[quote name='Koggit']i know a lot of people with iphones, a very small percentage of them use macs.. i really think you're overestimating the mass market brand appeal of apple. there are definitely fanboys that'll buy anything apple, but that's true of any brand in any market. the iphone is legitimately one of the best phones around, arguably still the best.[/quote]
The people that lined up in June of 07 for the iphone launch that set record numbers were almost entirely Apple fans.
The iphone didn't do anything out of the box that any other phone hadn't already been doing for years. In fact, it did a lot less. But it did look really pretty and had a real neat user experience.
and i dont think you'll ever see the sort of app development for the pre like there is for the iphone.. pre is all web-based stuff. writing a pre app is like writing a web applet. i feel like coding an applet is too soft, like it's not really a program, feels more like a plug-in.. for me, at least, coding in obj-c feels much more solid, like i'm writing a stand-alone program, which is far more familiar and comfortable for novices like me (and a ton of iphone apps were made by novices like me).
Um. First of all you need to remember there was no 'app store' or dev kit for the iphone for nearly a year after it's launch. Not without hacking it. Absolutely no official third party support from Apple for development for 7 months.
Second of all, for many months after the iphone's launch, they did the exact same thing - they tried to sell
"web apps". It was a while before any "novice", like yourself, could code directly to hardware.
So what makes you think anything is different for Palm? The Pre had an app catalog at launch AND an open dev kit within a month of it's release. They are doing exactly what Apple did for the iphone launch, but faster, so why knock them?
Name one third party app that launched within a month of the iphone that was NOT a 'web app'.
It's damn smart to push the web apps at first. You instantly have zillions of developers that can jump right in. That's why Apple did it first too.
See what this guy has gotten it to do in just a couple weeks?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUeHEFlPa6E&feature=player_embedded
.....Interestingly, he reports that the performance on the Pre is actually better than that of the iPhone 3GS
Do you really honestly believe Palm intends to only use web apps on a phone forever with
Processing power better than the 3GS? Really???
No - they have a low level SDK they have already let
some developers have early access to they plan to release late summer to everyone else. On top of that, they have "leaked" the ability to root the Pre already and people are already hacking the hell out of it, proving that Palm intends to be far more open to the mod community than Apple - who doesn't like that?
I really don't get the double standard. The Pre was created almost entirely by former Apple employees, lead by the same Apple executive that made the ipod a household name. It stand to reason that if Apple had started over to make a new iphone, it would be very much like the Pre - yet it can't cut a break because it's missing the fruit on the back.
Edit - As a side note, my boss called me over to his desk 2 days ago and said "you've been here long enough that we normally would give you your iphone by now, but I understand you don't want one?" I said "that's true". So he said "Well I'll talk to the CFO about subsidizing your plan on the Pre then, if you use it for your work phone."