A large stipend from Sprint? Notice it's not just CDMA, it's "Sprint CDMA"...

Also the same thing with Android since Cupcake.

Engadget's extensive Pre review.

And Gizmodo as well.

Have you seen their Pretentious commercial?

I don't put much weight in anything Engadget nor Gizmodo ever write, so while I read E's "review," I took it with a few grains of salt. It can make a nice little phone for some people, but it's not game changing nor altering in the least.

I really can't see any reason someone would dump their iPhone for a Pre.

Some people don't have iPhones yet...

Is your irony detector malfunctioning, or do they not air Apple ads on Canadian television?

Pogue's review at the NYT is now up. He basically really likes it with two caveats. The ringer isn't loud enough, and it drains battery like crazy.



He attributes this to his house being nowhere near a Sprint tower. Regardless, his review seems to indicate that they really did make a very good phone. Not good enough that I'd consider dumping my iPhone or anything, but for my Sprint contract-locked sister who kinda wants an iPhone but doesn't care all that much, this could be exactly what the doctor ordered.

And Mossberg's review.

Lack of e-mail search will hopefully be fixed, since it's not really "universal" if it misses that.

You're joking right? Apple's ads are always about the devices. Always about the features the device offers, the software available for the devices, etc.

Pretentious is saying or implying that by using a Pre you'll somehow be more enlightened, a better person, more socially aware, etc.

The Pre commercial is total and utter nonsense and a despicable marketing crutch.

At this point (and software rev), the Pre is still "just another phone." If anyone says "Wow!" I'd have to question their grasp on reality.

I have the same complaints about the iPhone, so...

Well, my sister is getting one, but the "wow" for her boils down to her contractual lock-in with Sprint. I'll hopefully get to play with it sooner or later. So far, from what I've read, I don't see myself running out to replace my iPhone with a Pre (or with the next-gen iPhone, for that matter).

You've never watched the I'm a PC and I'm a Mac adverts then?

I'll have to ask if you're joking too then. What, in any of those commercials suggests or even hints at what I wrote about being "pretentious?"

Those commercials are for the most part about the technical aspects of the machines. Who are, unbeknownst to Microsoft, portrayed by people. MS, and I suppose some viewers, are under the impression that the people in the commercial are users of those machines, when in fact they're plainly personifications of the machines themselves.

In any case, not since the Think Different campaign has Apple's advertisement been pretentious.

I mean, the Pre commercial can be about anything. A car, a tampon, Tomato soup, a grocery store, you name it. It's generic in its message, except for the fact that using that product makes you a better person.

Palm is on the road to nothing but FAIL starting with this bullshit.

Why are you complaining about the advertisement? What difference does it make?

Buy a PC and you're boring. Buy a Mac and you're trendy. That doesn't count as pretentious enough?

Now guys, why are you feeding the troll? Let's just admit that Bruno is right about 'everything', we're wrong about everything and we can go about our business as usual.....

The calendar on this phone looks great. Plus I like the social network and instant messaging integration a lot - threading together IM and SMS between the same contact is pretty smart. Camera looks to be quite decent too. I like it!

Based on reviews and reading quite a bit of Pre related stuff it seems better than Android 1.5 at the moment and still better than Android with the HTC Hero software. Specifically I mean in terms of online network integration, attention to detail (linking up birthdays, notes, todos with alarms and notifications for example), multitasking seems a lot better (I tend to do this a lot - phone/IM while looking things up) and the hardware is nicer than current Android phones. Admittedly it won't take long for Android to improve, but the Pre is still impressive.

Annoying bits are 1) it seems that you cannot choose which Facebook Contacts are sync'd with the phone, so you'll have old school friends in your contacts list 2) no threaded GMail. I'm hoping they fix (1) asap with a simple update, and I'm just spoilt by (2) on the G1 and can live without it I guess. I'm already used to janky battery life!

Looking forward to it eventually coming out in the UK.

You are not dense enough to truly think that there's no relation between how the devices are portrayed and the not-at-all-subtle message that's sent about the users of those devices. If Macs are portrayed as hip and cool, then Mac users are portrayed as hip and cool.

Just because they say "I'm a (Mac | PC)" doesn't mean they're not also saying something about the users of those machines. Every other person I've ever talked to about this has picked up on that message (including my coworkers, 90% of whom are avid Mac users like myself.) I find it impossible to believe someone with your intellect can't pick up on this.



Alright, here's the ad. Yeah, it's new-agey and reminiscent of the hippie vibe of those old Fruitopia ads. But what about it is pretentious? Here's the narration:

My life
Like all our lives
Is made up of so many other lives
My family's lives
Friends' lives
Work life
Play life.
My life today
and my life next week.
All of them rearranging themselves.. all the time
Isn't it beautiful when life simply... flows together?


When coupled with the visual of flipping through the device, looking at contacts, calendar, etc, the message I'm left with is "this will help you get a bunch of different stuff organized." They're not saying you'll be a better person, they're saying you'll get more organized. Which is what the Palm brand was built on, right?

I guess I don't view Justin Long as hip and cool. Just average. The everyman.

The subtlety of the Get A Mac ads coupled with the overt parody and individual themes is what makes those ads work IMO. That doesn't make them pretentious, it makes them clever. Contrast this to MS's commercials, the "I'm a PC" which are anything but clever. It's just an obvious example that they simply don't understand the Mac ads nor why they work. MS did finally put together a good ad. The best I've seen in a long time from them, and a really good ad compared to the industry at large. I'm talking about the one of the kid putting together a movie and then playing it back on the family TV.

Anyway, I didn't mean to take this topic off the device itself, I was just making an observation that the Pre's sole commercial was a little lifestyle-heavy and just the type of material-goods make you a better person drivel that many critics would normally hammer with other companies. It may already be getting this type of attention, but I just haven't been around the web the past couple of days to check.

The morsels of Pre UI and device in the commercial are insignificant compared to the rolling landscape and crane shots of the synchronized performers. The usage shots are exactly what this type of device should have in a commercial. However, they aren't strong enough to differentiate the product from so many others. In the end, it's back to what I've said about the Pre, that it's not a significant step forward in any meaningful way. It doesn't do anything to alter the product category and that's likely why the ad agency had to rely on pretentiously pulling those emotional strings.

Hey, I'm ok at being the sole voice of dissension. While I love pulling for the underdog, Palm was not always the underdog. They were a big player, perhaps the 800 lbs Gorilla in the handheld space, that simply didn't innovate and eventually got clobbered.

I don't think that the Pre won't be a wonderful device for some people. I just think it's not very significant in the grand scheme of things and it's not going to be the device to strongly compete against the big players currently in the game. This is probably the main point I have that contradicts those of so many others that are vaulting the status of this product primarily to vilify Apple and Microsoft. They're just bloody handhelds, and this isn't the one that's going to solve world hunger and cure its diseases.

Players? The only other player is the iPhone. Android tried, and it may do something yet, but it's simply not there. (We may find that WebOS is in the same category, but we just don't know yet.) Blackberry is still in the 20th century. (I have a Blackberry, an 8820, assigned by work, and I'd far rather have a Treo 650. In a vein similar to yours, Bruno, I don't understand why anyone would want a Blackberry. The difference being that I've actually used one, and for a year or so.)

The big deal about the Pre is that it is, after two and a half years and three iterations, the first real competition for the iPhone. No one is saying (nonhyperbolically, anyway) that the iPhone sucks. Some may have problems with the soft keyboard, or with the lack of copy-and-paste, or the lack of multitasking, but I think we all agree that it was, if nothing else, the first of a new generation of the smartphone, and we're all happy that there's simply finally another product of the same generation, and has some distinguishing features, like a hard keyboard, for example. Especially one that doesn't use AT&T's spotty and spied-on network. Not that Sprint's network is that much better. At least all our communications aren't being forwarded to the NSA.

I hate to thread hijack or anything, but there were some comments here about Gmail not being properly threaded on WebOS, a problem shared with the iPhone. My solution to this, for now anyway, is that I've been switching back and forth between the Gmail web app and the native Mail app (e.g., using the web app for indicating spam, starring messages, search, etc.). This approach seems to be working, but it's still annoying to need to flip back and forth.

Anybody else have a better solution?

Also, driving even farther away from our unproductive flame-fest, has anybody tried the Gmail-as-Exchange-Server thing for the iPhone? I still haven't bitten the bullet and done it. I'm curious where it's going to cause me grief versus where I'm going to love it.

I haven't used the Google provided Gmail->Exchange service. I do however use the http://www.nuevasync.com/ service that does the same thing. It is free, at the moment and works very well.

I only use it for calendar syncing though, my email is on my own IMAP server, so I use the iPhone IMAP client to access that.

I apologize, but I feel the need to chime in and say that this is the exact reason I went with the G1. Despite all its faults, there isn't a phone in existence at this point that handles GMail better. I get threaded conversations, all my labels, stars, etc. The G1 has its faults, but nothing does GMail better.

I apologize, but I couldn't tell if your post was about finding a software or hardware solution to this issue. It was probably software, though, in which case I apologize again for the unhelpful response.

There's nothing subtle in the least with those ads.

As for the Pre ad, I'd like to share a good definition of "pretentious:"

I suppose the Pre ad comes across as a little self-important, but I kind of like the message they're trying to impart.

I have no beef with the iPhone commercials. Bruno is correct in that they pretty much serve to get across what the phone can do and how you could use it, and they do so in a nice, straightforward manner. I like them quite a bit. However, I believe they exist in this form only because the iPhone's the hit that it is. When (if) there's significant competition, we'll see what kind of advertising they trot out.

Because the word you guys are looking for when it comes to typical Apple advertising is not pretentious: it's "smug." This has been a big factor for me personally in why I've chosen to stay away from Apple products. I simply can't stand smugness.

So, yeah, the iPhone hype was big, but I don't remember people driving through storefront windows to get their hands on one!

Amusing Pre easter egg.

Heh, that's cute. I saw the ROM was leaked on the Pre forums earlier today, and I downloaded it just in case it disappeared quickly. Hopefully, this opens the door for tethering, the lack of which is, at this point, the main thing keeping me from hopping on board the Pre train.

There are other concerns I have, of course. A lot of former Blackberry/Treo users have had some difficulty getting used to the smaller keyboard, but others say it's fine, and a few iPhone owners have popped in to say their Pre typing speed is already on par with their iPhone speed. Some users are saying the battery barely gets them through the day, though in my experience, most devices get better after the first few charge cycles, so we'll have to see how reports are in a couple weeks. The PIM apps are pretty spartan at this point, certainly something that will be addressed in the future. And, of course, the myriad reports of crashes, spontaneous reboots, hardware failures, etc. that come with any first-gen device in the early going.

But, all-in-all, I think it's got a lot of potential, and if the initial estimates of 50-100k units are accurate, the launch certainly made a big (though not iPhone-sized) splash.

And the iPhone and G1 have better battery life after software updates. I think power management is a low priority when trying to rush these devices out the door. I wouldn't be surprised to see better battery life in the upcoming 1.1 release or another one down the line.

Frankly, I'm not surprised by the battery life of any of these devices. I was thinking about this recently, and I think that every smartphone I've had has really had about the same battery performance. I just didn't notice it before the G1, because I didn't use my other smartphones nearly as much. I've had the Blackberry Curve, Treo 700W, Treo 650, Treo 600, and the Sony Ericsson P900. None of these got me through the entire day if I really used them. I just happened to usually get through an entire day because those "smartphones" were such a chore to do anything fun/useful on that I ended up minimizing my use of them.

Example: my Curve probably had the best battery life of the smartphones I've used, but once I started using it in the car to play music/podcasts, and once I found a half-way decent browser and a couple good applications for it, I'd easily run the battery down before I got home in the evening.