TiPb Starts the Pre vs. iPhone Analysis 18
Over at our sister site The iPhone Blog, our pal Rene has written up an excellent article entitled "iPhone 3.0 vs. Palm Pre: Which One Should You Buy?"
The article takes a very fair and unbiased look at both smartphones, giving you the pros and cons of each. Rene talks about the pros and cons of the keyboard, network, cloud support, ecosystem, and apps.
Those of you reading this have most likely already chosen the Palm Pre of course. But for those on the fence, Rene's article will give you lots of insight into how the Pre and the iPhone 3.0 both have particular strengths and weaknesses.
We, of course, fall into the camp that believes both products can coexist peacefully - but that doesn't mean what we're above pointing out how much we enjoy true multitasking on a smartphone.
18 Comments
I agree with all of his points except for the network. I'm in Boston, and people I know here are constantly getting dropped calls on AT&T, and I've never had any issue with Sprint.
Where my family lives in New Jersey, it's the same story.
And to reply to Frank, sure, Apple could easily halfass it and just let multiple applications be running at once. It'd give it the feel of WM multitasking, where you can have multiple programs open, but have to go back to the apps menu to go back to any of them so it doesn't save any time. What would take much longer is making an entirely new and intuitive interface for the multitasking so that it can be done right like the Pre does it.
>>>>>"What would take much longer is making an entirely new and intuitive interface for the multitasking so that it can be done right like the Pre does it."
Exactly!
This is the point a lot of people seem to miss. WM and Blackberries also do multi-tasking/multiple-open-apps.
It's HOW they do it, that is the crucial difference.
Is any of the competition going to come up with something as intuitive and fluid as the 'Cards' metaphor?
I doubt it.
It's really too bad MS hasn't paid attention to third party software.
With SPB Pocket+ I have a one button press alt-tab to easily cycle through all my open apps, and the "close" button drop down menu is SO much more useful than HTC's.
It's one of those things I love showing iPhone users, cycling through FB, Twitter, a video playing on Hulu, and my IM, along with standard apps like email/contacts/calendar, all running at the same time.
One serious error in his comparison. Pre does handle simultaneous voice and data according to Sprint Mole over at PalmGoon.
See second question:
http://palmgoon.com/your-pre-questions-answered-part-3/
Are you sure about that? This is the first time I have heard that.
Sorry guys, the Pre, and Sprint specifically, ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT SUPPORT simultaneous voice and data.
... but it's not a big deal to me. Since calls ring through--and I typically don't want to do much on the net while talking.
There is much confusion here about this topic.
The only 3 ways CDMA can offer simultaneous voice and data is if voice calls are done VOIP or the device in question has a wifi connection.
Sprint could offer VOIP over the EVDO (Data Only) if they wanted to spend some cash to do so. But thus far they haven't.
Or have a VOIP app on their phone like Skype.
So basically anybody who want's to do simultaneous voice and data on a sprint device must utilize a wifi connection for data or have a VOIP propgram on their phone.
EVDO Rev A CAN support voice+data, but Sprint has not allowed the feature to be installed on any of the current Rev A phones.
It'd be a nice little feature to unlock on the Pre, but I doubt they will allow it. Anything that could tie up their infrastructure right now is probably not a good idea for a cash strapped company.
Look at how badly ONE phone (iPhone) hit the AT&T network.