Palm Pre vs iPhone

Although everyone reading this article is rolling their eyes and sighing at yet another article written about the Palm Pre taking on Apple's iPhone, the fact is the Palm Pre WILL be the toughest competitor iPhone has yet to face in the long list of "iPhone killers". The Palm Pre was unveiled at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) earlier this year and it was hands down the number one most talked about product. Let's look at some of the hype and how it compares to iPhone. Here are a few slight advantages the Palm Pre has over the iPhone.

USER INTERFACE

The Palm Pre will allow you to browse through multiple programs with a swipe of your finger. Flicking your finger will close the program. It also will allow programs to run in the background, a feature the iPhone does not currently have. Also, Palm has also agreed to have an app store similar to Apple's. Basically, Palm Pre has what the iPhone has, and then some.

PHYSICAL KEYBOARD

I don't own an iPhone. So, I can't say how good or bad the touch screen is, but I have used a friend's iPhone for a short time just to "try it out". I found that the touch screen is great. It registers your finger taps accurately and it felt very responsive. BUT, nothing beats a physical keyboard which the Palm Pre will be sporting. Some people may view Palm Pre's lack of a touch screen keyboard as a minus, but I view it as a plus.



INTEGRATED CONTACTS

The Palm Pre will be able to combine all of your contacts from your cell phone, facebook, twitter, etc into one single address book entry. Instead of having to shuffle between multiple applications (like on iPhone) in order to communicate with various social hubs, you will be able to SMS, instant message, or contact someone on Facebook from a single screen.

and the big one...

SOFTWARE BACKLOG

Apple released a statement this past January that said something like this: "The iPhone has 15,000 applications available for use! No one will ever catch up!" Well, guess how many the Palm OS has available? Over 50,000 applications. 'Nuff said, but I do want to clarify one thing. The webOS that will be on the Palm Pre will not be backwards compatible meaning that it will not support the old Palm OS and therefore you won't be able to use the old apps HUH?!?... but you just... I know what I said. Palm doesn't want to lose that advantage, so Palm has publically stated that they will help Palm developers port their apps to the webOS and they welcome third-parties to provide applications for backwards-compatibility. In other words, it will be backwards-compatible. (Before I finished writing this article, I found a third-party app that will provide backwards-compatibility. Jeez, that was fast!)

The Palm Pre will be bringing some big guns into the cell phone showdown, so it'll be interesting in a few years to see who will reign supreme. iPhone has such a huge jump on the Palm Pre, I almost think it will be impossible for Palm to do any damage.

Just to be fair, the iPhone has a couple advantages. It has the Palm Pre beat in the design department (Apple excels in that area). Also, both phones are guilty of having a list (albeit small) of features missing that are standard on most cell phones. The Palm Pre lacks video recording and removable storage, while the iPhone lacks MMS and background applications. (I know MMS is suppose to be in the next iPhone update. I'll believe it when I see it.)

The bottom line... whoever wins, they will have a monopoly that'll make Bill Gates jealous. It's stilll too early to say who will be on top when all the dust settles, but it'll be fun to watch. The war has just begun.