Palm sent the folks who signed up to win a Pre an email letting them know they could buy it.
UPDATE: Here is a link to a NY Times story talking about demand…
Ok, I’ve been reading every damn note, article, tweet, and blog post re: PALMs new Pre smartphone. And have come to the conclusion that the Pre will not be an iPhone killer out of the gate. Here are my reasons:
1. The poor battery life will be the deal breaker.
2. People are_not_going to leave Verizon or AT&T for this device.
3. Apple will address the majority of the Pre’s competitive advantages in the iPhone 3.0 release, likely to hit on 6/8/09.
4. The gambit by Palm to sync the Pre with iTunes will only serve to highlight the Pre’s shortcomings.
5. By the time Verizion might offer the phone, sometime in 2010, another manufacturer will deliver a more intersting product…likely APPL.
Sprint’s decision to allow buyers to avoid paying full retail and take advantage of the instant rebate only at Best Buy stores speaks to another major issue for Sprint/Palm; namely the size and ability of their channel to sell this item through.
I’ll bet the sales of this device will peak in the next 72 hours never to see the same spike in demand over time…they’re simply not enough people who will seek the phone out…or trust the slickster hawkers at mall kiosks to drop their existing plans to sign up w/Sprint for a smartphone they need to come some $300+ out of pocket for…and then only to find 20 apps and less than a days useful life in the battery…it’s going to take interest over the long tail for this device to catch on…if it catches on at all.
Anyway, as a former Palm loyalist and gadget hound, I’m interested to see this device…if I find myself at the mall and Palm has done its job supplying the aformentioned channel, then maybe I will see it. I’ll be sure to post an update w/my thoughts on the device itself if I do.
Posted in: Advertising, Campaigning, Cultural Observations, Geek, Mac.
Tagged: aapl · iphone · linkedin · palm · pre · smartphone
I’ve just watched a video from Google IO 2009, where Lars and Jens, the guys who created everyone’s favorite map tool, Google Maps, have just unveiled Google Wave.
Now, I was very skeptical when they first started this app up…and beware, the demo is roughly and hour and twenty (1:20) minutes…however, for the hard core geeks out there, it’s worth the wait…I’ve cliped the most powerful moment of the demo up here, runs about three minutes.
Ok, so long story short, Wave is a new model for electronic text based conversation. These guys start the demo reminding everyone that email was invented 40 years ago…and using simple diagrams of how the information flows, set up the idea of Wave around the notion that the conversation is the object to focus on, rather than the person who started the conversation.
In this paradigm, the medium now becomes part of the message flow. Most impressively, the team shows off a real time text translator which has the ability to convert 40 languages on the fly. And the crowd of some 4,000 developers…enthusiastically responds. A nice geeky moment even on web video.
Wave could be the next killer app with an open source philosophy meant to drive innovation. The cloud based service will clearly allow people who grew up with email, instant messaging, and digital cameras to at the very least drop a couple of applications from their machines…certainly not Grandma’s email client…unless she’s been working at MIT…
Watching this clip gave me the kind of feeling I get when I watch a good episode of The West Wing or MadMen…these guys are connecting the dots on why technology isn’t simply the race to enslave something to do our chores for us…or to help make us money…but rather to advance the abilities of the human race to advance itself in the spirit of how Bill Hicks used to describe evolution…
Posted in: Cultural Observations, Geek, Learning.
Tagged: Communication · google · linkedin · Technology · Wave
So my son put me on the hook for the creation of cup cakes a couple of weekends ago…and later that day we’re in the store…after making my way to the aisle w/the baking goods…I find the box…and I’m in no hurry, Although Oskar, my son, clearly is.
I’m looking the box over…I see the picture…beautiful frosted cups of moist cake waiting to be snarfed by my son and his willing accomplices, my wife and daughter…while I’m out toiling and sweating and fighting off the inequities of the world…including the ones foisted by Mr. Duncan and Ms. Hines or whomever is behind that evil faceless corporate monster!
On the box, it says one will need…
1. 1/2 cup of water
2. At least 1 egg…(I can’t remember exactly)
3. Butter or some butter-ish substance
And that’s all…it says nothing about needing the little cups…nor does it say anything about needing, the key ingredient, frosting.
Now, I get home, and my wife assures me there is no frosting in the box. My daughter finds cups from some previoius cup-caking adventure…but sure as shit, no frosting. WTF!
Ok, now I’m peeved, more over…I feel discriminated against. Why the double standard? Because I’m a man?
Listen here Mr. Duncan Hines people…in a world full of disclaimers…would a simple “Frosting and cups sold seperately” be too much to ask? My son was ready to spit…the only upshot of course being that my loving wife made the frosting from scratch…
Still, it makes no logical sense that you would put the picture of the completed item on the box when in fact, the complete item would, in fact be NAKED! Sans the joi de vivre of the sucrose blanket it so deserved…end of rant.
Posted in: Advertising, Campaigning, Comedy, Cultural Observations, Food, Marriage, Random.
Tagged: duncan hines cup cake food sexist
UPDATE: Gizmodo making my point…
Ok, the NYT is saying the indicators are that Blu-ray is on the upswing…personally, I don’t buy it…I don’t know anyone w/a Blu-ray player that didn’t come as a by-product in a game console and I don’t know anyone buying any discs? Do you?
Disc sales may be up…now that there’s only one format…that makes sense…and the need for a physical disc…that’s pucky…tell it to the music business…optical media in my opinion is a dying creature…and as soon as the FCC get’s its head out of its arse and mandates that cable companies allow consumers to purchase content a la carte, you’ll see just how dead it is.
Posted in: Advertising, Campaigning, Comedy, Cultural Observations, Film & Video, Geek, Mac, Travel.
Tagged: blu-ray · dvd · hd · video
Doug Price, Mick Vitti and I in NYC for a trade show in 2004...
I was just listening to Mick’s web ring CD last week…he had made a nice blend of soundtrack pieces and quotes…It had been in my pile of discs to rip and I finally got around to it…made me think well of the old chap…and then I got a call from an old friend from Vegas delivering the news that Mick had shuffled off our mortal coil at Caesar’s Palace around midnight this past Sunday…I’ll remember him as a happy, laid back, peacekeeper who was always willing to lend a hand…rest in peace my friend…enjoy that big edit suite in the sky…
Posted in: Random.
Tagged: death · fcp · friends · nyc · peace
Oh this is good stuff…who are these guys? I mean really…and yes, “these are the two morons behind Tracy Morgan…”
Posted in: Advertising, Comedy, Cultural Observations, Film & Video, Random.
Tagged: 30rock · AMToday · morgan
Oy, apparently this makes sense…but there’s something about this deal take makes me twitch…maybe it’s Larry’s overuse of “Just For Men”.
Posted in: Geek.
Tagged: Ellison · Larry · linkedin · Merger · Oracle · Sun
"Oh we'll be doing applications, don't you remember? We had lots of them..."
Ok, so believe it or not…there were smartphones before the iPhone…in fact, PALM had made quite a few of them…prior to my owning an iPhone, I owned no less than 4 Palm devices…2 of which were smartphones…the Treo 600 and the 650…both of which were handy devices…in fact, for note taking, IMHO, they were better devices than my iPhone…which I still can’t import those notes into w/out a mod…that said…the iPhone blows the Treo away on almost all other counts…as soon as APPL made their phone available…and I managed to get my hands on one…I sold both the iPod and the Treo…because I was sick of having to carry around mulitple devices…
Fast forward to ah…yesterday. As soon as Palm announced their Pre product…I signed up for the mailing list…wanting to make sure I could understand what the product might bring to the table…so far it seems to be mostly marketing promises…Palm has a talented team…I believe they do get mobile and touchscreen usability…and IMHO competition for the iPhone is healthy…will provide for better products all around…but these situational videos that Palm has created just hit me the wrong way…They’re attempting to be aspirational…but they strike me as stiff…the feature set, apart from the true multitasking isn’t that sexy…and if I had to put a wager down today…I’d say that Apple won’t be waiting by the sidelines to see what Palm’s next play will be…I suspect on June 8 @ WWDC, in a hail of a possible Jobsian glory, SJ may rise from the dead and reclaim his seat on the throne as King Geek, delivering a thunderclap revision to the iPhone product that leaves the Pre stillborn. Or maybe they’ll just ship iPhone OS 3.0…either way…Pre is going to have a hill to climb…
Posted in: Advertising, Campaigning, Cultural Observations, Geek.
Tagged: Apple · iphone · linkedin · palm · pre · smartphone
