Tag Archives | Palm Pre

Four Reasons I Don’t Think the New iPhone Will Be Available on Monday

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 5, 2009 at 6:22 pm

GearLive’s Andru Edwards thinks that the new iPhone–let’s call it the iPhone Video–will not only be announced on Monday but available in Apple Stores the same day. It’s not entirely clear what prompted him to say this–he headlines it as a prediction and then says it’s “likely” to happen, then simply states without hedging “Yes, you will be able to pick up the next version of the iPhone on Monday, if you get to an Apple Store before they sell out.” He says that he thinks iPhone OS 3.0 is ready to go and that Apple would like to put a crimp in Palm and Sprint’s release of the Pre on Saturday. And then he talks about “sources” who say “the stars are in alignment” for Apple Stores to have the iPhone Video on Monday.

In other words, it’s not entirely clear whether his story is based on wishful thinking, attempted logical deduction, investigative reporting, or some combination thereof. In any case, it seems like an extremely unlikely scenario to me. Here’s why:

1. FCC approval. The iPhone Video will have to get it, and it’s really hard to keep the phone secret once it’s started that process. By announcing the phone on Monday but not shipping it instantly, Apple gives itself a buffer to get the phone approved.

2. iPhonemania. With both the first iPhone and the iPhone 3G, Apple created tech-hype history by whipping gadgethounds into such a frenzy that throngs lined up at the crack of dawn to buy phones. It’s likely that the iPhone Video won’t create quite the same madness–it’s neither the first iPhone nor the first 3G one–but I’d think that Apple would like to stoke some initial crazy excitement. If the phone’s simply available the first day anybody knows about it, it can’t. (That would be like releasing a summer blockbuster movie that nobody knows about for sure beforehand.)

3. It’s not just about the Apple Store. Even if we assume for the moment that the iPhone Video will debut in the U.S. only, the phone will be for sale in Apple Stores, AT&T stores, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. Presumably those last three merchants would be nonplussed if the phone was only available in Apple’s own outlets on the day of announcement. And while it’s not utterly inconceivable that all the iPhone sellers are ready to put the phone on sale on Monday, it would be an impressive achievement to keep the phone secret with so many folks involved in preparations already.

4. Apple doesn’t need to to release it on Monday to respond to the Pre. Even if you accept the notion that Apple is worried enough about the Pre to think it needs to plan strategy to respond to its release, it doesn’t need to have iPhones on store shelves on Monday. Anyone who’s completely entranced by the Pre will try to buy one this weekend; Monday is too late to prevent that. But most people who might buy a Pre won’t do so this weekend–they will, very sensibly, give it some thought and see what their other options are, and they already know that it’s dead certain that a new-and-improved iPhone will be available soon. If Apple announces a new iPhone on Monday, it’ll surely be a matter of weeks at most before it goes on sale. Virtually nobody who really wants an iPhone Video will opt for the Pre instead simply because it’s available a bit sooner.

I’m not saying the chances of GearLive’s prophecy coming true are zero.  Just that if it is true, it’ll be one of the more startling things Apple has ever done…


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The Palm Pre Revealed: The Technologizer Review

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 4, 2009 at 5:00 am

Palm Pre RevealedIs it possible to out-iPhone the iPhone? Again and again, we’ve seen other manufacturers come up with phones that try so very hard to look and work like Apple’s blockbuster, such as this one, this one, and this one. Some beat the iPhone on specs; none has come close to matching its appeal, imagination, or sales. For all the poseurs out there, the iPhone still feels like a product in a category of one, nearly two years after it first shipped.

But maybe the way to truly rival the iPhone is to counterpunch. What if a phone ignored some of the iPhone’s most obvious virtues, choosing to zig where Apple zagged? What if it aimed to rival not the iPhone’s look and feel but its spectacular record of innovation? What if the overarching goal was to be a really good, really inventive next-generation smartphone?

What, in other words, if it were Palm’s new Pre?

Back at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, Palm unveiled the Pre with one of the most startling, sexy demos in tech history. Judging from the time I spent with a Pre this week, the phone lives up to most of its considerable promise. The hardware is quite good, but it’s the software–in the form of Palm’s webOS, the long-awaited successor to the groundbreaking-but-obsolete Palm OS–that makes the Pre so special. And the combination of the two is enough to catapult the Pre into a two-phone race with the iPhone 3G. (I suspect that one or more Google Android phones will be in serious competition before long, but the only Android phone to ship in the U.S., T-Mobile’s G1, is behind the iPhone and Pre by a furlong or two.)

Many people will find reasons to avoid the Pre, from its price ($299, or $199 after $100 rebate with two-year contract) to the fact it launches only on the Sprint network (a Verizon version is supposedly about six months away). Still, even if you never buy one, it’s a significant product. The Pre is so solid in so many areas that I expect multiple aspects of its hardware and software niceties to influence and improve competitive products. Maybe even ones from a company in Cupertino named after a piece of fruit.

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Palm Pre’s iTune Sync: Destined for Oblivion?

Posted by Harry McCracken on June 2, 2009 at 10:05 am

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape…
You don’t spit into the wind…
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger…
And you don’t use clever workarounds or hacks to do things with Apple products which Apple doesn’t want you to do, because Apple will surely release an update which defeats your clever workaround or hack.

–Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” (minor revision by Harry)  

Palm PreAmong the many interesting features of Palm’s almost-here Pre smartphone is Media Sync, which lets it sync with iTunes on a Windows PC or Mac as if it were an iPod or iPhone. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber and Jon Lech Johsnsen (the uberhacker who reverse-engineered DVD encryption and Apple FairPlay DRM) have been blogging about the new feature. I’m intrigued by their take, and puzzled (so far) by what Palm is up to here.

I think that both John and Jon’s analysis is based on this video from last week’s D conference, in which Palm’s Jon Rubenstein shows the  iTunes synching feature. e specifies that it involves no additional software, and the synching is clearly happening within iTunes, which refers to the Pre as an iPod. Jon (Lech Johansen, not Rubenstein) says that the Pre must be essentially pretending to be some specific iPod model and thereby tricking iTunes into doing the sync, and John agrees, saying it “can’t be legit.”

This analysis is all well-informed and sensible. It’s possible, of course, that it’s wrong–maybe Rubenstein mispoke when he said no additional softwaere was involved, for instance. But for the moment, the Gruber/Johansen take on this is at the very least the most likely scenario.

And if it’s indeed what’s going on, it’s tough to figure out what’s going on in Palm’s head. Reasonable people can debate about whether there’s anything underhanded about one company’s device masquerading as another company’s device to gain access to the second company’s software. Reasonable people can debate about whether Apple has any moral responsibility to permit third-party hardware manufacturers to sync their devices  with iTunes. But it’s all moot: If Apple doesn’t like the Pre’s approach to iTunes synching, and there’s a technical  way for it to stop it, it will, in an upcoming iTunes update. History pretty much proves that. And considering that, it seems pointlessly risky for Palm to do what John and Jon think it’s done: There’s a high chance that anyone who buys a Pre because of this feature will end up disappointed when Apple circumvents it.

(Wild card: Maybe Palm is positive there’s no technical way for Apple to respond to what it’s done. I’m not a USB engineer, but this scenario seems unlikely.)

The odd thing is, it’s possible to write software that peeks int iTunes’ music library and syncs songs back and forth in a way that works quite well: When I owned a Windows Mobile phone, I used The Missing Sync to sync it with iTunes. But such techniques involve the installation of software on a computer, and it’s not iTunes that’s doing the synching. You’re synching with iTunes, not via iTunes. If Palm did this, there’d be no controversy and little chance of Apple striking back, and the Pre would have a neat and useful feature.

Based on the D demo, though, whatever the Pre is doing, it’s something other than that. It’ll be fascinating to get more details once the phone comes out on Saturday, and to see how Apple responds.


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The First Palm Pre Review

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 29, 2009 at 1:39 pm

Palm PreThe Boy Genius Report has seen, touched, and tried a pre-release Palm Pre, and published its findings. It’s a long piece with a bunch of photos, but the Pre has been so thoroughly previewed in so many venues that it doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. BGR’s verdict? Uninspiring hardware (the keyboard is said to be too small to be pleasing, and the case kind of plasticky) but sensational operating system (although not much software was on the device).

The Pre hits stores on June 6th, so look for gazillions of reviews shortly.

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