Palm Moves 300,000 Pres In June, Dwarfs Previous Sales Totals

@facepuncher: Actually once they started making money the RAZR turned to garbage too. The last Sprint version of the V3 RAZR was the worst phone I have ever seen. We had more faulty units of that model than with any other phone for the year and a half I worked at Radio Shack.

quayzar

awesome. I was considering going with an iPhone 3GS up until my 28th day of the 30 day test period and decided to stick with the Pre. All the AT&T horror stories scared me away from the iPhone. I've been with Sprint for about 4 years and have had no negative experiences. In fact, I believe their starting to come around as far as CS goes (they will throw in a lot of perks to keep you around).

Go Palm!

David Eagle

@glamajamma: If multitasking, a physical keyboard, and a removable battery are all you look for in a phone, you don't have very high standards, because that's pretty much all Palm has over the iPhone. Then again, I see a physical keyboard as a negative because I prefer the iPhone's virtual one. I could care less about a removable battery because I never carried around an additional battery with me with my other phones and if power was such an issue, I'd get a battery pack.

Multitasking is the only thing I think the Pre has over the iPhone, but that's nothing compared to what the iPhone can do better than the Pre.

I'm not a Pre hater. Actually, I'm the opposite. If I was stuck with Sprint, the Pre would be my phone. But the iPhone is clearly a better phone. Palm just caught up to it, and then Apple released the 3GS.

@[farm3.static.flickr.com]

Da'Vi Perez

Sprints unlimited voice and data + more plan, Rocks for $99 + taxs a month. I'm chillin with my bb curve.

Da'Vi Perez

@TheSonOfKrypton: It was a security exploit - homebrew apps still work, just not via that exploit. Jeez people.

maethlin

@KidSix:

Amen to that.

maethlin

@grubish1: Truly. It's a shame that Palm fell down so spectacularly with the absolutely ginormous app catalog they had and their light-years-ahead PalmOS in early 2000. It's odd that my dinky Centro still has so many features I like better than the always-talked-about iPhone (one-handed operation, a real keyboard, cut'n paste, MMS, nice Exchange integration, great reception and overall usability as a phone). Yes, Apple is finally getting around to fixing some of these... but it was always amazing to me how much mileage they got out of their marketing when the first iPhone came out, gimped as it was as far as feature-set.

I can't imagine what Palm's management team was thinking when they squandered what should have been an insurmountable lead in the handheld market - all those people should be fired and never allowed to work in any decision-making capacity again, as they were inept beyond belief.

maethlin

@Darwinist: Or 125,000 with multiple exchanges.

@Monty: The main reason I say 2 years is because they're living on life support via VCs. And in this economy VCs will be much quicker to pull their funding if they see any potential signs of weakness It's not like they're a massive multibillion corporation with multiple revenue channels like Google/RIM/MS/Apple. This new generation of Palm devices HAVE to be an unequivocal home run in order for them to survive - they won't be able to get by with just moderate success. Carriers would just as soon have fewer platforms to support anyway. And like I said, the other platforms (which are all only going to get better as well) don't have the same financial do-or-die situation Palm faces.

People keep comparing the Pre to the iPhone, but I think Palm's more realistic competition is Blackberry and (from a more geeky OS standpoint) Android. For the record, I'm actually thoroughly underwhelmed by my experiences with Android. If Android didn't have Google's name behind I don't think it would get a fraction of the attention it receives currently based on the merits of the platform itself. It basically seems like the open source equivalent to WM. Blackberry's OS is sort of like smartphone-lite, but like Apple, they've done a great job of controlling both ends of the hardware-software front to effectively target the biggest part of the growing smartphone market. WM in its current state is definitely for hardcore geeks and business users only. But it would be naive to write them off given their resources and their recent success in other consumer offerings like the Xbox. And that doesn't even account for Nokia/Symbian. Where does Palm find its niche in this space? I just don't think it can hope for the same mass appeal type success the iPhone and (to a lesser extent) Blacberry has enjoyed. Likewise, is it really going to be able to wrestle the business market away from Blackberry and WM? It's got a very difficult task ahead of it and I personally think it's more likely than not that they don't succeed in the end (not saying I want that, but that's just the way I see it.)

The Pre's success will definitely make Palm a more attractive acquisition for someone, if WebOS is seen as a serious competitor to the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, et al. I still don't see Palm hanging on indefinitely, there are too many bigger and stronger companies who'd love to break into the smartphone market.

Ikthog22

@closhedbb: oh, don't worry... your not...

@dallasmay2: I've talked to the geniuses at a local store and they can't touch them. Outside the door is another story, but Apple has their employees really tight-lipped.

@closhedbb: Dammit! YOUR indoctrination.

I think I'm the only person in the world who errs on the side of "you're"...

closhedbb

@monkichi: You just spoke kindly of a non-apple product without some caveat about Apple still being better, so you're indoctrination into the cult may not yet be complete.

Get that down, and work on being smug, and I'm sure they'll let you in.

closhedbb

Keep in mind that Apple sells the iPhone globally, and the Pre is just on Sprint, which is only 1/3rd the size of AT&T, let alone every GSM provider on Earth that sells iPhones.

Sales figures are, hehe, Apples to oranges here....

dcdttu

@exploded: Actually, T-Mobile has less US customers than Sprint. And since Sprint has 49.1 million subscribers, it is safe to say that Palm could make a ton of money.

Palm could have made more if they allowed users to retain their current plans and only upgrade areas that they need to use the Palm. ie. My Unlimited Data plan is not good enough unless it is the unlimited data plan under the umbrella of the Simply Everything plan.

tenazrael

@Act Now and get a 4th Celebrity Death Free!: Lite: +1

jblock

@Ron-Mexico: I think the underdog plus former Apple innovators is only going to help Palm, that and a short term exclusivity time with Sprint leading to a wider range of consumers. Plus I see Apple and RIM treading water a bit right now, I don't see the 3GS as really pushing any boundaries though it is a nice phone. Don't get me started on RIM. Google is starting to bring it together when it comes to Android and Google Voice. The year that all these manufacturers bring their first-gen LTE phones to the table will be an interesting one.

jblock

@mikereynaga: Well considering that the iPhone only had a total of 19 apps within the 2nd month, at least the Pre has 30 within the 1st month.

In the 3rd month, the iPhone exploded with a lot more apps - 595. Should be interesting to see what Palm does.

Hopefully, those apps will be of substance and not crap like Sound Grenade and iFart.

tenazrael

@OGHowie: Because she can buy apps? I didn't realize the app store was an experience that would blow someone away.

She must really like shopping. Go figure...

tenazrael

@Jeff Dennis: That is because people are dumb and tend to follow the mob mentality. Sprints biggest flaw was their customer service. For the past two years, their customer service has been fantastic. Service, Data plans are fantastic. But sadly, the mob mentality still hates Sprint and thinks they suck. But if you sit down and compare apples to apples, you'll see that they are awesome.

The only thing they are missing now is the Apple iPhone which it seems Verizon/Sprint both want as soon as AT&T loses its exclusivity deal, and better phones in general.

I'm surprised people still use T-Mobile.

tenazrael

@tok3ninja: Yea...Sure Palm does. Afterall, they were just being congruent with that mindset when they decided to drop an update the other day that let Pre owners run homebrew apps by way of an email app exploit.

@mcs328: better than tying its future to ATT...

vicsells

@krische: Don't forget the original iPhone cost $600 + tax, compared to what the Pre costs, which I think is around $199.

Pre looks sweet. If they come up with a model w/out the physical keyboard (that's so 2 years ago), I might consider it.

vqro

Alright guys, Reality Check,

This is a NEW PHONE OS, comparing it to the iPhone 3g and 3gs IS SILLY, The ORIGINAL iPhone Took 94 DAYS to sell 1,000,000 units.... and with 300,000 units being sold in 26 days, That makes it so that if sales keep up, 94 days from launch they will have sold 1,084,615 Palm Pre phones.

ITS SELLING AT THE EXACT SAME RATE AS THE ORIGINAL iPhone!

ivealwaysgotmail10

If I hadn't already replaced my Tréo 600 with a G1, I'd be looking at a Pre myself. Their slowness to innovate, ironically the opposite of what started the company, might be the death of them.

@mikereynaga: weird I show 30

Ultraorange

@Andre Ondre:

My Palm Treo 755P was by far the best phone and mobile device I have ever used. It wasnt the snapiest but it had every single feature of the Iphone AND a LARGER app catalogue with more business friendly apps. I went with the Pre because I cant afford At&t and miss the apps. However, I still feel my 755P was the most feature rich phone I will ever have owned. By your own admission, they perf3ected it in 2002 so why change what works.

In all reality, Palm could have given the old Garnet OS a face lift and still blown apple away.

grubish1

@tok3ninja:

I don't think Apple minds people Jailbreaking their phones. They will just go out of their way to tell you that if you do, you void any warrantee that you even think you might have had. Which, honestly, I think is fair. You Jailbreak your phone, your taking responsibility for it.

But when was the last time Apple actively bricked Jailbroken phones. Actually, I imagine they spend extra time trying to keep phones from being bricked. They just don't publicly support it.

(Actually, I think Apple engineers are probably major secret contributors to the Dev Team.)

dallasmay2

@Darwinist: Truth. Didn't mean to thank a deity, just meant to use a phrase.

Screw you, god!

Thanks Pre owners!

@Shabbis: No one would still be buying the iPhone if it were still on Edge.

I have an Iphone but I'm rooting for Palm Pre to make it just like that little train name Thomas

@bornonbord: It's probably more accurate to thank the 300,000 people who bought the Pre.

Darwinist

@sneakypoo: Exactly. It will force RIM, Apple and Google to make their features competitive.

The good news is that everyone can count on having this phone available next year (GSM too).

@KidSix:

Add my wife to that list. Moved over from a Curve to a 3GS and I'm surprised at how much she loves her new iPhone. It's like she never knew a phone could do so much and is pretty much blown away by the app store.

@draiko:

Women like pink? :)

Saying this as an iphone user and impartial apple fan (if there is such a thing), I got to use my friends Pre and it was really nice. I liked it a lot,except for the keyboard (an option for a screen keyboard would be nice, but hey, Im an iphoner). If I didnt have a mac and an epocrates requirement, I'd probably say they were equal, considering the iphones biggest advantage, the App store, is 90+% garbage and games.

I generally recommend the pre to people just as much as the iphone. Now, if only the Pre was on Verizon....I think whoever gets there is going to have a big advantage with all those business contracts.

Good for palm, they started the whole PDA thing, it'd be a shame for them to die anytime soon.

redkamel

@Act Now and get a 4th Celebrity Death Free!: Lite: (mumbling to self)...only the penitent man shall pass only the penitent man shall pass....Got it!

redkamel

@mikereynaga: their are 30 actually but yeah def not enough

egreenwood1

@Shabbis: I have had both a winmo device (actually three 6700, mogul, and diamond) and now I have a palm pre, and i can tell you that the winmo device does multitask but nothing like the pre, having texts and opera open would slow down my diamond, but i constantly run 4-5 apps at a time on my pre and never have a hiccup. It's the expierence the simplistic menus, the never having to push save anywhere, and especially while reading a web story never having a lil pop up in your face, just a lil notification at the bottom is super nice. I have never had an iphone but i do beleive that it is a great phone and if i was on att i would def. have one. The thing honestly i dont get is they just keep releasing something a little bit better each year so each year everyone wants to upgrade...its smart as a buisness but i feel kinda jacked to the customers. One thing I dont get is why can't the 3g or the og iphone video record offically? they can if you jailbreak but of course apple made it so only the 3gs can video...which makes people have to buy a whole new handset. (correct me if im wrong...im no expert) I will say I'm glad 3.0 finally came to iphone users and they can copy and past now. no they just need to release mms, i have a feeling that is more of att but none the less wtf no mms still? My guess is next year they will release the Iphone 3gm which will be able to multitask and will have all of their 3gs users upgrade. I think its a great phone but I just wish they would really push the envelope because I know they can. All IMO of course :)

egreenwood1

@bornonbord:
EDGE to 3G was a minor chipset change and added a plastic back, that was it. All other hardware the same.

3G to 3GS was a complete architecture change (like going from 486 to Pentium) almost doubling overall performance, a new camera, double the processing ram, double the storage space and improved battery life.

Shabbis

@KidSix: I would imagine that the people who "blindly" spent $whatever on the 3GS would only really qualify for that tag if they bought every iteration of the iPhone day-and-date (or reasonably close to it). Someone who bought a first-gen and is using their 2-year upgrade or is going from another phone.. I think that's just your natural upgrade cycle and it's hardly unique to the iPhone.

It seems this might turn out to be palm's Wii.

ShrikirtiHaele

Still waiting for it to come to Canada. C'mon Bell!

That's really good for Palm. They made the first smart phone that I fell in love with. There are still features on there that I wish my current phone had *cough* TASK MANAGER INTEGRATED INTO CALENDAR *cough* *ahhem*. I don't think I would get one now, except maybe for development purposes but I'm glad to see Palm on the rebound.

This was the last innovative thing before the Pre that I remember...

@Shabbis: Yeah, I don't think Palm even had 270,000 Pre's manufactured at launch.

krische

@OGHowie: until it overheats :)

draiko

@OGHowie: I dunno... WiMax seems to be the way to go for the near future and Sprint's all over it.

draiko

If the Pre had been on AT&T I would have recommended it to my wife, since she was switching from a BB Curve. She got the 3GS instead and is now hooked on the iPhone platform.

@ARP:

Rumor is that it's exclusive until January 2010.

@snitch: Apple doesn't like people tinkering with the iPhone OS (bring a jailbroken phone to a Genius Bar is suicide). Palm on the other hand basically says "Fuck it, go for it."

I wonder what happen to all those people that where suppose to drop their iPhones and grab a Pre. after using the Pre for a few weeks i notice how different WebOS and the iPhone OS are. The iPhone OS has a lot of restrictions that have been set up by Apple engineers, Web OS has a lot of restrictions that are impose by the OS.

snitch

@mcs328: How long is the Sprint exclusivity? I think Palm need to beat Android to Verizon. Android is still maturing, but each new release will bring a more capable product, so they don't have much of a headstart.

ARP

I think the biggest potential success for palm is WebOS. The Pre's build quality isn't perfect, but they will have that operating system to put on any number of phones. If they build upon this success and create an entire environment around WebOS, they will disconnect their success from being locked in with one carrier.

When you add that they sold 300k phones on sprint which is the smallest of the national carriers, the adoption rate has to be as strong as ATT with the iPhone.

exploded

@Shabbis: Most significant? Hrmm... I'd have to say going from Edge to 3G was a bit more significant.

What did help this one be significant was the software it came with, but this handset isn't that crazy of an upgrade.

The Pre is Palm's Bondi Blue iMac.

Also, remember how wrong the analysts were with their original 3GS predictions?

@gg101: Apple sold 270,000 original iPhones in the first 36 hours after its release.

Shabbis

yay! now if they can only get some strong hardware and make a dirt cheap, webOS phone...

glaeven

good to hear, my friend bought a pre last night and after playing with it for a while i was really impressed.

the only thing that kills me is why has Palm not released the SDK there are only 15 apps!!!

until i see a lot more apps availabe i have to stick to my iphone.

mikereynaga

@glamajamma: But fails with only 8 gigs of memory? :P

But no seriously, I do wish they had a 16 gig model. 8 gigs for the iphone 3g was too small for me so the same would be the case with the palm.

@Ron-Mexico: Given the new OS and their new staffing group (made up heavily of former Apple staff), I am not certain anyone has any concept of where Palm will be in a couple of years. There is zero question, however, that they have turned a dramatic corner, and I cannot see any evidence that there is a reason they would suddenly collapse in that time frame. Well, unless they decide to abandon their new success strategy and hang themselves - which is always a possibility. But, I suspect that is not in their two year strategic plan.

@KidSix:

How are people "blindly dropping cash" on the 3GS? Do you have proof? I, in fact, think it's just the opposite.

The 3GS is the most significant upgrade to the iPhone since the initial release. It also has a massive ecosystem in the app store and itunes store that's impossible to beat right now.

And your input preference is just that, your own preference. If you don't like virtual, don't purchase an iPhone, simple as that. I know two co-workers that each just purchased a 3GS, one came from a Blackberry and the other a Blackjack. Both have adjusted to the virtual keyboard and both love it. Both were also waiting for just the right combination of features that now the 3GS offers before they decided to switch.

I don't see anything truly innovative with the Pre (multitasking? winmo phones have been doing that forever, iPhone has limited multitasking, for now), so you could say the same with regards to the paltry 400K people who have picked one up. And it sure didn't shake up the mobile phone world like the first iPhone did.

Shabbis

This is rather impressive considering the Pre is only available in the US on one carrier. The original Iphone would be a better comparison since it was also US only at first. Anyone remember those original sales numbers?

Palm Pre beheads iPhone with multitasking

+ Watch video

glamajamma

@92BuickLeSabre: Only the penitent man shall pass.

@mcs328: i agree, that amount of sales should be good enough for palm to survive now. and i dont think they will tie the future to sprint because i heard there are many phones with WebOS coming and i dont think Verizon is very happy with their storm. so i think the pre or another WebOS phone is coming to Verizon next year which will help palm more.

I am most surprised at how lemming-like iPhone buyers/users have become. For a company that is always pushing the ideals of innovation, change, and contemporary culture, seeing so many people blindly dropping $xxx on the 3GS strikes me as odd. They've basically become PC/360/PS3 fanboys. And I think the iPhone is a fantastic phone. It's just a) I'm not on AT&T, b) I can't stand virtual QWERTY's, and c) the mob at the Apple Store in my hometown is always staggering.

I would like to own one, but not sure I wanna sprint contract. This phone will help Palm a great deal. The question is will it help Sprint. Sprint is losing customers, and needs to reverse that trend. Palm doesn't have to sell as many Pres as Apple does iPhones, because Palm has several other phones on all major networks.

Jeff Dennis

Must be bacause the others were using a very dated OS known as Palm OS which stopped being updated in 2002, yet palm was bringing phones out in 2008 with Palm OS so no surprise their previous phones were failures

Andre Ondre

Played with the non-demo pre at at Sprint store. Can't speak about the company's future, but that is one mighty fine product, a real contender...

Oh, I'm recent inductee into the apple cult, via purchase of 3GS.

Thank god. I'm so glad that a non Windows Mobile OS based platform is doing so well.

Apples business model is finally bleeding into the phone market which is fantastic news for the consumer:

Keep pushing the software envelope, folks, and hardware sales will follow

Palm will survive as long as it doesn't tie its future to Sprint.

mcs328

@Ron-Mexico: If this phone does well it could revitalize them, much the same way the Razr did for motorola (too bad their new phones are garbage, i.e. krave)

I hope they stick around just for competition's sake. it promotes innovation and a myriad of other benefits

Good on ya Pre.

See the chasm; take a leap; reap the rewards on the other side.

that's fairly impressive considering their competition.

I still have a lot of doubts that Palm will still be around in a couple years actually. The marketplace is increasingly competitive and the much deeper pockets at Apple, Google, RIM and Microsoft mean they aren't going anywhere. But good for Palm. I hope they manage to survive after leading the handheld revolution.

Good for them and good for us consumers. Competition is always good, be it big or small.

sneakypoo