Palm unveiled its Pre at CES and early responses have been very positive. It's a touch-screen based phone that looks like a shorter, wider version of the iPhone. It's got a better camera (3MP vs 2MP on the iPhone), a better processor, and it allows multiple applications to run at the same time (which Apple could allow as well, as the jailbroken iPhones show). The UI is very similar to the iPhone as well. For some people, the big win will be the hardware keyboard, a full Qwerty keyboard that is available in portrait mode.
Will it blow the iPhone out of the water? I don't think so. Apart from the keyboard, I don't think it's a significantly better product than Apple's current iPhone (and who knows what Apple will roll out by the time the Pre is launched.) And while Palm hasn't confirmed pricing, it looks like they are *not* going to price themselves significantly lower than the iPhone.
However, I do believe the Pre will put on pressure on Apple to innovate and to allow innovation on the iPhone platform, and that's a good thing.
Check out the Pre CES video here to see the UI at work.
0 comments:
Post a Comment