Well, the Pre’s release day came and went. If you haven’t been following the press (read: bloggers), the initial impressions are rather promising… however, the inter-webs are full of the standard nitpicking and critics that follow any large-scale launch (anyone remember when early iPhone 3G adopters claimed the battery life would keep it from getting off the ground?).
In fact, ifixit.com has already dissected theirs and shared the images and initial impressions. The hardware is decent, but the OS is what will ultimately save Palm as a company (Quote: “WebOS is so cool! We love how natural it feels to swipe between applications and multitask with Web, Twitter, AIM, and Pandora”).
Of course, it will be hard to win over any Apple fans. Most of them are still holding their grounds with the claim that the iPhone is still the superior platform.
User impressions aside, how did this release effect Palm as a company?
Industry analysts are hesitantly calling the launch a success, with an approximated 50,000 units sold. While that’s a good, healthy number, you have to remember that Apple sold a whopping 146,000 in their opening weekend, nearly 3x as much as Palm. The difference, according to insiders, is that Palm didn’t have the stock to sell more phones than that… “You can’t sell 100k+ phones if you don’t have 100k+ phones to sell.”
In fact, many people who waited in line for their Pre were turned away when store after store ran out of stock.
The bottom line here, is that it may not have taken off with as big of a bang as the iPhone, however it IS doing relatively well all things considered. Only time will tell where it goes from here.
What makes Palm’s stance so uncertain, however, is that there is a planned announcement this afternoon from the Apple camp, with many claiming a new iPhone will be announced. Palm’s thunder may be stolen before they have a proper chance…
