm. im just saying apple shouldn't be number one on the market because of it's apps. i mean, apple doesn't make all the best apps themselves do they? they have developers no? so those developers could do the same (if not more) for palm, right?

I'm saying if palm has so much potential, and less restrictions than apple, whats stopping it from being more successful app wise?

[dirtygreek]

It's sort of a Catch-22 that apple has had several years to create. Because they have so many more users, they have many more developers. More developers means more apps. More apps means more users. Etc.

[sumito]

Im not saying that palm can or will ever have more apps than apple, im saying it sucks how apple gets the credit for the best apps, only because they have so many, im betting most have no purpose other than to be funny....ONCE!

[Rick9814911]

1. I love the multitasking and physical keyboard, plus i like palm more than apple
2. Geo Defense would probably be my first pick but i have an Ipod touch so i dont really care about that.
3. I think the one thing that needs to improve is the speed of the device and some of the bugs need to be worked out. Webos is way to slow given the hardware thats in these phones. Alot of memory leaks too, didnt notice till the 3d games started coming along and half the time i cant launch them cause i "have to many cards open" even though there arent any cards open. The second most important thing would have to be improving the sdk. Even with this new plug in our sdk is still behind the iphones. We still dont even have microphone APIs.
4. Theres alot of potential with Webos, the hardware is there and once the softweware starts to get better it'l be an amazing platform. More so than it already is.

[milominderbinder]

Why not have the best of both?

http://admin.precentral.net/webos-th...black-launcher

We still need the 3,000 other Brighthouse apps and 5,000 fart apps and we will be caught up.

You can add apps. You can add themes and patches. You can't grow a real keyboard.

- Craig

[thehomelessguy]

1) physical keyboard I can use with one hand (I hate landscape keyboards)
2) the damn medical apps we were promised (epocrates running in classic is a load of bull).
3)medical apps/better note taking apps/improved calendar
4) keep the pricing less than $5. Some apps, while nice (package tracker) are wayyy overpriced. Know that if you release crap apps I am using the app blocker on your company so even if you release something descent I will never notice it. Looking at you Brighthouse and Dijit.

[thehomelessguy]

Oh I'll also be blocking anyone that releases a fart app just on principle.

[zonyl]

Originally Posted by SirataXero

I'm about 90% sure there were only 2 good reasons for that:

1. Apple phanboi-ism
2. (above mentioned people) being ignorant of the fact that not ONLY the iPhone is an "Internet communications device"

My Treo 650, 4 years ago, could do everything the iPhone can now. Just because Palm respected its consumers by not using fancy keywords like "Internet Communications Device" they didn't get as much publicity. Also, Apple had a huge following for releasing the alternative to Windows as well as for having the iPod.

I'm positive no one really knew what they were getting into, as they stood in line for hours to get their hands on a revolutionary new Internet Communications Device.

Total agree, my PalmOS and WinMo phone have served me well over the last decade. I have also seen something fairly unique to the iPhone users:

1. When I showed them I was able to ActiveSync with Exchange mail / calendar on my WinMo phone, they said who cares. Year later all of them were excited when sync came out on their phone and bugged the hell out of the admin at work to get them configured.

2. When I showed them I was playing music via bluetooth to my car's head unit from the internet, they said 'My CD's sound far better'. Year later all of them sit at their desks with BT headphones listening to their phones.

--- nowadays ---

A. Every time I jam out an SMS to someone quickly at lunch, someone makes a comment about how the small keyboard is useless.

B. Every time I do something on my phone, someone makes a comment about how small the screen is. I usually ask them how big their screen is when replying to an email.

C. Ditto with Flash announcement for Feb. All I hear about is how unnecessary it is for a phone to have it.

[zonyl]

Originally Posted by sumito

Im not saying that palm can or will ever have more apps than apple, im saying it sucks how apple gets the credit for the best apps, only because they have so many, im betting most have no purpose other than to be funny....ONCE!

Have no fear. With Flash in Feb, we will have to access to far more 'apps' than offered in any app catalog (useless or not ).

[dirtygreek]

for releasing the alternative to Windows

Whoa whoa whoa - THE alternative? Let's not forget Linux - the OS that is running on all of my computers, not to mention all of our Palm Pres.