Palm pre webOS - go get your Mojo on - but, is it an iPhone Killer?

The Palm pre (US) (UK link here) has caused a minor stir and lead to inevitable comparisons with the iPhone. Just Google Palm pre vs iPhone.

So, is the pre an iPhone killer? No, of cause it isn't. Is it a rival? Well, maybe. Or, probably more likely, maybe not.

When you think about it, Apple created a new market with the iPhone. They haven't really taken over or dominated the 'smartphone' market per se. They haven't really impacted on the the Nokia masses and haven't really impacted on the Blackberry crew - 'smartphones' are very niche.

The iPhone isn't just a phone, it's a super phone with cool bits and bobs for the iPod generation. It wasn't made as a smartphone, it wasn't made to compete with Nokia, it was Apple engineered to appeal to exactly the same people that buy iPods and Mac's. Clever, and only Apple have the brand to do it - copy Apple and you loose. Microsoft and many others have continually failed when trying to do the same thing.

It is my belief that the reason the iPhone took of so was purely because Apple made it and iPod owners and the 'cool' people bought it, and more importantly craved it, lusted over it and actually used it. The success of the iPod should never be underestimated when looking to the success of the iPhone. Everybody that tells you they don't want Apple kit is either lying or in self-denial. Mac vs PC = Mac everytime, iPod vs Zune = iPod every time and sadly for Palm, iPhone vs pre = iPhone every time.

Although, credit where it is due. Palm appear to have a lovely phone on their hands with the pre. I've only 'seen' it in the developers simulator, but it has a nice looking and snappy feeling UI that I'm sure will appeal to a lot of people, and developers. Of course as things stand, developers are limited to coding web apps for the pre, but that's no bad thing for a new platform. Palm provide the Mojo SDK which allows developers to produce apps using web standards such as HTML 5, JavaScript (heavily Prototype although you can use other frameworks such as jQuery as well, which is a huge plus) and CSS. They give you widgets for most of the controls you'd want to implement and CSS styles and what not for implementing a proper pre UI with your app - I am actually really impressed, honestly. It's a platform that many web developers should be able to get into with a bit of tuition and practice - although, as ever, the pro's will always get the most out of it.

One big plus point for Palm is that they appear to be far more open and approachable than Apple are from a developers point of view. Working with Apple is often not a nice experience, and very often a hugely frustrating one. But in practice, developers troubles will have little impact upon consumers so it matters very little in the grand scale of things. We can't dictate what to develop for if nobody buys the said hardware.

We will certainly be keeping an eye on the pre and look forward to working with our customers on apps for it, but as an iPhone rival we feel it's unlikely that Palm can re-create the success of the iPhone and in particular the App Store - nobody else has.

I'm sure you'll be hearing much more from us about the pre and any pre developments we get into in the future, so please feel free to come back and visit us, or drop us a line if you want some work done.