This is a follow-up article to yesterday’s post, “Apple Threatening Nuclear Arsenal to Palm”.palmpre1

So why is Apple acting so defensively? In short, because Palm Pre really has the potential to be an iPhone killer. Palm has taken what’s good about the iPhone and improved on it. It is really the first touchscreen mobile phone that’s not a direct rip-off of the iPhone and is able to deliver an experience that’s arguably better. So why is the Palm Pre better than the iPhone? Read on the find out.

Here is a short list:

  1. WebOS “Synergy”. Palm has completely ditched the notion of “sync’ing” in the new OS. Instead, your data is automatically stored in the cloud. So when you add a new meeting to your calendar or modify your contact, everything is immediately sync’d to the web and to your PC. Palm calls this “Synergy”.
  2. Multiple Running Applications. The iPhone doesn’t allow 3rd party apps to run simultaneously or in the background. But Palm Pre will let developers do this. In fact, the Palm Pre has a pretty fancy UI that uses “cards metaphor” to let you switch between active applications.
  3. Quick Launch Bar. The Palm Pre got rid of the 4 physical buttons that have always been in the classic Palm designs. Instead, it has a virtual launch bar that looks quite sexy.
  4. Gesture Area. Instead of just making the screen of the device touch-capable, the Palm Pre extends its gesture area to about an inch below the screen. So what looks like just plastic is actually a gesture area that supports input. Looks pretty easy and intuitive to use.
  5. Physical Keyboard. While more and more people are getting used to Apple’s on-screen keyboard, it’s hard to argue that it’s easier to type on a physical keyboard. The Palm Pre’s got one.
  6. Wireless Charging. Palm is the first smartphone that we know of that will support wireless charging through an optional accessory called Touchstone. You just put the Pre on top of the touchstone, and the magnet will snap it into place and starts charging.
  7. USB Hard Drive Mode. Plug in the USB cable into the Palm Pre and connect it to your PC. You can immediately use it as a USB mass storage and copy off any of your data. Talk about convenience.
  8. Copy-and-paste. This is the number 1 request from iPhone users. Apple still hasn’t delivered it, but Palm Pre will support this on day one.
  9. MMS Support. You still cannot do multimedia messaging on the iPhone, but Palm Pre will support it.
  10. 3 Megapixel Camera with Flash. 3 megapixel is not a lot by today’s standards, but it is still better than 2 megapixel on the iPhone. Oh, and the Pre has a flash to boot.
  11. Bluetooth tethering support. You can use the data connection of your Palm Pre to go online on your laptop via Bluetooth tethering. This is every mobile worker’s dream!

If you haven’t seen a demo of the Palm Pre, we would highly recommend checking out the video below to see it in action.

Having said the above, there are still plenty of challenges for Palm. It’s not clear what their Mojo SDK for 3rd party developers will be like and how successful their app store will be. A huge ecosystem has been built on the iPhone and that cannot be emulated overnight. Apple’s media experience with iTunes will also be difficult to dethrone. But either way look at it, Apple better watch its back!

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