iPhone rival Palm Pre to sell for $199 after rebate on June 6th - Page 7

There is nothing about inductive charging that requires such long recharges. With toothbrushes, one charge will last the brush for a week with two uses a day for about two minutes each.

The charging circuits are cheaper if they supply less current while recharging. That lengthens the recharge time. But it doesn't matter for a toothbrush, considering the way it's used.

I can't imagine that Palm would have a recharger that would take much longer than what every other phone requires.

I only mentioned my toothbrush because it uses inductive charging, not because a phone should have the same recharging specs.

The iPhone does multitask. At least get the facts straight.

At 4.76 ounces each, that amounts to 6723 phones. I agree that sales will be poor,
but I think your estimate is a bit low.

I speculate that to charge at the same rate will require more power and generate more heat through inductive charging. Im sure well see tests between the two charging types for the device soon enough.

I've mentioned this before, but I still marvel at how the "anything but the iPhone" crowd has so firmly fixated on "multitasking" as being the number one obvious hideous failing of the iPhone that everybody agrees is totally lame.

This after spending the last few years agreeing that the number one obvious hideous failing of the iPhone that everybody agrees is totally lame was cut and paste, or MMS, or the camera, or video, with "multitasking" coming in a distant fifth, if it got mentioned at all.

Down the memory hole. Multitasking it is. And when Apple implements that, there will be some phones out there with, I dunno, OLED screens or better haptic feedback, and the very same people will confidently assert that the iPhone is a toy for lacking them, as if it had always been common knowledge.

Because irrational iPhone hatred is an inexhaustible well of invention.

I took a chance, viewed your post, and was pleasantly surprised.

Anyways, what you said is partially true. Companies do take a gamble and bet that some people won't follow through on their rebate forms. This is not the only reason why a company like Palm did this though. That's not a very reliable way of making money. If for every phone sold Palm temporarily keeps 100 bucks for eight weeks or so, how much money off interest do you think Palm can make? Its a way of making extra money at no cost to the customer. Not only that, but for 100 bucks, you know most people will fill the form out and send it in, and that's reliable market research.

I've gotten two phones from Sprint, each had a mail in rebate. The first one took 6-8 weeks, and the second one took less than a month. It was real easy to do.

Sometime this year, but not at launch.


;-) You nailed the reason I think the Pre has a chance: it can go where you are, instead of forcing you to switch. Unlike the iPhone (of course, that may change next year).


It has some app's, and it can emulate -- meaning all the app's you had with your Palm OS you can still use (or most). I know it has Doc's to Go, a neat Fandago app (that when you buy a movie ticket, it will add that to your schedule on your phone and any calander your synced with via internet), a Pandora app I'm looking forward to, and all the Sprint exclusives such as Sprint TV Premier. Which, btw, can you watch live TV with your iPhone? :-) I can with my Pre.

However, since I can't get the iPhone with my Sprint, and you will be able to get a Web OS/Palm Pre with your AT&T, what will you say then? If rumors are true, AT&T is getting a Pal Eos that has the WebOS (although it seems to be a Centero replacement, not a powerhouse) but still, thats the reason the Pre has a chance. It will sell great with the Sprint network, the lack of supply in the start will annoy customers but also great buzz and demand (everyone will be talking about how they can't get a Pre -- which, just like the Wii, translated into "It's Hot, hot! Get it now while you still can!") and after all the Sprint people who wanted an iPhone, but didn't get the Instinct, and all the Palm lovers (who are on Sprint, which is a good mant), and just regular Sprint ppl get their hands on the Pre, I bet Sprint will announce the Pre being the best selling phone for their network. Then the next year the Pre moving to other networks and the same will happen.


That is very true my friend.


I actually agree.


However, am I the only one who is excited about the Pre being at Wally? Think about it: Someone walks in, wanting a Pre/iPhone, willing to go to any carrier...who would they choose? The Wal-Mart employee doesn't get money for selling a certain product, so it's really up to what the employee himself/herself believe. And when the Pre goes to AT&T...it will be a bigger test for the Palm Pre.

All phones and rechargers get hot. I don't see why this would get any hotter. It's all about the rate of charge.

No more than a feature phone does. I'm talking above true multitasking, with some form of task switcher, and applications actively running in the background. If I'm happily chatting away on Palringo, and I get an email, I have to shut Palringo down completely, logging me off, to go and read that email. Playing music in the background and polling for emails is something that even a very basic feature phone can do, so that's hardly a point to show off for the iPhone. The iPhone can't multitask at the minute because Apple can't figure out a way to prevent it from sucking loads of power or running out of memory. They'll get it eventually, with experience, as it can be done (as can be seen by other smartphone OSs).

It has that for Apple's own programs. They haven't allowed that for public use. They are supposedly thinking of ways to allow some limited version.

Well, it's really the new iPhone OS 3.0 that is the game changer. The new hardware itself will likely be only an incremental improvement. The current OS and development environment is already light years ahead of all of the other competitors, and the new enhancements to the API are going to make the AppStore even more of a discriminator.

Remember how Windows took off when the number of available programs began to dwarf those that were available for Mac OS? Well, it's happening again, except this time the iPhone OS is the clear leader.

Thompson

I think also that the battery life/multitasking/"everybody else does it" argument is skewed somewhat by how people use their iPhones.

By making "features" accessible and even fun to use, the iPhone ushered in a new era of owners actually doing a lot of stuff with their phones. Comparisons to older systems with shitty browsers or shitty media players or difficult to access functionality don't hold up, for the simple reason that such features are unlikely to be used as heavily.

We've seen the stunning statistics for the iPhone's percentage of mobile web traffic. There's a reason for that. Add in an iPod and a bunch of apps that people actually use, all the time, and it becomes clear that Apple is obliged to weigh battery usage against far heavier utilization, on average, than the average "multitasking" phone-- which itself is unlikely to have particularly stellar battery life.

With almost every rebate I used there was a clause in the fine prints saying "One rebate per household".

I really hope the Pre sells very well, which I doubt, just to get Apple and AT&T to improve their iPhone contract terms (3G limitations, unlocking, text plan... etc). Competition is good for everyone.

Not to mention the slightly confusing particulars that must be followed exactly to the letter or they have grounds to deny.

Once Apple iPhone paranoia has set in- be afraid, be very afraid!!

Let's talk battery life once you start recording video on your iPhone.
Which would you rather have to drain that battery -video or multi Apps?

What particulars? You give them your name, phone number, email address, mailing address, and a copy of the sales receipt or packing slip (easily printable off sprint's website.)

It's far easier to fill out than you think dude. Here's the form: (keep in mind the first page is just showing how much of a rebate people can get with each phone.)
http://www.nextel.com/assets/pdfs/en...mir_060609.pdf

Depends on who you talk to.

This is dead on - Palm really need a lot more than $200 per phone (like iPhone did at launch before volumes went up, component prices came down and R&D was amortized). Sprint is the least able to subsidize a phone being in financial dire straits and iPhone sets the price point at $199. Rocks and hard places abound. Hence the rebate - which is a scam - even $100 rebates have a 30-50% redemption rate, smaller rebates usually well below 10%. The Pre had better be flawless or both companies are headed to the brand graveyard since both Palm and Sprint are likely operating on razor thin margins.

My rebate forms from Sprint weren't any more complex, but they still found reasons to deny some of them.

One annoying thing is that after two weeks or so, you get an e-mail telling you that your rebate is being processed, so you think everything is fine. Then six weeks later, you get one telling you that it's been denied.

They don't even tell you why. They just list a whole bunch of reasons, and say that it was one or more of them. I fought with reps about this, but it rarely helps.

I for one prefer multi apps because theiPod touch could use it as well whereas the Touch has no camera (yet)- so no video. I don't like to constantly relaunch the remote APP and have to search for my AppleTV with the remote AP. It kind of ruins its benefits. This applies to others Apps as well.

I'm sorry - you have a Pre already? ****

EDIT

Language

Actually, I would want both. See, I'm not above that either.

But, from what I do hear about battery life from other phone users, multitasking really does eat the battery life.

Some guys here seem to think that Apple is deliberately preventing this because they don't want third party apps to have it. I think that's crazy!

Maybe battery will be affected too much from Apple's perspective just like they say. You know, there are people here, and you might be one of them, who would complain if Apple offered multitasking, warned that battery life would be poorer with it turned on, and you found it to be so.

I think they figure that most people would rather have the battery life. After all, it's not as though some people don't already criticize Apple over that.

Like other things, once Apple thinks they can do it well, they will. I don't see this as a big deal.

Even if it is a battery eater, I would go for it. I would have thought that it (Multi App) would be the next progression for the OS. The tablet will definitely need it. Will the tablet then get another OS (a third version)- greater than iPhone but less then full OSX?

What is it about this topic that's bringing out the potty mouths. please keep it down!

regarding the whole "rebate as a means to make more profit" -

everybody is overestimating the effect of non-redemptions. Yes, clearly, the point of the rebate is that a certain percentage of peolpe will not redeem, thus $100 more in Palm's pocket. But think rationally about it.

Let's say, GENEROUSLY, they sell 150,000 units off the bat. That's $15mm in rebates (150,000 x 100). If, maybe, 20% do not redeem, that's only $3mm in extra income. Hardly something to bank on, if I'm Palm.

That's assuming generous initial sales, plus a generous non-redemption rate. I think more than 80% of people will take 5 minutes of their time to get their 100 bucks back. They would need to sell MILLIONS of units to make a big enough additional income. Interest earned on the $100 bucks during the rebate waiting period is nominal at best.

Would you say that you wouldn't complain about that then? Would you castigate others when they did complain about it?

As for the OS for that, it's a good question. I've been wondering about that myself.

I'd like to see OS X as in the computer line. We read about 10.5 being used on netbooks all the time. It's not ideal, but it works where Vista doesn't, and it's far more modern that XP. We don't know too much about Win 7 yet, and apparently, almost no one wants Linux, as most of those get returned quickly.

Perhaps Apple could use the simpler version of the GUI as standard on those machines.

I guess there are a lot of questions. One would be whether they use the chip they're working on, or use the Atom, as it's now much better and uses less power. That would make OS X programs compatible out of the box. that would be a good thing, as long as people don't expect to do Photoshop work, or video editing.

Their own chip could be reserved for handheld, or slightly larger devices.

It's more like 30 to 60% that don't redeem.

based on what? I'm sure the non-redemption rate goes up for a smaller rebate amount, but $100 is no joke. Where are you getting a 30-60% rate? Which, by the way is a rather broad figure.

I dont think Ive ever redeemed one. I dont even own envelops or stamps to mail it off in.

Maybe because air is a worse conductor then copper?

Just a guess...

Dude, it's even easier to not deal with rebates in the first place!

Why should I have to pay higher sakes taxes and let a company float on my money for a month or more?

Because they know a certain percentage of people won't follow through on the rebate, that's why! They aren't doing it as a favor to you.

Dude!

So why you are here pitching it as if it's some positive, fun activity is beyond me. Rebates suck, and are basically a gimmick. Palm/Sprint can't hang and they are having to resort to a sales gimmick - one that will rightly turn off a great many people.

A while back I linked to a discussion at Ars wherein an iPhone developer (of the very well received "Now Playing" app) discusses why he, as a developer, wouldn't want Apple to allow third party multi-tasking at current hardware levels, and how that very issue has proven to be a pain in the ass when developing for Android.

His argument boils down to this: a phone is a hideously constrained development environment, where memory and CPU cycles are at an intense premium. If "background apps" can steal cycles/ram, it means his app, when open, is going to take a performance hit, and he doesn't have any control over that. But the user only knows that the app is dog slow, or decides that there's something wrong with the phone.

He describes his experience with developing for Android, where this very thing happens.

So when it comes to "multitasking", a hardware manufacturer has several choices: they can open it up so that anyone who want to write an app that runs in the background can do so, and leave it up to the user to figure out what's gone wrong when an app misbehaves-- as indicated by terrible battery life, shitty performance, or both.

Or, they can allow "some" multitasking, by either severely vetting candidate apps, or limiting how many apps can run in the background or both. Apple will likely take this route at some point.

Or you can do what Palm has done, which is to use a lightweight OS that puts fewer demands on the processor/battery/ram, but at the expense of limiting the depth of apps that can be run.

Even then, we don't know yet what the battery life for the Pre will be like, or what mechanisms are in place to insure that a misbehaving app doesn't completely kill performance/battery life, or how a user would go about identifying/killing such an app.

A lot of the "multitasking" discussion is rolling forward from the state of things a few years ago, when it was considered perfectly acceptable to subject the user to a "task manager" and expect him/her to figure out were the trouble lay and kill off processes accordingly.

That kind of thing is why, until the iPhone, "smartphones" lived in their little geek ghetto.

Plenty of enthusiasts posting on the internet think it would be great to have granular control over their phones processes, and don't see it a drawback if they are in fact obliged to utilize such control, or have their phone not work very well.

But in the iPhone era this is no longer good enough. The average user (and yes, I mean average, not stupid or trendy or sheep like or toy loving, just normal folks) want their phone to work for them, not the other way around, no matter how much that offends the Gizmodo commentariat.

So to answer the "what about video, huh" thing: I get to choose when I record video, and I can make a pretty reliable calculation as to how that is going to effect battery life. With background processes, unless I spend a lot of time monitoring my phone's innards and manually managing tasks, things can happen without my permission or knowledge that are simply going to seem to me as if the app/phone is broken.

Apple will never allow that to happen.

No complaints for anything that makes things easier. I would pay for it too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebate_(marketing)

As high as 60% as low as 2%. How's that for broad?

Bottom line, companies only do things that make them money. The only reason they mess with rebates is enough people don't follow through to make it worth their while. Which makes the rebate a sucker sales gimmick, or if you are OCD about obtaining your rebates a financial windfall missed by others.

I guess it comes down to perspective. Either way they still are a PITA

My spare iPhone battery is around the same size as a normal phone battery, as I pointed out earlier I don't have to turn my phone off or hang up on a call to use it.

What sort of store is JandR, is it like an electrical store with numerous things on display with iPhone/iPod docks where I could grab a bit of a charge while talking to you about phone batteries?

Numbers released by industry publications give those numbers. I've even seen numbers up to 70% unredeemed. The numbers vary so much because it depends on what company is involved, which products, how easy it is, whether it's an "instant" redemption as opposed to a mail-in, or an online one etc.

Please read the entire article, because a lot of numbers are buried further down, but they are there. Read the one about the $100 Tivo rebates. Nearly half didn't bother to send them in at all. How many who did send them in got the rebate, they don't say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebate_(marketing)

Ah, I posted before seeing your post. We're not alone!

Air has nothing to do with it. This works by electromagnetic induction. It would work in a vacuum.

DoctorNo42 beat me to it but that is where I got my figures too. The Tivo example is instructive - $100, 50% redemption. I have missed several $100 and $200 rebates - for various reasons - usually because I let them expire in either sending in or cashing the check.

Your estimates seem to based on what you think your hit rate might be, not what the great American public actually does - always stupider than you think.