Smartphone melee


Apple and RIM are already in position. Palm could be playing their cards close to the vest. Who's the winner? The consumer of course.
Back in December of 2005, I was taking a hard look at possibilities to replace my Palm m515. I took a hard look at a BlackBerry and then I almost went with a Palm Treo 700p. I finally ended up going with a Palm TX and a Tracphone I picked up at WalMart.

The rumors were that in order to satisfy the cell phone carriers, Palm deliberately crippled the entire Treo line so that it would always use the carrier internet access instead of any WiFi hotspots that were in the area. That alone wouldn't have bothered me, although I wasn't happy at spending all that money per month.

No, the thing that really killed the deal for me was Verizon. For the areas that I need to be in, Verizon is the carrier that has the best coverage. But every time I went to Verizon's web site to see how much it would cost me per month, I got a different answer. Once I even fired up two different browsers on the same computer and inputed the exact same information in each and STILL got different answers. And those answers were different from what a Verizon store told me, or what their 800 line told me. Needless to say, that didn't inspire confidence. I've decided that I will never deal directly with Verizon.

So, 18 months later the state of the art has advanced. RIM has introduced the BlackBerry Curve (with another incredibly annoying and mostly uninformative website). Apple and AT&T Wireless have the iPhone coming out next month. And if you go on the rumors, Palm will introduce their next breakthrough product in August or September.

Palm desperately needs a new product, their line hasn't been updated in a couple of years. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt though based on their past performance and the persistent rumor that Jeff Hawkins may have a hand in with the next product.

Based on features alone, I have to say that if I were making a decision today I would probably go with the iPhone just because it can use WiFi as well as AT&T's internet. My big question is how many of the features that Cingulair and Apple designed for the iPhone work "off the reservation?" I am interested in Visual Voicemail, if I am not directly connected to AT&T, could I still use that feature?

I am not really thrilled with the idea of a central server (and RIM's recent outage showed how justified that was), and the Curve doesn't really surf the web.

Neither the Curve or the iPhone is an ideal solution, but the iPhone comes closer to what I personally want. One gadget that lets me snap pictures, check the web, use a phone, look up an address, record a voice memo, share info with my computer, check messages, scan for life signs...

Okay, maybe we can't do the last one just yet.

I'd rather carry one gadget with me than several, even if it doesn't hold all my music and all my photos and all my TV shows. Listen to me, my current iPod is an older model that doesn't do either photos or TV shows.

The fact that we have choice and competition means that the consumer wins in the end.

I have no idea which product will end up on top, although I am rooting for Apple. I do know that in six months, the upgrades will begin. In two years, there will be products that make these look quaint and primitive. What's more, there will be a better selection not only from these companies, but others.

Result, more capable products at a cheaper price.

And that is the magic of the free market.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - May 4, 2007 at 08:41 PM  Tag


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