Apple announced today the dates of their World Wide Developer Conference. There has been some heavy speculation over Apple’s plans to announce their next iPhone, and WWDC on June 8th would provide the opportunity for them to do so. There have been circulating rumors over the updated specifications and new features that the next generation iPhone will possess, as well as the already announced 3.0 software that has a planned launch of June (coincidentally lining up with WWDC).
What does this mean for the Palm Pre? The Pre is promised to launch before the end of the second quarter in 2009, but that gives Sprint and Palm until June 20th to release the device. With Apple catching up to the Pre in terms of features on the iPhone, WWDC might be the chance for Apple to steal some of the excitement away from the upcoming Palm Pre. Will Palm be able to release the Pre before Apple has the chance to announce anything that would hurt it, or will they put it off too long and ultimately doom the Pre to live in the shadows of a new and improved iPhone?
Out of the loop? Take another look at our intrepid Pre and what it has to offer against the iPhone 3.0 software update.
For now we’ll assume that Apple has another iPhone planned to launch, or be announced at WWDC ‘09. What does this mean for Pre? If Sprint and Palm can get the Pre out the door and into the hands of consumers before the beginning of June, Palm should see some decent success. There are many individuals that are unwilling or unable to change contracts from Sprint to AT&T, and have been waiting for a device like the Pre to come along that is capable of everything the iPhone does and more. Sprint has a large market of people waiting to use their precious phone upgrades (myself included) on the Pre. Apple and AT&T however run into the issue of the iPhone 3G being not even a year old, with the contracts of its subscribers nowhere near the time frame where they are eligible for an upgrade. Now there were slides leaked about the no-contract iPhone 3G that existing AT&T customers could buy, and those slides included an “Early Upgrade” price of $399/$499 for 8GB and 16GB iPhones respectively. It is pretty safe to assume that Apple and AT&T, not wanting to keep their latest iPhone from the hands of their users but still wanting to make money, will institute a similar “Early Upgrade” policy for eligible iPhone customers (i.e. basically anyone that has an iPhone 3G). This might upset the user base… well, a lot, but AT&T will just be playing by the rules of the contract. It could hurt sales, but not by much. This leaves the market of users who haven’t purchased an iPhone but want a device capable of copy and paste and silly things like MMS, which is the exact market the Pre is targeting.
The iPhone has remained in it’s iconic position for almost two years, and in reality, the Pre is the first device that has come along to seriously threaten the reign of Apple over the smartphone market, but that’s assuming that the iPhone software is the only thing that gets an upgrade. If the rumored speed increases and better camera make it into the next iPhone, we’re looking at a device that is equal to the Pre, if not flat out surpassing it in some regards. Specifically, the next generation iPhone is suggested to have a cell radio in it capable of 7.2 Mbps download speeds on the existing AT&T 3G network. That’s more than double the 3.1 Mbps speeds of any 3G device on Sprint. The ARM Cortex A8-based OMAP 3 processor used in the Palm Pre can be clocked up to 1000Mhz, though it is unlikely that the Pre will run that fast due to power concerns, but in its prototype state, the Pre was still able to boot up in about 4 seconds and offers immense improvements in graphics processing power. It’s pretty safe to assume that the next iPhone will feature a similar processor to stay competitive.
In the end, the hardware of these devices will be very similar, and some parts most likely identical. It’s going to come down to software, developers, price, and opportunity. Apple has a head start on the applications, but webOS matches iPhone 3.0 in every feature, and bests the iPhone with multitasking and features like Synergy. Sprint offers better price plans for minutes and data than AT&T, a fact they’ve been touting wisely for the last few months in their advertising. Assuming the price point of the Pre is competitive, and most importantly if the launch date is before WWDC, Sprint and Palm should have a fighting chance at winning over the iPhone-less.
Palm Pre: 26-minutes live demo!
