Palm Pre teardown shows iPhone-inspired design [Archive]

AppleInsider

06-07-2009, 12:23 AM

Dismantling a Palm Pre piece by piece has revealed it to be very efficiently designed; so much so that, at points, it appears better put together than the Apple iPhone many see as its role model.

The component teardown by iFixit notes that the smartphone's thicker shape -- necessary to accommodate the slide-out keyboard -- gives Palm added design freedom to optimize the design where the iPhone is relatively straitjacketed by its thinner shape.

One of the obvious changes is a removable back panel that lets owners themselves replace the battery rather than take the device into a store. Similarly, the conspicuous speaker on the back of the Pre is louder than the small example on the iPhone, and the space affords room for an inductive (wire-free) charging system through an optional dock. That Palm has fitted a keyboard on its phone but managed to produce a device effectively as large as the iPhone is "very impressive," iFixit says.

In fact, the two share certain basic design traits. Both have separate processor and communication logic boards, and both are so tightly packed that they resort to glue and soldering to keep parts together in lieu of screws and other removable connectors. Repairing the very deepest components is expected to be very difficult, if not impossible.

Some characteristics, however, show refinement over what Apple has done. The Pre's processor board is "substantially" smaller than the iPhone's and reveals that Palm spent a large amount of time maximizing its available space -- a particular feat given the faster, 600MHz Texas Instruments OMAP3 processor and newer PowerVR SGX 530 graphics. Enough seems familiar that iFixit draws a close parallel between the two companies.

The Pre's main components exposed but still assembled; a water damage sensor is highlighted on the left. | Image credits: iFixit.

"This Palm hardware reminds us a lot more of Apple's engineering style than any of hardware we've taken apart by other manufacturers (like Dell)," the repair site observes.

The Apple-like quality isn't likely to be coincidental. Palm is thought to have scored a coup when it hired Jon Rubinstein as an executive board chairman, supplying it with one of the iPod's key creators. Aside from steering Palm away from an increasingly formulaic series of PalmOS and Windows Mobile devices, Rubinstein is known to have added or replaced many of Palm's engineers with former Apple employees, some of whom had worked on the iPhone earlier in its history.

That sudden break in philosophy has not only helped Palm overcome many of the barriers to producing a physically appealing phone but has extended as deep as its connection to software; the Pre is set to identify itself as an iPod and syncs natively with iTunes as though it were one of Apple's own devices, albeit without the extra access to calendars, contacts and e-mail that make the iPhone's sync so seamless.

iPhone 3G components laid out at top versus the Palm Pre on the bottom. | Image credits: iFixit.[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ] (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=11369)

success

06-07-2009, 12:40 AM

...Pre is set to identify itself as an iPod and syncs natively with iTunes as though it were one of Apple's own devices, albeit without the extra access to calendars, contacts and e-mail that make the iPhone's sync so seamless.I would really like to have this phone if it weren't for that part.

NasserAE

06-07-2009, 01:12 AM

What is the RAM size on the Pre?

bitzandbitez

06-07-2009, 01:16 AM

there are plenty of SUCKAz out there... i hope they do it like NIKE...

Oops NIKE makes a iPod-Sneaker already... so wadda we do NOW???!!??

jevans.900

06-07-2009, 01:20 AM

I would really like to have this phone if it weren't for that part.

I'm curious to see what happens with the missing sync, it claims to sync ical and the address book over wifi, which would be amazingly useful. I wish Apple would at least implement wireless syncing for the iphone, or ipod touch in my case.

ascii

06-07-2009, 01:41 AM

I guess those guys bought some of the Apple culture along with them. Of course, you can't out-Apple Apple so let's see what iPhone 3.0 has to offer.

parky

06-07-2009, 03:01 AM

What is the RAM size on the Pre?

8GB NOT expandable.

LonerATO

06-07-2009, 03:24 AM

I'm curious to see what happens with the missing sync, it claims to sync ical and the address book over wifi, which would be amazingly useful. I wish Apple would at least implement wireless syncing for the iphone, or ipod touch in my case.

Still waiting on Apple to allow syncing to gCal in iTunes, as I hate having to go through loops

PG4G

06-07-2009, 03:27 AM

Maybe this has a similar internal layout of boards, etc, but these people obviously have no sense of style. That device is hideous.

PG4G

06-07-2009, 03:28 AM

8GB NOT expandable.

That's its storage, not its ram.

NasserAE

06-07-2009, 03:28 AM

8GB NOT expandable.

What I meant is the RAM not the flash memory used for storing data. For example, the iPhone has 8GB or 16GB of flash memory and 128MB of RAM. The Pre has 8GB flash memory but how large is the RAM?

I know some confuse the flash memory with RAM when when it comes to phones but I think it is easier to keep the basic terminology consistent between PCs and other devices. Some might say that technically they should not be the same but I really don't care. For me RAM is temporary and flash is for storage ;)

addabox

06-07-2009, 03:36 AM

The Sprint sales literature shows 256MB.

slapppy

06-07-2009, 03:43 AM

MacShack

06-07-2009, 04:15 AM

I would really like to have this phone if it weren't for that part.

So your are willing to buy the old iPhone 3G again for the next two years? All the Pre has done (on hardware level) is catch up with the iPhone 3G which is about to be phased out. You want to go to a website on the Pre? You go to the browser. Shift open de keyboard. Type in the web address. Slide it in again to read the website. Now imagine that you are reading a web page sideways (which I do a lot). You then want to go to a different web site. You first have to turn the phone, shift open the keyboard, type in the address, shift the keyboard back in and turn the phone sideways again. What an obvious design error. At least they should have, just like the G1, have the keyboard come out from the side. This way they would have had more space for the keys, which I read are very hard to type with, and wouldn't have to turn the phone back and forth to type things on a webpage or other stuff. The Pre's touch interface is plastic. Not glass!! I remember when the iPhone first came out everybody was so worried that the iPhone would be a scratch magnet. Now I would like to see those same tests on the Pre.

On software level the Pre is still far behind. Games wont be very easy to make for that phone. And if you know a little bit about creating and programming web pages the options are very limited. One needs to really go to big extremes to make the user think he is not handling a web page but an actual app. You can copy and paste on the Pre but only editable text. Well there you go. The Palm made a little step. Where the new iPhone will make a leap. And not only the new iPhone also all the older ones.

Multitasking
This feature is so overrated. Sure that are instances that you would like to have two processes run coincide with each other. But is that worth the battery drainage? Sure you can cary a spare battery with you. Then you must add that to the mass of the phone which eventually will make your phone thicker on average. When the hardware is ready Apple will introduce multitasking. But at this moment the batteries and processors are not efficient enough to make this feature an enjoyable one.

This monday the new iPhone will come out and will have the same amount RAM and probably a processor that matches the Pres'. Then the dock connector will be open for 3rd party development. Which will by itself attract and create a whole new market. If a lot of companies start making hardware for the iPhone and use the iPhones' interface. The iPhone will really take off as the next big platform. The Pre will have all its starters issues. Which the iPhone already had. But hey when the iPhone had all these issues there were no better alternatives. Now there are and if Palm slips up enough the consumer will think twice.

We will see but I obviously believe that this phone is absolutely not a game changer. It's just a me too phone.

mrochester

06-07-2009, 04:28 AM

macgareth

06-07-2009, 04:49 AM

What is the RAM size on the Pre?

256MB:rolleyes:

ivan.rnn01

06-07-2009, 04:53 AM

human being just isn't strong enough to confront the whole advertising business, who teaches us that nowadays there are two types of computer processors: the fast processor and the slow one. The former allows for fast programming and the latter - does not. Any customer can tell them one from another just on the fly while dashing from one supermarket stand to another.
So... Let's just try to keep our minds sane.:lol:

P.S. Go ahead, guys. Tell us your sad stories of how painfully slow and bumpy text scrolling is on your new 4GHz/8Core monster... We're here to listen to all that...

MacShack

06-07-2009, 05:12 AM

Why do you people always conveniently forget that Smartphone OSs have been multitasking for years, smoothly and elegantly?

Uhmm. Smoothly and elegantly? I don't think so. One of the reasons other OSs where so slow, unstable and inefficient was because they did multitasking. And what I mean by multitasking is not that Apple decides that one can listen to music and read web pages at the same time. But by multitasking I mean that the developers and users can decide themselves when or how to multitask. Doing this at this point in time will bring up a lot of problems

You banter on about it as if it was this new fangled feature that's in its infancy.

You sure you want to use the word banter? It doesn't make any sense in the context of the sentence. Well I do believe that multitasking is still in its infancy. Because the platforms that allow it or support it in the ways I described earlier have obvious problems and flaws. The one that don't or support it controlled or partially have their good reasons for not supporting it.

Multitasking is incredibly useful for quickly and easily switching between applications instead of having to quit out of one, and start another from the launcher. Of course, it also means you can stay logged into IM clients, etc, and do other things at the same time.

I never argued that it wasn't useful. I even stated that sure there are moments that multitasking come in handy. So no disagreement here buddy.

The iPhone doesn't have it simply because Apple didn't design the OS to be lean enough for the hardware it runs on. They could have quite easily done it if they had worked harder at it to reduce the footprint of the OS and apps, but they didn't, and that was their choice.

To a certain extend your comment holds truth. Of course one could argue that if developers spend more time and efforts to streamline their code in order for it to run even more efficiently some or a lot more would be possible. However, how realistic is this position? I don't think, for one, that Apple just slammed some software together and put it on a phone. I do believe they've worked very hard to get things as efficiently as 'possible' (to a very reasonable extend). So I don't believe as you also argue that; and I quote simply because Apple didn't design the OS to be lean enough for the hardware it runs on.. I don't think it is that simple. If it was, other platforms would have done so. Either pre or post the launch of the iPhone. One of the big disadvantages of the Pre is its battery life. Would you argue that Palm spend more time creating a more lean OS than Apple did for the iPhone? Would you argue that the Palms' WebOS is leaner than that of the iPhone? Remember it runs on a 600 MHz processor and has 256 RAM on board. The iPhone processor runs on an older 412 MHz processor and has 128 of RAM. This saves battery. But limits the possibilities software wise. So yes it was their choice to stop optimizing the code more and more and release the OS X Mobile. But I don't think that the gain they would have made by optimizing their code would outweigh the time and energy spent optimizing the code. Hardware is getting better and better. And I believe it is worth waiting for better hardware than to keep optimizing the code. It's a balance Apple knows very well.

PG4G

06-07-2009, 05:30 AM

MacShack

06-07-2009, 05:31 AM

"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," Ed Colligan apparently laughed about with John Markoff last Thursday morning. "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."

Yep, so they hired EX PC guys that happens to be EX Apple guys. Since Palm can't even figure out how to make a decent phone on their own.

A very good point! It is very apparent that smartphone makers didn't see their phones as little computers doing computer tasks. But still as a phone. If they saw it as little computers they would have developed phones way earlier with a computer architecture in mind. Yet on the other hand (espcially windows mobile) has always felt the need to have the same user interface on their mobile OS as on their desktop/laptop OS. Apple didn't, which is a great success.

mrochester

06-07-2009, 05:38 AM

Uhmm. Smoothly and elegantly? I don't think so. One of the reasons other OSs where so slow, unstable and inefficient was because they did multitasking. And what I mean by multitasking is not that Apple decides that one can listen to music and read web pages at the same time. But by multitasking I mean that the developers and users can decide themselves when or how to multitask. Doing this at this point in time will bring up a lot of problems

Try an S60 Nokia for instance, and you'll see what I mean. On my old N95-8GB I could have *every* application on the phone open at once without any noticable difference in performance. That's true multitasking working elegantly and efficiently.

You sure you want to use the word banter? It doesn't make any sense in the context of the sentence.

Banter means to talk, so it makes sense :???:

To a certain extend your comment holds truth. Of course one could argue that if developers spend more time and efforts to streamline their code in order for it to run even more efficiently some or a lot more would be possible. However, how realistic is this position? I don't think, for one, that Apple just slammed some software together and put it on a phone. I do believe they've worked very hard to get things as efficiently as 'possible' (to a very reasonable extend). So I don't believe as you also argue that; and I quote

They certainly worked hard on it, but perhaps not hard enough. This is one of the problems of taking a full blown computer OS and shoehorning it onto a device with very limited resources. I think Apple would have been better off starting from the ground up when designing its mobile OS, rather than starting with OSX and trying to work backwards. That way they would have been able to have all of the great features currently available, and fully multitasking!

One of the big disadvantages of the Pre is its battery life

And the iPhone has good battery life?! Don't make me laugh! The iPhone has the worst battery life on any device I've used in the last 3 years for mobile internet browsing. From taking if off charge just before 7am, my iPhone can be at 20% or less, easily, by 11am. Battery life is one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone!

GregoriusM

06-07-2009, 06:47 AM

brucep

06-07-2009, 06:51 AM

So your are willing to buy the old iPhone 3G again for the next two years? All the Pre has done (on hardware level) is catch up with the iPhone 3G which is about to be phased out. You want to go to a website on the Pre? You go to the browser. Shift open de keyboard. Type in the web address. Slide it in again to read the website. Now imagine that you are reading a web page sideways (which I do a lot). You then want to go to a different web site. You first have to turn the phone, shift open the keyboard, type in the address, shift the keyboard back in and turn the phone sideways again. What an obvious design error. At least they should have, just like the G1, have the keyboard come out from the side. This way they would have had more space for the keys, which I read are very hard to type with, and wouldn't have to turn the phone back and forth to type things on a webpage or other stuff. The Pre's touch interface is plastic. Not glass!! I remember when the iPhone first came out everybody was so worried that the iPhone would be a scratch magnet. Now I would like to see those same tests on the Pre.

On software level the Pre is still far behind. Games wont be very easy to make for that phone. And if you know a little bit about creating and programming web pages the options are very limited. One needs to really go to big extremes to make the user think he is not handling a web page but an actual app. You can copy and paste on the Pre but only editable text. Well there you go. The Palm made a little step. Where the new iPhone will make a leap. And not only the new iPhone also all the older ones.

Multitasking
This feature is so overrated. Sure that are instances that you would like to have two processes run coincide with each other. But is that worth the battery drainage? Sure you can cary a spare battery with you. Then you must add that to the mass of the phone which eventually will make your phone thicker on average. When the hardware is ready Apple will introduce multitasking. But at this moment the batteries and processors are not efficient enough to make this feature an enjoyable one.

This monday the new iPhone will come out and will have the same amount RAM and probably a processor that matches the Pres'. Then the dock connector will be open for 3rd party development. Which will by itself attract and create a whole new market. If a lot of companies start making hardware for the iPhone and use the iPhones' interface. The iPhone will really take off as the next big platform. The Pre will have all its starters issues. Which the iPhone already had. But hey when the iPhone had all these issues there were no better alternatives. Now there are and if Palm slips up enough the consumer will think twice.

We will see but I obviously believe that this phone is absolutely not a game changer. It's just a me too phone.
Fine post.

Lukeskymac

06-07-2009, 06:57 AM

Try an S60 Nokia for instance, and you'll see what I mean. On my old N95-8GB I could have *every* application on the phone open at once without any noticable difference in performance. That's true multitasking working elegantly and efficiently.

Banter means to talk, so it makes sense :???:

They certainly worked hard on it, but perhaps not hard enough. This is one of the problems of taking a full blown computer OS and shoehorning it onto a device with very limited resources. I think Apple would have been better off starting from the ground up when designing its mobile OS, rather than starting with OSX and trying to work backwards. That way they would have been able to have all of the great features currently available, and fully multitasking!

And the iPhone has good battery life?! Don't make me laugh! The iPhone has the worst battery life on any device I've used in the last 3 years for mobile internet browsing. From taking if off charge just before 7am, my iPhone can be at 20% or less, easily, by 11am. Battery life is one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone!

So you say that the battery lasts 4 hours of internet usage... So, why is it so bad? I've never tested a phone with a battery much better than that!

And I also doubt, or better, don't believe in a f*cking word you said about your Oh-so-powerful Nokia.

PG4G

06-07-2009, 06:57 AM

Try an S60 Nokia for instance, and you'll see what I mean. On my old N95-8GB I could have *every* application on the phone open at once without any noticable difference in performance. That's true multitasking working elegantly and efficiently.

Something tells me that those applications weren't actually open at once... they just seemed to be.

They certainly worked hard on it, but perhaps not hard enough. This is one of the problems of taking a full blown computer OS and shoehorning it onto a device with very limited resources. I think Apple would have been better off starting from the ground up when designing its mobile OS, rather than starting with OSX and trying to work backwards. That way they would have been able to have all of the great features currently available, and fully multitasking!

Here you let yourself down. As an iPhone developer, I can totally disagree with you here.

iPhone is as capable as it can be in all areas due to its foundation of the OSX core. Nevertheless, Apple also DID create a whole new OS in the project. They created a whole new ultra-efficient movie system (Now ported back as QuickTime X) as well as Layer Kit, a low level, fundamental animation system that can work perfectly on very very low powered devices, which is now on both platforms as Core Animation. They also did heavy modification to the OS, in significant places, like Core Audio, etc.

The Apple APIs from Mac OS X that are cross platform existed and ran multiple applications when computers had a 10th the resources of an iPhone. The issue is NOT with OS X on the iPhone.

The issue for battery life is device-level features, especially the cellular radio and GPS. This has nothing to do with Mac OS X and the cross-ported API stack. The cellular radio is the issue with background applications. Internet access (which is the main reason an application wants to run in the background) will create major drains in battery life. Constant polling, open sockets, etc, are always going to be the iPhone's let down.

You need to think for a second about what you're talking about. Mac OS X ran perfectly on MACS with iPhone level capabilities. The issue is not the OS! The issue is device features.

And the iPhone has good battery life?! Don't make me laugh! The iPhone has the worst battery life on any device I've used in the last 3 years for mobile internet browsing. From taking if off charge just before 7am, my iPhone can be at 20% or less, easily, by 11am. Battery life is one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone!

Perhaps you should investigate 1) turning off 3G 2) lowering your lighting level 3) checking how much you're using your device, and how much you expect of it.

The iPhone is pretty average in battery life specs for 3G. The difference, however, is the way you use it that causes faster battery drain, not the device itself.

Lukeskymac

06-07-2009, 07:01 AM

Fine post.

Ditto, that summarizes why the Pre is going to die even before it can get any significant portion of the market.

mrochester

06-07-2009, 07:14 AM

So you say that the battery lasts 4 hours of internet usage... So, why is it so bad? I've never tested a phone with a battery much better than that!

And I also doubt, or better, don't believe in a f*cking word you said about your Oh-so-powerful Nokia.

Because 4 hours isn't very long? Try an S60 device yourself before passing comment ;)

Something tells me that those applications weren't actually open at once... they just seemed to be.

No, they were all very much open and running in the background. Why is that so hard to believe? It really IS possible on a mobile device!

Perhaps you should investigate 1) turning off 3G 2) lowering your lighting level 3) checking how much you're using your device, and how much you expect of it.

These would all be great suggestions if they didn't have a massive effect on the usability of the device! My battery life would be longer, but I'd be waiting an age longer for web pages to load, and I'd be squinting to see them in the dim light! That simply trades bad battery life for a poor user experience, and isn't really a good solution to the problem.

surferfromuk

06-07-2009, 07:15 AM

Funny that I remember the industry claiming that Apple couldn't just come along and 'get intot the phone market' and here we are now, two years on and Apple guys/Apple philosophy is simply being adopted by other phone companies...

Bizarre...

ivan.rnn01

06-07-2009, 07:21 AM

I really love that one...
"Hey, U there! I mean you, silly guy, who've permitted carrier to have contracted yourself for 2 years! Shut up right out of here and shut down 3G on your phone now, as you haven't been smart enough to have run a survey on how fast it's been draining batteries" :lol:

PG4G

06-07-2009, 07:39 AM

These would all be great suggestions if they didn't have a massive effect on the usability of the device! My battery life would be longer, but I'd be waiting an age longer for web pages to load, and I'd be squinting to see them in the dim light! That simply trades bad battery life for a poor user experience, and isn't really a good solution to the problem.

If you're using your device, turn on 3G. If you're not, turn it off. Is that such a hard concept to grasp?

As for your screen, turn it to a brightness you can see without it being on full power. You don't have to pick between two extremes.

You're just a whiner. You won't be happy till you get a phone that lasts you a week with a full battery at 4G speeds with 24-7 downloads with a screen that is brighter than a fluorescent light. Massive effect on usability my arse!

Unless you're using your device constantly at that rate, you won't get your battery down to 4 hours. Its as simple as that.

Does your S60 render pages with a full desktop web browser engine, run applications of desktop class, with touch interface, a 3.5 inch display, with accelerometer-based device orientation? Perhaps you should be a little bit more reasonable with your comparisons on that front hey?

mrochester

06-07-2009, 07:57 AM

If you're using your device, turn on 3G. If you're not, turn it off. Is that such a hard concept to grasp?

As for your screen, turn it to a brightness you can see without it being on full power. You don't have to pick between two extremes.

You're just a whiner. You won't be happy till you get a phone that lasts you a week with a full battery at 4G speeds with 24-7 downloads with a screen that is brighter than a fluorescent light. Massive effect on usability my arse!

Unless you're using your device constantly at that rate, you won't get your battery down to 4 hours. Its as simple as that.

Does your S60 render pages with a full desktop web browser engine, run applications of desktop class, with touch interface, a 3.5 inch display, with accelerometer-based device orientation? Perhaps you should be a little bit more reasonable with your comparisons on that front hey?

I'm not happy with the idea of constantly switching 3G on and off. I use my device sporadically throughout the day, maybe once every 5-10mins or so for 30seconds to 2 minutes at a time. I would be switching 3G on and off about 20 times a day at least - major hassle. Full screen brightness is the level I am comfortable with.

A battery that lasts to the end of the business day would be fine instead of needing to be charged midway through the day

Yes S60 renders pages with full desktop web browser engine - surely you know this already?. And if all of those other aspects were important to me, I could have them too (N97), but they aren't, so I'm not so fussed there.

PG4G

06-07-2009, 08:06 AM

EDIT: @mrochester

Then the iPhone obviously isn't for you is it?

Why do you have one if all you're going to do is complain that it doesn't give you perfection?

PG4G

06-07-2009, 08:08 AM

The amazing thing about the Pre is that it is a full Slider phone which are very popular. This enables (slider) it to keep a smaller form factor and ergonomically easier to operate as opposed to only a slide out keyboard. It also is easier to trasnpot in your pants pocket- very cool.As a long time user of a slider (LG Chocolate) this is a major feature for me as it maintains a small form to put into your pants pocket. While I don't mind walking around with an iPod Touch in my pocket, anything thicker (iPhone) is simply to large.

If you put your iPod Touch and chocolate together, would they be thinner than the iPhone?

JeffDM

06-07-2009, 08:10 AM

If you're using your device, turn on 3G. If you're not, turn it off. Is that such a hard concept to grasp?

Constantly turning on an off a radio isn't an elegant solution. That's five taps on each startup and shut down that shouldn't be necessary in my opinion. Shouldn't the device do that kind of power management on its own?

Does your S60 render pages with a full desktop web browser engine, run applications of desktop class, with touch interface, a 3.5 inch display, with accelerometer-based device orientation? Perhaps you should be a little bit more reasonable with your comparisons on that front hey?

It helps to "know your enemy", and a few of your statements show that you don't. Nokia uses Webkit. It only took me a minute to find that and to find that it has a compass. They do offer touch capability now, though that probably depends on the model.

I don't know how iPhone's applications are necessarily desktop class, they're nifty, but desktop class is overselling it. Maybe better than most other portable platforms. Maybe some iPhone apps are on the level of a relatively simple desktop applet, but most are of the complexity of a Dashboard widget. For example, there are a few very simple word processors, but nothing on the scale of Pages that I've seen, more like TextEdit at best.

mrochester

06-07-2009, 08:19 AM

EDIT: @mrochester

Then the iPhone obviously isn't for you is it?

Why do you have one if all you're going to do is complain that it doesn't give you perfection?

Huh? I'd rather talk about the way Apple could improve the iphone than pretend they have already achieved perfection and nothing could be improved.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 08:20 AM

I'm not happy with the idea of constantly switching 3G on and off. I use my device sporadically throughout the day, maybe once every 5-10mins or so for 30seconds to 2 minutes at a time. I would be switching 3G on and off about 20 times a day at least - major hassle. Full screen brightness is the level I am comfortable with.

A battery that lasts to the end of the business day would be fine instead of needing to be charged midway through the day

Yes S60 renders pages with full desktop web browser engine - surely you know this already?. And if all of those other aspects were important to me, I could have them too (N97), but they aren't, so I'm not so fussed there.

The N97 is a fine device, The browser engine is based on WebKit. I doubt that even the latest version of S60 uses a very modern version of the popular mobile browser.

The stated battery times for the N97 are:Talk time: Up to 6.0 hours (3G), 9.5 hours (GSM)
Standby time: Up to 17 days (3G), 18 days (GSM)
Video playback: Up to 4.5 hours (offline mode)
Video recording: Up to 3.6 hours (offline mode)
Music playback: Up to 40 hours (offline mode)

Compared to the iPhone 3G:Talk time:
Up to 5 hours on 3G
Up to 10 hours on 2G
Standby time: Up to 300 hours [12.5 days]

Internet use:
Up to 5 hours on 3G6
Up to 6 hours on Wi-Fi7
Video playback: Up to 7 hours
Audio playback: Up to 24 hours

Some of the explanations are codec differences, HW differences, knowledge of cellular radios, even the battery size differences. While the OS being used is an issue, it’s not the only factor to consider. Apple has done well to make Mac OS X a mobile OS. It’s not an easy feat and one that will surely help Apple as the OS and mobile HW matures. Most of the other OSes are hurting now because they were designed for much slower HW with less capabilities. I wouldn’t call iPhone OS X a problem with the iPhone.

edit: Nokia doesn’t list internet usage and it’s clear that they don’t do realistic testing like Apple and Sony. Nor can I find any tests comparing the two.

gedos

06-07-2009, 08:27 AM

I usually put them in different pockets. :lol:

See. True multi-tasking in trousers (or pants).

solipsism

06-07-2009, 08:35 AM

No- just making a phone call is (AT&T).
In the next reviews of the iPhone, if call consistency is still an issue I would expect a lot of bad publicity.

As we’ve discuss ad nauseam the differences in call quality are mainly do to the radio technology used. GSM is not better than CDMA and the 700MHz WCDMA is not better than 850MHz WCDMA for penetrating objects.

Why you keep ignoring that all carriers in the US have bad spots is beyond me. Your personal issues with AT&T in your neck of the woods does not necessarily coincide with other people in other places.

brucep

06-07-2009, 08:35 AM

Something tells me that those applications weren't actually open at once... they just seemed to be.

Here you let yourself down. As an iPhone developer, I can totally disagree with you here.

iPhone is as capable as it can be in all areas due to its foundation of the OSX core. Nevertheless, Apple also DID create a whole new OS in the project. They created a whole new ultra-efficient movie system (Now ported back as QuickTime X) as well as Layer Kit, a low level, fundamental animation system that can work perfectly on very very low powered devices, which is now on both platforms as Core Animation. They also did heavy modification to the OS, in significant places, like Core Audio, etc.

The Apple APIs from Mac OS X that are cross platform existed and ran multiple applications when computers had a 10th the resources of an iPhone. The issue is NOT with OS X on the iPhone.

The issue for battery life is device-level features, especially the cellular radio and GPS. This has nothing to do with Mac OS X and the cross-ported API stack. The cellular radio is the issue with background applications. Internet access (which is the main reason an application wants to run in the background) will create major drains in battery life. Constant polling, open sockets, etc, are always going to be the iPhone's let down.

You need to think for a second about what you're talking about. Mac OS X ran perfectly on MACS with iPhone level capabilities. The issue is not the OS! The issue is device features.

Perhaps you should investigate 1) turning off 3G 2) lowering your lighting level 3) checking how much you're using your device, and how much you expect of it.

The iPhone is pretty average in battery life specs for 3G. The difference, however, is the way you use it that causes faster battery drain, not the device itself.
And yet another fine post with no silly retorts or insults. Simply put all this high flutting stuff we do drains the battery. I wonder is there something<ext battery?> I can plug in to the iphone to extend the battery life when running low ??
Something like the add on's to the ipods that allow us to voice record or play fm music.

9

rickertb

06-07-2009, 08:41 AM

the iPhone is really the first phone that maked me really happy!

People have always accepted that mobile phones where crappy and couldn't find the need to complain about it.. it just wasn't worth it!
Just like surfing on a nokia, it just wasn't worth it. the experience was more than crappy!

Yeah.. you could check you pop/imap email in plain text, just to get you updated. but replying wasn't very easy/efficient to do..

But now!

Even with Apple not adding all the futures other phones have, many where delighted with such a great experience. The user interface was of desktop class and many where stunned by all the effects and usability the device had..

As with standard pc manufactures and m$, they don't innovate for the user, they only apply standard components and copy!

PG4G

06-07-2009, 08:54 AM

And yet another fine post with no silly retorts or insults. Simply put all this high flutting stuff we do drains the battery. I wonder is there something<ext battery?> I can plug in to the iphone to extend the battery life when running low ??
Something like the add on's to the ipods that allow us to voice record or play fm music.

9

There are actually. Quite a few add-ons, etc. All 3rd party but they do a great job.

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic, but its not so much what we do with it, its how often. We use the device every two minutes, unlike other mobile phones that we use once every hour or two. Then we wonder why it only has 1/10th the battery time.

If you look at the battery specs, they actually better many phones out there... but we just use it far more than them.

JeffDM

06-07-2009, 08:58 AM

Gyokuro

06-07-2009, 08:59 AM

solipsism

06-07-2009, 09:07 AM

AT&T has way too many weak spots and with all the data hungry wintel iphone users it will only get worse until the 4g is done or isit 7g now ??

Why teckspud hates AT&T? Well he seems to hate everyone and everything moment to moment of course.HEY Solipsism you 2 guys must be good friends because you keep feeding him day and night. Full well knowing that teckspud is here only to agitate and wise crack. He is very witty and funny. But by now he feels to me weak and tasteless sad old bearded fat man sitting alone in mom's basement. Playing with all his names. kid /seahawk /on and on. and yet you have endured much more than me . and still you feed him. StillYouFeedHim

Dude i fear you may be in that cold basement with him.

First of all, I’m optimistic that people can learn and grow. Secondly, Seahawk Fan has been banned, which is ironic considered one of his last posts, which you replied to, was “Have you ever wondered why Tech Stud, Italian Kid and People like me are allowed to stay in this room without being kicked out.” :lol:

As for the AT&T, GSM Is lacking but I find my calls on 3G (WCDMA) more prevalent each month. I have never had an issue with dropped calls, but I don’t doubt that it is an issue with people in certain areas. GSM just isn’t as robust as CDMA.

I hope that AT&T has planned well for the next iPhone launch but I have my doubts and think that we’ll get a similar congestion like last year. Hopefully the tech pundits, like David Pogue, will give us another test this year so we can compare two equivalent testing scenarios a year apart. Hopefully some will also use last year’s iPhone so we can get a feel for how well AT&T has improved their network.

4G (LTE) is a long way off, even for Verizon. AT&T still has plenty of growth in 3G with better HSUPA/HSDPA and then HSPA+ before they’ll need to move to 4G. I’m in Las Vegas this weekend and my internet speed isn’t a good as usual, but still more than adequate and at only 2 bars in my hotel room, which may mean that they are still on 700MHz spectrum.http://www.speedtest.net/result/490530834.png

edit: Weird, it has my server being ~1000 miles away from my location. It lists my closest server as being in Kansas.

christopher126

06-07-2009, 09:26 AM

I think I speak for everyone when I say we have never thought you omnipresent or powerful in any way.

:lol:

brucep

06-07-2009, 09:44 AM

There are actually. Quite a few add-ons, etc. All 3rd party but they do a great job.

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic, but its not so much what we do with it, its how often. We use the device every two minutes, unlike other mobile phones that we use once every hour or two. Then we wonder why it only has 1/10th the battery time.

If you look at the battery specs, they actually better many phones out there... but we just use it far more than them.
No sarcastic. at all. I would use a add-on battery for my iphone and keep a re-charger in my pocket at all times. Being a new yorker you never know when you find your self in an extended adventure. My disaster kit would include >> My iphone with an add-on battery, an add-on voicer recorder, a sci-fi paperback in my back pocket and 3 fifty dollar bills and i am good for days, or day's and a half. I could stream HULU./ABC all night .

9

brucep

06-07-2009, 09:50 AM

One of the reasons I don't consider touching teckstud is, in terms of personal attacks, most of the people that complain about him cross that line against him before he crosses that line against anyone else. If you have an argument to make, fine, if you have an ad-hominem, then you're hurting your cause.Jeff I Iagree with you 100 percent. teckstud gets nailed first words out. So jeff I feel that both offended parties feed off each other.

What does ad-hominem mean? In the context you use it in?

Jeff, the real crime here is people who post here under more than one name. Those people are scum buckets .

peace

9

solipsism

06-07-2009, 09:53 AM

How many times do you use "WHINE" or 'COMPLAIN" ad nauseam whenever anyone differs from your opinion?
Speak about yourself- everyone on here knows you're like a broken record. :no:

I differed with Melgross’ opinion all day yesterday, yet would have described him as whining or complaining. If you can’t see that making a post simply to state how much the iPhone and/or AT&T sucks is whining and complaining then there doesn’t seems to be much hope for you. There are pros and cons with everything, as most posters here point out, but you think if they like the iPhone or are satisfied with AT&T then they are drinking Kool-Aid®. A little balance and forethought in your posts would go a long way to removing your troll eke-name.

brucep

06-07-2009, 09:57 AM

which may mean that they are still on 700MHz spectrum.http://www.speedtest.net/result/490530834.png

edit: Weird, it has my server being ~1000 miles away from my location. It lists my closest server as being in Kansas.
Seahawk banned ?? lol

Dude your speed is so low. Damn i feel bad for you. Anyway enjoy Las Vegas !!!! PLAY 12 and 18 for me on the roulette wheel !!

Get up right now and walk away from your computer.Go find some daylight !!

peace

9

hiimamac

06-07-2009, 10:06 AM

I would be a bit happier if the iPhone didn't lag all the time. You all know what I mean. Launch an app and wait. Click app what's around me then search, bit sure if you hit and are not sure it was hit so you do it again only to watch it open and close very quickly twice. Or how about deleting text in a post like this, you backspace for a few seconds and it doesn't stop deleting forcing you to re type. These are thing we put up with all the time. Wonder if ore solved any of theses glitches?????

Try an S60 Nokia for instance, and you'll see what I mean. On my old N95-8GB I could have *every* application on the phone open at once without any noticable difference in performance. That's true multitasking working elegantly and efficiently.

Banter means to talk, so it makes sense :???:

They certainly worked hard on it, but perhaps not hard enough. This is one of the problems of taking a full blown computer OS and shoehorning it onto a device with very limited resources. I think Apple would have been better off starting from the ground up when designing its mobile OS, rather than starting with OSX and trying to work backwards. That way they would have been able to have all of the great features currently available, and fully multitasking!

And the iPhone has good battery life?! Don't make me laugh! The iPhone has the worst battery life on any device I've used in the last 3 years for mobile internet browsing. From taking if off charge just before 7am, my iPhone can be at 20% or less, easily, by 11am. Battery life is one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone!

solipsism

06-07-2009, 10:06 AM

That was a joke and he fell for it. He will make any post just to add up his posting numbers.
Teckstudian logic would say that despite my numerous multi-quoted posts that actually make a statement beyond your canned anti-Apple, anti-AT&T rhetoric.

Seahawk banned ?? lol

Dude your speed is so low. Damn i feel bad for you. Anyway enjoy Las Vegas !!!! PLAY 12 and 18 for me on the roulette wheel !!

Get up right now and walk away from your computer.Go find some daylight !!
That is about half of my AT&T max and about 70% of my norm.

I am out in the daylight. I have been given a cabana at Hard Rock’s Rehab pool. The all day party starts at 10:30am. It’s only 8am here, my friends are still sleeping or driving over from Cali, and it’s too early for mojitos, thought I did have a mimosa with breakfast.

Craps and blackjack are my games. It’s too early to gamble, I don’t care for a dead casino… or the weirdos that gamble in the AM, it’s a lot like Wal-Mart in the middle of the night. :lol:

hiimamac

06-07-2009, 10:09 AM

As we’ve discuss ad nauseam the differences in call quality are mainly do to the radio technology used. GSM is not better than CDMA and the 700MHz WCDMA is not better than 850MHz WCDMA for penetrating objects.

Why you keep ignoring that all carriers in the US have bad spots is beyond me. Your personal issues with AT&T in your neck of the woods does not necessarily coincide with other people in other places.

Imlive near a college. Great reception. Wife works 2-3 miles away, we live in Pasadena ca now, she gets dropped calls all the time.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 10:13 AM

I would be a bit happier if the iPhone didn't lag all the time. You all know what I mean. Launch an app and wait. Click app what's around me then search, bit sure if you hit and are not sure it was hit so you do it again only to watch it open and close very quickly twice. Or how about deleting text in a post like this, you backspace for a few seconds and it doesn't stop deleting forcing you to re type. These are thing we put up with all the time. Wonder if ore solved any of theses glitches?????

The only time I had the typing issue, including backspacing, was with v2.0 to some version of 2.1.x or so. It took several months for Apple to update but I haven’t had the issue since. Even with v3.0 the issue is gone, though other issues, especially with the Maps app, with speed have creeped up.

I see no reason why an iPhone running a newer, faster ARM , with a better GPU and double the RAM should have the lag we get from the current system. As we make the OS more powerful there will always be some lag with the larger apps and other mobile OSes should trounce Apple in the app opening arena for at least a couple generations of iPhone HW, if not much longer.

hiimamac

06-07-2009, 10:18 AM

8GB NOT expandable.

I love that the ore hascwireless charger. Youbcan play, talk whatever while charging. Sweet.

carloblackmore

06-07-2009, 10:19 AM

"We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone," Ed Colligan apparently laughed about with John Markoff last Thursday morning. "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
Yep, so they hired EX PC guys that happens to be EX Apple guys. Since Palm can't even figure out how to make a decent phone on their own.

I remember that quote! Now look at them 2 years behind and still only came up with an also-ran device. I look at those teardown photos and I see an iPhone that is noticeably more elegant even with its guts spread out on a table.
I don't care how fancy it looks when it's closed - the Pre keypad is still a permanent inefficient waste of real-estate. Basic rule of mechanics, more moving parts = more chance of fatigue and failure. At the end of the day, the Pre is still the same 50/50 screen-keypad layout disaster that Steve Jobs appropriately mocked when he first announced the iPhone.

Funny thing, after playing with a Pre for over an hour - going back to my iPhone felt new and ahead of its time all over again.

Macintosh_Next

06-07-2009, 10:22 AM

Multitasking
This feature is so overrated. Sure that are instances that you would like to have two processes run coincide with each other. But is that worth the battery drainage? Sure you can cary a spare battery with you. Then you must add that to the mass of the phone which eventually will make your phone thicker on average. When the hardware is ready Apple will introduce multitasking. But at this moment the batteries and processors are not efficient enough to make this feature an enjoyable one.

This monday the new iPhone will come out and will have the same amount RAM and probably a processor that matches the Pres'. Then the dock connector will be open for 3rd party development. Which will by itself attract and create a whole new market. If a lot of companies start making hardware for the iPhone and use the iPhones' interface. The iPhone will really take off as the next big platform. The Pre will have all its starters issues. Which the iPhone already had. But hey when the iPhone had all these issues there were no better alternatives. Now there are and if Palm slips up enough the consumer will think twice.

We will see but I obviously believe that this phone is absolutely not a game changer. It's just a me too phone.

I don't know if you have read as many as reviews out there, but I have read every one. The only time people have had problems with the battery power is when they are what they call "road warriors" and use their phone, every little feature, quite literally 24/7. If, however, you just make calls, check your calander, use the Data/watch some movies or listen to some music, then your phone will do fine -- in fact, just as fine as the iPhone. And if you do run out of battery, you can always switch it with a new one. Something the iPhone lacks. Oh, and at least I don't have to buy a new phone if my battery dies (or take it to Apple), all I have to do is go to Amazon and buy a new battery, and switch it.

Stone

06-07-2009, 10:26 AM

jittery jimmy

06-07-2009, 10:46 AM

Repairing the very deepest components is expected to be very difficult, if not impossible.

I would be surprised if Palm has any repair process for any component. These electronics components are not like the cylinder head of your car.

Repair of any specific component within ANY cellphone almost never happens. Instead, manufacturers replace failed components with brand new components.

If subassembly X fails, it is replaced with a new subassembly X. The failed component is then sold to a vendor where its raw materials are reclaimed.

Cell phone subcomponents are virtually NEVER repaired, except in the extremely rare case where an expensive subcomponent has a very common failure mode, and which can be permanently repaired very inexpensively.

MacShack

06-07-2009, 10:58 AM

Try an S60 Nokia for instance, and you'll see what I mean. On my old N95-8GB I could have *every* application on the phone open at once without any noticable difference in performance. That's true multitasking working elegantly and efficiently.

Banter means to talk, so it makes sense :???:

They certainly worked hard on it, but perhaps not hard enough. This is one of the problems of taking a full blown computer OS and shoehorning it onto a device with very limited resources. I think Apple would have been better off starting from the ground up when designing its mobile OS, rather than starting with OSX and trying to work backwards. That way they would have been able to have all of the great features currently available, and fully multitasking!

And the iPhone has good battery life?! Don't make me laugh! The iPhone has the worst battery life on any device I've used in the last 3 years for mobile internet browsing. From taking if off charge just before 7am, my iPhone can be at 20% or less, easily, by 11am. Battery life is one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone!

Well, as has already been stated. Not all applications must have been doing something at the same time. Just opening applications that do nothing is just filling up the RAM. No thats not TRUE multitasking!

To banter means to speak to or address in a witty manner. English is not my first language but I even know this. And I don't see how that word applied in that context.

I'm not even going to respond to your last paragraph. You really have no idea what you're talking about. Talking about Apple having little resources. Even palm used some of Apples resources by hiring ex Apple employees that were heavily involved into developing the iPhone. Believe what you want to believe. But I think you should reconsider arguing the negative in this thread.

cameronj

06-07-2009, 11:26 AM

Why do you people always conveniently forget that Smartphone OSs have been multitasking for years, smoothly and elegantly? You banter on about it as if it was this new fangled feature that's in its infancy. Multitasking is incredibly useful for quickly and easily switching between applications instead of having to quit out of one, and start another from the launcher. Of course, it also means you can stay logged into IM clients, etc, and do other things at the same time. The iPhone doesn't have it simply because Apple didn't design the OS to be lean enough for the hardware it runs on. They could have quite easily done it if they had worked harder at it to reduce the footprint of the OS and apps, but they didn't, and that was their choice.

Not to mention that the iPhone DOES multitask, it just has a predetermined set of applications that multitask.

It'd be nice to somehow manually "award" one other app the ability to leave it running after closing. Let the user decide if the battery hit is worth it.

As for removable batteries, I've never understood why this is a big deal. I bought a battery for my iPhone - when I need to recharge I plug it in and it recharges as if I am plugged into a wall. I don't have to turn off the phone or take it apart. How is this solution inferior to having an internal replacement? The thing gives me TWO full charges, not just one.

hillstones

06-07-2009, 11:36 AM

What a stupid article. Of course they are similar in construction. They share the same characteristics and size. How else would you jam all that crap into handheld device?

cameronj

06-07-2009, 11:36 AM

MacShack

06-07-2009, 11:40 AM

I don't know if you have read as many as reviews out there, but I have read every one. The only time people have had problems with the battery power is when they are what they call "road warriors" and use their phone, every little feature, quite literally 24/7. If, however, you just make calls, check your calander, use the Data/watch some movies or listen to some music, then your phone will do fine -- in fact, just as fine as the iPhone. And if you do run out of battery, you can always switch it with a new one. Something the iPhone lacks. Oh, and at least I don't have to buy a new phone if my battery dies (or take it to Apple), all I have to do is go to Amazon and buy a new battery, and switch it.

You are funny. I quote:
If, however, you just make calls, check your calander, use the Data/watch some movies or listen to some music, then your phone will do fine

No way you need multitasking for that now do you? David Pogue made a statement in his review about the battery being short of life. As I already stated. Multitasking isn't possible on a mobile device. What I said was that the hardware isn't efficient enough in order to really enjoy the option of multitasking.

Oh, and if you really are out of battery you can carry one of those third party external batteries. But road warriors are also a lot in cars etc. You can charge your phone in the car whilst you're on the road. I also charge my iPhone by just connecting it to my laptop. Can you do that with the pre? Real road warriors have at least a laptop with them.

When the iPhone came out the first time everybody was talking about the battery that was soldered to the circuit board. How that was inconvenient and that Apple will get into trouble for doing so. Because people had experienced before with previous phones that the battery was one of the elements that needed replacement often. The iPhone has been out for two years now. I haven't read any blog or partition that huge amounts of needed a battery replacement. Apple has a good quality battery in the iPhone. It charges fast and I haven't noticed that the charge cycles are getting shorter. I say, you don't need a replaceable battery when you don't need to replace your battery.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 11:44 AM

The iPhone doesn't have it simply because Apple didn't design the OS to be lean enough for the hardware it runs on. They could have quite easily done it if they had worked harder at it to reduce the footprint of the OS and apps, but they didn't, and that was their choice.

This is true in the sense that Apple chose to use Objective-C as the iPhone's development platform. It is much more powerful and robust than the development tools for every other mobile phone but also uses more system resources.

Your statements are not true in the sense that Apple could develop software that is both equally powerful and significantly more efficient.

Try an S60 Nokia for instance, and you'll see what I mean. On my old N95-8GB I could have *every* application on the phone open at once without any noticable difference in performance. That's true multitasking working elegantly and efficiently.

I don't believe this at all. If it were true Nokia would be using this fact in its marketing. At the very least if it were true it would have been mentioned in the last two years of debate about the iPhone multi-tasking.

And the iPhone has good battery life?! Don't make me laugh! The iPhone has the worst battery life on any device I've used in the last 3 years for mobile internet browsing. From taking if off charge just before 7am, my iPhone can be at 20% or less, easily, by 11am. Battery life is one of the biggest flaws of the iPhone!

The iPhone's battery life is dependent on how you use it. If you rarely used the internet or played games, the battery can last for a couple of days.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 11:48 AM

The reason for this is because on average they have 100 apps loaded on their phone and they are constantly using it. This is not the case for other phones.

These fanboys make me laugh so hard. Every iPhone user I know in NYC:

1.) Has to constantly (daily) recharge their iPhone or leave it plugged in while using it. CONSTANTLY.

steviet02

06-07-2009, 11:49 AM

I love that the ore hascwireless charger. Youbcan play, talk whatever while charging. Sweet.

Posting from your iPhone I see.... :lol:

solipsism

06-07-2009, 11:50 AM

What a stupid article. Of course they are similar in construction. They share the same characteristics and size. How else would you jam all that crap into handheld device?
There will always be similiarity between handhelds, the comparisons are with the more Apple-like design. If you look at the breakdown of other smartphones you see that the Pre innards look a lot more like the iPhone than other devices.

If Apple has Been able to utilize the PA Semi staff for the next iPhone the Pre may look very archaic in comparison.

The Pre isn't thinner than the iPhone.

It's simply astounding how completely wrong is always is. Why thinks adding a keyboard and the HW mechanism for a slider would make it thinner is too absurd to be a real post. Could this be some professor doing a experiement on how much idiacy one can take before they reach their limit? It's harder and harder to think him a real life human being.

Posting from your iPhone I see.... :lol:
HAHA It is often obvious when typing on an iPhone. I'd love an app for the iPhone and Mac that let me edit the corrected word list.

SmilinGoat

06-07-2009, 11:51 AM

That Missing Sync for the Pre looks pretty good. It does help make the Pre more marketable.

I can see the Pre as being a good phone for a goodly number of people?

Is it as good as or equal to or better than the iPhone? That's the user's perception. For a lot of people, the G1 with Android is great. A million people bought it. So, the Pre might just be what a lot of people are looking for.

Is Apple's iPhone perfect? Far from it. But is it the best one for you? Again, that's for you to decide. Thank goodness we have choices.

I, for one, am glad the Pre is out, and I hope it does reasonably well. Competition is great, even if only a few features are better than the iPhone, it will hopefully push Apple to include those features in future upgrades.

So, is the Pre for you? Software like Missing Sync go a long way toward making the Pre a more viable option.

For me, I'm going to get the next generation iPhone, even though there are things I don't like about it. The sum of its parts, for me, make it the phone/micro-computer I want to own. Others will enjoy the Pre, or some other smartphone, and for them, it is better than the iPhone.

Choice is good.

Greg

Very well said.

i sold my iPhone 3G because i could not live with all of the dropped calls and service drops (reception was horrible on the phone, apparently they fixed it with a software update after i sold the phone)

either way other than that it was the most perfect device for me, sure it would get a little choppy and slow down if it had been on for a few weeks, but a simple re-boot always cured that, i also had to charge the battery every single day, however its easy enough to plug in by my bedside at night...

personally the palm pre, after holding it and examining it, just isnt the right *feel*. i thought that before i even saw it, by watching videos on the nets, and sure enough when i picked it up, i felt the same way.

one device that i think (were it a phone) would do well, is the ZuneHD. ive watched every video and read every review of the damn thing, its simple just a great looking device.

and the software looks simple and straight forward. but i dont see it being a phone anymore... i think they would have mentioned that already if it was the case.

MacShack

06-07-2009, 11:52 AM

Not to mention that the iPhone DOES multitask, it just has a predetermined set of applications that multitask.

It'd be nice to somehow manually "award" one other app the ability to leave it running after closing. Let the user decide if the battery hit is worth it.

As for removable batteries, I've never understood why this is a big deal. I bought a battery for my iPhone - when I need to recharge I plug it in and it recharges as if I am plugged into a wall. I don't have to turn off the phone or take it apart. How is this solution inferior to having an internal replacement? The thing gives me TWO full charges, not just one.

I know the iPhone has multitasking. Multitasking isn't the problem. But letting the user or the program choose how or when to multitask is a very dangerous thing. On a desk- or laptop you don't have this problem very quickly. But on a phone with limited resources in processor power, RAM and battery life. I do believe that at this point Apple is using the best solution for these challenges.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 11:54 AM

Lag can come from a number of different sources, not necessarily from bugs in the OS. Lag can depend on the quality of the app you are attempting to launch, it can depend on the amount of available RAM at the moment, it can depend on the last time you've turned off the phone and allowed the system to reset. These are the same issues that cause lag in full desktop computers.

I have seen the deleting text bug you are talking about. But it only happens for me on AI. I've never had it happen in any other situation. So is the problem with the OS or is their some problem with how it interacts with AI.

I would be a bit happier if the iPhone didn't lag all the time. You all know what I mean. Launch an app and wait. Click app what's around me then search, bit sure if you hit and are not sure it was hit so you do it again only to watch it open and close very quickly twice. Or how about deleting text in a post like this, you backspace for a few seconds and it doesn't stop deleting forcing you to re type. These are thing we put up with all the time. Wonder if ore solved any of theses glitches?????

steviet02

06-07-2009, 11:56 AM

The reason for this is because on average they have 100 apps loaded on their phone and they are constantly using it. This is not the case for other phones.

Actually, I would suspect roaming from site to site in a city would be a more likely candidate. Not the amount of apps loaded.

edit:
Considering you can only use one app at a time (we are talking 3rd party apps) I highly doubt that a battery drains that quick. I use apps like pandora and ootunes for ~4-5 hrs before they kill the battery. The GPS I noticed is a real drain though.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 11:59 AM

If you only ever used the iPhone for phone calls, it can last for two or three days.

Many (if not most) of the iPhone's apps are just a front end UI to a web data base, so using the app is using the internet. On average iPhone users have around 100 apps loaded, people are using the apps, and that kills the battery quicker.

Actually, I would suspect roaming from site to site in a city would be a more likely candidate. Not the amount of apps loaded.

edit:
Considering you can only use one app at a time (we are talking 3rd party apps) I highly doubt that a battery drains that quick. I use apps like pandora and ootunes for ~4-5 hrs before they kill the battery. The GPS I noticed is a real drain though.

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 12:00 PM

It'd be nice to somehow manually "award" one other app the ability to leave it running after closing. Let the user decide if the battery hit is worth it.

i agree for the most part.

but i also see how apple, being under constant scrutiny, has to protect it's reputation in the general public. the majority of people wouldn't use this feature judiciously, they would just max it out and then complain about battery life, and then the iphone would pick up a poor reputation due to nothing more than user misuse.

case in point:

Full screen brightness is the level I am comfortable with.

A battery that lasts to the end of the business day would be fine instead of needing to be charged midway through the day

Full brightness is ridiculously unnecessary, unless you have significant vision problems, in which case, apple cannot cater exclusively to such an extreme minority.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 12:07 PM

Apple has a patent for predictive text UI that lists words that look like the word you are attempting to type. That allows you to more easily select the exact word. This UI is used in Google's iPhone app. I wonder why Apple does not use it system wide.

HAHA It is often obvious when typing on an iPhone. I'd love an app for the iPhone and Mac that let me edit the corrected word list.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 12:10 PM

Actually, I would suspect roaming from site to site in a city would be a more likely candidate. Not the amount of apps loaded.

edit:
Considering you can only use one app at a time (we are talking 3rd party apps) I highly doubt that a battery drains that quick. I use apps like pandora and ootunes for ~4-5 hrs before they kill the battery. The GPS I noticed is a real drain though.

I'd wager his point was that most users have many apps that they are constantly aceessing --not that the additonal apps are draining the battery just from being installed-- whereas other phones aren't are excessively used.

I use the GPS app very frequently and it does drain the battery rather quickly. I hope that improves with the next model but I still expect it be the weakest point in battery duration.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 12:15 PM

Apple has a patent for predictive text UI that lists words that look like the word you are attempting to type. That allows you to more easily select the exact word. This UI is used in Google's iPhone app. I wonder why Apple does not use it system wide.

Even on the Mac, if you mistakenly add a word to the "ignore spelling" list you have to go through some funky steps to fix it. Perhaps someone has made an app for it, but Apple surely doesn't have an easy way to add and remove words.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 12:18 PM

Oh yes, I am saying the battery is drained from frequent use of the apps, not from the apps existence on the phone.

I'd wafer his point was that most uses have many apps that they are constantly aceessing --not that the additonal apps are draining the battery just from being installed-- whereas other phones aren't are excessively used.

mrochester

06-07-2009, 12:32 PM

I don't believe this at all. If it were true Nokia would be using this fact in its marketing. At the very least if it were true it would have been mentioned in the last two years of debate about the iPhone multi-tasking.

Well of course this is true... that's what you get when you have 128mb RAM.

Quote from the All About Symbian Review

The system RAM has been doubled to 128MB, meaning that there's now around 95MB of free RAM after booting. This figure is slightly higher than you might have guessed because the N95 8GB also features 'demand paging', i.e. only the bits of applications that are strictly needed are loaded into RAM, other bits are left on disk until needed. Although demand paging is really only for Symbian OS 9.3 and above, the OS 9.2-running N95 8GB has had the feature back-ported specifically for the OS and S60 built-in applications. In fact, it may even be possible to include demand paging into a future firmware release for the original N95. Watch this space. In summary, you'll never run out of RAM with the N95 8GB, even on the largest web pages, while simultaneously viewing the largest image and keeping ten Java games running in the background.

Plus I did it myself when I first got the phone. You can open everything that's in the main menu, and in folders within the main menu, at once, without running out of RAM or slowing the device down. I find it amusing that you can't believe a 2 year old device is capable of doing this :lol:

guinness

06-07-2009, 12:48 PM

What a stupid article. Of course they are similar in construction. They share the same characteristics and size. How else would you jam all that crap into handheld device?

I was thinking the same thing, but it's another chance to view a competing product in an Apple-light, no? It's still a bizarre comparison, as all these devices are pretty compact, full of radios, RAM, a CPU, etc, there's only so much that can different.

As as the Pre, I'm pretty interested, but like with the iPhone, neither are on Verizon, so I really don't care at this point, that and most everyone I know is on Verizon, and that saves me minutes.

macnyc

06-07-2009, 12:55 PM

It also is easier to transport in your pants pocket- very cool.As a long time user of a slider (LG Chocolate) this is a major feature for me as it maintains a small form to put into your pants pocket. While I don't mind walking around with an iPod Touch in my pocket, anything thicker (iPhone) is simply to large.

I love teckstud logic!

You don't like the iPhone because it's too thick so you like the Pre better because it's thicker than the iPhone!

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 12:56 PM

Well of course this is true... that's what you get when you have 128mb RAM.

The iPhone has 128MB of RAM. The Pre has 256MB.

Plus I did it myself when I first got the phone. You can open everything that's in the main menu, and in folders within the main menu, at once, without running out of RAM or slowing the device down. I find it amusing that you can't believe a 2 year old device is capable of doing this :lol:

I do believe you can open every application, I don't believe you can open every application with no detriment to the phone's performance. This isn't possible on a computer, as by definition every open app takes away from the over all performance of every other app.

isb

06-07-2009, 12:59 PM

justflybob

06-07-2009, 12:59 PM

Posting from your iPhone I see.... :lol:

Probably not, as it would have at least tried to autocorrect the spelling. ;)

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 01:00 PM

I usually put them in different pockets. :lol:

I thought you were just happy to see me.

macnyc

06-07-2009, 01:01 PM

Again AT&T sucks. ANy other 3G network around the world doesn't have the problems this crappy network has in the US.

Do you have anything to back that up? Have you ever used a cell phone abroad? I would never say ATT is great but then again I live in manhattan and don't get Verizon reception in my apartment.

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 01:02 PM

I didnt like the pre at all, I dont like the iphone either.
In fact, its plain pitiful that NO American carrier lets you do simultaneous
voice and DATA.

I can't be in my browser looking for a restaurant in google maps or in a
'search near me' GPS type emulation *AND* tell the people waiting on the line
YES IM COMING.

Whats the point?

The pre multitasks but cant do voice and data and the iphone cant EVEN multitask...

Tell the carriers to build REAL networks. Its really sad how far behind we are.

The iphone on 3G allows simultaneous voice and data.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 01:05 PM

Its technology standards issue. Any UMTS 3G phone can do both voice and data at the same time. EV-DO phones cannot, which is what the Pre is.

I didnt like the pre at all, I dont like the iphone either.
In fact, its plain pitiful that NO American carrier lets you do simultaneous
voice and DATA.

justflybob

06-07-2009, 01:09 PM

As a matter of fact, we don't want you to own an iPhone anymore, your privileges have been revoked. Back AWAY from the iPhone sir...

Welcome! And by all means, please keep posting.... :D

macnyc

06-07-2009, 01:10 PM

I didnt like the pre at all, I dont like the iphone either.
In fact, its plain pitiful that NO American carrier lets you do simultaneous
voice and DATA.

I can't be in my browser looking for a restaurant in google maps or in a
'search near me' GPS type emulation *AND* tell the people waiting on the line
YES IM COMING.

Whats the point?

The pre multitasks but cant do voice and data and the iphone cant EVEN multitask...

Tell the carriers to build REAL networks. Its really sad how far behind we are.

Just out of curiosity... Have you ever tried doing that on an iPhone???!!! You can be on the phone and on the browser or on Goggle maps at the same time!

How can you say such a ridiculous thing when it is absolutely not true???!!!

cameronj

06-07-2009, 01:12 PM

I know the iPhone has multitasking. Multitasking isn't the problem. But letting the user or the program choose how or when to multitask is a very dangerous thing. On a desk- or laptop you don't have this problem very quickly. But on a phone with limited resources in processor power, RAM and battery life. I do believe that at this point Apple is using the best solution for these challenges.

I think calling it "very dangerous" is a little extreme, don't you?

Clearly there is a master list of apps that can run in the background. That's how the phone, the iPod, email, etc can run in the background. So what would be so dangerous about allowing the user, through a setting buried in the Settings app, add ONE SINGLE app to that list?

If battery life suffered, the user could change the selected app or disable the function entirely. 90% of users would never know the function was even there and their use of the phone would be unchanged. But for the 10% who want it, why not give them this very safe method of trying it out?

I'd love to be able to have Palringo running in the background about once a month when I am at an airport and want to chat, but also want to browse the web. I'd also love to let Pandora run in the background on the rare instance when I listen to it. As it is I hardly ever use it because when I do, my phone is cut down to be only an iPod.

You really think not allowing it at all is a better solution than what I describe above?

city

06-07-2009, 01:12 PM

.....I have been given a cabana at Hard Rock’s Rehab pool. The all day party starts at 10:30am. It’s only 8am here, my friends are still sleeping or driving over from Cali, and it’s too early for mojitos, thought I did have a mimosa with breakfast.

Craps and blackjack are my games. It’s too early to gamble, I don’t care for a dead casino… or the weirdos that gamble in the AM, it’s a lot like Wal-Mart in the middle of the night. :lol:Make that reservation at Nobu 702/693 5090

wilco

06-07-2009, 01:15 PM

Banter means to talk, so it makes sense :???:

You're arguing with the guy who wrote:

"To a certain extend your comment..."

:rolleyes:

cameronj

06-07-2009, 01:18 PM

The iphone on 3G allows simultaneous voice and data.

Seriously, does the OP really not know that you can do voice and data on the iphone simultaneously on 3G?

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 01:19 PM

I think calling it "very dangerous" is a little extreme, don't you?

Clearly there is a master list of apps that can run in the background. That's how the phone, the iPod, email, etc can run in the background. So what would be so dangerous about allowing the user, through a setting buried in the Settings app, add ONE SINGLE app to that list?

If battery life suffered, the user could change the selected app or disable the function entirely. 90% of users would never know the function was even there and their use of the phone would be unchanged. But for the 10% who want it, why not give them this very safe method of trying it out?

I'd love to be able to have Palringo running in the background about once a month when I am at an airport and want to chat, but also want to browse the web. I'd also love to let Pandora run in the background on the rare instance when I listen to it. As it is I hardly ever use it because when I do, my phone is cut down to be only an iPod.

You really think not allowing it at all is a better solution than what I describe above?

how many apps actually "run" in the background? i know the ipod app does. but email works by the badge system...just using alerts, not fully running. is that correct?

addabox

06-07-2009, 01:25 PM

Seahawk banned ?? lol
9

Not just banned, they appear to have nuked his account from orbit, which, of course, was the only way to be sure.

cameronj

06-07-2009, 01:28 PM

how many apps actually "run" in the background? i know the ipod app does. but email works by the badge system...just using alerts, not fully running. is that correct?

I don't know about email, but certainly the Phone runs in the background. And then of course there are all the hidden functions that run in the background too. So adding one more app would not be doubling the number of apps running in the background, it would only add a small percentage more activity. Plus, of course, the selected app would not always be running in the background, only when you actually used it and didn't exit it (which is a function Apple would have to enable somehow - maybe a special X that appears on the "blessed" app).

addabox

06-07-2009, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by mrochester

Banter means to talk, so it makes sense

Actually, banter isn't a synonym for "talk", it specifically means "light hearted back-and-forth" or "a teasing exchange."

In the context of your original usage the better choice would have been something like "carry on" or "hold forth", with some connotation of tendentiousness.

DJRumpy

06-07-2009, 01:33 PM

I don't understand the complaints about the battery life and I use my phone fairly heavily for browsing, mail, and internet.

For multitasking, about the only app I can see any use to keep running in the background would be IM, and it's not necessary that it keep running. I use AIM for instance and I just set it to forward to my phone as an SMS when I'm not logged in. Problem solved. If I get an SMS IM, I can reply to as a normal IM. It doesn't need to be running 24x7. E-mail checks at intervals, so that's a no brainer, and web page states are automatically saved when you switch to something else. The simple fact is that the iPhone can multitask, but only for those system apps that apple allows. The apps that they do allow make sense and serve my needs. I feel no need to have 4 apps running at once, especially on a phone of all things. About the limit of what I do need to multitask works very well. iPod music while at the gym, with sms, and possibly web browsing to look up some odd fact or whatnot. Email, web, and sms pretty much sums up most of my activity.

With my typical use, I get about 3 days standby, and about 3 hours of actual 'on' usage. I've turned off push notifications as I have about 4 email accounts defined. I don't turn of 3G however. I use WiFi almost all the time with occasional 3g. I also occasionally use a game or an app. I would think my usage is pretty typical.I should note that I'm using 3.0 software which seems to turn off or minimize 3g usage when it's not needed (I don't know that for a fact, but I do notice a small delay before it 'connects' when I open a browser for instance.

Considering a typical laptop gets about 5-6 hours usage with a MUCH larger battery, IMO, it does very well considering it's not even as big as a laptop battery. On top of that, it has GPS, camera, touch screen interface, 480x320 full color screen, etc.

As to dropped calls, I actually had that issue. It turned out to be my sim card, not the phone. The Apple folks referred me to an AT&T store, who promptly replaced it after a few questions and my dropped call issues went away.

anantksundaram

06-07-2009, 01:34 PM

Count your blessings you don't live in NYC area and rely on AT&T.

I guess I must be uniquely lucky everytime I am in NYC (which is at least once a month): I get superb signals just about everywhere that I am (typicaly midtown all the way down to Battery Park).

I recall that there were a lot of complaints about the Edge version when first introduced, but is it really still true that the city gets lousy reception even with iPhone 3G? Can anyone who actually lives there confirm? (I.e., the question is not for teckstud).

solipsism

06-07-2009, 01:41 PM

The iPhone has 128MB of RAM. The Pre has 256MB.
Even when the iPhone gets the same (or similar) CPU, GPU and 256MB RAM, the Pre and other smartphones with lighter OSes should still be able to have more open apps than the iPhone. There seems to be some people who don’t realize that the iPhone OS X is pretty large in comparison to other mobile OSes despite how light it is in comparison with the desktop version. The previous poster who states that Apple was just being lazy by not making Mac OS X even lighter than it is for mobile use simply has no clue.

PS: I wouldn’t be surprised to have one new SW feature of the next iPhone be a background app or two now that there is double the RAM and more CPU at hand.

Do you have anything to back that up? Have you ever used a cell phone abroad? I would never say ATT is great but then again I live in manhattan and don't get Verizon reception in my apartment.
If he did he wouldn’t be our beloved resident troll boy.

The iphone on 3G allows simultaneous voice and data.
Just to be clear, any 3G network can do both voice and data. One of the downfalls of GSM over CDMA is that while on a CDMA2000 network you can make a call in CDMA which uses considerably less power than a WCDMA connection which will make a call in 3G.

brucep

06-07-2009, 01:51 PM

Not just banned, they appear to have nuked his account from orbit, which, of course, was the only way to be sure.

This guy's demon's had demon's.
I feel sorry for these lost trolls who carry around so much pain.
Everyone here tried to reason with him .

peace

9

anantksundaram

06-07-2009, 01:53 PM

[QUOTE=brucep;1427127]Seahawk banned ?? lol

Dude your speed is so low. Damn i feel bad for you. Anyway enjoy Las Vegas !!!! PLAY 12 and 18 for me on the roulette wheel !!

Get up right now and walk away from your computer.Go find some daylight !!

Why? If AppleInsider had a more secure way of keeping someone out rather than email verification I'd be more concerned.

AI ever thought of Mac Address for verification? It may be a little more secure.

solipsism
brucep
addabox

Under any name I wil always be here to keep Shit heads like you in check.

'Mac' address? Wow, I did not know only Macs had MACs!

Welcome back.

brucep

06-07-2009, 01:54 PM

Teckstudian logic would say that despite my numerous multi-quoted posts that actually make a statement beyond your canned anti-Apple, anti-AT&T rhetoric.

That is about half of my AT&T max and about 70% of my norm.

I am out in the daylight. I have been given a cabana at Hard Rock’s Rehab pool. The all day party starts at 10:30am. It’s only 8am here, my friends are still sleeping or driving over from Cali, and it’s too early for mojitos, thought I did have a mimosa with breakfast.

Craps and blackjack are my games. It’s too early to gamble, I don’t care for a dead casino… or the weirdos that gamble in the AM, it’s a lot like Wal-Mart in the middle of the night. :lol:

Yea you get that ole 4am large empty supermarket blues with those errie lights.

ENJOY.

9

mdriftmeyer

06-07-2009, 01:57 PM

Constantly turning on an off a radio isn't an elegant solution. That's five taps on each startup and shut down that shouldn't be necessary in my opinion. Shouldn't the device do that kind of power management on its own?

It helps to "know your enemy", and a few of your statements show that you don't. Nokia uses Webkit. It only took me a minute to find that and to find that it has a compass. They do offer touch capability now, though that probably depends on the model.

I don't know how iPhone's applications are necessarily desktop class, they're nifty, but desktop class is overselling it. Maybe better than most other portable platforms. Maybe some iPhone apps are on the level of a relatively simple desktop applet, but most are of the complexity of a Dashboard widget. For example, there are a few very simple word processors, but nothing on the scale of Pages that I've seen, more like TextEdit at best.

Nokia uses QtWebKit and it's not a full WebKit port.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 01:58 PM

I don't know about email, but certainly the Phone runs in the background. And then of course there are all the hidden functions that run in the background too. So adding one more app would not be doubling the number of apps running in the background, it would only add a small percentage more activity. Plus, of course, the selected app would not always be running in the background, only when you actually used it and didn't exit it (which is a function Apple would have to enable somehow - maybe a special X that appears on the "blessed" app).
It’s not just apps, but a lot of frameworks that are running. The Mail app does run in the background to check and load mail, even if you have it setup manually and then leave the app it still completes it’s task, unlike other apps. I could be wrong, but I think that mobile Safari in 3.0 is finishing loading after I leave the app. At the very least, it’s not reloading every page when you jump back into the app like it started doing in v2.0.

Besides the phone, iPod, clock (timer/alarm), springboard, Mail process and MobileMe sync processes I don’t know of exactly what else is running but the iPhone seems to use more than half the RAM at any one time for the system. If you have a jailbroken iPhone you can install SysInfo to see all the processes running.

As to dropped calls, I actually had that issue. It turned out to be my sim card, not the phone. The Apple folks referred me to an AT&T store, who promptly replaced it after a few questions and my dropped call issues went away.
That is interesting. I haven’t heard about the SIM card being the cause for dropped calls unless your phone is losing the SIM card connection, but I’d figure that would result in the device saying “No SIM card detected”.

Welcome to AI, glad to see some rational new posters on these forums.

Make that reservation at Nobu 702/693 5090
I ate there last night for the first time. I had a great time and the food was good too. :D

Why? If AppleInsider had a more secure way of keeping someone out rather than email verification I'd be more concerned.

AI ever thought of Mac Address for verification? It may be a little more secure.

solipsism
brucep
addabox

Under any name I wil always be here to keep Shit heads like you in check.
What was that yesterday about people like you don’t get banned. :lol:

And you’ll get banned again in 3… 2… 1...

anantksundaram

06-07-2009, 02:00 PM

[QUOTE=anantksundaram;1427213]

In computer networking, a Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to most network adapters or network interface cards (NICs) by the manufacturer for identification, and used in the Media Access Control protocol sublayer. If assigned by the manufacturer, a MAC address usually encodes the manufacturer's registered identification number. It may also be known as an Ethernet Hardware Address (EHA), hardware address, adapter address, or physical address.

Yeah, and the acronym is MAC, not Mac. I guess I should have added a "mild sarcasm" tag..... ;)

mstone

06-07-2009, 02:02 PM

While I don't mind walking around with an iPod Touch in my pocket, anything thicker (iPhone) is simply to large.

I walk around with a wad a cash at least twice as thick as my iPhone and it doesn't bother me a bit.:smokey:

solipsism

06-07-2009, 02:09 PM

In computer networking, a Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to most network adapters or network interface cards (NICs) by the manufacturer for identification, and used in the Media Access Control protocol sublayer. If assigned by the manufacturer, a MAC address usually encodes the manufacturer's registered identification number. It may also be known as an Ethernet Hardware Address (EHA), hardware address, adapter address, or physical address.
He was goofing on you.

As for you suggestion for AI to ban by MAC address that seems a little extreme. Post banned trolls either go away or come back with a better attitude, not by making their first post a caustic statement calling people shitheads and thinking that they have found some previously unknown loophole.

BTW, MAC addresses can be changed. They are merely the digital representation of the BIA.

Nokia uses QtWebKit and it's not a full WebKit port.
Nokia and Mozilla have been using Qt to port Firefox 3 to the mobile platform as Fennec, a small fox, for over a year now. I hope they get this done quickly because Mozilla has really dropped the ball on the mobile platform at this point. With the growth of smartphones and internet capable PMPs it’s possible that WebKit could beat Gecko (Firefox) by installed base within a relatively short time.

macgareth

06-07-2009, 02:11 PM

Pre - 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 and 256MB of Ram :D

If the iphone has the same specs or better we better get multitasking apple..:grumble:

anantksundaram

06-07-2009, 02:13 PM

BTW, MAC addresses can be changed. They are merely the digital representation of the BIA.

That's cool -- I did not know that! How does a lay person do that?

cameronj

06-07-2009, 02:15 PM

[QUOTE=Seahawk Fan 2;1427215]

Yeah, and the acronym is MAC, not Mac. I guess I should have added a "mild sarcasm" tag..... ;)

That's not as bad as all the dummies who talk about their Apple computer as a MAC. ;)

cameronj

06-07-2009, 02:16 PM

That's cool -- I did not know that! How does a lay person do that?

It's super easy :)

http://www.tech-faq.com/change-mac-address.shtml

Just a registry change.

anantksundaram

06-07-2009, 02:19 PM

You always back peddle when you are called on it and in general terms you can understand you are an arrogant bastard.

Oh wow. I guess there's no backpedalling with you....... </mild sarcasm>

And, as to the latter part of your comment, I suppose it 'bye for now.

See you back here soon, with your new name/IP address/MAC address/whatever..... :lol:

solipsism

06-07-2009, 02:20 PM

Pre - 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 and 256MB of Ram :D

If the iphone has the same specs or better we better get multitasking apple..:grumble:

Remember that the Pre’s apps are pretty much ac OS X Dashboard Widgets. I do think Apple wold be able to offer an option to allocate 32MB(?) of the 256MB for background apps. Keeping it sandboxed would allow 3rd-party developers the ease of not having to work around varying app usage that could negatively affect their development process. I’ve read that this is one of the downfalls of Android.

While it seems possible, will they have it ready immediately? Will they require developers to run their app through a more restrictive acceptance process to make sure that the CPU and RAM usage falls within acceptable usage?

Since Push Notifications have just gotten out of the testing phase, I’m not sure Apple will try will get this going right away when they have other things on their plate to deal with, but I do hope they have worked it out.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 02:24 PM

See you back here soon, with your new name/IP address/MAC address/whatever..... :lol:
I request he comes back with new attitude. He writes like he was born yesterday, which is a good thing because we can start his personality from scratch.

PS: You’d think he’d have figured out how to quote a reply at this point. Though it comes pre-quoted so he is purposely messing up the formatting. I can’t think of a single rational reason for that. Oh, there I go trying to use the word rational in reference with Seahawk Fan. No wonder I can’t think of a reason. :D

MacShack

06-07-2009, 02:34 PM

You're arguing with the guy who wrote:

"To a certain extend your comment..."

:rolleyes:

As I already stated. English isn't my first language. However the meaning of a word is something totally different than the spelling of a word. And the word banter as I learned the word and after looking it up in a dictionary is not a synonym for talking. As I already stated, it means to speak to or address in a witty manner. And I never did that. I never wrote to him in a witty manner. That was my only point. But thanks for pointing out that spelling mistake.

addabox

06-07-2009, 02:36 PM

I request he comes back with new attitude. He writes like he was born yesterday, which is a good thing because we can start his personality from scratch.

PS: You’d think he’d have figured out how to quote a reply at this point. Though it comes pre-quoted so he is purposely messing up the formatting. I can’t think of a single rational reason for that. Oh, there I go trying to use the word rational in reference with Seahawk Fan. No wonder I can’t think of a reason. :D

Clearly this post is the result of poring over a "thesaurus" (?) in order to "sound smart."

Your original post, sans thesaurus, would have read something like:

He don't know how to make a quote here. It makes quote by itself, so he do it on purpose. Don't know why. LOL, he make no sense so no wonder.

Dick Applebaum

06-07-2009, 02:41 PM

solipsism

06-07-2009, 02:41 PM

That's cool -- I did not know that! How does a lay person do that?
What Cameronj posted. I’ve never done it on any PC OS. I’ve done it on routers, but to state that means I’m lying because Seahawk Fan is adamant that I have no technical knowledge at all. He probably also thinks he’s levelheaded and compos mentis. He probably thinks I had to look up that term, too. :lol:

As I already stated. English isn't my first language. However the meaning of a word is something totally different than the spelling of a word. And the word banter as I learned the word and after looking it up in a dictionary is not a synonym for talking. As I already stated, it means to speak to or address in a witty manner. And I never did that. I never wrote to him in a witty manner. That was my only point. But thanks for pointing out that spelling mistake.
Wilco probably won’t reply back and he doesn’t really care about having a conversation. He just does guerilla-like posting every now and then, but they are very tame.

DocNo42

06-07-2009, 02:42 PM

Why do you people always conveniently forget that Smartphone OSs have been multitasking for years

Ok, this I agree with...

smoothly and elegantly?

That I disagree with. Heck, you can't even terminate programs on windows mobile without resorting to third party apps or development tools!

You banter on about it as if it was this new fangled feature that's in its infancy.

Intelligent multitasking that's user oriented is a new fangled feature.

The iPhone doesn't have it simply because Apple didn't design the OS to be lean enough for the hardware it runs on. They could have quite easily done it if they had worked harder at it to reduce the footprint of the OS and apps, but they didn't, and that was their choice.

Wow, what incredible insight. How long have you been on the iPhone dev team?

How about this - like with any project, there are a list of goals and features. Those get prioritized. Since Apple is user oriented instead of useless feature, geek checklist oriented, multi-tasking is further down on the list. Just like copy paste and the SDK. So far their strategy seems to be effective (their sales success speaks volumes), and only improving.

Bottom line - yes, the iPhone could stand for more features like multitasking. But here's the deal - even if they froze the OS right now it's still light years ahead of any other smartphone on the market - and from I have seen, that includes the Pre. Thing is, Apple isn't standing still. Unlike any previous smartphone (or PDA) I have owned, they are pushing out updates. Regularly. I get new functionality, supported by the manufacturer (not hacked in), on a routine basis. How cool is that?

Dick Applebaum

06-07-2009, 02:47 PM

NO. but the Pre would be both - smaller and thinner. My point is Apple should have had a smaller form factor of the iPhone ( another version like all phones have). It could have been a slider , making it smaller, but Pre has beat them to the punch.

With apologies to Shel Silverstein:

All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' 'bout the things
They (Apple) woulda coulda shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little Did.

MacShack

06-07-2009, 02:49 PM

Wilco probably won’t reply back and he doesn’t really care about having a conversation. He just does guerilla-like posting every now and then, but they are very tame.

That's good to know. :smokey:

DJRumpy

06-07-2009, 02:56 PM

Actually the bad sim that caused the dropped calls caused no errors in and of itself, other than the sporadic "call failed". It didn't report that the sim wasn't inserted or anything of the sort. The AT&T folks told me there are two issues common with sim cards. The contacts will get dirty or degraded causing dropped calls, or the card itself will warp causing the same issue.

If your having dropped calls, just take it to an AT&T store and request a new one. It might solve your issues. I didn't have to pay for mine, although I'm told that they will sometimes try to charge you for a new sim.

addabox

06-07-2009, 02:56 PM

Ok, this I agree with...

That I disagree with. Heck, you can't even terminate programs on windows mobile without resorting to third party apps or development tools!

Intelligent multitasking that's user oriented is a new fangled feature.

Wow, what incredible insight. How long have you been on the iPhone dev team?

How about this - like with any project, there are a list of goals and features. Those get prioritized. Since Apple is user oriented instead of useless feature, geek checklist oriented, multi-tasking is further down on the list. Just like copy paste and the SDK. So far their strategy seems to be effective (their sales success speaks volumes), and only improving.

Bottom line - yes, the iPhone could stand for more features like multitasking. But here's the deal - even if they froze the OS right now it's still light years ahead of any other smartphone on the market - and from I have seen, that includes the Pre. Thing is, Apple isn't standing still. Unlike any previous smartphone (or PDA) I have owned, they are pushing out updates. Regularly. I get new functionality, supported by the manufacturer (not hacked in), on a routine basis. How cool is that?

Well put.

And, as I and others have noted, prioritizing a processor heavy OS that enables a lot of user facing features down the road is simply planning ahead.

Sure, it might mean some constraints early on, but hardware gets faster. Apple didn't make the iPhone until they could get a fair bit of OS X running on the available hardware, and having built the underpinnings of a seriously capable mobile OS that works seamlessly with their desktop OS (because they are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing) they can extend functionality as far as tomorrow's hardware will permit.

MS and Nokia, on the other hand, made Windows CE and Symbian to run on the far more constrained hardware of some years ago, and are now obliged to bolt on parts in order to make their respective choices act more like "real" operating systems, now that handheld machines are capable of running such.

Palm has elected to use the light weight WebOS to get zippy performance and multitasking out of the gate, but will have to deal with the built in constraints that tradeoff engenders, down the road.

As DocNo42 notes, it's always about tradeoffs and priorities and what the designer considers the most important goals. Apple's goal is to erase the distinction between "computer" and "phone", and they brought the OS to do it.

As far as I can tell, the goal of most of the rest of the industry is to jam as many bullet point features as possible onto each new release, and come up with some pretty splash screens and animations that will look nice in ads.

The Pre and Android are bucking the trend, but they, of course, have their own limitations and compromises based on what their designers deemed top priority.

winterspan

06-07-2009, 02:59 PM

Not surprising given that Rubenstein was probably able to poach a bunch of former Apple engineers.

Besides the keyboard which seems to be very small and uncomfortable for male hands, the Palm pre looks very nice. The next-gen 600Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 is blazing fast --- twice as fast as the older iPhone ARM11 at a given frequency and running 50% higher clockspeed --- and the PoweVR "SGX-530" graphics core is also a lot better than the "MBX lite" in the iPhone.

The OS and interface is well designed and engineered and provides a very good experience. I think one major challenge will be how well they integrate the programming API into the lower-level subsystems. If developers are stuck with basic HTML/CSS and Javascript without things like hardware accelerated SVG/Canvas, javascript->OpenGL bindings, custom high-level 3D Javascript library, etc, then the applications will be pretty limited, and you can forget about advanced iPhone-level games.

wizard69

06-07-2009, 03:09 PM

Why do you people always conveniently forget that Smartphone OSs have been multitasking for years, smoothly and elegantly? You banter on about it as if it was this new fangled feature that's in its infancy. Multitasking is incredibly useful for quickly and easily switching between applications instead of having to quit out of one, and start another from the launcher. Of course, it also means you can stay logged into IM clients, etc, and do other things at the same time. The iPhone doesn't have it simply because Apple didn't design the OS to be lean enough for the hardware it runs on. They could have quite easily done it if they had worked harder at it to reduce the footprint of the OS and apps, but they didn't, and that was their choice.

The only thing stoping the iPhone from doing user multitasking is Apple. Simple as that. People seem to forget that iPhone is multitasking anyways to support the GSM connection and mail in background. Even when notifications come you still need a background process to monitor for and process those notifications.

The issue with battery drain is bogus anyways. If you have processes that eat up battery life simply don't run them unless needed. How much power a background app will use is dependant on how it is written an how often it is scheduled.

As a side note it was just pointed out to me that yes indeed mail runs in background or at least part of it does. How do I know; because just before the new mail announcement is made typing gets really slow. If nothing else it demonstrates that iPhone needs either faster processors or SMP hardware.

Dave

shadow

06-07-2009, 03:11 PM

The iPhone doesn't have it simply because Apple didn't design the OS to be lean enough for the hardware it runs on.

This comments reiterates one of the statements Palm made when the device was introduced back in January. This is the most stupid one of all.

Steve Jobs quoted Wayne Gretzky many times:
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

iPhone OS runs smoothly on the current hardware, and the hardware is going to get faster. Apple has a scalable OS, great SDK and a huge developer following. The iPhone OS is the greatest iPhone advantage. No one will beat it any time soon.

Note that none of the Palm reviews says that the Pre is noticeably faster. With a 150% faster processor, twice the RAM and "a lean, device optimized OS" it should feel MUCH faster. Apparently, it dosn't, not to mention the games/ Open GL stuff. I tried the pre briefly, browsing the images seems a little bit sluggish compared to the iPhone. Browsing the web looked about the same, I expected it to be faster.

Postulant

06-07-2009, 03:11 PM

Good job Palm... the Pre at least appears to be in the same class as the iphone, unlike the other alleged "iphone killers". That being said, I'll be upgrading to the new iPhone the day of its release.

Video chatting and movie rentals right from my pocket? Are you serious?

Game over!

Dick Applebaum

06-07-2009, 03:18 PM

Apple has a patent for predictive text UI that lists words that look like the word you are attempting to type. That allows you to more easily select the exact word. This UI is used in Google's iPhone app. I wonder why Apple does not use it system wide.

The developer has the option to use predictive text any time the app displays the keyboard. However, it only makes sense in fields for entering free-form text (comments, notes, instructions). It doesn't make sense to use it in a URL, name, address, etc.

mrochester

06-07-2009, 03:32 PM

Mmmm... If the S60 is as good as you say, and the iPhone as bad... Why do you have an iPhone at all? You could just use the S60 and spare yourself (and the rest of us) your disappointment.

Dick

Hmmmm, can't really see the point where I said S60 was so good. Can you please point me to exactly where I said that? In fact, the post you quoted simply states that both browsers are based on the WebKit engine.

That I disagree with. Heck, you can't even terminate programs on windows mobile without resorting to third party apps or development tools!

I used WinMo once, about 4 years ago. Really, I'm talking about S60.

iPhone OS runs smoothly on the current hardware, and the hardware is going to get faster

That's not true! The iPhone OS has plenty of slow downs and stalls, either because the hardware isn't powerful enough to run it, or it's been coded inefficiently. To name but a few that I experience regularly: swiping to unlock - I can have done the swiping motion, but it's another few seconds before the device catches up and actually moves the toggle. Pressing the sleep button, can take anywhere from a fraction of a second to 5 seconds for the device to actually shut off. Pressing the view tabs button in Safari, again can take anywhere from a fraction of a second to 5 seconds to display open tabs. Opening settings, mail, safari, can all take a few seconds too. Typing in Safari can be painfully slow - so much so that the device completely misses out animating certain key presses.

Needless to say, the OS running smoothly on the hardware is not really one of the iPhone's current strong points! Hopefully Apple have picked up the pace with the rumoured 3rd gen device and the faster processor and more RAM - heck the phone needs it!

DocNo42

06-07-2009, 03:39 PM

In computer networking, a Media Access Control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to most network adapters or network interface cards (NICs) by the manufacturer for identification

Nice quote from wikipedia. If you actually knew what you were talking about instead of copying and pasting text from web sites, you would understand that the MAC address is only valid on your local subnet. As soon as the packet moves to the other side of your router, your MAC address is replaced with the routers MAC address, and so on. By the time the packets get to AI's servers, they are on the sixth or more MAC address.

And even if the MAC address survived end to end, they can easily be spoofed or changed.

MAC addresses are a poor security method - anywhere.

The only real security for trolls such as yourself are vigilant admins that delete your account as soon as you rear your butt ugly head.

It shouldn't be long now...

DocNo42

06-07-2009, 03:42 PM

You are a wanna be with quick access to google and a thesaurus to make yourself sound smart.

Now that's funny :lol:

Pot, kettle....

wizard69

06-07-2009, 03:46 PM

Again AT&T sucks. ANy other 3G network around the world doesn't have the problems this crappy network has in the US. But then you would probably accept the KoolAid carrier as long as it was attached to the iPhone. Dude- you are in denial- BIG TIME.
I don't write the review of AT&T or write the articles that rate it at the bottom of Consumer Reports. I'm not that omnipresent or as powerful as you all seem to think. And I don't morph into different profiles either. :)

What is the difference between AT$T having problems in certain locations and Verizon in others. My verizon phone was useless in the mountains outside of Alanta but that doesn't make them worst than other vendors, just had coverage in that area.

That doesn't even touch upon the corruption with respect to installing cell towers. Especially with local communities. Sometimes a company simply has to wait for more ethical people to be elected.

My personal exoerience is that AT&T is a far better deal in my local area than Verizon was. I've had great results with them in Las Vegas and other places I've traveled. At home around Rochester NY they do have better call quality than the competition.

Dave

solipsism

06-07-2009, 03:47 PM

Nice quote from wikipedia. If you actually knew what you were talking about instead of copying and pasting text from web sites, you would understand that the MAC address is only valid on your local subnet. As soon as the packet moves to the other side of your router, your MAC address is replaced with the routers MAC address, and so on. By the time the packets get to AI's servers, they are on the sixth or more MAC address.

:lol: For the first time in regards to his posts here I googled. He did literally copy that from Wikipedia. That is rich!

As for the originating MAC address, I maybe wrong as it’s been a long time since I dealt with it, but I thought that the header preamble maintained the original MAC address, even after jumping networks.

Daniel0418

06-07-2009, 03:50 PM

"I have a business acquaintance that had the luxury of playing with the Pre for about a week. He's a BB user, and thinks the Pre will fade with user abandonment like the first gen Storm. Curiously he said the phone's quality and it's ability to keep your attention is LOW. We will see."

I pulled the above text from a post I made a couple days ago. I think other people are coming to the same realization as my friend did. Go Apple!

I don't think the pre will die for a long time. this battery argument is so ridiculous. Apple has total mind control over apple fans it is so sad. The battery life is my choice with the pre. I have a pre and an iphone 3g. The pre WITH multitasking gets about the same battery life as the 3g give or take 30 minutes. The reason the iphone doesn't multitask is because the phone doesn't have the power to do it. With the pre I can have 6-10 apps open and still scroll through contacts or type an email lag free. On my iphone if I play music in the backround safari crashes. I scroll through contacts and it lags when nothing elde is going on. On the pre I am typing this msg while 3 other browsers are open and when I go back to them the page is still there it doesn't have to reload, I have 2 you tube videos also buffering in the backround and still with all 6 of these apps open I can type this msg with no lag. Also the browser has never crashed even with 12 apps open. This is amazing because my battery still lasts a day. The iphone is good the pre is a little better for me because the multitask is needed. I know the pre will be around for a long time especially in february 2010 when its on sprint, At&t, and verizon. The pre will blow up with users.

DocNo42

06-07-2009, 03:55 PM

As for the originating MAC address, I maybe wrong as it’s been a long time since I dealt with it, but I thought that the header preamble maintained the original MAC address, even after jumping networks.

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Header

If you think about it, there is really no benefit from the space overhead in passing the original MAC address along - it's only useful if you can directly address the device - i.e. you are on the same subnet.

Once you cross the subnet boundary (i.e. at a router) the MAC address is useless...

solipsism

06-07-2009, 04:01 PM

Nope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Header

If you think about it, there is really no benefit from the space overhead in passing the original MAC address along - it's only useful if you can directly address the device - i.e. you are on the same subnet.

Once you cross the subnet boundary (i.e. at a router) the MAC address is useless...

Anything involving IP addresses is the Network layer, which gets encapsulated by the Datalink Layer, which does contain a MAC address source. I was wrong in that it is not in the preamble, though it isn the header. This is very important for routers as IP addresses can easily change and sometimes be in conflict if DHCP is not setup, and sometimes if it is, which can be a real bitch to troubleshoot. But I am still not sure if that is the source MAC from the previous hop or the from the original node.

http://www.firewall.cx/pictures/Data%20encap.gifhttp://www.firewall.cx/pictures/protocols-osi.gif

PS: Have we forgotten our OSI model? :D

brucep

06-07-2009, 04:09 PM

Nice quote from wikipedia. If you actually knew what you were talking about instead of copying and pasting text from web sites, you would understand that the MAC address is only valid on your local subnet. As soon as the packet moves to the other side of your router, your MAC address is replaced with the routers MAC address, and so on. By the time the packets get to AI's servers, they are on the sixth or more MAC address.

And even if the MAC address survived end to end, they can easily be spoofed or changed.

MAC addresses are a poor security method - anywhere.

The only real security for trolls such as yourself are vigilant admins that delete your account as soon as you rear your butt ugly head.

It shouldn't be long now...Well admin can contact his isp . And complain about his abusive language. No?

Archipellago

06-07-2009, 04:09 PM

This comments reiterates one of the statements Palm made when the device was introduced back in January. This is the most stupid one of all.

Steve Jobs quoted Wayne Gretzky many times:

iPhone OS runs smoothly on the current hardware, and the hardware is going to get faster. Apple has a scalable OS, great SDK and a huge developer following. The iPhone OS is the greatest iPhone advantage. No one will beat it any time soon.

Note that none of the Palm reviews says that the Pre is noticeably faster. With a 150% faster processor, twice the RAM and "a lean, device optimized OS" it should feel MUCH faster. Apparently, it dosn't, not to mention the games/ Open GL stuff. I tried the pre briefly, browsing the images seems a little bit sluggish compared to the iPhone. Browsing the web looked about the same, I expected it to be faster.

yeah... Jobs has a habit of quoting random, stupid crap..thinking it's smart.

brucep

06-07-2009, 04:12 PM

I don't think the pre will die for a long time. this battery argument is so ridiculous. Apple has total mind control over apple fans it is so sad. The battery life is my choice with the pre. I have a pre and an iphone 3g. The pre WITH multitasking gets about the same battery life as the 3g give or take 30 minutes. The reason the iphone doesn't multitask is because the phone doesn't have the power to do it. With the pre I can have 6-10 apps open and still scroll through contacts or type an email lag free. On my iphone if I play music in the backround safari crashes. I scroll through contacts and it lags when nothing elde is going on. On the pre I am typing this msg while 3 other browsers are open and when I go back to them the page is still there it doesn't have to reload, I have 2 you tube videos also buffering in the backround and still with all 6 of these apps open I can type this msg with no lag. Also the browser has never crashed even with 12 apps open. This is amazing because my battery still lasts a day. The iphone is good the pre is a little better for me because the multitask is needed. I know the pre will be around for a long time especially in february 2010 when its on sprint, At&t, and verizon. The pre will blow up with users.

You have the PRE ? The PRE is out already ?

DocNo42

06-07-2009, 04:14 PM

Anything involving IP addresses is the Network layer, which gets encapsulated by the Datalink Layer, which does contain the MAC address. I was wrong in that it is not in the preamble, though it isn the header.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Ethernet_Type_II_Frame_format.svg

Yup, I was just coming back to correct my post - I confused the ethernet header with the IPV4 header - d'oh!

But still, the hardware source and destination addresses get updated each time the packet moves across a router.

i.e Computer on Network A sends a packet that crosses router 1 to network B which crosses router 2 to Network C which has our destination host.

Computer A creates a packet and in the Ethernet header it inserts it's MAC address as the source, and the router that is it's default gateway as the destination.

Then Router 1 looks up the destination IP address in it's routing table, figures out which interface is connected to the network that can get the packet on it's way (network B in my example) and re-crafts the ethernet header with the source address being equivalent to the MAC address of the routers interface on Network B and the destination interface the MAC address of router 2.

Router 2 does the same thing all over, it gets the packet, pulls out the IPV4 destination address, does a lookup to find which interface has the network or device with the destination IP and then it re-writes the ethernet header. This time, the router can talk directly to the destination host, so instead of the MAC address of another router, it uses the devices MAC address. So it rewrites (for the last time) the ethernet header with the source address as the MAC address for the interface on network C, and the destination MAC address for the host.

You can't confuse (like I did) the HARDWARE (layer 2) address for devices vs. the LOGICAL (layer 3) address. Ethernet itself is layer 2, IP is layer 3.

PS: Have we forgotten our OSI model? :D

Apparently I had, but after I typed it and submitted it, it didn't sound right so I ended up going to the same place you did :)

Whew, haven't thought about this stuff in this detail for some time. Moving into managment and away from day to day sysadmin work sucks :\

cameronj

06-07-2009, 04:14 PM

You have the PRE ? The PRE is out already ?

Yes..

Postulant

06-07-2009, 04:15 PM

You have the PRE ? The PRE is out already ?

lol... didn't you see the long lines yesterday?:D

solipsism

06-07-2009, 04:22 PM

Apparently I had, but after I typed it and submitted it, it didn't sound right so I ended up going to the same place you did :)

Whew, haven't thought about this stuff in this detail for some time. Moving into managment and away from day to day sysadmin work sucks :\

I have two CCIEs, albeit expired certs, but I also have a computer science degree with a focus on networking. I wouldn’t have thought that with so many years and so much effort put forward I would have forgotten such simple standards, but I apparently have. I felt old when Tetris turned 25yo yesterday, this just makes it worse. Not to mention I’m at a hotel where the average age is about half of mine. Seriously depressing!

lol... didn't you see the long lines yesterday?:D
There was a Sprint store in Honolulu that apparently had 50 people waiting outside for a Pre. I’m sure that there will be some out of the way AT&T store that has less than 50 people for the iPhone release. This is impressive, considering that Mark Elliot of Sprint stated that they didn’t even want lines to form. I’m sure he was devastated that some small ones did.

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 04:55 PM

You have the PRE ? The PRE is out already ?

The pre has been out for a day or two i guess. but he sounds like he's had it for some time. whether he has or hasn't had it awhile, it still sounds like there's some bias corollary to the "mind control" apple fans are under.

appler0x

06-07-2009, 05:09 PM

Reading this forum is like being in a middle school cafeteria...

That being said, I do have to add my two cents. Yes, the Palm Pre can multitask, but what everyone seems to forget is that its applications are written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, not Objective-C like the iPhone. iPhone apps have native access to all sorts of APIs and services like Core Animation, OpenGL, etc. Does the Pre? Nope. I'm not saying that the Pre doesn't give developers access to any type of API (via JavaScript maybe), but what I am saying is that it's a bit like comparing apples (no pun intended) to oranges (wow, Palm's logo does look like an orange lol).

Also - why do we need multitasking so badly? Since the iPhone is a window-less OS, you'd need to hit the home button and select the application running in the background to use it anyway. I really can't think of one app I use that I would want to run in the background. For IM, which is the argument most people make, I use BeejiveIM. Even if I'm not using it, the BeejiveIM servers collect my IMs and present them to me when I use it the next time as if it were actually running the entire time.

Lastly, someone was making the assertion that Apple was too lazy to slim down the OS for the current hardware. Are you kidding me?! It's not like Apple ever rushes out any product, and who are you to make that assumption. Apple took its sweet time developing the iPhone, and made decisions strategically, not hastily. Developers love the iPhone SDK because it offers them thousands of APIs, frameworks, etc, and isn't a 'kiddie' OS designed for second-rate hardware. iPhone OS is a real OS, unlike webOS which is basically a system-wide browser. If Palm ever allows third party apps written natively, you can bet the Pre and its oh-so-holy multitasking won't be able to handle running more than one at a time.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 05:24 PM

This is not good news for the Palm…• http://gizmodo.com/5282279/palm-pre-users-reporting-possible-heat+related-screen-distortion

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 05:31 PM

The issue with battery drain is bogus anyways. If you have processes that eat up battery life simply don't run them unless needed. How much power a background app will use is dependant on how it is written an how often it is scheduled.

The over all point being that 90% of people don't know anything about or would care to learn how to manage the system resources on their phones.

For the convenience of the majority of the consumer market Apple does not allow this option because most people won't understand that they have too many apps open at the same time, they will only understand that their phone is having problems.

The battery issues with multitasking have been shown in reviews of the Pre. The Pre has been getting lack luster reviews on battery life and some reviewers have pointed out that multitasking clearly slows down the phones processes and can cause stalls or crashing.

As a side note it was just pointed out to me that yes indeed mail runs in background or at least part of it does.

Of course mail runs in the background, how else would you receive an email when mail is closed.

brucep

06-07-2009, 05:58 PM

The pre has been out for a day or two i guess. but he sounds like he's had it for some time. whether he has or hasn't had it awhile, it still sounds like there's some bias corollary to the "mind control" apple fans are under.He seemed to have it for weeks.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 06:10 PM

Hopefully it ends up being a small isolated problem. As often these types of things end ip being.

This is not good news for the Palm…• http://gizmodo.com/5282279/palm-pre-users-reporting-possible-heat+related-screen-distortion

solipsism

06-07-2009, 06:17 PM

Hopefully it ends up being a small isolated problem. As often these types of things end ip being.

I hope so, for Palm’s sake. The amount of people with issues compared to how few devices stores received compared to other devices at launch doesn’t look promising. The good thing for Palm is that if there is a HW issue they may be able to fix it for the next batch making it a very short term problem, despite the returns.

Quadra 610

06-07-2009, 06:21 PM

So what happened? Where's all the Pre hoopla and celebration?

Palm actually said they didn't want long lineups.

Right. Sure they didn't. :lol:

MacTripper

06-07-2009, 06:26 PM

umm

hummmm

solipsism

06-07-2009, 06:31 PM

umm

hummmm

x2

Tofino

06-07-2009, 06:46 PM

[QUOTE=teckstud;1427078]These fanboys make me laugh so hard. Every iPhone user I know in NYC:

-snip-

leave to you to bring the word 'fanboys' into it... :no:

rishio

06-07-2009, 06:47 PM

Thank you Daniel,

Multitasking multiple apps does not necessarily mean battery drain. For example, why would a calendar app running the background take so much power to sit idle while the contacts app is running in the foreground?

Multitasking is very useful.

How many times have you got an sms app interrupt what you are doing. In order to fully read it, you have to quit the application you are currently in, open sms, view and reply to the message, quit the sms app, open the app you were previously in and continue with what you were doing.

How many times have you wanted to listen to Pandora while using google maps in your car while the device is plugged in!

How many times are you responding to an email and you want to refer to a web page to copy/paste info without quitting the email program?

If I want to run process intensive apps in the background - like IM perhaps - it's my choice. I don't have to run it in the background. With the iPhone, it's Apple's choice. I personally prefer to be in control...

Even though multitasking is possible in the iphone, what is beautiful about it in the PRE is the user interface to it! Tell me how Apple is going to bolt on multitasking, or non-intrusive notifications without breaking the software it is already running. They have to deal with their legacy UI decisions... The card metaphor for the PRE was brilliant and that is what really makes multitasking on it unique... I think Apple will eventually add multitasking - but I have no idea what their UI to it will be...

If I want to run 10 cards doing crazy things in the background - perhaps I could on the pre - but why would I. The iPhone does win on simplicity - in forcing the user to use one app at a time - but it's like putting a 10 foot fence around top of the Himalayas preventing us from jumping over - I'd rather it not be there. I won't jump but I do want to enjoy the view.

This all said - I love the iPhone. The pre wouldn't have existed without it setting the example of what is possible. I think the PRE is more of a blackberry killer than an iPhone killer...

I don't think the pre will die for a long time. this battery argument is so ridiculous. Apple has total mind control over apple fans it is so sad. The battery life is my choice with the pre. I have a pre and an iphone 3g. The pre WITH multitasking gets about the same battery life as the 3g give or take 30 minutes. The reason the iphone doesn't multitask is because the phone doesn't have the power to do it. With the pre I can have 6-10 apps open and still scroll through contacts or type an email lag free. On my iphone if I play music in the backround safari crashes. I scroll through contacts and it lags when nothing elde is going on. On the pre I am typing this msg while 3 other browsers are open and when I go back to them the page is still there it doesn't have to reload, I have 2 you tube videos also buffering in the backround and still with all 6 of these apps open I can type this msg with no lag. Also the browser has never crashed even with 12 apps open. This is amazing because my battery still lasts a day. The iphone is good the pre is a little better for me because the multitask is needed. I know the pre will be around for a long time especially in february 2010 when its on sprint, At&t, and verizon. The pre will blow up with users.

rishio

06-07-2009, 06:54 PM

Everyone is so hung up over graphic intensive, battery hogging, 3d games. If you ask me, I think socially connected games are the next big thing. I'd rather join up in a game of risk or monopoly where I can play with other people over the internet. Or perhaps scrabble that I could play with my girlfriend during lunch breaks here and there.. The WebOS has no limitations to these type of games and I think they will be more popular than racing that Ferrari f40 on the little iphone screen..

There are a lot of possibilities for games outside of virtual reality type stuff...

Not surprising given that Rubenstein was probably able to poach a bunch of former Apple engineers.

Besides the keyboard which seems to be very small and uncomfortable for male hands, the Palm pre looks very nice. The next-gen 600Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 is blazing fast --- twice as fast as the older iPhone ARM11 at a given frequency and running 50% higher clockspeed --- and the PoweVR "SGX-530" graphics core is also a lot better than the "MBX lite" in the iPhone.

The OS and interface is well designed and engineered and provides a very good experience. I think one major challenge will be how well they integrate the programming API into the lower-level subsystems. If developers are stuck with basic HTML/CSS and Javascript without things like hardware accelerated SVG/Canvas, javascript->OpenGL bindings, custom high-level 3D Javascript library, etc, then the applications will be pretty limited, and you can forget about advanced iPhone-level games.

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 07:13 PM

...You go to the browser. Shift open de keyboard. Type in the web address. Slide it in again to read the website. Now imagine that you are reading a web page sideways (which I do a lot). You then want to go to a different web site. You first have to turn the phone, shift open the keyboard, type in the address, shift the keyboard back in and turn the phone sideways again. What an obvious design error. At least they should have, just like the G1, have the keyboard come out from the side...My guess is that they chose to optimize this for one-handed operation.

Landscape keyboards require two hands, so it make it hard to operate and sip your latte at the same time... Not to mention when you're running thru the airport with a briefcase.

My $.02

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 07:22 PM

Thank you Daniel,

Multitasking multiple apps does not necessarily mean battery drain. For example, why would a calendar app running the background take so much power to sit idle while the contacts app is running in the foreground?

Multitasking is very useful.

How many times have you got an sms app interrupt what you are doing. In order to fully read it, you have to quit the application you are currently in, open sms, view and reply to the message, quit the sms app, open the app you were previously in and continue with what you were doing.

How many times have you wanted to listen to Pandora while using google maps in your car while the device is plugged in!

How many times are you responding to an email and you want to refer to a web page to copy/paste info without quitting the email program?

If I want to run process intensive apps in the background - like IM perhaps - it's my choice. I don't have to run it in the background. With the iPhone, it's Apple's choice. I personally prefer to be in control...

Even though multitasking is possible in the iphone, what is beautiful about it in the PRE is the user interface to it! Tell me how Apple is going to bolt on multitasking, or non-intrusive notifications without breaking the software it is already running. They have to deal with their legacy UI decisions... The card metaphor for the PRE was brilliant and that is what really makes multitasking on it unique... I think Apple will eventually add multitasking - but I have no idea what their UI to it will be...

If I want to run 10 cards doing crazy things in the background - perhaps I could on the pre - but why would I. The iPhone does win on simplicity - in forcing the user to use one app at a time - but it's like putting a 10 foot fence around top of the Himalayas preventing us from jumping over - I'd rather it not be there. I won't jump but I do want to enjoy the view.

This all said - I love the iPhone. The pre wouldn't have existed without it setting the example of what is possible. I think the PRE is more of a blackberry killer than an iPhone killer...

Good argument, although few people are challenging the usefulness of multitasking. We all see its utility and would like to have it on the iphone yesterday.

The argument is over whether or not its practical yet, and how necessary it is, and what things can be put in place to mitigate its necessity (i.e. push-style cloud alerts for third party apps.)

And while it would be an option to have it be up to the user which apps can run in the background and which cant, the debate there is whether or not users are willing and savvy enough to manage them properly.

Again I refer to the guy who said he can only operate with his iphone at full brightness then would come here and complain about the battery life.

Quite honestly, I can see both sides, but I would prefer not to have users mismanaging the background feature, then complaining, giving the iphone a bad reputation, and ultimately hurting my apple stock. I would rather see the cloud notifications come into effect.

DocNo42

06-07-2009, 07:39 PM

Multitasking multiple apps does not necessarily mean battery drain. For example, why would a calendar app running the background take so much power to sit idle while the contacts app is running in the foreground?

Why would you even need a calendar app "running idle" in the background anyway?

Multitasking is very useful.

It can be, but it also introduces complexity and if not managed properly it can ruin the user experience.

Apple is all about the user experience...

How many times have you got an sms app interrupt what you are doing. In order to fully read it, you have to quit the application you are currently in, open sms, view and reply to the message, quit the sms app, open the app you were previously in and continue with what you were doing.

Well, since iPhone apps (at least the well written ones, which is the majority I have downloaded) save your state, and since it's flash based there isn't that much of a penalty for re-loading programs, it isn't as big a deal to me.

I'd rather have a lightweight OS task (say, oh I don't know - a push notification manager) that can have one connection for multiple applications running, then multiple full blown applications, each with their own sockets open.

Mobile devices have limited resources, battery being the most precious - why have multiple listeners running when one will do? That's the whole point behind push notifications.

How many times have you wanted to listen to Pandora while using google maps in your car while the device is plugged in!

I agree, third party music apps in the background is one class of application where background processing is mandatory.

How many times are you responding to an email and you want to refer to a web page to copy/paste info without quitting the email program?

None. With the iPhone OS, it saves my state in the web browser and email apps, so there is no need for them to be running in the background. Actually for your scenario to work, we need copy and paste first :)

If I want to run process intensive apps in the background - like IM perhaps - it's my choice. I don't have to run it in the background. With the iPhone, it's Apple's choice. I personally prefer to be in control...

Then the iPhone isn't for you.

Pretty simple, eh?

Even though multitasking is possible in the iphone, what is beautiful about it in the PRE is the user interface to it! Tell me how Apple is going to bolt on multitasking

You do realize that the iPhone OS already multitasks? They just don't expose that functionality to developers?

or non-intrusive notifications without breaking the software it is already running.They have to deal with their legacy UI decisions...

Ah yes, because it's impossible to update shipping software. They are so screwed in implementing copy and paste.

Oh, wait....

The card metaphor for the PRE was brilliant and that is what really makes multitasking on it unique... I think Apple will eventually add multitasking - but I have no idea what their UI to it will be...

It remains to be seen how brilliant the card metaphor is. The phones haven't been getting heavy use. And there is nothing to say that Apple doesn't already have something in mind for the future.

In fact I would be shocked if they didn't. The SDK didn't happen overnight - it was obviously always part of the plan, although they did seem to take their sweet time with copy and paste.

I think it's reasonable to expect some of what was described in some of the rumors - one or two special positions on the rumored replacement for the iPhone app launcher that allow apps placed in those slots to run in the background. Really the only two apps that I can think of that have to run in the background are apps like Pandora that stream music and where parity with the iPod app would be desirable, and apps that access things like the GPS. I would love to be able to keep Trails on while I am taking pictures so my GPS tagging is always up to date.

I think this is a good compromise between allowing background apps but not allowing users to totally shoot themselves in the foot - it makes it a little more obvious what is happening.

Time will tell...

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 07:39 PM

...And if you do run out of battery, you can always switch it with a new one. Something the iPhone lacks. Oh, and at least I don't have to buy a new phone if my battery dies (or take it to Apple), all I have to do is go to Amazon and buy a new battery, and switch it.Every time I read about being able to swap in a fresh battery, I think "right. that's good!".

But say you have 2 or 3 batteries. How do you deal with the practical issue of keeping them all charged? The thought of that gives me a headache.

For my current phone, I charge it while I'm sleeping. Simple. No thinking/planning/worrying required.

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 07:42 PM

I would be surprised if Palm has any repair process for any component. These electronics components are not like the cylinder head of your car.

Repair of any specific component within ANY cellphone almost never happens. Instead, manufacturers replace failed components with brand new components.

If subassembly X fails, it is replaced with a new subassembly X. The failed component is then sold to a vendor where its raw materials are reclaimed.

Cell phone subcomponents are virtually NEVER repaired, except in the extremely rare case where an expensive subcomponent has a very common failure mode, and which can be permanently repaired very inexpensively.As I understand it, when you send your phone to Palm for repair, you don't actually get the same phone back. Instead they just swap it with a refurbished one.

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 07:51 PM

... On average iPhone users have around 100 apps loaded...Seriously?!!? People really load that many apps? Wow! Clearly I'm holding the average down.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 07:52 PM

But say you have 2 or 3 batteries. How do you deal with the practical issue of keeping them all charged? The thought of that gives me a headache.

That is one of the downfalls that an external charger usually avoids. Most of the battery packs appear to be Lithium Ion of some sort and come with their own AC to DC cable, others use AA-batteries and some act as iPhone cases/covers that have a power (and sync) passthrough using the 30-pin connector, for which they pay a licensing fee, so you can keep it on the device all the time.

Those external battery packs are actually charging the phone and you get multiple uses iPhone charge ups out of many of them with each battery pack charge. Charging to about 80% happens very quickly (I forget the average times) so you don’t have to keep it plugged it all the tim.

rishio

06-07-2009, 07:54 PM

Good argument, although few people are challenging the usefulness of multitasking. We all see its utility and would like to have it on the iphone yesterday.

The argument is over whether or not its practical yet, and how necessary it is, and what things can be put in place to mitigate its necessity (i.e. push-style cloud alerts for third party apps.)

And while it would be an option to have it be up to the user which apps can run in the background and which cant, the debate there is whether or not users are willing and savvy enough to manage them properly.

Again I refer to the guy who said he can only operate with his iphone at full brightness then would come here and complain about the battery life.

Quite honestly, I can see both sides, but I would prefer not to have users mismanaging the background feature, then complaining, giving the iphone a bad reputation, and ultimately hurting my apple stock. I would rather see the cloud notifications come into effect.

I can see both sides also and I think it's silly to call the Pre users to call it the iPhone killer and it's silly for iPhone users to call Pre a gimmick. I'm amazed at how some of the posts I'm reading seem almost like a war between religions. There is a good sized market for both devices and the design/philosophy of the PRE vibes really well for the way I would use the device. It's so nice that Apple finally has competition so they are motivated to use their billions and do something about it!

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 07:56 PM

How many times are you responding to an email and you want to refer to a web page to copy/paste info without quitting the email program?

Also, according to the Gizmodo review, you cannot do that with the Pre either. You can only copy/paste within a text editing field.

"Copying and pasting only works in text fields where you can write, not when reading emails or SMS or web pages."

http://gizmodo.com/5277499/palm-pre-review?skyline=true&s=x

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 07:56 PM

I'd love an app for the iPhone and Mac that let me edit the corrected word list.

Apple has a patent for predictive text UI that lists words that look like the word you are attempting to type. That allows you to more easily select the exact word. This UI is used in Google's iPhone app. I wonder why Apple does not use it system wide.The iPhone clearly has something more than a simple dictionary look-up.

I swear it "learns" my odd words.... but then if I go a while without using them it seems to "forget".

This drives me nuts, because I can never trust if it's going to auto-correct the same way it has previously.

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 08:02 PM

I didnt like the pre at all, I dont like the iphone either.
In fact, its plain pitiful that NO American carrier lets you do simultaneous
voice and DATA.In the case of the Palm Pre, this is a limitation of the Sprint EVDO network... not the webOS.

Oddly, I don't know if my Edge AT&T iPhone can do this because I've never tried in the two years I've had it.

Even if the phone could let me talk and surf the internet at the same time, I don't think my poor brain could do it. :\

rishio

06-07-2009, 08:03 PM

Yes - and I hope Palm improves on this.. The PRE is far from perfect!

That said, I feel as though they have thought about this and it should be implemented shortly considering there is cut,copy and paste menu items in places where you can't even do it.

I think they did a great job for a version 1.0 and covered things well enough that they won't have to backtrack to add most of the requested features..

And their are def annoying bugs in the PRE... just as there were in iPhone when it was released.. They've got a lot of catch up work to do...

Also, according to the Gizmodo review, you cannot do that with the Pre either. You can only copy/paste within a text editing field.

"Copying and pasting only works in text fields where you can write, not when reading emails or SMS or web pages."

http://gizmodo.com/5277499/palm-pre-review?skyline=true&s=x

rishio

06-07-2009, 08:06 PM

There are a few nice things about Sprint..

- The plans are cheaper than AT&T and Verizon. Unlimited text messaging is useful for me...
- It roams for free on Verizon.. I don't know why nobody talks about this!

In the case of the Palm Pre, this is a limitation of the Sprint EVDO network... not the webOS.

Oddly, I don't know if my Edge AT&T iPhone can do this because I've never tried in the two years I've had it.

Even if the phone could let me talk and surf the internet at the same time, I don't think my poor brain could do it. :\

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 08:10 PM

One of the downfalls of GSM over CDMA is that while on a CDMA2000 network you can make a call in CDMA which uses considerably less power than a WCDMA connection which will make a call in 3G.I have no idea what that means.

The problem is that there are marketing names for things ("3G") that don't really map to the technical things like the on-board radio. So all of this stuff get's terribly confusing fast.

Maybe I'm just getting old. After all, I remember when cell phones actually were analog cellular and were the form-factor of a brick in a purse.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 08:21 PM

I have no idea what that means.

The problem is that there are marketing names for things ("3G") that don't really map to the technical things like the on-board radio. So all of this stuff get's terribly confusing fast.

Maybe I'm just getting old. After all, I remember when cell phones actually were analog cellular and were the form-factor of a brick in a purse.
it is very confusing. I have to thank Winterspan from this forum for finally giving me the Rosette Stone that laid the foundation for some clarify with the farrago that is mobile communications. I’ll try to be more clear…

I’m saying that Verizon and Sprint’s voice calls on their 2G networks will sound better than on AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s 2G network, simple because of the technologies involved. I then stated that Sprint and Verizon, while connected to a 3G network can still make and receive calls on the 2G network, while AT&T and T-Mobile can’t do this, which means that when monitoring 3G standby times and talk times between phones the Verizon and Sprint customers will show a more efficient device if the only difference is the radio type used.

rishio

06-07-2009, 08:26 PM

Why would you even need a calendar app "running idle" in the background anyway?

So you don't have to quit one in order to launch the other. Can you imagine not being able to run iCal and Address book at the same time on the Mac?

It can be, but it also introduces complexity and if not managed properly it can ruin the user experience.

Apple is all about the user experience...

True, but I think that the WebOS makes this complexity simpler than any other platform out there. The cards UI is kind of like using expose on the Mac.

Well, since iPhone apps (at least the well written ones, which is the majority I have downloaded) save your state, and since it's flash based there isn't that much of a penalty for re-loading programs, it isn't as big a deal to me.

The iPhone has a lot of good things about it also! I wouldn't have bought it if it sucked...

I'd rather have a lightweight OS task (say, oh I don't know - a push notification manager) that can have one connection for multiple applications running, then multiple full blown applications, each with their own sockets open.

Mobile devices have limited resources, battery being the most precious - why have multiple listeners running when one will do? That's the whole point behind push notifications.

Push notifications are great - the PRE has them also. I just don't like how it can pop up a window and disrupt what you are doing. Imagine you have 10 apps pushing notifications to you and they are all popping up windows like the SMS does. The PRE's notification slides up from the bottom and doesn't stop you from doing what you were doing. When you respond to the notification, it opens up a new card so that you can deal with it and then go back to the card you were working on all without quitting and launching apps.. This is one of the benefits of multitasking..

None. With the iPhone OS, it saves my state in the web browser and email apps, so there is no need for them to be running in the background. Actually for your scenario to work, we need copy and paste first :)

It just much faster and more fluid to switch between cards than it is to quit and launch apps on the iPhone.

Then the iPhone isn't for you.

Pretty simple, eh?

Agreed! But I'll say it again, the iPhone is a beautiful device. If there wasn't a Pre, I'd stick with the iPhone.

You do realize that the iPhone OS already multitasks? They just don't expose that functionality to developers?

Yes. But they don't have a good interface to multitask. Double clicking the home button to get to your iPod or Phone is not very elegant. They don't have a general purpose multitasking interface to allow you to control what you want to multitask. It's all about the interface...

Ah yes, because it's impossible to update shipping software. They are so screwed in implementing copy and paste.

Oh, wait....

haha.. both companies will be updating their software.. I can bet that iPhone will have multitasking in the future. Can you imagine 5 yrs from now when they have processors than run 20x as fast and longer battery life.. and they still don't multitask?? No way..

It remains to be seen how brilliant the card metaphor is. The phones haven't been getting heavy use. And there is nothing to say that Apple doesn't already have something in mind for the future.

In fact I would be shocked if they didn't. The SDK didn't happen overnight - it was obviously always part of the plan, although they did seem to take their sweet time with copy and paste.

I think it's reasonable to expect some of what was described in some of the rumors - one or two special positions on the rumored replacement for the iPhone app launcher that allow apps placed in those slots to run in the background. Really the only two apps that I can think of that have to run in the background are apps like Pandora that stream music and where parity with the iPod app would be desirable, and apps that access things like the GPS. I would love to be able to keep Trails on while I am taking pictures so my GPS tagging is always up to date.

I think this is a good compromise between allowing background apps but not allowing users to totally shoot themselves in the foot - it makes it a little more obvious what is happening.

Time will tell...

Agreed. But I do like the current cards implementation on WebOS. I'm looking forward to seeing Apple's solution when they announce it. They always come up with great ideas that I certainly never thought about! Expose is a good example.. Looking forward to tomorrow's announcements... But that said, I will be using a PRE and I like it for more than just multitasking (but that's a whole new discussion..)

cheers..

TommyWillB

06-07-2009, 08:27 PM

You have the PRE ? The PRE is out already ?It hit stores on Friday. 8-)

cameronj

06-07-2009, 08:31 PM

Seriously?!!? People really load that many apps? Wow! Clearly I'm holding the average down.

Tenobell made that number up ;)

cameronj

06-07-2009, 08:32 PM

Also, according to the Gizmodo review, you cannot do that with the Pre either. You can only copy/paste within a text editing field.

"Copying and pasting only works in text fields where you can write, not when reading emails or SMS or web pages."

http://gizmodo.com/5277499/palm-pre-review?skyline=true&s=x

Ha! Hilarious!

solipsism

06-07-2009, 08:40 PM

True, but I think that the WebOS makes this complexity simpler than any other platform out there. The cards UI is kind of like using expose on the Mac.
With the caveat that the apps are like Dashboard Widgets.

Push notifications are great - the PRE has them also.
I haven’t heard about this. It’s proven to be a complete setup for Apple to tie all apps into a PN server. Are you talking about Push email, SMS and voicemails, or a systemwide PN service that allows all 3rd-party developers tie into? Besides the complexity I wouldn’t think they would even consider such a solution since they are pushing background apps so heavily.

I just don't like how it can pop up a window and disrupt what you are doing. Imagine you have 10 apps pushing notifications to you and they are all popping up windows like the SMS does. The PRE's notification slides up from the bottom and doesn't stop you from doing what you were doing. When you respond to the notification, it opens up a new card so that you can deal with it and then go back to the card you were working on all without quitting and launching apps.. This is one of the benefits of multitasking.
Apple does need to completely revamp their notification message overlay. It is not a future-forward design.

It just much faster and more fluid to switch between cards than it is to quit and launch apps on the iPhone.
It is only if you have acceptable HW for your OS and apps. The device is already pushed to it’s limits which is why we’ll never see background apps retroactively added to the original and current iPhone.

Yes. But they don't have a good interface to multitask. Double clicking the home button to get to your iPod or Phone is not very elegant. They don't have a general purpose multitasking interface to allow you to control what you want to multitask. It's all about the interface.
There is a rumour of an extra button, which I think would be needed for voice dialing. If Apple were to add background apps to the next iPhone (which I think is quite likely) they could easily do it by having you do a 3 or 4 finger left or right swipe in any app. I would imagine that this feature would have to be setup ahead of time in Settings to allow a particular app(s) to run in the background with sandboxed RAM that allow it to run well while still allowing other apps to run well, too.

haha.. both companies will be updating their software.. I can bet that iPhone will have multitasking in the future. Can you imagine 5 yrs from now when they have processors than run 20x as fast and longer battery life.. and they still don't multitask?? No way.
We’ll still complain that they aren’t fast enough. :D

rishio

06-07-2009, 08:41 PM

Ha! Hilarious!

What is more hilarious is that the Palm Pre has cut and paste before the iPhone!

addabox

06-07-2009, 08:44 PM

So you don't have to quit one in order to launch the other. Can you imagine not being able to run iCal and Address book at the same time on the Mac?

But of course the difference there is that on a Mac I have this nice big screen that allows me to arrange multiple apps windows where I can see them simultaneously.

Cell phones, the other hand, are pretty much limited to one app on the screen at a time, which is why Apple's version of saving states isn't so radically different from actual multitasking, in practice.

Yes, some apps might take a moment to load, but I expect that this will be improved with the new hardware.

In the example of a calendar and contacts list app being open at the same time, it would appear to me it would work like this:

iPhone: from calender app, press home button, then press address book icon.

Pre: assuming both calender and contact apps are open, flick over however many cards are necessary to get from one to the other.

If app starting from a saved state on the iPhone is pretty speedy, I'm not really convinced that "multitasking", in this case, does anything very important, beyond a certain psychological satisfaction of "knowing" where the next app is and having the sense that it is there waiting for me.

I agree that audio apps make a good place to get some multitasking action, since you can have the screen occupied by an app at the same time you're listening to something else. If the new iPhone does anything with user facing multitasking, I would expect it to be in this area.

solipsism

06-07-2009, 08:45 PM

What is more hilarious is that the Palm Pre has cut and paste before the iPhone!

Considering that Apple had never before made a phone, was probably more concerned with shrinking their desktop OS and writing a new UI than working on features, and WebOS rumored to have been in development for mobile devices before the iPhone project, I can’t help but think that the Pre should have copy/paste before the iPhone.

addabox

06-07-2009, 08:48 PM

Considering that Apple had never before made a phone, was probably more concerned with shrinking their desktop OS and writing a new UI than working on features, and WebOS rumored to have been in development for mobile devices before the iPhone project, I can’t help but think that the Pre should have copy/paste before the iPhone.

Moreover, it appears that the iPhone will have far more functional, general purpose cut and paste before the Pre expands its functionality beyond text entry fields.

Which, given that Palm has been in the handheld business as long as anyone, could be considered "hilarious", I guess. I don't, but, you know......

rishio

06-07-2009, 08:51 PM

But of course the difference there is that on a Mac I have this nice big screen that allows me to arrange multiple apps windows where I can see them simultaneously.

Cell phones, the other hand, are pretty much limited to one app on the screen at a time, which is why Apple's version of saving states isn't so radically different from actual multitasking, in practice.

Yes, some apps might take a moment to load, but I expect that this will be improved with the new hardware.

In the example of a calendar and contacts list app being open at the same time, it would appear to me it would work like this:

iPhone: from calender app, press home button, then press address book icon.

Pre: assuming both calender and contact apps are open, flick over however many cards are necessary to get from one to the other.

If app starting from a saved state on the iPhone is pretty speedy, I'm not really convinced that "multitasking", in this case, does anything very important, beyond a certain psychological satisfaction of "knowing" where the next app is and having the sense that it is there waiting for me.

I agree that audio apps make a good place to get some multitasking action, since you can have the screen occupied by an app at the same time you're listening to something else. If the new iPhone does anything with user facing multitasking, I would expect it to be in this area.

I think the best thing to do is compare the iPhone that Apple will announce tomorrow with the Pre that Palm released yesterday. I am not happy with my current iPhone experience of quitting and launching apps.. Even after you quit, you have to find the app. Switching between apps on the Pre has been incredibly fluid to me..

You can even do one swipe across the gesture area to go to adjacent cards.. Just one swipe...

solipsism

06-07-2009, 08:53 PM

Moreover, it appears that the iPhone will have far more functional, general purpose cut and paste before the Pre expands its functionality beyond text entry fields.

It’s very functional, and I rarely use it for actual copy/paste. I do use it for replying to forums where I can easily cut the window text out completely or a portion of it before replying. I hate replying to the whole post or article if I can help it. Previously it was too much of a chore, especially with the typing/deleting lag in v2.0

The undue typing/paste feature is also handy. Just shake once and a nifty Undue/Cancel overlay bounces onto the screen. Once you use it you realize that it was well thought out and not simply thrown in there to merit a checkmark on a spec sheet.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 08:58 PM

It's an average from all iPhone users. Which means some users have far more than 100 and some users have far less

Seriously?!!? People really load that many apps? Wow! Clearly I'm holding the average down.

rishio

06-07-2009, 09:00 PM

Moreover, it appears that the iPhone will have far more functional, general purpose cut and paste before the Pre expands its functionality beyond text entry fields.

Which, given that Palm has been in the handheld business as long as anyone, could be considered "hilarious", I guess. I don't, but, you know......

Yes you are right.. Palm only made the right decisions after that Ruinstein took over..

But Palm and Apple have been going back and forth for a long time. Don't forget about the Newton versus the Palm classic.. And how Apple took engineers from Palm to start off with.. Steve Jobs even wanted to buy Palm at one point..

Palm today reminds me a lot about Apple when Steve Jobs took over.. The stock was low and Amelio got Steve on board who took control of the company... and now it's Ed Colligan calling Jon Rubinstein who is taking control over Palm!

They have ripped it apart and now are putting it back together..

I shouldn't have responded to that whole hilarious comment :)

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 09:02 PM

No, actually I didn't. That came from a survey of iPhone users. I don't remember the exact number but it was around 100. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Tenobell made that number up ;)

solipsism

06-07-2009, 09:03 PM

It's an average from all iPhone users. Which means some users have far more than 100 and some users have far less

I have DLed several hundred, but thought that I only load about 40. I checked my iPhone, I have 6 pages. At 16 per page, not including the bottom row, that is 96 apps. But the last page is only half full and their are nearly a page of default apps from Apple, so the number is around 80. Surprisingly to me, I use all these apps on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. About 15 of them are used repeatedly everyday. Crazy being so off on the apps you use. Now imagine if all of them were running on my iPhone.

I’m not one to keep apps I’m not using so I’d say that number is pretty accurate.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 09:06 PM

The iPhone will have system wide cut and paste before the Pre.

What is more hilarious is that the Palm Pre has cut and paste before the iPhone!

cameronj

06-07-2009, 09:27 PM

It's an average from all iPhone users. Which means some users have far more than 100 and some users have far less

Uh, right. How many users have far more than 100? Considering the absolute max you can get on there is 9 pages (which works out to 144 new apps I think) you clearly are making things up. There's no way enough users have 44 extra apps to make up for all the users who have downloaded only a handful. No chance. Find a source for that claim.

cameronj

06-07-2009, 09:30 PM

I shouldn't have responded to that whole hilarious comment :)

If anyone who is a fan of the Pre is touting it's copy and paste and iPhone's lack of it, that's pitiful. The fact that you can only copy and paste from text entry fields means it's essentially worthless! How pitiful. You're right, you shouldn't have replied to the comment because there's no defending a brand new OS coming out today having such a half baked implementation of copy and paste. This is exactly what makes many people so confident about Apple - they don't do half baked. Users who buy a Pre because they were looking for something with copy and paste will be upset and will contribute to general bad word of mouth. Hilarious!

webmail

06-07-2009, 09:30 PM

Wow this is some BS, my summer home is on Martha's Vineyard, and I have several cellphones, my iPhone works just fine.

I talk about 1-2 hours a day on the phone, my verizon windows mobile devices often freeze up and you can't even push the "answer" button because the device has run out of memory (RAM). Yes the iphone eats battery, but i can tell you right now, I spent 4 hours on the phone last night, and this morning i made about a 10 minute call. It gave me the 20% battery warning, (total 3 days).

I'm guessing your friends do charge there's at night. What you don't take way from this, is you see all kinds of problems with the iPhone, yet your friends continue to use them. Must be something really, really special about the iPhone.

One of the windows mobile touch phones i have, isn't even touch, sure people think they get a touchscreen phone that it's like windows mobile, but it's nothing like it. You can just push on the screen, you can't move your fingers. It makes touch screens appear to suck in general, and they think "it has touch like the iphone!" it's nothing like it.

I'm a blackberry addict who uses his iPhone way more. I can type faster on the iPhone that my blackberry. I generally keep it as a backup device.

I travel about 4 days a week, and the iPhone last longer than a day, my business is calling clients, and traveling, I think I'd have a pretty reasonable idea of battery life. I can tell you pound for pound, all my windows phones dye first, and my blackberry bites it usually before my iphone depending on the tasks.

The iPhone is an amazing device, I was very resistant to it and bought it as a "new toy" to play with because it was all over the news. Now I can't use any other phone, because there's so many little problems with it. The iPhone is the first phone I don't swear at everyday.

Apple managed to accomplish in two years what blackberry, and microsoft (with billions of dollars) haven't done in 10 years. They should be embarrassed! I've bitched for 10 years about having a browser on the mobile phone, microsoft and blackberry either hate their customers or are lazy.

Doing an update on those phones are nightmares, I still cant' get my berry to twitter client to install after update.

These fanboys make me laugh so hard. Every iPhone user I know in NYC:

1.) Has to constantly (daily) recharge their iPhone or leave it plugged in while using it. CONSTANTLY.

2.) At the beach houses none of them get a signal- either Martha's Vineyard or Fire Island- their phone just don't work!

3.) My friend just got back from Hawaii and said his Verizon phone was the only one in his group that got a signal. No iPhones could maintain a call. People were borrowing his phone.;

Summary- both the Battery life and AT&T are a joke.

rishio

06-07-2009, 09:37 PM

dude - chill out :)

Copy and Paste is not my number one criteria. I rarely thought about it during my time with the iPhone..

Besides - you never know.. the Pre may have a more powerful copy/paste implementation by the time Apple releases 3.0...

And I'm not trying to defend the PRE. There is another feature that they are missing that is in iPhone 3.0 - UNDO.. I just requested it..

If anyone who is a fan of the Pre is touting it's copy and paste and iPhone's lack of it, that's pitiful. The fact that you can only copy and paste from text entry fields means it's essentially worthless! How pitiful. You're right, you shouldn't have replied to the comment because there's no defending a brand new OS coming out today having such a half baked implementation of copy and paste. This is exactly what makes many people so confident about Apple - they don't do half baked. Users who buy a Pre because they were looking for something with copy and paste will be upset and will contribute to general bad word of mouth. Hilarious!

cameronj

06-07-2009, 09:41 PM

No, actually I didn't. That came from a survey of iPhone users. I don't remember the exact number but it was around 100. I'll see if I can dig it up.

You did make it up.

Some VERY simple math would have told you your number was ridiculous, not to mention common sense.

First, common sense.

You REALLY think the AVERAGE user runs around with fully 7 PAGES of apps? I'm not talking about your nerdy friends. I'm talking about the average dummy in the bar with the iPhone. 7 PAGES??

OK now for the easy math.

Apple has sold 1 billion apps. Apple had sold 37 million touch handhelds as of April 23.

Can you do the math from there?

Feel free to adjust that number for the apps that are downloaded and then uninstalled.

The actual number of apps on the average user's iPhone is under 20.

wilco

06-07-2009, 09:54 PM

Well admin can contact his isp . And complain about his abusive language. No?

Good thing for you people don't get banned for making barely-literate posts.

halfyearsun

06-07-2009, 10:26 PM

d

Besides - you never know.. the Pre may have a more powerful copy/paste implementation by the time Apple releases 3.0...

you mean by tomorrow?

sorry. i couldn't resist. i know copy/paste isn't the be all end all for you. i. just couldn't resist.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 10:32 PM

So you don't have to quit one in order to launch the other. Can you imagine not being able to run iCal and Address book at the same time on the Mac?

The system resources and screen space are available to make this practical on a computer. There isn't as much point on a phone.

True, but I think that the WebOS makes this complexity simpler than any other platform out there. The cards UI is kind of like using expose on the Mac.

I agree the cards UI is a good development. At the same time it's essentially the same UI as Safari on the iPhone.

Push notifications are great - the PRE has them also. I just don't like how it can pop up a window and disrupt what you are doing.

The Pre has notifications, but Palm does not have an API and push notifications service the same as Apple. It's also possible Apple may introduce a new notifications UI to deal with multiple messages. Apple often doesn't show new UI's until the software is ready to launch.

It just much faster and more fluid to switch between cards than it is to quit and launch apps on the iPhone.

That's because it's quicker to switch web pages than it is to switch apps built on Objective-C and Open GL.

rishio

06-07-2009, 10:49 PM

you mean by tomorrow?

sorry. i couldn't resist. i know copy/paste isn't the be all end all for you. i. just couldn't resist.

hmm.. I wouldn't bet on 3.0 being released tomorrow.

TenoBell

06-07-2009, 10:58 PM

For one it's not my number. I told you saw it in a survey.

The survey was only for iPhone's, not all touch devices.

App Store apps are not the only option for screen icons. There are thousands of web apps and web based services one can use on the iPhone. So no the number of apps sold does not tell the full story of the number of apps and services on the average iPhone.

You did make it up.

Some VERY simple math would have told you your number was ridiculous, not to mention common sense.

You REALLY think the AVERAGE user runs around with fully 7 PAGES of apps? I'm not talking about your nerdy friends. I'm talking about the average dummy in the bar with the iPhone. 7 PAGES??

Apple has sold 1 billion apps. Apple had sold 37 million touch handhelds as of April 23.

Can you do the math from there?

The actual number of apps on the average user's iPhone is under 20.

cameronj

06-07-2009, 11:01 PM

For one it's not my number. I told you saw it in a survey.

The survey was only for iPhone's, not all touch devices.

App Store apps are not the only option for screen icons. There are thousands of web apps and web based services one can use on the iPhone. So no the number of apps sold does not tell the full story of the number of apps and services on the average iPhone.

Right, you didn't make it up, you "saw it somewhere" which you can't seem to find anymore. Oh and the number happens to be almost an order of magnitude out of the realm of possibility.

Jesus, just give up. Your 100 number clearly didn't come from anywhere. What makes you think that iPhones have more apps installed (that's what we were talking about, not "icons on the phone, which the average user CLEARLY has 80 of compared to their 20 apps) than iPod touches?

Just give it up, admit that you remembered it wrong. That's obviously the case. When presented with overwhelming evidence, to continue to deny just makes you look like you can't process information.

addabox

06-07-2009, 11:06 PM

I think the best thing to do is compare the iPhone that Apple will announce tomorrow with the Pre that Palm released yesterday. I am not happy with my current iPhone experience of quitting and launching apps.. Even after you quit, you have to find the app. Switching between apps on the Pre has been incredibly fluid to me..

You can even do one swipe across the gesture area to go to adjacent cards.. Just one swipe...

Sure, and I'm certainly not going to second guess your experience with your Pre, as I don't even own one.

However, the larger context of the multitasking debate is about tradeoffs. Apple chose a heavier duty OS , which left fewer resources available for things like multitasking, because (I believe) they have big plans for this platform and intend to grow its functionality as the hardware gets more capable.

Palm chose "fluid", by using a much lighter weight OS, which may have some issues with expanding on the platform.

I'm guessing that, from Apple's perspective, the kind of interaction you're talking about wasn't a big enough win to throttle their OS right out of the gate. As has been mentioned, it's likely that Apple will implement some form of multitasking as soon as they believe they have the hardware to support it in the way that they want.

At that point the iPhone will match the Pre in this respect, but the Pre will still be saddled with a light weight OS that may not be up to the heavy lifting that I believe people will come to see as the norm in a hand held computer.

It's the difference between a long term strategy and better get something on the market that has instant appeal or we're toast.

And the Pre has a lot of appeal, no doubt. But I just helped a friend balance his new home theater system by using a db meter app on the iPhone, and it's not clear to me at this point that the Pre will ever be capable of that kind of thing.

Not that everybody needs or wants that, but I can't help but suspect that once the average consumer gets a taste of a general purpose computing device with a vast array of apps in the palm of his hand (as it were), they'll find it harder to settle for "can do a few things really well", any more.

sennen

06-07-2009, 11:09 PM

I can see both sides also and I think it's silly to call the Pre users to call it the iPhone killer and it's silly for iPhone users to call Pre a gimmick. I'm amazed at how some of the posts I'm reading seem almost like a war between religions. There is a good sized market for both devices and the design/philosophy of the PRE vibes really well for the way I would use the device. It's so nice that Apple finally has competition so they are motivated to use their billions and do something about it!

i agree 100%. the only reason i have pointed out a few issues with the Pre is to highlight the hypocrisy of an iPhone hater or two hereabouts... competition is good, anything that pushes apple to keep improving the iPhone can only be good for those of us who use it.

rishio

06-07-2009, 11:14 PM

I haven’t heard about this. It’s proven to be a complete setup for Apple to tie all apps into a PN server. Are you talking about Push email, SMS and voicemails, or a systemwide PN service that allows all 3rd-party developers tie into? Besides the complexity I wouldn’t think they would even consider such a solution since they are pushing background apps so heavily.

The Pre's push notification seems pretty sophisticated. It's called the mojo messaging service. Here's a link on it:

http://www.precentral.net/palm-introduce-push-services

motrek

06-07-2009, 11:25 PM

I am a hardware and software engineer and I have to say there's a lot of misunderstanding about multitasking going on.

Before I get started, it might be interesting to readers with jailbroken iPhones to ssh into their phones and run 'top.' You will see that at any given time, the iPhone is running around 20 (?) different processes. Some of the names are recognizable--the phone app, the mail app, the SMS app, etc. I don't know what the others do. But the point is that the iPhone is actually constantly doing quite a bit of multitasking.

And a second point before starting: people claiming that other smartphones like Windows Mobile and S60 can multitask are definitely right. I have owned both and they certainly multitask--and no, this is not fake multitasking where apps simply "appear" to be running. It's quite real. And there should be no reason to doubt this. Cell phone hardware is now higher spec'ed than desktop computers from 12 years ago, which could certainly multitask.

Okay...

The first oft-repeated fallacy here is that the iPhone processor is simply not fast enough to handle multitasking. Multitasking does not imply any level of processor usage. Notice that on any desktop computer, you can open a dozen different apps and run Task Manager, or Activity Monitor, and see that CPU usage is just a couple percent, depending on which apps you open. Fact is, most apps are idle most of the time and consume next to zero CPU resources. Apps on the iPhone which remain open in the background, like Safari (sometimes) or the Phone app are almost always idle and do not slow down your foreground processes.

The second fallacy is that the iPhone does not have enough RAM to multitask. This ignores the idea of virtual memory. The iPhone has over 4GB of flash that can be used for virtual memory--the fact that it "only" has 128MB of RAM is not necessarily a concern. (Although depending on the flash memory controller Apple uses, they may have chosen to disable virtual memory due to poor random-write performance or wear-leveling algorithms. If so, that was a willful decision and not a technical limitation.)

So Apple's (and others') claim that the iPhone does not have enough processor power or memory to multitask is bogus. The problem is really a usability issue. Right now the user model is very simple. To start an app, tap it from springboard. To quit an app, press the home button. As soon as you allow multitasking, you have to create UI to determine if you want to quit an app, or leave it running in the background, or (presumably) to pause it but leave it open. And you need UI to show which apps are running, and ideally which ones are consuming resources that are potentially slowing down the phone, and have UI to change the state of the running apps. Apple clearly did not want to spend the time designing this UI and software, or they felt it was unnecessary for users to be bothered with this functionality. Palm went a different route with the Pre and they seem to have done a good job. I applaud them for that because multitasking is a very nice feature, even (especially?) on a phone. (If you haven't used a phone with a multitasking OS, you may not realize how nice it is and in how many different situations it's useful.)

Chucker

06-08-2009, 12:00 AM

The second fallacy is that the iPhone does not have enough RAM to multitask. This ignores the idea of virtual memory.

It does so because iPhone OS does not have virtual memory. When it runs out of memory, it doesn't swap; it instead starts killing processes.

The iPhone has over 4GB of flash that can be used for virtual memory--the fact that it "only" has 128MB of RAM is not necessarily a concern.

No it can't, and yes it is.

Flash wouldn't really work well as virtual memory anyway; you'd have far too many write cycles, thereby killing the flash too quickly.

(Although depending on the flash memory controller Apple uses, they may have chosen to disable virtual memory due to poor random-write performance or wear-leveling algorithms. If so, that was a willful decision and not a technical limitation.)

It was a willful decision based on very obvious technical limitations.

jaym

06-08-2009, 01:42 AM

In the interest of full disclosure, let me just state my history with the iPhone. I bought an EDGE iPhone for use on T-Mobile right after the 3G came out. I didn't have a data plan for a few months, then signed up for one. About four months after buying it, I ditched the iPhone for a Nokia N95 8GB, which I still have. I think the iPhone is a great device, it just wasn't for me. That in mind, read on...

I registered here just to post a comment. I guess that's probably lame.

I think a big problem is that we approach this, and I use this term with caution on an Apple website, from a fanboy perspective.

Put your pitchforks and torches down for a moment. it's not what you think, and it comes from all sides. Please keep reading, or at least don't blaze me to bits unless you've read it all.

Instead of thinking about what will be a better phone, what will stimulate the smartphone market, or what will make me a happier, more productive user, our concerns stem from who built a machine.

Example from the first page:

Yep, so they hired EX PC guys that happens to be EX Apple guys. Since Palm can't even figure out how to make a decent phone on their own.
Fanboyism - and I am guilty of it from time to time - is most apparent when you're willing to come to blows for (or against) a company whose products you pay money for. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but folks, these companies are not here to make you telephones, they're here to get your money. Give your money to the company that makes the best phones, talk about it, all peachy. But when you start taking personal offense at another company's product just because it's similar to your preferred product, well, it's time to re-evaluate how you spend your money.

It goes both ways, of course: I was rooting for the Blackberry Storm, trying to find merit where there apparently was none, just because it wasn't an iPhone. (I know. That was dumb. The Storm is dumb.)

Uhmm. Smoothly and elegantly? I don't think so. One of the reasons other OSs where so slow, unstable and inefficient was because they did multitasking. And what I mean by multitasking is not that Apple decides that one can listen to music and read web pages at the same time. But by multitasking I mean that the developers and users can decide themselves when or how to multitask. Doing this at this point in time will bring up a lot of problems

[snip]

Would you argue that the Palms' WebOS is leaner than that of the iPhone? Remember it runs on a 600 MHz processor and has 256 RAM on board. The iPhone processor runs on an older 412 MHz processor and has 128 of RAM. This saves battery. But limits the possibilities software wise. So yes it was their choice to stop optimizing the code more and more and release the OS X Mobile. But I don't think that the gain they would have made by optimizing their code would outweigh the time and energy spent optimizing the code. Hardware is getting better and better. And I believe it is worth waiting for better hardware than to keep optimizing the code. It's a balance Apple knows very well.
Instead of evaluating the phones based on which we consider better, we consider why things are how they are. Going back to the Storm, I could say that it's not as good as the iPhone since it had less of a development budget, it was on a tight schedule, whatever. I don't even know, I made those up. But the fact remains that it's bad. The biggest Blackberry fanboy (if indeed such a thing exists) can find the most tragic circumstances - the Storm's puppy died last night! the Storm was not fed vegetables as a child! - but this is the cold world of consumer electronics. The Storm sucks and I'm not going to buy it. Period. No pity bucks.

Likewise, if I for some reason considered multitasking to be an essential, make-or-break feature, no amount of explaining why the iPhone doesn't have it, reasonable or otherwise, is going to change the fact that the iPhone doesn't have it, and I would give my money to the Pre. So what if the Pre has a more powerful processor and more RAM? As a user, I don't care what's doing the number crunching on my phone, I care that those numbers get crunched. We should take these companies to task for features that we want, not excuse them. That's how competition works for consumers.

You're just a whiner. You won't be happy till you get a phone that lasts you a week with a full battery at 4G speeds with 24-7 downloads with a screen that is brighter than a fluorescent light. Massive effect on usability my arse!
Why shouldn't we demand these things? Sure, we can take those steps you outlined, but shouldn't we want it all to happen automatically?

The Symbian OS may multitask, but I still think it's a piece of shit for most things. It's not intuitive, features are buried in menus, and file transfers are like molasses. The home screen could be way more useful than it is, and I wish there was more compatibility for video formats. I acknowledge the faults in my phone because I know it isn't and can never be perfect. Neither was my iPhone. I don't tell people who acknowledge these faults to stop whining because I don't owe the company who built the phone anything; if anything, they owe me a good user experience. I'm not saying I never got it, I'm saying it can always be better and we should demand that, not silence people who talk about it.

Does your S60 render pages with a full desktop web browser engine, run applications of desktop class, with touch interface, a 3.5 inch display, with accelerometer-based device orientation? Perhaps you should be a little bit more reasonable with your comparisons on that front hey?
If you must know, it's only got a 2.8 inch screen, but it does the accelerometer thing, it uses Webkit (bonus: embedded Flash), and I prefer physical buttons to a touch screen if I have to choose (though I'd like both). More importantly, though, why are you pissing in my Cheerios? What's it to you if the Nokia doesn't do all those things?

I bought my iPhone a year ago because I thought it looked really cool, and I was right. The iPhone was a really neat device and it introduced me to the whole smartphone thing: it was my gateway drug. All the friends and family I have who own iPhones love them. More power to them. The phone that I chose instead has a more limited appeal, but that doesn't make it better or worse. The iPhone's engineers focused on software, the N95's on hardware. That was a compromise I preferred, but I don't expect it to be right for everybody.

We should think about ourselves when evaluating consumer products, not the companies who make them. When we're willing to put time into defending an entity that makes us poorer, and mobiles ain't cheap, then we're turning the whole point of competition on its head.

Apologies. I know I'm verbose.

slapppy

06-08-2009, 01:52 AM

While reading that touchy feely post. I could swear that I almost heard violins playing in the background. Then flowers were falling from the sky...

Anyway Palm CEO put his own foot in his mouth. Period.

jaym

06-08-2009, 02:00 AM

Point is, don't be a fanboy. I hate fanboys.

I coulda just said that, I guess.

slapppy

06-08-2009, 02:10 AM

Point is, don't be a fanboy. I hate fanboys.

I coulda just said that, I guess.

Then your post is irrelavent and dismissed. It's based on HATE. That's a powerful and terrible way to base ones feelings or direction.

motrek

06-08-2009, 02:27 AM

Flash wouldn't really work well as virtual memory anyway; you'd have far too many write cycles, thereby killing the flash too quickly.
It was a willful decision based on very obvious technical limitations.

It's true that any individual flash cell can only be flashed (erased) a relatively small number of times. But, with wear-leveling, blocks are remapped according to how many times they've been written, to do exactly what the name implies. With wear-leveling, you can write data to flash continuously for years before wearing it out. That's why you are able to buy SSDs today and use them as primary drives, or in high-load data centers. Personally I have an SSD in my MacBook and I'm always running out of physical RAM and swapping to it. Works fine. If it didn't, Apple wouldn't sell e.g. the MacBook Air with an SSD.

If what you're saying is true and the iPhone doesn't have virtual memory enabled, it's probably because they didn't bother to optimize their access patterns for the flash. Nothing some software tuning can't fix, if they so chose. Although it might be an undertaking and they may choose to just wait for newer hardware to enable it.

tawilson

06-08-2009, 02:33 AM

a particular feat given the faster, 600MHz Texas Instruments OMAP3 processor

The iPhone does have a 620MHz processor in it doesn't it?

It's just under-clocked for battery life.

legend79

06-08-2009, 03:41 AM

legend79

06-08-2009, 03:45 AM

So you say that the battery lasts 4 hours of internet usage... So, why is it so bad? I've never tested a phone with a battery much better than that!

And I also doubt, or better, don't believe in a f*cking word you said about your Oh-so-powerful Nokia.

Point is; show me a laptop that does better than that! Sure there are some. But then compare the battery size of the laptop against the small tiny battery of your phone and you will quiclky discover that your phone actually does REALLY good in comparison. I think both phones perform very well on this front (albeit I would still like it to be better; but I would like it to be better also on my laptop); nuff said.

legend79

06-08-2009, 03:58 AM

All these hate statements about the Pre are pretty ridiculous. At the end of the day; we all know full well that if this product was branded as an "iPhone 4G"; that most haters here would be drooling over it. This phone is basically done by the same iPhone/iPod people that were leached from Apple. The only main difference is the branding (it's under Palm). Most of you guys may also be surprised to learn that Apple actually HAD no real phone embedded engineers. The truth is that they basically stole a BUNCH of guys from Palm to create the iPhone. Now that Palm flashes more money at them; they come back. It's simple; in this industry. The same people end up doing MANY devices. Reality is that there aren't that many people who understand and know this stuff; so companies end up stealing employees left and right and basically branding their work under it. THAT's it. Palm was just fortunate enough to be run at the a high level by an Apple exec; meaning that everything was able to look like an Apple product; and the reality is that the Pre looke everything like an Apple product. From the packaging all the way down to the UI and attention to detail. To hate this product is to hate Apple products since the only difference is branding in this case.

sapporobabyrtrns

06-08-2009, 07:39 AM

It's just a me too phone.

And the iPhone is what? Groundbreaking? Survey says: NOPE !!!!!!!!!!! Imagine if you will and iPod Touch that could make calls. Wait, imagine no more. Introducing the old technology infested iPhone.

sapporobabyrtrns

06-08-2009, 07:50 AM

In the interest of full disclosure, let me just state my history with the iPhone. I bought an EDGE iPhone for use on T-Mobile right after the 3G came out. I didn't have a data plan for a few months, then signed up for one. About four months after buying it, I ditched the iPhone for a Nokia N95 8GB, which I still have. I think the iPhone is a great device, it just wasn't for me. That in mind, read on...

I registered here just to post a comment. I guess that's probably lame.

I think a big problem is that we approach this, and I use this term with caution on an Apple website, from a fanboy perspective.

Put your pitchforks and torches down for a moment. it's not what you think, and it comes from all sides. Please keep reading, or at least don't blaze me to bits unless you've read it all.

Instead of thinking about what will be a better phone, what will stimulate the smartphone market, or what will make me a happier, more productive user, our concerns stem from who built a machine.

Example from the first page:

Fanboyism - and I am guilty of it from time to time - is most apparent when you're willing to come to blows for (or against) a company whose products you pay money for. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but folks, these companies are not here to make you telephones, they're here to get your money. Give your money to the company that makes the best phones, talk about it, all peachy. But when you start taking personal offense at another company's product just because it's similar to your preferred product, well, it's time to re-evaluate how you spend your money.

It goes both ways, of course: I was rooting for the Blackberry Storm, trying to find merit where there apparently was none, just because it wasn't an iPhone. (I know. That was dumb. The Storm is dumb.)

Instead of evaluating the phones based on which we consider better, we consider why things are how they are. Going back to the Storm, I could say that it's not as good as the iPhone since it had less of a development budget, it was on a tight schedule, whatever. I don't even know, I made those up. But the fact remains that it's bad. The biggest Blackberry fanboy (if indeed such a thing exists) can find the most tragic circumstances - the Storm's puppy died last night! the Storm was not fed vegetables as a child! - but this is the cold world of consumer electronics. The Storm sucks and I'm not going to buy it. Period. No pity bucks.

Likewise, if I for some reason considered multitasking to be an essential, make-or-break feature, no amount of explaining why the iPhone doesn't have it, reasonable or otherwise, is going to change the fact that the iPhone doesn't have it, and I would give my money to the Pre. So what if the Pre has a more powerful processor and more RAM? As a user, I don't care what's doing the number crunching on my phone, I care that those numbers get crunched. We should take these companies to task for features that we want, not excuse them. That's how competition works for consumers.

Why shouldn't we demand these things? Sure, we can take those steps you outlined, but shouldn't we want it all to happen automatically?

The Symbian OS may multitask, but I still think it's a piece of shit for most things. It's not intuitive, features are buried in menus, and file transfers are like molasses. The home screen could be way more useful than it is, and I wish there was more compatibility for video formats. I acknowledge the faults in my phone because I know it isn't and can never be perfect. Neither was my iPhone. I don't tell people who acknowledge these faults to stop whining because I don't owe the company who built the phone anything; if anything, they owe me a good user experience. I'm not saying I never got it, I'm saying it can always be better and we should demand that, not silence people who talk about it.

If you must know, it's only got a 2.8 inch screen, but it does the accelerometer thing, it uses Webkit (bonus: embedded Flash), and I prefer physical buttons to a touch screen if I have to choose (though I'd like both). More importantly, though, why are you pissing in my Cheerios? What's it to you if the Nokia doesn't do all those things?

I bought my iPhone a year ago because I thought it looked really cool, and I was right. The iPhone was a really neat device and it introduced me to the whole smartphone thing: it was my gateway drug. All the friends and family I have who own iPhones love them. More power to them. The phone that I chose instead has a more limited appeal, but that doesn't make it better or worse. The iPhone's engineers focused on software, the N95's on hardware. That was a compromise I preferred, but I don't expect it to be right for everybody.

We should think about ourselves when evaluating consumer products, not the companies who make them. When we're willing to put time into defending an entity that makes us poorer, and mobiles ain't cheap, then we're turning the whole point of competition on its head.

Apologies. I know I'm verbose.

Great post but it will fall on deaf ears here. The only thing missing on this site with some are Jack Boots, the Deutschland Uber Alles anthem, and a 3rd Reich. Anything not blessed by He Who is named Steve is considered of lesser quality and immediately dismissed. Your statements about the design philosophies of Nokia vs. Apple was spot on but Nokia has seen that Apple is correct and they will release the N97 which will be the start of better software and hardware integration. I have long given up on "brand loyalty" but now am much more loyal to my dollars. I am after more bang for my buck and in some cases Nokia is a fail, while in many more cases Apple fails even greater. It is just that simple. Well except on this site. There are a few here that present good arguments and can see things from both sides, and the mods do a pretty good job of running the place. However, the Appleista iBoys simply can not accept that there is another phone(s) on the market, nor anyone that does not think different.

MacShack

06-08-2009, 07:53 AM

All these hate statements about the Pre are pretty ridiculous. At the end of the day; we all know full well that if this product was branded as an "iPhone 4G"; that most haters here would be drooling over it. This phone is basically done by the same iPhone/iPod people that were leached from Apple. The only main difference is the branding (it's under Palm). Most of you guys may also be surprised to learn that Apple actually HAD no real phone embedded engineers.

Uhm no. If Apple would release the pre today without Palm relasing the pre I would say that they have gone backwards. As I ready stated, why would I want to buy a phone that is worse or maybe as good as the iPhone 3G? Then I go a year back in time. I rather stay in this time zone and move forward with the new iPhone. And I don't care who developed the Pre. All I know is that palm is worse off than Apple was a year ago. A year ago Apple was (and still is) ahead of competition. Palm is not. The Android has arrived. HTC has moved on. RIM has hopped along. But Palm has just answered with a very weak call "me too".

johnqh

06-08-2009, 08:09 AM

tawilson

06-08-2009, 08:12 AM

Why do you people always conveniently forget that Smartphone OSs have been multitasking for years...

Yes, they have.

smoothly and elegantly

No! Those words definitely do not describe my experiences with other multi-tasking smartphone OSes, such as Windows Mobile and S60. Running more than 1 app caused them to slow to a chuggy, unresponsive crawl.

The Pre apparently doesn't fair overly well with multiple apps running.

tawilson

06-08-2009, 08:15 AM

Uhm no. If Apple would release the pre today without Palm relasing the pre I would say that they have gone backwards. As I ready stated, why would I want to buy a phone that is worse or maybe as good as the iPhone 3G? Then I go a year back in time. I rather stay in this time zone and move forward with the new iPhone. And I don't care who developed the Pre. All I know is that palm is worse off than Apple was a year ago. A year ago Apple was (and still is) ahead of competition. Palm is not. The Android has arrived. HTC has moved on. RIM has hopped along. But Palm has just answered with a very weak call "me too".

Palm's "me too" is strong. If the iPhone didn't exist I'd snap one up in heartbeat. I certainly wouldn't consider any of the other devices.

Palm know the "keep it simple" mentality that Apple has. Palm offered the best devices for a long time. Sadly they squandered their lead trying create PalmOS 6.0

irnchriz

06-08-2009, 08:31 AM

Quadra 610

06-08-2009, 08:34 AM

Anything not blessed by He Who is named Steve is considered of lesser quality

Because most of it is.

Quadra 610

06-08-2009, 08:50 AM

Are you in a beach house? I'm glad it works for you. My friends and their friends no such luck, They are in the beach house. They love the device, who doesn't, just can't stand that they have to go to the market to make calls.

Depends entirely on your carrier/network.

TenoBell

06-08-2009, 09:29 AM

I'm not sure why you are so bent out of shape about this. You are free to believe it or not. Yes I agree with you, few people will have 100 apps purchased from the App Store, so no that 100 wasn't apps from the store, the survey was asking about everything you use on your iPhone.

No I cannot find the survey. Putting anything about the iPhone into Google yields thousands of articles and its difficult to find any one article.

Right, you didn't make it up, you "saw it somewhere" which you can't seem to find anymore. Oh and the number happens to be almost an order of magnitude out of the realm of possibility.

Jesus, just give up. Your 100 number clearly didn't come from anywhere. What makes you think that iPhones have more apps installed (that's what we were talking about, not "icons on the phone, which the average user CLEARLY has 80 of compared to their 20 apps) than iPod touches?

Just give it up, admit that you remembered it wrong. That's obviously the case. When presented with overwhelming evidence, to continue to deny just makes you look like you can't process information.

solipsism

06-08-2009, 09:36 AM

The Pre's push notification seems pretty sophisticated. It's called the mojo messaging service. Here's a link on it:

http://www.precentral.net/palm-introduce-push-services

Cool, thanks for the link. I’m glad Palm went this route as it shows they are quite serious about the longevity of the WebOS in the marketplace as they could have just had they background Widgets as their marketing tool and worried about a PN server later on if the Pre is successful.

It also shows that not all apps need to be running in the background and that there will be a performance hit every time you keep an app live in the background connected to the internet. This performance hit will affect the battery; I don’t understand why some people say that it wouldn’t. The question shouldn’t be “will it?” but rather “how much?” If your background app only takes 5% off your time without background apps running then it may be worthwhile to run in the background.

i expect Apple to introduce background apps for the new iPhones, but if they do it today they will look like they are playing catch up to Palm. I don’t think Apple’s hubris will allow them to do that with out first explaining that previous iPhones don’t have the power to run background apps. But then people will state that x-phone could background apps since x-year, without considering OS X’s resource take. Apple can’t possibly cover all those bases at the Keynote. It is filled with developers but they are mostly doing it for the internet and news audience for marketing.

TenoBell

06-08-2009, 09:57 AM

It isn't true that few people use web apps. Even though the App Store gets all the hype, I'd wager there are far more web based services available than their are native apps. Web based services are more ubiquitous and easier to produce and distribute. Google only provides a couple of native apps, the majority of its services are all web based. Most all large web services provide a web based service as well as a native.

Web based apps and services I have on my phone are the New York Times, National Public Radio, Los Angeles Times, Google News, GMail, ESPN, CNN, Flickr, Google Docs, Time Magazine, The Huffington Post, AOL TV, Google Translator. To name a few there are thousands of others.

First, nonsense. Very few people use web apps. Very few developers still work on web app.s

Second, most apps stayed on the phone for less than 24 hours. (Study done by Pinch Media)

I am a developer. I have 9 pages of apps. However, I use 4 to 5 third party apps per day the max.

solipsism

06-08-2009, 09:57 AM

TenoBell

06-08-2009, 10:02 AM

Oh OK, they just announced it. Sounds basically much like Apple's push service.

The Pre's push notification seems pretty sophisticated. It's called the mojo messaging service. Here's a link on it:

http://www.precentral.net/palm-introduce-push-services

Quadra 610

06-08-2009, 10:10 AM

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/0...oblems-surface

And already . . .

Palm can't afford to have its 1st gen device full of issues. It's not really in a position to fix things the second time around. Although it obviously depends on how well this 1st gen product does, regardless of issues.

slapppy

06-08-2009, 10:49 AM

Palm sells 50k Pres opening weekend. Good for Palm.• http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=19374

Can you guess which line was for the iPhone and which one for the Pre? hehe

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/06/picture-40.jpg

If Apple sold that much iPhone the news media would call it a massive failure. It's obvious that Palm shorted the supply to try and generate a perceived illusion of a sellout. The sugar coating of the media for the Palm Pre is on borderline ridiculous.

solipsism

06-08-2009, 11:01 AM

If Apple sold that much iPhone the news media would call it a massive failure. It's obvious that Palm shorted the supply to try and generate a perceived illusion of a sellout. The sugar coating of the media for the Palm Pre is on borderline ridiculous.

As I recall, they did do exactly that. Many pundits and analysts made up a 1 million unit figure for the first weekend. When this wasn't achieved they lambasted Apple for not making their goal.

piot

06-08-2009, 11:05 AM

And I'm not trying to defend the PRE.

But you seem to be trying to promote the PRE. Some of your posts sound a little like the Palm Pre/Sprint manual.

slapppy

06-08-2009, 11:05 AM

As I recall, they did do exactly that. Many pundits and analysts made up a 1 million unit figure for the first weekend. When this wasn't achieved they lambasted Apple for not making their goal.

No, your way off. More like 500,000 - 700,000 weekend sales.

Note: First generation iPhone.

solipsism

06-08-2009, 11:16 AM

No, your way off. More like 500,000 - 700,000 weekend sales.

Note: First generation iPhone.

Regardless of the amount predicted, it was still lower than the sales which led to claiming that The iPhone was a flop.

NOFEER

06-08-2009, 11:18 AM

m2002brian

06-08-2009, 11:19 AM

Constantly turning on an off a radio isn't an elegant solution. That's five taps on each startup and shut down that shouldn't be necessary in my opinion. Shouldn't the device do that kind of power management on its own?

It helps to "know your enemy", and a few of your statements show that you don't. Nokia uses Webkit. It only took me a minute to find that and to find that it has a compass. They do offer touch capability now, though that probably depends on the model.

I don't know how iPhone's applications are necessarily desktop class, they're nifty, but desktop class is overselling it. Maybe better than most other portable platforms. Maybe some iPhone apps are on the level of a relatively simple desktop applet, but most are of the complexity of a Dashboard widget. For example, there are a few very simple word processors, but nothing on the scale of Pages that I've seen, more like TextEdit at best.

Desktop class =
SimCity
Monopoly
BeatMaker
ColorSplash

Quadra 610

06-08-2009, 11:19 AM

claiming that The iPhone was a flop.

Hehe, and how things changed, eh? ;)

slapppy

06-08-2009, 11:21 AM

Regardless of the amount predicted, it was still lower than the sales which led to claiming that The iPhone was a flop.

Okay then if the Pre sold (predicted number) of 50k and the iPhone 1st generation sold 150k, and you claim that its a flop. Then the 50K predicted sales of the Pre is a "MASSIVE FAILURE".

rishio

06-08-2009, 11:32 AM

But you seem to be trying to promote the PRE. Some of your posts sound a little like the Palm Pre/Sprint manual.

Perhaps - I like it a lot but am aware of it's current issues: questionable battery life being on the top of the list...

solipsism

06-08-2009, 11:43 AM

Okay then if the Pre sold (predicted number) of 50k and the iPhone 1st generation sold 150k, and you claim that its a flop. Then the 50K predicted sales of the Pre is a "MASSIVE FAILURE".

I don’t claim it was a flop, I am saying that other claimed it was a flop for not meeting their own expectations. I am quite certain that they will claim the Pre was an all around success.

minderbinder

06-08-2009, 12:00 PM

Considering the pre is about a year newer than the latest shipping iPhone, shouldn't it be expected that the design would be more advanced and optimized? Seems like a comparison to the new iPhone expected to be announced today and shipping soon would be a more meaningful comparison?

solipsism

06-08-2009, 12:03 PM

rishio

06-08-2009, 12:38 PM

AND RETURNED IT YESTERDAY
why
battery dismal--he says he can watch as the battery goes down.
if battery has less than 20% life, even if plugged in (car, home etc) PHONE WONT WORK (that has to be some design flaw, or software mess, but why, your phone is useless at low battery)
he told me "i'm not spending 50 bucks on a second battery, when i change it, all data lost"
no video
no voice dialing

rut-row, palm has a big problem.

I think you are jumping to conclusions. I've heard good reports of battery life as well as bad. I also heard there is a bug that kills the battery life.. I think we'll find out the truth in the coming weeks...

rishio

06-08-2009, 12:39 PM

samab

06-08-2009, 12:47 PM

Okay then if the Pre sold (predicted number) of 50k and the iPhone 1st generation sold 150k, and you claim that its a flop. Then the 50K predicted sales of the Pre is a "MASSIVE FAILURE".

First gen iphone --- massive hype, Steve Jobs, AT&T (then) US' largest carrier, and a relatively good economy.

Pre --- Palm (a company that is permanently in trouble), Sprint (a carrier that is permanently in touble) and a bad economy.

rishio

06-08-2009, 12:52 PM

First gen iphone --- massive hype, Steve Jobs, AT&T (then) US' largest carrier, and a relatively good economy.

Pre --- Palm (a company that is permanently in trouble), Sprint (a carrier that is permanently in touble) and a bad economy.

I like Sprint. It's cheaper than AT&T and Verizon and you can roam on verizon networks for free.

motrek

06-08-2009, 01:18 PM

No! Those words definitely do not describe my experiences with other multi-tasking smartphone OSes, such as Windows Mobile and S60. Running more than 1 app caused them to slow to a chuggy, unresponsive crawl.

The Pre apparently doesn't fair overly well with multiple apps running.

Not my experience at all. I had an old (6 years old) WM phone and the only thing good about it was multitasking, especially since it was even slower than the iPhone at launching apps. It would take 10+ seconds to run the SMS app, but once it was open, you could switch to it instantly. Think about it... on the iPhone, if you're doing something and you want to write an SMS, you have to close the current app (1-2 seconds), then run the SMS app (2-5+ seconds). So that's literally instantly vs. a guaranteed 3 second delay. Kind of an eye-opening difference if you've experienced it. I used to always run half a dozen apps on the WM phone--SMS, contacts, file browser, media player, etc. All those apps were usually completely idle when not in use so it didn't affect performance whatsoever.

The downfall of WM is that apps are left running by default. Most users are not aware of how to quit apps so they accumulate and after a day or two of heavy use the phone will likely crash due to an out-of-memory situation and shoddy OS programming. If you go to a store where they sell WM phones you will likely run into a salesman giving somebody a speech about how to run the Task Manager and kill apps to improve stability. But if the usability was improved, it'd be a slam dunk feature for everybody.

Why do you say the Pre doesn't fare well when multitasking? All the reviews I've read say it works surprisingly well. I was just reading the PhoneScoop review which says everything runs smoothly with a dozen apps open. Where are you getting your information?

solipsism

06-13-2009, 10:16 AM

Palm Pre has been already jailbroken. It suggests that a proper C-language-based SDK could happen and shows that WebOS could be very easily altered with the JS-based UI.• http://blog.steventroughtonsmith.com/2009/06/wwdcpalm-pre-rollercoaster-week.html

sapporobabyrtrns

06-13-2009, 10:20 AM

Not my experience at all. I had an old (6 years old) WM phone and the only thing good about it was multitasking, especially since it was even slower than the iPhone at launching apps. It would take 10+ seconds to run the SMS app, but once it was open, you could switch to it instantly. Think about it... on the iPhone, if you're doing something and you want to write an SMS, you have to close the current app (1-2 seconds), then run the SMS app (2-5+ seconds). So that's literally instantly vs. a guaranteed 3 second delay. Kind of an eye-opening difference if you've experienced it. I used to always run half a dozen apps on the WM phone--SMS, contacts, file browser, media player, etc. All those apps were usually completely idle when not in use so it didn't affect performance whatsoever.

The downfall of WM is that apps are left running by default. Most users are not aware of how to quit apps so they accumulate and after a day or two of heavy use the phone will likely crash due to an out-of-memory situation and shoddy OS programming. If you go to a store where they sell WM phones you will likely run into a salesman giving somebody a speech about how to run the Task Manager and kill apps to improve stability. But if the usability was improved, it'd be a slam dunk feature for everybody.

Why do you say the Pre doesn't fare well when multitasking? All the reviews I've read say it works surprisingly well. I was just reading the PhoneScoop review which says everything runs smoothly with a dozen apps open. Where are you getting your information?

Pretty good post. I saw a jailbroken iPhone running yesterday while multi-tasking and it was sad, sad, sad. It slowed to almost a crawl. Apple is correct that it is fast, but this is because only one app, minus Mail and maybe the iPod, have access to the memory. Open more than 5 or 6 apps and the iPhone crawls along on its belly. Symbian, WM (sort of) all multi-task equally if not better than the iPhone.