Palm Pre teardown shows iPhone-inspired design

[AppleInsider]

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 ]

[success]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

...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]

What is the RAM size on the Pre?

[bitzandbitez]

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]

Originally Posted by success

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]

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]

Originally Posted by NasserAE

What is the RAM size on the Pre?

8GB NOT expandable.

[LonerATO]

Originally Posted by jevans.900

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]

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

[PG4G]

Originally Posted by parky

8GB NOT expandable.

That's its storage, not its ram.

[NasserAE]

Originally Posted by parky

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]

The Sprint sales literature shows 256MB.

[slapppy]

"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.

[MacShack]

Originally Posted by success

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]

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.

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.

[macgareth]

Originally Posted by NasserAE

What is the RAM size on the Pre?

256MB

[ivan.rnn01]

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.

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]

Originally Posted by mrochester

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

Originally Posted by mrochester

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.

Originally Posted by mrochester

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.

Originally Posted by mrochester

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

Originally Posted by mrochester

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]

Originally Posted by mrochester

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.

I wonder, are you an iPhone developer, or a Mac OS X developer? If not... do you even know what you're talking about?

In a sense you are right, but there are also unavoidable battery performance issues with background applications that affect all mobile platforms. For example, if you want an IM app to run 24-7 in the background there's a hit to the device, whether or not the app is very light-weight or not.

Er... work harder? You portray it like they're lazy or don't know what they're doing. Somehow I... disagree with this after speaking to quite a few Apple employees. At some stage, building a half decent interface with touch, accelerometer, wifi, cellular, bluetooth... will create a decent enough footprint, especially if you want high quality interface with modern computer OS quality.

[MacShack]

Originally Posted by slapppy

"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]

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]

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

[brucep]

Originally Posted by MacShack

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]

Originally Posted by mrochester

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]

Originally Posted by mrochester

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]

Originally Posted by brucep

Fine post.

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

[mrochester]

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]

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]

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"

[PG4G]

Originally Posted by mrochester

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]

Originally Posted by PG4G

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]

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]

Originally Posted by teckstud

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]

Originally Posted by PG4G

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]

Originally Posted by PG4G

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]

Originally Posted by mrochester

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]

Originally Posted by teckstud

I usually put them in different pockets.

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

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by teckstud

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]

Originally Posted by PG4G

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]

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!