Re: OT - Success! - The new Palm Pre, Google Calendar and Kontact
On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 13:15 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>> But on this point I must agree: The Pre absolutely
does
>> rock!!! Based on
>> having used mine for just a few days now, I can confidently
>> say that
>> Apple and the iPhone have some serious, formidable competition
>> on their
>> hands - including the new iPhone 3Gs.
>>
>> Not while it's only available for CDMA networks.
>
> That's a matter of opinion and taste as opposed to fact.
>
> http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/151
Well, no. The pros and cons of GSM vs CDMA as *technologies* are largely
irrelevant in this discussion. The fact is that that most of the world
uses GSM and only a GSM phone is of interest to it. The same applies to
those Americans who want to use their phone while travelling abroad. The
Palm Pre will become competitive in these markets only when a GSM
version is released. I hope it's soon as the phone itself looks gorgeous.
Umm... If you actually read the article, you would know that it
specifically states the technology is not the issue, but market is, and
that even here the "war" is likely to continue ad-infinitum.
If I were living outside the USA, I might tend to think the way you are
too. But actually, I *am* one of those Americans who uses their phone
while traveling abroad. I'm based in the USA and travel internationally
(mostly Western Europe right now) on a regular basis, and I have a
different perspective than you might realize. I will use GSM when I have
no other alternative - which actually is surprisingly less than I
thought.
Also, international roaming rates being what they are, I can vouch for
that most people's preference is to try to use a locally based mobile
phone, so the network compatibility issue is even smaller - regardless
of preference. I've personally paid some of those international roaming
charges. It's not a pretty sight...
CDMA is also growing in several places outside of the USA, and we're not
planning to replace that infrastructure in the USA anytime soon. The GSM
tide here seems to be shrinking more than growing.
But all of that said, I would be shocked if we don't see a GSM version
of the Pre by early next year when AT&T and Verizon are supposed to pick
it up.
Other Topic:
"Most of the pundits" live in a huge echo chamber so they
reinforce each
other a lot (e.g. they think Linux is only for geeks). The article I'm
talking about is
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/06/ars-reviews-the-palm-pre-part...
Well, I would say that depends on which pundits you are talking about.
Since I am entering the world of "Punditry" myself for my employer
(hosting an Information Week webinar next month - online interview and
white paper on virtualization this month), I sincerely hope not to just
be echoing everyone else.
...At least, I don't think Linux is just for geeks. I've got both my
parents and several non-geek friends using F10 and F11 right now. :)
The article is an interesting read though. I like the comments best.
Especially the one:
The entire Pre WebOS is pretty much just a set of proprietary
applications running on a pretty standard Linux distro... Alsa,
Pulseaudio, Gstreamer, Upstart, GNU C, Busybox, Apache Harmony,
dnsmasq, DBus, Webkit, etc etc.
Its basically what you get when you take people good at
usability and you give them a Arm-based Linux distro. Pretty
neat stuff, actually.
But I also would agree with the one who wrote:
This review sure did not start off well. The iPhone does a lot
more things extremely well than media. The Palm Pre is very
obviously targeted at consumers not the Blackberry world at all.
I guess its one way to look original and get pageviews though.
Then again, this comment underscores my original point...
--
====================================================
"Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first;
nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first."
--Charles de Gaulle