Options are great. When you have an option, you can choose what works for YOU, not what the masses say should work for you. You can proudly say you made your choice without giving in to the mob mentality, with the knowledge that your decision will fit your individual needs. Scan Different (c) Ecko. However, that doesn't work with everything, especially electronics. And it certainly didn't work with my phone...
First, some disclosure. I rarely ever change phones or carriers. I was with Nextel back with the OG i1000. I switched to the i90 (one of the greatest phones ever) when the hinge on the i1000 broke and could not be fixed.
The i90 gave way to the i580, only because I wanted to make my own .wav ringtones and have a color screen (a mistake, as the i90 was such a better phone). The i580 soldiered on long past its prime, as none of the crop of phones Sprint carried made me want to spend $300 to upgrade. Sure the Moguls and the Touch Diamonds were nice, but I wanted no parts of Windows Mobile.
I wasn't the right clientele for a Blackberry, so that was a no go. Android was at its infancy. And while many bought the kool-aide that was the Instinct, thinking that was an iPhone killer, I wasn't going to be duped.
Then came CES 2009. Palm, who had been rapidly losing market share pushing Treos and Centros with craptacular Windows Mobile or woefully outdated PalmOS, showed off what it had been working on for the past few months. The Palm Pre.
It seemed to tick all the right boxes for what I wanted in a new phone: capacitive touch screen, wi-fi, bluetooth, physical keyboard, not Windows based. WebOS was new and exiting, and seemed different enough from iOS, Android, whatever version of Windows Mobile was out, etc. The preview of the OS was intriguing, with multitouch input (something Apple seemed to hold the monopoly on at the time) and all forms of on screen swipes (something slightly different). The launch, unfortunately for many, wouldn't happen until early summer. This worked out perfectly for me. My contract would be up for renewal about the same time my job issued their summer bonuses, meaning I would have the funds to actually buy a new phone the same time it was available after launch. I took a lunch break, hopped on the train to the nearest Sprint store and had brand spanking new Palm Pre up and running in less than 15 minutes.
Now, coming from an ancient Nextel to the realm of a smartphone, anything would have been a revelation. But WebOS? It really was something special. The Synergy feature made it extremely easy to get my att.net and gmail accounts synced up with minimum fuss. Facebook and Photobucket were also as easy to get rolling on the phone. After a quick tutorial, the whole 'gesture' language mad complete sense. Being able to 'swipe' forward and backward to open files, close programs, delete e-mails, move around web pages was amazing. Being able to have multiple applications running at the same time (web browser, e-mail, Facebook and Pandora, for instance) was fantastic, and being able to swipe between any program and keep the others up and running was absolutely unheard of, but wonderful. From a software development outlook, Palm walked a line between Android and Apple. Since the OS wasn’t licensed to other phone manufactures, the specs for what hardware you were developing a program for were pretty much set, a la the iPhone (at least until the Pixi came along). However, unlike Apple, Palm left the OS pretty open, allowing those with Linux experience and a bit of moxie to develop their own programs and tweaks to the OS, like Android. With PreWare (one of the many programs written by the WebOS Internals crew) any number of tweaks and apps were available to add whatever functionality Palm didn’t have (and often Palm would add to their OTA updates). It felt like a small community banded together to fight the good fight against the 800 pound gorilla that is he iPhone. At one point, they even had an iTunes spoof that made the Pre look like an iPod when iTunes was running (Apple was far from pleased, and subsequent updates eliminated it). This was the phone for me.
Now, it's not to say the phone was perfect. Some early phones had the serious 'oreo' effect going wherein the slider would twist like a cookie. Not very good. The USB cover was just waiting to disappear into nothingness after it broke a few of your fingernails trying to open it the first few times. The physical button in the gesture area was a bit redundant (a fact made clear when the Pre Plus got rid of it all together). Battery life, as with many smartphones, was less than impressive. And while some liked the 'pebble' aesthetic, compared to other phones it may have looked and felt cheap. The biggest problems with Sprint's Pre were the underclocked processor (supposedly to keep things stable and keep the battery from wasting away too quickly) and the lack of memory. 8GB of storage (no SD slot, natch) was livable, but only 256mb of RAM was a huge problem. Various memory leaks from programs that were running would use up what RAM was available, making it impossible to open another program or card without closing some of what you were working on. This could happen even if you didn't have any cards on the screen! The Pre Plus doubled the RAM to 512mb, pretty much eliminating it. At least if you were on Big Red or AT&T anyway. (more on that in a bit.) Even with these issues, Palm had a winner on it's hands. The OS was fresh, user friendly, and just flat out worked. It really could have taken off to compete with RIM and Android (nobody is taking iOS out any time soon; that's just the reality). Sadly, this was not to be…
First, some disclosure. I rarely ever change phones or carriers. I was with Nextel back with the OG i1000. I switched to the i90 (one of the greatest phones ever) when the hinge on the i1000 broke and could not be fixed.
Greatest. Nextel. EVER
The i90 gave way to the i580, only because I wanted to make my own .wav ringtones and have a color screen (a mistake, as the i90 was such a better phone). The i580 soldiered on long past its prime, as none of the crop of phones Sprint carried made me want to spend $300 to upgrade. Sure the Moguls and the Touch Diamonds were nice, but I wanted no parts of Windows Mobile.
No way was I going to deal with THIS...
I still laugh at everyone that bought this crap...
Then came CES 2009. Palm, who had been rapidly losing market share pushing Treos and Centros with craptacular Windows Mobile or woefully outdated PalmOS, showed off what it had been working on for the past few months. The Palm Pre.
Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhh (at the time, anyway)
It seemed to tick all the right boxes for what I wanted in a new phone: capacitive touch screen, wi-fi, bluetooth, physical keyboard, not Windows based. WebOS was new and exiting, and seemed different enough from iOS, Android, whatever version of Windows Mobile was out, etc. The preview of the OS was intriguing, with multitouch input (something Apple seemed to hold the monopoly on at the time) and all forms of on screen swipes (something slightly different). The launch, unfortunately for many, wouldn't happen until early summer. This worked out perfectly for me. My contract would be up for renewal about the same time my job issued their summer bonuses, meaning I would have the funds to actually buy a new phone the same time it was available after launch. I took a lunch break, hopped on the train to the nearest Sprint store and had brand spanking new Palm Pre up and running in less than 15 minutes.
Now, coming from an ancient Nextel to the realm of a smartphone, anything would have been a revelation. But WebOS? It really was something special. The Synergy feature made it extremely easy to get my att.net and gmail accounts synced up with minimum fuss. Facebook and Photobucket were also as easy to get rolling on the phone. After a quick tutorial, the whole 'gesture' language mad complete sense. Being able to 'swipe' forward and backward to open files, close programs, delete e-mails, move around web pages was amazing. Being able to have multiple applications running at the same time (web browser, e-mail, Facebook and Pandora, for instance) was fantastic, and being able to swipe between any program and keep the others up and running was absolutely unheard of, but wonderful. From a software development outlook, Palm walked a line between Android and Apple. Since the OS wasn’t licensed to other phone manufactures, the specs for what hardware you were developing a program for were pretty much set, a la the iPhone (at least until the Pixi came along). However, unlike Apple, Palm left the OS pretty open, allowing those with Linux experience and a bit of moxie to develop their own programs and tweaks to the OS, like Android. With PreWare (one of the many programs written by the WebOS Internals crew) any number of tweaks and apps were available to add whatever functionality Palm didn’t have (and often Palm would add to their OTA updates). It felt like a small community banded together to fight the good fight against the 800 pound gorilla that is he iPhone. At one point, they even had an iTunes spoof that made the Pre look like an iPod when iTunes was running (Apple was far from pleased, and subsequent updates eliminated it). This was the phone for me.
Now, it's not to say the phone was perfect. Some early phones had the serious 'oreo' effect going wherein the slider would twist like a cookie. Not very good. The USB cover was just waiting to disappear into nothingness after it broke a few of your fingernails trying to open it the first few times. The physical button in the gesture area was a bit redundant (a fact made clear when the Pre Plus got rid of it all together). Battery life, as with many smartphones, was less than impressive. And while some liked the 'pebble' aesthetic, compared to other phones it may have looked and felt cheap. The biggest problems with Sprint's Pre were the underclocked processor (supposedly to keep things stable and keep the battery from wasting away too quickly) and the lack of memory. 8GB of storage (no SD slot, natch) was livable, but only 256mb of RAM was a huge problem. Various memory leaks from programs that were running would use up what RAM was available, making it impossible to open another program or card without closing some of what you were working on. This could happen even if you didn't have any cards on the screen! The Pre Plus doubled the RAM to 512mb, pretty much eliminating it. At least if you were on Big Red or AT&T anyway. (more on that in a bit.) Even with these issues, Palm had a winner on it's hands. The OS was fresh, user friendly, and just flat out worked. It really could have taken off to compete with RIM and Android (nobody is taking iOS out any time soon; that's just the reality). Sadly, this was not to be…
