I met with the owner of a restaurant last Thursday and had something completely unexpected happen. The gentleman I met with has been in the restaurant business for quite some time, starting out with Subway, then rolling out his own pizza franchise concept, and now finally launching his own pizzeria. I was there to do a little research for the product side of our business. We talked for about an hour about several ways mobile technology could assist him in the operation of his restaurant, and also how it could help him be more in tune with his customers.
The discussion was very helpful to me, and I believe to him as well. However, about midway through our discussion something completely unexpected happened. This gentleman held up his iPhone that had been sitting on the table next to him throughout our discussion. As he held it up he declared “This is my PC.” His point was that he was not in the restaurant all the time, and he used his iPhone as not only the mechanism to help keep him in tune with what was going on his his restaurant, but also to help him access other information, make calls, visit web sites etc. In every way, this little “phone” had become his primary computing device.
I have made mention of this trend in other previous posts, but in this case I got anecdotal confirmation straight from the horses mouth without any prompting from me. This is not an advertisement for the iPhone, though it is a very slick device. I am sure if asked others would say the same thing about their Windows Mobile device, or their BlackBerry, or maybe even the Pre now. The point is that in fact, our phones are becoming much more than phones. They are in many instances taking the place of our PC’s in the real world.
Well, it’s finally here. Palm launched the Pre last Saturday, and they are now finally in direct competition with Apple and the iPhone. So which one’s better? For me, I think the verdict is still out.
By now, unless you live under a rock somewhere, I’m sure you know how successful the iPhone has been. They have sold millions of devices in the two years the phone has been out, and users have downloaded over 1 billion applications in the year since the App Store was available. Apple also broke a lot of long standing rules in the cellular industry by having the phone activated through iTunes instead of directly with AT&T, and also by funneling users through iTunes for content instead of through AT&T. The iPhone was also ground breaking in that it introduced the concept of using gestures via a touch screen to interact with the device. What they have accomplished is truly amazing.
Don’t count out Palm just yet. Palm has traditionally been very strong with “prosumers”. This is a term they coined to talk about their sweet spot in terms of users. The demographic Palm originally catered to with the Treo was professional people who purchased their own devices and used it both for work and personal purposes. Add to that the fact that they pioneered the whole smartphone segment 5 years ago, and you have a pretty accomplished competitor for Apple. The new Pre has a slick little physical keyboard, a very nice touch screen, and a gesture base user interface. Sprint says the Pre broke all of their sales records for new devices. Sounds kind of like the iPhone, doesn’t it?
I think the real battle is still to come. WebOS has some very interesting capabilities with it’s application platform. It allows applications to integrate with the web, on device information, and across applications. Of course there aren’t many applications on the device yet. It will be interesting to see what developers come up with on the Pre. Part of what has made the iPhone successful is the slew of applications that have been introduced by developers outside of Apple. I’ll be curious to see how many, and what types of applications get introduced for the Pre.
