The battle for cell phone supremacy is on and poppin’!!! Apple is bringing the PAIN! Today Apple released information on the long rumored beefed up version of the iPhone, The IPhone 3G S. I don’t think it is a coincidence that it was announced so close to the release of the Palm Pre and that it will be released on June 19th, one day short of 2 weeks after the Palm Pre release.
I would say that the iPhone 3G S is the competition for the Pre and I would be sort of right if I did. BUT! What is really gonna screw over Palm with this iPhone release is the slash in price for the iPhone 3G (sans S). Sheezus! The iPhone 3G 8gb is now $99.99 (I am so glad I ebay-ed mine before I came out here to Taiwan). That means if you get screwed over on your $100 mail in rebate the Palm Pre will be $200 dollars more for the same amount of storage. Gah!!! I hate mail in rebates!!!!!
The iPhone 3G S boasts new and fancy features like an Autofocus Camera, Voice control, built-in Compass for orienting maps in the direction that you are standing, video recording, and improved battery life. These are great features but I think that the Palm Pre is still going to eek out a victory even with these wonderful new features. Let’s go down the line. Oh I almost forgot the iPhone 3G S starts at 16GB and you can still get it for the low low price of $199.99!
The iPhone 3G S will have a 3 megapixel Camera with no flash that does autofocusing. BUT! What is cool about it is that you can tap the screen to tell it where to focus or let it choose where to focus. The Palm Pre Camera is also 3 megapixels but it has a flash. The iPhone 3G S wins in this category because it’s camera can take 30 fps videos as well as all the other automagic things it can do.
The iPhone 3G S also has improved battery life compared to the iPhone 3G . The numbers that they have quoted are actually higher than the Palm Pre. But the palm pre wins in the battery battle because it’s battery is removable and therefore replaceable. If your iPhone runs out of Juice you better have another one in your pocket because you sure can’t change the battery! With the Palm Pre you can just have another batter in your pocket and you’re good to go.
The iPhone 3G S has a built in Compass. I say who cares to that! If you can’t figure out which way you are facing you shouldn’t be using a map. Both the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3G S will have GPS enabled maps. I call this a tie.
The iPhone 3G S voice controls are cool but the problem with the voice control is that you have to pick up your phone and press the stupid button for them to work. But you can do things like tell it to play a certain type of music and it will. The Palm Pre loses here but once again I say who cares. If you are too lazy to press a few buttons (you don’t even have to press the damn buttons it’s a touch screen) you probably wouldn’t be able to afford either phone. And since you have to press the button it is not hands free and therefore can’t be used in the car!
The one major thing where the iPhone loses is multi-tasking. They say if you multitask it crazy drains the battery yada yada yada, but guess what! It’s my #$%&ing BATTERY! I’ll drain my battery if I want to! If it was replaceable maybe this wouldn’t be an issue! Think about that Mr. Jobs? Maybe you should think about that for your next release. The Pre will let me drain the crap out of my battery (whenever I can get one) and that is exactly what I plan to do!
In my opinion the best thing about the Palm Pre that will be getting in August is the fact that I will never EVER be tied down to the most evil application on the planet, iTunes, again.
One of the more important things is the carrier. Palm was very smart with this. They are only exclusive with sprint through 2009. That means that one day very soon Verizon and AT&T will have the Palm Pre, or something similar to it. Once the Palm Pre hits Verizon I think it is going to be hugely popular and really gain some market share.
The final category is price. The Palm Pre is a $300 dollar phone. It takes so long to get rebates that by the time you get it, it really does not apply to the cost of the phone. If it is June 19th and you only have $200 in your pocket and you are at the sprint store you cannot get a Palm Pre, but you can go next door and walk off with an iPhone 3G S or TWO!! iPhone 3G’s. I really think Palm and Sprint screwed up BIG TIME with this price thing. If I was hemming and hawing about the Palm Pre I definitely would say” hey! What’s this? I can get an iPhone 3G for $99.99 and it has 80% of the features? Hmmm.” So Palm will get hurt here. Because even though I don’t like the iPhone too much it is still an EXTREMELY good and popular phone. And on top of that, if the iPhone 36 8GB is 99.99 what is the price for the 16GB? I don’t know but I bet it will be like 149.99 (the 3G S is 16GB and is only $199.99).
My final conclusion is that for my personal situation the Palm Pre will be the best phone ever. But of course there are those people that would by Steve Jobs’ turds if he sold them, and those people will buy an iPhone 3GS and if they are cheap Steve Jobs worshippers they will buy the iPhone 3G for $99.99. But let’s be honest, the customers that would buy the iPhone over the Pre were probably not even Palm’s target to buy the phone. So if you are like me then please go buy a Palm Pre as soon as possible, so that palm does not crash and burn before I can get my Pre in August. And if you love Apple, products even though they are nowhere near as functional as they can and should be, then go buy your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3G S!
Don’t get me wrong, Apple makes good products, I am definitely not an Apple hater. I actually have a 20” iMac. But when it comes to phones I am NOT a fan and I had an iPhone 3G 9 Months!
