Most of us here like gadgets. Things with displays, LEDs, or stuff that otherwise lights up in the dark and makes cool noises. There is this one gadget I had been waiting for to come out in The Netherlands for quite a while now, but at some point a limit was reached, and today I decided to do a complete 180 and buy a competing product.
Back in January of this year, a company on the verge of a massive financial abyss sent waves through the geek crowd by not only announcing a completely new gadget, but also a completely new operating system, based on the Linux kernel, carrying with it an innovative user interface.
Audiences at CES were stunned, the tech media were all over it, and the device became the star of the show. I’m of course talking about the Palm Pre and the webOS, the saviours of Palm. The device looked stunning, the software and its card paradigm was new, fresh, and interesting.
However, there was a major downside. Even though it was January, the Pre and its webOS wouldn’t actually ship until somewhere in the summer. This was a long wait for a gadget, but at the same time, the mobile phone world is filled with people bogged down by contracts anyway, so even if Palm released the Pre right away, it wouldn’t ensure massive sales. It may have made sense to announce the device early, only to keep the media interested in it for 6 months, keeping the audience enticed.
Finally, the Pre started shipping on June 6, 2009. Reviews about the device were overall positive, with the best aspect of the device being its operating system, and the worst aspect, well, the device itself. The hardware is simply not up to par, build-quality-wise, to that of, say, the iPhone.
Overall though, I personally really like the Palm Pre, and the webOS in particular. It seems like Palm has struck the perfect balance between Apple-like control and the Android-like free-for-all, giving users the idea they actually own their device, but without making any compromises to the combined webOS+Pre product.
I liked the Pre and the webOS so much, that I decided it should become my next phone. My current phone is the Nokia E71, a phone stuck somewhere in between the mobile phone days of yore and the modern world of iPhoneOS and webOS smartphones. It does its job fine, but I, too, wanted something more modern, something less… Business.
June came and went. The Pre was released in the United States. Canada soon followed, and in the past few weeks, the Pre has also been launched in the UK, Germany, and Spain. In the meantime, I patiently sat and waited for any news – any – regarding the Palm Pre in The Netherlands. A deafening silence was all we got.
Finally, mid-October, news came, but it wasn’t good. Dutch technology website Tweakers.net said various sources had told the website that the Pre wouldn’t arrive in The Netherlands for a long time, and that it in fact may not arrive at all. Several Dutch phone shops tried to get the Pre to The Netherlands, but Palm only wishes to deal with retailers directly, and no longer via distributors as is common in the phone world. On top of that, Palm wants to deal with a single carrier, much like Apple.
When it came to the UK, Germany, and Spain, rumours were abound long before the news was made official. There is not even a single decent rumour out there that the Pre will make it to The Netherlands any time soon. This is a bad thing.
Let’s forget the iPhone for a second. Its position is pretty much stable, and the Pre never had any chance of toppling Apple over on this one. However, it did have a chance to become a good second – but the longer Palm waits with making it possible for consumers to actually buy the darn thing, the more people will look at HTC and other Android phone makers.
Palm had a very good window between the release of the iPhone 3GS and the upcoming holiday season, but with the onslaught of Android phones currently washing over the market, this window is closing fast. More and more am I getting the feeling that Palm has missed its golden opportunity with the Pre.
In the US, the Pre is tied to a bleeding provider. Canada – as much as I love Jennifer Jones – doesn’t really make that much of a difference, sales-wise. In Europe, it is only available in three countries. I’m sorry, but to make a true mindshare dent – which is arguably a lot more important than market share, see the iPhone – Palm needs to make sure more people can actually buy the Pre.
Palm should’ve gotten the Pre on a GSM network in the US by now. The Pre should’ve been released Europe-wide by now. I get the feeling that Palm thinks it can be like Apple, that providers in Europe are standing in line to adopt the Pre. The problem is that while Apple is a major brand everyone in Europe knows, Palm is not. Maybe some 30-somethings will vaguely recall the Palm Pilot, but that’s about it. Palm is not a strong brand here – maybe not even a weak brand.
Palm is not in the position to make the rules here. They should’ve made it possible for any provider to ship the device in Europe, with the only requirement being that it cannot be branded. Had they done that at the end of the summer, they would’ve had a winner on their hands. It would not have beaten the iPhone (of course not), but it would’ve given them a decent presence.
As for me, it’s too late. My phone broke not too long ago, so I needed a new one; my contract renewal was up too, so I was lucky. I went to the T-Mobile Store today, and bought an iPhone 3GS 16GB White (I’m picking it up Thursday).
That will be EUR 99.95, please. And your soul, obviously.
Wow, that sucks big hairy man ass! ;-D
Seriously, I’d of gone with an Android phone myself just to evade the lock in. My last iPod was my last Apple gadget and I’m sticking to that resolution.
Good luck with your new phone and I hope you have less trouble than my friends have had.
I was waiting a long time for the Pre to arrive here in Germany. I held on to my trusty E65 because I wanted the Pre. And then it came out on O2. Personally, I think O2’s service sucks big time. So I went with Android on Vodafone and am quite satisfied with the hardware and the OS (I rooted the phone the first day I had it), even if I sold my soul to Google in the process.
Addendum: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/03/gsm-palm-pre-unlocked-with-a-lit…
Just on a ventilator, with a 106 degree temp (41.1 C), having lost 2 quarts of blood. Also, the heart is in Ventricular Tachycardia, sepsis is rampant, and there is very little brain-wave activity.
But not dead. Palm lives on!
Edited 2009-11-03 21:23 UTC
there is very little brain-wave activity.
That one there applies to quite many different companies
Would you by a cell phone from this man?
Empirically speaking, liver failure seems to go over better with consumers.
Edited 2009-11-05 15:22 UTC
Why any phone company would lock themselves into the customer base of a single cell service provider is beyond me. Just release a damned GSM version already!!
There’s no way that Bell Canada paid Palm enough to make up for the loss of all the Rogers customers. By the time the 6-month exclusivity deal is up, no one on Rogers will want one.
There are a lot of people in my neck of the woods that were chomping at the bit for a Pre on Rogers. Now … not so much. In a few months when there’s a possibility of it coming to Rogers … probably not enough to make it worth it.
Well from a european perspective the Pre is dead, deader than dead, there are Android telephones coming out left and right, and even with HTC currently screwing their customers into the buttocks by not releasing Android 2.0 on the HTC magic (the phone is still sold btw. but HTC already refused to port Android 2.0 to it, and Samsung doing the same with their Android phone), there are others which will come out with Android phones, like Motrola, LG, Sony Ericsson, and all of them are as capable or even more than the Palm Pre outside of Apple.
If the Pre ever will hit european grounds officially it will be too little too late, why should customers still go for the Pre if they can get more capable Android phones by the dozends.
This US only exclusivity deal probably is the last straw which broke Palms neck, they simply ignored the rest of the world in favor of securing a US only deal.
your soul is still intact… Apple only wants the souls of your unborn children…
yeah!
Why not an android or Nokias new N900 (I’m getting one!)?
By “getting one” I mean next year some time but it’s the first device that’s made me want to combine PDA and phone while also being a fantastic upgrade to my N810. With Nokia allowing carriers to customize there units, I just hope the Nokia direct sale price comes down to my budget range sooner than my patience drives me to sign a contract and accept a branded box. (hm.. if I do accept a branded box, I’ll have to see if I can just hit it with the Nokia clean firmware image)
…a whole raft of new anti-Apple, anti-iTunes, anti-App Store articles over the coming weeks for us I suspect…
Last I heard, the reality-distortion field effect lasts at least a few months. Then the articles come.
“Then the articles come.”
I don’t know why, but how you said that instantly reminded me of a poem I last read in 1996/7 called the Song of the Worms. http://tinyurl.com/yhunp3h
What, you think I need an iPhone for that?
Apple has shown to be perfectly capable of causing bad publicity all by itself.
Can’t think of any companies out there that haven’t. And as with most things we see in the media its generally some squeaky wheel trying to get their 10 minutes of fame…
You’ve mentioned it a million or so times. Or is it just your mum’s iPhone that you hate?
Edited 2009-11-03 22:28 UTC
I had to literally double take and check who the submitter was. You, buy an iPhone? *monocle* Why not Android? Could you expand upon that please?
Kroc, I am with you here. Especially after the podcasts! Who would think Thom would buy an Apple product anymore (well at least a new product)?
Don’t understand you at all Thom, the reality distortion field got you
Lets not make him feel bad about his purchase. “Why Thom why”
Good thing about you getting this phone is you can experiment with the app store alternatives and tell us if any of them are any good.
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=app+store+alternatives+&btn…
Hi Thom,
what I don’t quite understand, why didn’t you buy an O2 palm from Germany? They are not locked, you don’t have to get into a contract the only thing is that O2 is the exclusive distributor. IMO getting a phone by paying upfront is almost always a better deal than getting it on contract.
No it’s not. I have to pay my cell contract anyway, and phone or no phone, that’s 30 EUR a month for 200min, 200txt msg, and unlimited data@2mbps. I get the iPhone for 99EUR with this contract. Without the iPhone, the contract would still be 30EUR a month – only now, you want me to pay 600 EUR for an unlocked Pre.
That’s idiotic. On top of that – Germans use a QWERTZ keyboard, we use QWERTY.
You guys don’t have better deals on contracts without phone? I thought they do have them pretty much everywhere in the world. AFAIK in Germany they do, definitely here in OZ, although you might need to move away from one of the big providers. On a side note it’s quite amazing how many small providers with very unique plans they have here in OZ.
Interesting I always assumed dutch keyboards where QWERTZ as well, considering how similar Dutch and German are.
Same here in Sweden. Most of the time you can choose between paying less (or nothing) for your phone and pay more per month on your contract or buy your phone at full price and pay less per month. Generally speaking it works out to about the same in total over the length of you contract.
We use QWERTY, but we also use American keyboards despite there being Dutch ones.
Don’t give a Dutch keyboard to a Dutch person though or they’ll get confused about the layout.
In other European contries I visited they do use their own “national” keyboard, making it very tricky to type your password. My trick is to set the layout to US and type blind.
Over here in Luxembourg we tend to use a QWERTZ Swiss French keyboard. It’s pretty cool as you can type in almost all western European languages without resorting to alt key combinations.
The biggest problem for me are Belgium companies or retailers. They tend to either use or sell AZERTY keyboards which are very confusing to someone who uses either QWERTZ or QWERTY. I couldn’t count the amount of times I’ve had to install a different layout on a laptop, then change the default user account setting in WinXP for a user.
In the end, I’m glad I’m moving to London. One keyboard layout to rule them all!!!
Your mistake then. Dutch and German may be similar linguistically, their spelling is quite different. In Belgium they write Dutch with a French AZERTY keyboard. Now that’s weird
.
Inaccurate
Don’t give me (Flemish Belgian) a French Azerty, because they frustrate me to no end with their weird interpunction placement.
Edited 2009-11-04 10:29 UTC
Ok, my bad! I saw “AZERTY” on a Flemmish keyboard once, didn’t check the interpunction.
double post – deleted
Edited 2009-11-04 10:33 UTC
Is that 30$ total payment per month? I’m having to reconsider my current setup and it’s looking like 30$ base plan plus 40$ on top for the “iPhone” special data plan.
I hate that I read about new units/programs and services that are only available in the US. Why does it take so long before some things comes to Europe and Norway.
I can’t se the logic. Norway and Europe have good economy and like to buy new electronics devices.
Please let us…
Espen
Did you miss out on geography in school, or are you just a Norwegian Europe hater?
I’m pretty sure he means “Europe in general and Norway in particular”…
Which is still silly, given the international audience here…
Probely missted some of the english lessons in school…
Palm apparently couldn’t work a deal with either of the 2 biggest providers and ended up going with Sprint, while AT&T cleaned up with the iPhone. By the time the Pre gets released to other carriers (end of the year, maybe?), I think no one will be that interested here, either.
I’m just glad the Moto Droid is coming on on Verizon. It’s about time they pulled their head out and got a really high-potential smartphone. I didn’t want to lose my soul AND switch to AT&T
I have a 3gs as well and I must say for the most part I really do like it. There’s just one thing that gets me, and that is the build quality. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but the kind of smooth plastic Apple used feels like it would shatter to pieces if dropped even once from a very small height. I would’ve much preferred the construction like that of the iPhone 3g or iPod Touch instead. Still, it’s probably not anywhere near as fragile as it feels, but I’m not going to test that if I can help it. My previous HTC phone felt solid as a rock, but broke after less than a year when accidentally dropped from my hand onto my desk, so look and feel are no guarantees of quality. I’m just happy to finally be rid of windows mobile 6.1.
My two son’s and I have 3G’s and my wife just got a 3GS. She’s sight impaired so tends to have a few of those “ah crap I forgot I left that there” moments – two already with the new iPhone (within a week – makes me cringe) and no ill effects. They weren’t big drops, one around 40cm onto tiles and the other from her desk onto the “leg” of her desk chair – I’ll call it a leg for want of a better term – it’s the bit the castor plugs in to – and it’s metal. A very good reason to have a nice protective case wrapped around it…
I totally feel you… I did the same thing some time ago. I felt guilty for months…
Still holding out. Not buying anything else yet. But come on Palm!
I was trying to tell my friends about this phone. My friends said, “..Palm, what’s that?”
My friends wife said “Oh I used to have a Palm for work.”
Now we know why this is a make or break product.
Many said Apple had missed the boat with it’s iPod, but look at that now.
My point is this: if a product is of good enough quality, then people will buy it.
Edited 2009-11-04 08:43 UTC
I’m so happy with my 10 EUR Alcatel prepaid phone. Everytime I read stories like this, I’m glad I stick to cheap ‘n’ easy.
In Belgium Palm is a strong brand, not for phones bur for beer
Palm tried to copy apple’s business model.
Normally it’s best to fix your competitor’s mistakes in several key areas, and to do something very uniquely different to set yourself apart.
And the bad press a couple months ago about their app store and “free” applications didn’t help. Nor does the upcoming Android 2.0 help either.
Palm’s hopscotch game with Apple’s iTunes also doesn’t help.
In the US, the Palm problem is this:
*Sprint commercial plays*
“I thought Palm went under. Huh.”
…and then, you know, it’s Sprint. Metro folks want AT&T (GSM, more good OS choices) or Verizon (don’t care about GSM), and folks out in the tech boonies want Verizon. Those who use Sprint still have many other phone options, so then Palm has to have some way to sell on merit, and beat out the public images of other phones and OSes.
Edited 2009-11-05 13:56 UTC
Four countries, thanks 😛 Ireland is a country too.
I’ve been playing around with one since I got it during the Maemo Summit and yes, this is the device you should have waited for. At least your soul wouldn’t have had to be sold. Oh well, maybe next year.
Too late, usually you can’t buy souls back once sold, I’m pretty sure there’s a no refund clause in there somewhere. Oh well, you can always hope they get bored with it and try to put it up on Ebay.
Question; does the N900 allow you to disable/enable each separate network connection? I’m told Android even has a separate setting to disable phone network connectivity while leaving the rest up. I’m thiking times when airplane mode is too much but I don’t want it on the cell towers either.
Android has the capability hidden in the settings most phones deliver frontend applets out of the box to do that without having to dig through the menu. The HTC Hero does however and you can get them also on the marketplace. My androidphone has the various switches on the front screen instead of the google search, those functions are more important than having the google search on my front screen.
As a Pre owner I suggest you save your time and money and purchase another phone! It really is a POS.
1) Keyboard in portrait mode sucks! (keys too small) It should have been landscape mode.
2) OS is slow to respond and I constantly hit things twice (being impatient) and end up screwing something up)
3) No quick method to call a frequent number! (having to open the keyboard or go to recent calls is not an answer). hitting a ‘2’ and dial should be the quick dial! not trying to call ‘2’?????? what brain dead engineer thought that up?
4) GPS is slow to aquire. I’m usually half way to my destination before I can use the navigation!
5) No VPN! What the hell were they thinking!
6) Volume controls really suck! Step size too big, Lowest headphone setting not low enough.
7) People keep saying the OS is it’s strong point! Why because it’s Linux based? Ha! What a POS! Its slow, clunky and not very intuitive! My kids (9,11&14) even have trouble understanding how it works!
8) The battery life is really poor even with WiFi & BT shut off!
Many more but don’t have time.
I have an iPod Touch as well and this is built better, thought-out better and over all a better device for the things that over lap.
And then you answer your own question: Palm isn’t a meaningful brand in the Netherlands, so, that, combined with the small population (only about half that of California) means it makes no sense for Palm to go all out on a limb to sell their phones there, because frankly, the Netherlands just isn’t that important of a market! I very much doubt any phone manufacturer with thin potential profit margins would even bother trying to negotiate things for just half the state of California (though they are a rather influential state, technologically and economically, despite a huge deficit) if they can negotiate with fewer other service providers that give them access to a larger potential customer base combined with more pre-existing brand recognition.
It is not the netherlends, they do not sell the phone at all outside of the US. I know many people who had seriously considered the pre a while ago and now either have reverted to iphones or android phones or are waiting now for the Nokia N900 to hit the stores. Palm lost a shitload of potential customers worldwide that way.
The worldwide market for them at least for the PRE is absolutely dead, which basically means they had forsaken 90% of potential sales by making a contract which ensured them 10% of potential sales.
In other words stupidity at its best.
The Pre is available in Canada via Bell.
The Pre is also available in Europe via O2 (possibly others).
Yes I noticed that it finally is available, it has been for a few weeks now.
But my point is still valid.
While you may think that if they released it in all of Europe quickly it would have become popular, I can assure you that it wouldn’t have.
The Pre has been a failure here in the US. In the first three months, only 375,000 have been sold to users. The rest of the phones that Palm sold to Sprint, 175,000, some of which, like the rest, which Sprint then sold to WalMart, Radio Shack, Best Buy and others, were still sitting on the shelves at the end of the quarter.
Since Sprint has expensive phones that have been selling much better than this, Sprint isn’t to blame for the falling sales. A problem that is continuing.
Palm has made many mistakes in releasing this phone too soon, making it difficult for developers, poor hardware, a too small screen for effective multitouch, etc. Whether Palm will remain around is the biggest question.
Look at pricing. $199 after a $100 rebate, which you may not get. Then, the phone selling at Walmart (with 2 year contract) for $79. O2 is now selling the phone. Oh, did I say sell? No, they’re GIVING the phone away. I wonder why?
The Pixi, which is supposed to sell for $99 after rebate looks lousy. How are they going to make any money on that, with the Pre now selling for $149 at Sprint, a price drop that Sprint says is made by Palm, not them, and the rest of the pricing. You can’t get much cheaper than FREE.
I think that Palm is in big trouble.
And why the “soul” bit for buying an iPhone? Thats childish of you. It’s a phone, not a new religion. I hope you can keep that in perspective.
And if you didn’t really want an iPhone, you didn’t HAVE to buy one. You did, because you really DID want one. Just admit it. You could have bought something else.
I read the soul bit to be more towards the contract the carrier required him to sign though Apple does also do what they can to lock customers into there brand.
I haven’t had a cell phone in few years, but back when I did I stuck with a few nokia models like the 252 and 3205i. Not fancy phones by any means, but solid. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped the various phones over the years. So I’m curious as to how solid these new phones are. Given that phones are now becoming serious platforms for software with greatly expanded hardware capabilities, I’ve been thinking about them more and more…
My first purchase for any similar device has been a good case for it. My T5 had a great attached case that closed around it and paid for itself within the first week when it went face down on the subway platform.
I’d really like to see Innopocket (think that’s who made my old aluminium case) do a case for the N900 but they ignored the N800/N810 so I’m not getting my hopes up.
Both my N8x0 have taken a drop with little effect other than some case scratches. Not sure how the other current blocks of plastic hold up.
blackrain just came out yesterday, unlocks latest iphone 3g/3gs:
http://blackra1n.com/
easiest way to jailbreak an iphone to date.
And with all those devs that left the platform because of Apple’s draconian assessment policies you never know, it could have been 100,005 by now…
In all reality though there’s probably only about 1% to 2% that are useful commercial quality apps right? I’m certain there would be significantly more similar apps than that available for Windows Mobile or Windows Phone or whatever they’re calling it this month, Symbian, Blackberry etc with their much more user friendly development policies right?
Because as we all know, popularity confirms quality.
As such, Windows is the best operating system in the world, and Apple makes crap hardware, because they barely register on the worldwide sales scale for personal computers.
I love the hypocrisy from Apple fanatics.
Windows fanatics are just the same. After saying for many years that Windows is better because it has more software than OS X, Ballmer is now saying that having much less software for Win Mobile is a good thing because it’s higher quality.
I guess OS X software is higher quality as well.
Actually, with 100,000 apps, there’s a greater chance of finding a high quality program than when on a platform with 10% of that. There’s no evidence that having far less programs means that a greater percentage of them are better.
I just picked up the latest and greatest device out there, a Treo 650. It’s, like, a phone. It’s, like, a Palm Pilot. It’s, like, somebody had this idea, “Let’s take a Palm Pilot, and a cell phone, and, like, glue them together, and hold them in, like, one hand” (a really big hand, to be sure).
Unlocked for $140 (that includes shipping). Actually, I bought it to replace my wife’s aging Palm Pilot, because they aren’t made any more. It’s pretty much the old Palm OS, but on somewhat more powerful hardware, so the PDA side of things flies. The phone is just a bonus. It accepted her old, pre-paid SIM without complaint.
The other good point, is that Jpilot restored to the new device without complaint, and my wife was good to go. Now there’s a novel idea, backwards compatibility.