The numerous iPhone developer’s rag to riches stories are certainly a reason while many random apps appear on the App Store; peeps want money. With the Pre launching soon though, developers are finding that the webOS platform is much easier to work with meaning….even you can make some cash.
Programming on webOS only requires JavaScript and CSS knowledge. That’s it. PC developers should fell much more at home in the environment verse the Mac-centric’s iPhone development tools. Hopefully, this means that the first crop of Pre apps will be killer. We’re not only talking banking apps here, but we’re expecting great games too.
Do you believe developers will want all their source code open to all?
Yes.
Why?
Look @ open-source community.
I agree. In fact, what would stop somebody from producing a shim layer in WebKit that would allow you to run all of the Palm Pre apps on the iPhone? Or even within any WebKit-hosted environment on the desktop for that matter?
Maybe that would be good for developers to be able to target more devices with a single app, but it certainly would take away the need for buying a Palm Pre to run the apps.
Don’t mistake apps based on HTML, CSS, JavaScript with browser apps!
Apple iPhone worldwide so far: 20 million. Apple
Pre sales so far: 0
iphone by close of 2009: 25 to 30 million.
Pre sales by close of 2009: 300,000 to 500,000.
Product brand recognition of iPhone: Huge
Product brand recognition of Pre: Tiny
Company market cap of iPhone maker: $82,000m
Company market cap of Pre maker: $800m
Apple Stores: many and worldwide
Palm stores: zero
2009 carriers for Apple: 67
2009 carriers for Pre: 1
US carrier For iPhone: 780 million subscribers and growing
US Carrier for Pre: 40 million and shrinking
iPhone US carrier market cap:142,000m
Pre US carrier market cap: 10,000m
Revenue prospects for ipone third party developers over next 18 months: Huge
Revenue prospects for Pre developers over next 18 months: Tiny
I hope Pre and WebOSD are a success. I think long term prospects are very good. Numbers in consumer hands in the next 12 months will be very little.
To be fair to a couple points:
Unfair to compare sales with something that hasn’t gone on sale yet.
Brand recognition on a Palm is hardly tiny. It may be the Treo name that has made them more famous but I would still hardly call Brand Recognition small.
They will be on sale through Sprint retailers and Best Buy, and Apple only has stores for Laptops/Computers. The iPhone was just a tag-on to a separate infrastructure.
The Palm Pre is exclusive for a short while…..similar to how the iPhone was exclusive at first.
The US Carrier for the iPhone has 780 million? Interesting fact based on the estimated 350 million population of the entire United States…AT&T must be doing great!
Its hard to say the revenue prospects for the Pre as we do not even know the details of their marketplace yet. Also just as many people who are getting nice cash from the App Store are tanking and not making a cent.
You clearly do not hope WebOS will be a success, and you sir are an apple fanboy.
Haha I couldn’t have said it better.
Oh boy – you’ve probably just written the dumbest comparison between apples and bananas I’ve ever read.
You’re comparing a product that won’t be out for a few months with a product that’s been out for nearly two years!
Did you know that Apple didn’t sell any iPhone before they started selling it? Was that a good indicator of how well it would sell later?
Right: It wasn’t!
Btw: Where do you get these numbers? Palm repeatedly said that it would launch the Pre worldwide at the same time.
Who says that “revenue prospects for Pre developers” are “tiny”? In fact: Developing for the Pre will be much simpler, whereas Apple’s App Store is extremely crowded and doesn’t offer many revenue prospects for 99% of its developers.
@PC: I see the numbers you give are fairly compelling for the subject of developer interest and what the relative markets are. Markets and profit drive developers of useful applications.
“US carrier For iPhone: 780 million subscribers and growing
US Carrier for Pre: 40 million and shrinking”
You have a typo there. Should be:”US carrier For iPhone: 75 million subscribers and growing
US Carrier for Pre: 45 million (35 million non iDen) and shrinking”
@Kyle: “Apple only has stores for Laptops /Computers.”
What? iPods? There are hundreds of millions. The Apple stores created the huge buzz for iPhone. The environment in a Sprint store which sells almost all of sprints phones is not the same. Do you think Best Buy expects to sell more Pres than iPhones in the next 12 months? They probably figure 10:1 or 20:1 in favor of iPhone.
@Sebastian: “Did you know that Apple didn’t sell any iPhone before they started selling it?”
Relevance? The article is on developers and them making “cash” related to Apple by the author. How many Palm can sell in the next 12 months related to apple share is is the point.
PC, are you stretching the truth here? Are you pulling a Palosi?
I mean Apple is not expected a 50 percent growth on their product. Are they? Going from 20 million to 30 million. Come on! Apple sales have declined they are at a peak. Now some may buy the new iPhone, but it will be the same customers who bought previously. Apple will get more from a lower cost phone. But remember, most people use the phone as a phone and not all the other stuff. iPhone is also not a business phone. It has a lot of tricks (cool tricks) but that is it.
You also are mixing worldwide info with US info. I thought there was only ONE carrier for the iPhone in the US just like Sprint? 75 million in the US not 780 million. THe population of the US is not even half that number. Sprint has close to 50 million. If you say 40, then I should say 70 for att?
Sprint has not had a WOW phone until the Pre. I have a basic phone with a basic service, however, with the everything plans with sprint, I am highly considering the Pre. I am sure many other Sprint users are as well. Get this, the plans are better and the phone service is better. In other words the family plan on Sprint for 130 would cost me 170 and maybe more because of the tv aspect. Plus I would be short 100 talk minutes. Also Sprint has a data plan that is 30 dollars and it includes unlimited Web and data access, song downloads, Sprint Music Premier, Sprint TV Premier, and unlimited Sprint Navigation.
Pre will be on other carriers before the iPhone in the US. Is this not a true statement??? So I would say the cap is higher.
One last thing, most people do not want to be tethered to itunes. There are too many restrictions to it. There is a mark-up to anthing which has “i-whatever” in front of it. There are better choices out there. Apple is just over priced. And most know this.
Folks,
Has Anyone paid any attention to the Recent World Mobile Phone Conference in Europe.
iPhone was Absent.
Palm Pre was a Show Stopper.
It was out in GSM Format.
Multiple Carriers are listing now in Britian and Europe.
China is gearing up.
So I think that PC’s numbers are skewed based on his only Apple Bias.
I paid close attention to Barcelona and the followup since I live in Paris most of the year. There isn’t any indication that Palm, which is not well known in Europe, will actually start selling it there in 2009. What they say is months after US launch. Pre is late June. 1Q 2010 fro Europe makes sense, earlier is a stretch.
Matt, do you use speech-to-text technology to write your posts? the peculiar typos indicate so (while=why, fell=feel)
Only Javascript and CSS? that is accessible to even me!
By the way. Once these are out on European Networks. It is just a short order to Unlock one and bring it to the US. That means you will see Palm Pre in GSM 3G format in the tube before they are actually supported directly by AT&T, T-Mobile, and the rest.
This is exactly how I plan to get mine here as soon as it is released. I plan to make my road warrior gear a Palm Pre and an ASUS EEE T91 Touch Netbook. The Laptop will be for heavy work. The other will be my normal set of tools when away from the desk.
short order to unlock a subsidized European GSM phone? Good luck with that. Unlocked in Europe the iPhone is a fortune. Palm without warranty is also very dangerous.
No. Numbers in consumer hands will be as many as Palm can produce and distribute as fast as they can. This phone and webOS completely pwn the iPhone and its outdated, single tasking, locked, developer unfriendly OS. The iPhone’s been riding on flashiness for 2 years while people got bored with practical business phones. Now Palm’s here to make practical flashy and no one else comes close. Too bad Palm has about 14 times the market share in smartphones as Apple does. And that was BEFORE they had the best smartphone on the market.
@Gio: “Too bad Palm has about 14 times the market share in smartphones as Apple does”
why don’t you check gartner. You have the relationship it reversed.
Don’t listen to Spasden…Ny sister lives in England and a bro that lives in Germany,both trave Europe a lot and Palm is known there and has a presence in Europe He is just a adolescent apple fanboi.
Wow great, that makes robotics applications like these much easier!
http://roboticsbm.blogspot.com/2009/02/using-modern-technology-for-robotics.html
well dont forget that when you buy an iphone they wont let you insure it like any other handheld
Atleast developer’s dont have buy Mac’s in order to make a app for Palm Pre.