Of the major companies that announced their earnings yesterday, two of them, AT&T and Apple, beat Wall Street estimates largely thanks to a single product: The iPhone. We’re approaching the two year birthday of the device, and it still remains one of the hottest items out there. Ladies and gentleman, the state of the iPhone is strong.

Yes, Apple actually sold less iPhones this quarter than the previous two quarters, but that was coming off of the always-hot holiday shopping quarter, and the one before that was when the iPhone 3G was still relatively new on the scene. All told, Apple has sold 21 million iPhones since its launch. Perhaps just a drop in the bucket compared to overall Nokia sales, but remember, Apple was not in the mobile business at all before 2007. And aside from just sales figures, in the past two years, it has revolutionized the industry. That is, of course, a cliche. But in this case, it’s true.

People can downplay the actual number of iPhones in circulation all they want — the fact of the matter is that it has changed things. While there were some third-party mobile app developers before Apple’s App Store, they received almost no attention, and as such, it wasn’t really a viable business. Now, everyone and their mother is flocking to develop for the App Store. And every major mobile player is rushing to make their own app stores. But Apple’s already has over 35,000 apps — and in a few short hours, there will have been one billion apps downloaded in just 9 month.

Think about that for a second: One billion apps downloaded. There are currently 37 million iPhones and iPod touches combined. Certainly, there have been a lot less than that over various stages in the last nine months, but just take that 37 million number. That means that every single one of those devices has had an average of 27 apps downloaded to it. 27 apps — that do everything from games to music to movie times to fetching me a taxi.

I remember the phone I had before the iPhone, fondly: Motorola’s RAZR. It had zero third-party apps, and the most exciting thing it could do was take a grainy picture. That was just two years ago.

Look, Apple’s iPhone platform is not perfect. The app approval process, to put it lightly, sucks. There are apps getting rejected for questionable reasons, that are forced to wait weeks to just be reviewed again. And then there are other apps which feature outrageous things, which get accepted without the slightest peep. Apple needs to revamp this system.

And the network is far from perfect as well. AT&T seems to have a failure rate that is unacceptable to a lot of people. Some have gotten rid of their iPhones just to ditch AT&T.

But the fact of the matter is, that iPhone is simply the best all-in-one device that I’ve ever owned. I cannot imagine my life without it now. I would be lost — sometimes literally — without it. I say that because I know that of the 21 million iPhone owners out there — there are a great deal who feel the exact same way. That may be annoying, and may even sound pretentious to those who don’t own an iPhone — but I’m giving you my honest take as someone who has owned and/or tried a lot of the so-called “smartphones” out there. I have a G1. I have a Nokia N95. I’ve used a number of Blackberry devices. None compare. And I think for a lot of the other devices, it actually speaks less to the iPhone itself and more to the shit products that the other mobile companies have gotten away with putting on the market for so long.

And thanks in no small part to the iPhone, that could be about the change. Google’s Android platform was long seen as the next big thing, but so far, the only phone to run it, the G1, is junk. That should, hopefully change before the end of this year when new Android phones hit the market. But before then, the first real challenger should be coming — perhaps next month — with the Palm Pre. I’ve known a few people who have used the Pre a bit, and the consensus seems to be that it is the first true competitor, in terms of experience (both hardware and software), to the iPhone.

But it has some major handicaps — ones that I’ve already mentioned: 21 million, 35,000, and 1 billion. The iPhone has established itself as the standard that all mobile platforms now aspire to be. And with so much developer mindshare tied up in the platform, it will be hard for any other to come along and compete. The Pre, simply put, has to actually be better than the iPhone, if it wants to stand a chance.

For a while, it seemed like that would be the case. When the Pre was first unveiled, major hype immediately began. It had all the features the iPhone didn’t. But Apple isn’t stupid. It didn’t rush out with a buggy software update to match all the features. Instead, it sat back, worked, and then dropped the iPhone 3.0 software bomb. Not only does its update coming this summer include many of the features the Pre was touting as advantages, but it has a lot more that the Pre doesn’t offer.

And the Trojan Horse, that not a lot of people are talking about yet, is that the 3.0 software’s micro-payments system (In-App Purchases) could take the iPhone to an even higher level in terms of developer commitment. It could represent a whole new level of money for them — and Apple.

Oh yeah, and there is likely new iPhone hardware coming shortly as well.

Of course, there are still two major differentiating factors that the Pre will offer: a physical keyboard and background applications.

To me, the physical keyboard argument is a short-term one. Yes, a lot of people right now insist on having a physical keyboard — something which Apple has refused to provide. But Apple is doing that because it knows that they are not in the cards for the future of mobile devices. In the not-too-distant future, there will be screens with full haptic feedback and let you orient your hands on them. Physical keyboards will be seen for what they are: A huge waste of space.

The larger issue is background applications. Apple still refuses to run them (from third parties). You might think this is an obvious advantage for the Pre, but there are some major potential downsides. One is performance. How will the device run when multi-tasking? But the larger issue is battery life. I have a G1 that runs applications in the background. The battery life is a joke. If you think the iPhone has a poor battery, try using the G1 for a day. Or should I say, try using the G1 for about 3 hours. Good luck.

Some developers say that if an app is made correctly, it shouldn’t drain a battery to such an extent even while running in the background. They often cite older Nokia phones and the like with applications as examples. But those older phones ran applications that are nowhere near as advanced as we have now in the post-iPhone world. If applications can be optimized for battery life, no one told the developers on the Android platform.

And so, I have my doubts about the Pre’s main advantage, actually being an advantage at all. Again, Apple is a lot of things, but it is not stupid. If it thought allowing applications to run in the background was the best play in keeping customers happy, it would do it. Instead, it went throught the painstaking process of completely redeveloping the Push Notification system to get it working. It seems to say something that now Palm has a similar service it has built into the Pre SDK, called Mojo Messaging Service.

Apple, with its still relatively small overall market share, is in a position of power right now in the US. If it had an iPhone that was $99 and could run on any major carrier, it would completely dominate this market. Instead, it’s doing things its way — just as it has always done. And that has worked for the iPod, and for iTunes, and has been working the past few years for the Mac. But it leaves a small opening for a nice Android device or the Pre to have a chance. But they can make no mistakes. Or they will be written in the Wikipedia entry for Apple next to the Zune.

Source: TechCrunch

First, let’s just be clear that we’re talking about the Palm Treo Pro, with an O and not an E, since that one letter and wishful thinking can lead one to see otherwise and incite mild hysteria (uhh, not that we know anything about that).

On Wednesday, Sprint finally confirmed the rumors and announced that it will add the Palm Treo Pro to its smartphone lineup starting March 15. The Windows Mobile 6.1 device will be available online and in retail stores on that date and will go for $199.99. That is, of course, after rebates and after you sign up for a two-year contract and add an Everything Plan with data or $30 per month or higher data plan. You will also be able to purchase the smartphone through Palm on March 16.

The Palm Treo Pro is the first Palm phone to offer Internet Explorer Mobile 6 and is EV-DO Rev. A and Wi-Fi capable. The smartphone also has integrated GPS and will work with Sprint Navigation for real-time turn-by-turn directions. Other features include a 2.5-inch, 320×320-pixel resolution touch screen, a full QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, and a 2-megapixel camera.

Palm should be sending us one to play with soon, so check back for a hands-on review. In the meantime, you can get an idea of what to expect in our full review of the unlocked version of the Palm Treo Pro.

Source: CNET News – by Bonnie Cha

I’ve seen two new phones in Barcelona today, and they’re both devices on which an awful lot hangs. One may make Google’s Android operating system go mainstream, the other could determine whether Palm, one of the pioneers of the PDA, survives into the converged future.

First the G2 – whoops, it’s not called that. While the first Android phone, T-Mobile’s G1, was heavily branded with the Google name, this time both Vodafone and the Taiwanese manufacturer HTC (also behind the G1) are determined to get their names out there.

So this is the HTC Magic and at first glance, it is just a slightly more elegant version of the G1. What is different is that there is no slide-out keyboard – this time you are entirely dependent on the touchscreen interface, except for a little clutch of buttons at the bottom of the screen.

I only had time for a quick play, but the screen seems pretty responsive and the on-screen keyboard no more of a pain to use than the one on Apple’s iPhone. There is a 3MP camera, without a flash, and it’s clearly not going to be the phone for someone intent on giving up their digital camera.

But what matters is the software, and the possibilities that the Android platform opens up for developers. As with the G1, it is easy to find your way around the phone, surf the web, and launch applications – I noticed the one I used had apps for Facebook and last.fm.

HTC’s Chief Executive Peter Chou and Patrick Chomet of Vodafone performed a double act at the press conference, and while there was some mention of features like Google Streetview, their key message was that this was a simple phone aimed not at the geeks and early adopters but a wider public.

HTC’s Chief Executive Peter Chou and Patrick Chomet of Vodafone performed a double act at the press conference, and while there was some mention of features like Google Streetview, their key message was that this was a simple phone aimed not at the geeks and early adopters but a wider public.

Incidentally, one rather cross correspondent to this blog has commented that we have failed to differentiate between smartphones and the mass market. Well I think the boundary is increasingly blurred. A couple of years ago any phone that could do e-mail was considered “smart”, now any handset that can’t looks pretty dumb. Now Vodafone wants to convince a broad range of its customers that they need a phone which is, in effect a mini-computer.

Those consumers will also be able to choose a phone made by the company that set the standard for PDAs and early smartphones, then watched as others came along and took the market away. At least they will once Palm’s new Pre makes it to Europe, after its American launch in the first half of this year.

The Pre was actually unveiled a few weeks ago but this was my first chance to get my hands on a device that’s received rave reviews from the bloggers. Mind you, there was some nervousness on Palm’s part about my fat fingers actually touching their sacred object – the company told me that it would rather I let a demonstrator show me round.

But I did get to hold it for a few seconds – long enough to find out that it is both lighter and smaller than you-know-what. Yes the inevitable comparison will be with the iPhone and this does look a worthy competitor.

The touchscreen is if anything even better than that on the iPhone or the HTC Magic – and there’s a keyboard just about big enough to be useful without making the device clunky. The Pre also has some of the missing links that are annoying about the iPhone – proper bluetooth, cut and paste, easy switching between applications. What it shares with the Apple device is an under-powered camera – just 3MP again – and a lack of video capture, though that may come. It should eventually have Flash too, following an agreement with Adobe. That means you will be able to play video in a browser window, something you can’t do on the iPhone.

So two phones from companies that really need them to be hits for different reasons. Vodafone has failed to hitch its name to any stand-out product lately – the Blackberry Storm has been more of a squall. And for Palm the stakes are much higher – it has developed a whole new operating system for the Pre and if the phone doesn’t win plenty of fans, then its makers might not be around in a few years’ time.

Source: BBC News

Palm’s Pre won CNET’s Best of CES award for 2009, and is getting tons of love from around the tech world. Not a bad accomplishment for a smartphone with a completely new OS, from a company written off as dead not long ago.

I wrote something like this about RIM’s BlackBerry Storm and got some heat for it, but still…where’s the music?

I don’t mean that the Pre won’t play music–of course it will. Palm even announced a deal with Amazon to let users buy music downloads without any intervention (cooperation? interference?) from the carrier, Sprint.But let’s recap why the iPhone became the first smart phone to capture the consumer imagination. Sure, its design had a lot of pleasant “just works” surprises, from the bright touchscreen to the way the keypad auto-corrects for big fingers. But a large reason is because Apple branded it as an extension of the iPod, which has become synonymous with mobile music. When music fans were looking to consolidate from two devices (MP3 player, phone) to a single one, the “i” brand reassured them that they wouldn’t get a second-class music experience.

Equally important: iTunes, the software that every iPod user was already familiar with. It’s not perfect. I know people who hate it, particularly on the PC. But compare it with the proposed Pre experience, as covered by PC Magazine:

9.) How do you get music and video onto the Pre?

You can drag and drop it over from your PC using USB mass storage, or buy songs on the device using a built in Amazon MP3 Store client.

My immediate reaction upon reading those three little words, “drag and drop”? Yecch. No sync? No library? No rating system? No playlists, preset or automatic? No way to view and change information about songs?

Here’s the thing: without iTunes, there’s no iPhone. And without the iPhone, there’s no consumer smartphone audience. I don’t doubt that Palm (and RIM, for that matter) understand mobile communications and information management, and there’s certainly a lot of room for improvement in business phones. But if I’m going to replace my MP3 player with a phone, these phones won’t cut it.

That’s why Microsoft’s recent justification for the Zune–it helped them learn how to build music-management software and an online store–didn’t ring as false to me as it did to some other folks. The device might be a failure. But whenever Microsoft rolls out its next-generation mobile phone platform, at least it has a reasonable story for managing and buying music.

Source: CNET News – Posted by Matt Rosoff

When Psion made a generation leap it proudly broke backward binary compatibility – gambling that the new platform was so much richer than before. It kept a semi-official API in the form of the BASIC-like OPL interpreter, but without such a tool at its disposal, Palm didn’t have that option. The developer base has been largely dormant for three or four years now. Palm needs these developers back, and the best way is with a shiny new thing. So, in all, it was a wise decision to leave the legacy applications to an emulator, and the business of writing an emulator to someone else.

But what does Palm’s return mean for the market?

Swiping a few features

Firstly, let’s take stock of how quickly the market has moved. 30 months ago I despaired of the smartphone ever achieving anything like the claims once made for it. The best devices – from Nokia and Sony Ericsson – remained clunky, and few people ever used anything that could be described as a “smart feature”. They were phones with OK cameras – but probably slower and less reliable than other cheaper feature phones which also had OK cameras. Why bother?

As the smart device dream died, so did the idea of mobile data. It’s amazing how much that has changed. With BlackBerry moving into the consumer market, the iPhone, and even Google introducing yet another new platform, we’re awash with options. With Apple, Android and Palm, we can entertain the idea that there’s more of a future here than a glorious past. So what might Palm bring to the party?

Well, the company has the advantage of being a second (or third) mover, which should not be underestimated in IT. Let someone else take the Fail – then learn from their mistakes. Or observe which aspects of the device are enduring and valued by users, once the gimmickry has worn off – then steal them, and implement them better.

Apple’s iPhone proves that you don’t need a stylus, and that a well thought out gesture UI does most things very well. It also demonstrates a crying need for context switching, better integration (the absence of a clipboard really hurts many power users) and Palm has taken full advantage of all three. Have a look at the video – captured by Mobile Burn – to see how nicely multitasking is implemented.

There’s no reason why the iPhone can’t have a real QWERTY keypad, either, the argument being that it spoils the “purity” of the design. People made the same argument against colour TVs once too, I recall.

For my money, the iPhone is the best piece of kit on the market today – if you need something more than a phone, and are prepared to leave your inverted snobbery behind. It’s raised the quality of design across the industry. When the novelty wears off, you’ve still got a great deal of utility, which increases every day thanks to the wide choice of applications. I parted with mine, with some regret, because task switching was so tedious. My current phone does it within a couple of seconds with a couple of keypresses. But it’s not invulnerable, and neither is RIM.

Palm looks the weakest of the five smartphone players – obviously one must include Nokia – because it’s dwarfed by their cash reserves and (with the exception of Google’s Android) customer loyalty. Palm’s lack of funds is reflected in its ultra-cautious roll out schedule: Sprint is the guinea-pig, and no GSM/WCDMA version has yet been announced. But build something popular and the developers will come.

At the end of the day, Palm has reminded everyone, technology is just a tool.

By Andrew Orlowski • Get more from this author