One month after the launch of the App Store in 2008, Apple had seen over 60 million downloads of its apps. The Palm Pre hasn’t been out for a month yet, but it’s about halfway there, so how close is it to that number? Not close at all. Not in the same ballpark. Not even in the same city.
Palm’s App Catalog has seen roughly 666,000 app downloads in its first 12 days, according to the mobile analytics firm Medialets. And what’s worse is that the download momentum is slightly slowing down since the initial launch. So don’t be too surprised if one month after the launch, the App Catalog downloads are near 1 million. Yes, 1/60th of what the App Store was doing last year.
So why is that? After all, reports are that the Pre itself is selling pretty well. Well, the reasons are fairly obvious, and are all Palm’s fault. Right now, there are only 30 apps in the App Catalog. That’s up from 18 at launch, but there have been no new ones in just about a week now. How many did the App Store have at launch last year? Over 500. And more importantly, the rate of expansion was massive — which led to those 60 million downloads in the first month.
The reason the Pre has so few apps is because it has limited who has access to its webOS SDK. Even today, only select developers can get it, to start working on apps. And that’s better than it could have been — initially, Palm wasn’t planning to launch with an app store at all, according to Medialets. But that would have been a really bad move. The smartphone wars today are at least partially being measured by the various app stores, on top of actual device sales. While the iPhone is far from the most popular device around the world, the App Store has had over 1 billion downloads now, and has over 50,000 apps.
If you were buying a phone today and had to choose between a device with 50,000 apps and one with 30 apps, which would you choose? Yeah.
To be fair, Apple had a built-in advantage at the launch of the App Store — there were already a few million first generation iPhones out there. Palm attempted to launch the entire package: new device, new OS and new app store, all at the same time. As Medialets notes, the other company that did this recently was Google with its Android platform late last year — but it didn’t have to make the phone, HTC made the G1. Still, Android also failed to secure the type of launch the App Store had for its Android Market. It’s still growing, but not nearly as fast as the App Store.
And don’t expect things to pick up anytime soon for the App Catalog. While more developers do have their hands on the SDK now, there is still no real infrastructure to do things such as app payments. That’s something that really hamstrung the Android Market early on.
But farther in the future, Palm does have a second device running the webOS coming out. That should undoubtedly help move some apps. Of course, perhaps you heard, Apple has a new device of its own coming out tomorrow.
[photo: flickr/robert thomson]
Side note: You left out the closing tag from your photo credit line, and that’s causing the rest of the text to show up italic in the CrunchBase widgets.
Back to normal… Palm is doomed. Now that the device is officially available, it’s apparent that it’s just really not going to be able to compete with Apple or the iPhone at all.
ah, no i just accidentally put the closing em tag after the widgets
thanks!
Also, the Palm OS doesn’t allow access to the 3d card which drastically limits game development, which in turn limits the amount entertainment apps that drive most of Apples App Store sales.
Sounds pretty good, Mikey Mike…LOL
“To be fair, Apple had a built-in advantage at the launch of the App Store — there were already a few million first generation iPhones out there.” — That is a huge difference. So much so that it’s an Apples to Oranges comparison.
Exactly. I hear good things about this MG guy .. and then he writes a completely worthless article like this.
You can’t write a complete false article and just add a “to be fair” statement somewhere in there.
i dont know who is telling you good things about MG – he is the worst writer ive ever read on a tech blog
I’m not sure when he arrived at TechCrunch, but I’ve read several of his articles in the last few weeks alone that have been incredibly frustrating.
For the most part, he seems to have an irrational hatred of the Palm Pre, and insists on comparing it (unfavorably) to the iPhone.
For a phone/platform like the Pre to be in the position it’s in so soon after launch is a fantastic achievement. It’s even several steps ahead of the iPhone in many areas, though you wouldn’t know it by reading this article.
Furthermore, a lot of people have been touting Apple’s “50,000″ apps since WWDC. Why the heck does anyone need 49,985 useless apps on their phone anyway? All I want is a faster web browser, and a better way to manage my contacts and calendar. The Pre certainly beats the iPhone in all of those areas.
I don’t think it’s irrational hatred of the Pre, more like irrational love of anything Apple.
BTW, I needed some help. My gmail account got hacked, and by the ‘Activity Log’ feature of Google, I could figure out the IP address from where my email account was logged in.
The IP was 204.15.23.171
I do not know how to figure out which browser is this. Is there any software that can figure out whose machine is this where my account was opened and emails were tampered?
To be fair, that was a pretty accurate article. This is good criticism for Palm to pony up and improve their service.
Who exactly is telling you good things? He is by FAR the most uninformed writer on this tech blog. I don’t know what’s worse honestly. His lack of research and knowledge on topics, or the use of some tacky “related” photo appended to everything he posts.
correct! Comparing the iPhone App Store launch with already 2 millions of iPhones out there to the Pre which is avaible for 2 weeks is just ridiculous.
I own an iPhone myself but this article lacks a fair perspective!
uhm didnt mean 2 millions but just millions
i think it mere alot more than 2 million iphones sold in the first year.
It’s not a fair comparison, as at the time of Apple AppStore launch there already where millions of iPhone users. I’m actually surprised that Palm’s Store already reached 1% of Apple’s Store first month downloads, given the tiny WebOS install base.
As one of those lucky developers, who were given Palm SDK early access, I must admit, it is much easier to get started developing WebOS apps in comparison to iPhone OS X apps (at least, from the non-Mac developer perspective). Not sure about more complex applications, as I’m yet to develop them. Anyway, I think the number of WebOS applications will grow and Palm’s store will eventually become a successful business.
so how long until your app comes out?
A month or so (if everything goes smooth
)
The thing you didn’t mention until your sixth paragraph is the major point. There were many more iPhones when the app store launched. Apple has set the rules and Palm, Android, and RIM are all playing by launching app store like distribution systems. Give Palm some time but I wouldn’t expect them to pass the app stores success and don’t even think it should be something they should be concerned with. That would be as foolish as a minor league team trying to win the World Series.
the difference is that palm has some really serious financial considerations it needs to make.
You’re a twit MG. How much larger was i-phone’s install base one month after the launch of Appstore vs Palm? This is bad journalism, if you can even call it that.
I’m just able to decipher this comment enough to respond with: that’s in there.
Then why even take the time to write a crappy blog post about it?
yeah, that still makes no sense.
you can deny it but he’s right.
the original iphone and ipod touch install base is why the apps sold so much. the rest is just negligible.
crappy blog post.
A few things.
(1) Quantity != Quality.
A million downloads of a farting app might look good on paper, but isn’t all that useful.
(2) You’re comparing Apples to Palms. Apple already had a huge userbase when they released their app store. Palm’s WebOS had a userbase of 0 when they launched their app store.
“The reason the Pre has so few apps is because it has limited who has access to its webOS SDK. Even today, only select developers can get it, to start working on apps.”
This was also the case with Apple. They limited it to select developers before launch and then after launch it still costs $99 to be in the developer program. The real issue is that all the developers actually had an iPhone for a long time before they launched an app store for it and had even started developing applications for jailbroken iPhones.
More fart apps should do the trick.
The SDK issue is certainly a problem; we have apps that we are dying to port to other platforms, but:
a) Palm has yet to make it clear how and when we’ll get access to the SDK (even their reps at the Web 2.0 Expo and they were equally vague); I don’t understand what the hold up is.
b) I have even yet to be told how we can get access to a test device (we’re in Canada; not Lower Forgetistan, Canada); what good is it if there’s a gap of a month or two between access to the SDK and access to the device ? (I’m sure the emulator is swell and all, but how does the UX validation compare to actually holding the device and experimenting with it ?)
There are countless man-hours ready to be thrown at this device; open the doors Palm and let us do our thing.
I hear ya. I’m dying to get my hands on the SDK as well… It’s a bummer that Palm didn’t have it ready by the time of the Pre’s release. In the long run it might not make a difference, but right now it seems like a pretty big mistake.
Well, if the positioning is really to go after Blackberry rather than a frontal assault on iPhone, then maybe these numbers aren’t the doom and gloom that they appear to be.
That said, if that was/is the case, Palm would have been well-served cultivating a handful or enterprise centered apps.
On that front, the market positioning could have been crisper.
Needless to say, all of this plays to Apple’s goal of keeping developers from getting wandering eyes to other platforms, something that I blogged about in:
ANALYSIS – iPhone 3.0: Block the Kick Strategy
http://bit.ly/ANdMz
Check it out if interested.
Mark
I understand the point of your article. We are all waiting in anticipation. However, this is a first generation device. How many apps did apple have at the launch of the 1st gen iPhone? “0″. Know why? There wasn’t even a store yet… At least give Palm a little bit of credit that they at least had ’some’ apps and a store ready for the device launch. That being said; What’s the hold up PALM? Release that SDK now! This isn’t apple you’re at anymore Jon Rubenstein, You’ll kill the device if you keep this up.
Maybe Ed Colligan is still at the helm.. God help us!
Why does Palm get credit? They are copying Apple but not so well.
Apple didn’t have it initially, but they still had the successful initial launch at a time well enough ahead of the entire market to make the app store a success. Maybe none of those factors are repeatable ever again (there is already a first mover) but that doesn’t provide an excuse for not catching up and not having momentum.
Why does Apple get credit? They are essentially copying the hackers who first created Apps for the iPhone through jailbreaks. And hackers that created Apps before the iPhone was even around on PalmOS, etc.
If Apple deserves credit for anything, it is the concept of having an organized place for mobile apps, but certainly not the concept of running Apps on a phone.
Who said I was giving Apple credit for the work of developers of individual apps?
I’m giving Apple credit for the strategy of entering the game late but with an industry-changing device. I’m giving them credit for getting many devs and every meaningful web site to build Mobile Safari versions of their sites for a year. I’m giving Apple credit for then turning a year and a half of explosive device sales and consumer satisfaction and developer anticipation into an indisputable hit that in some regard came out of nowhere, in other regards was drop-dead simple and obvious (however, the copycats still haven’t replicated it even though every Apple hating weiny said that they would be copied in 3-6 months time). Etc.
“Why does Palm get credit? They are copying Apple but not so well.”
That’s giving Apple credit.
And my point is that Apple’s strategy was based off the immense popularity of jailbreaking to run Apps. Kudos to them for taking it and running with it in a successful approach. But they shouldn’t get credit for the idea. They should get credit for monetizing the idea. Which I will give them credit for.
Besides, you didn’t relay what credit you were giving them in your first post, thus the reason I questioned it.
being an owner of a Pre im getting a little angry with the lack of apps. mainly i want a good twitter app, not “Spaz” or “tweed” both of which are sub par.
hurry up Palm!
Don’t forget that WebOS eliminates the need for a lot for a few key iPhone apps. AIM, Facebook, etc. Just something to keep in mind.
MG, your whole article revolves around the number of apps available. Since when did quantity mean quality? The iphone store is the most hyped thing ever, it has very few worthwhile apps.
i dont care how many millions of apps it has, most are garbage from people trying to make money with their adsense bs. theres only a handful that are worth downloading, so stop writing articles compeltely based on “omg apple has 60 million downloaded” yea because theres more apple fanboys who will download anything than palm users.
You sound like yet another Iphone fanboi who simply get’s excited when Apple comes out with a rehash that has nothing innovative in the mix. I’d rather have Palm selectively give out the SDK to worthy dev’s than to blindly give them out so we have the craptastic catalog that Apple currently possesses. I would take quality vs quantity any day.
As for the Palm, they will carve out a niche for themselves and I for one am happy that we finally have worthy alternatives to the Iphone. And if anything, Jon Rubenstein and his minions at Palm will force the competition to catch up.
One more useless article from MG where he makes a comparison to Apple and, of course, the company being compared, can not compete and MG “predicts” that it will never succeed.
Useless…
Dumb…
Ugh. Why do TC readers feel so entitled? Trolls, NO one cares what you have to say. Stop hating on MG. Not everyone agrees with you, and some of us with like to read insightful comments.
I am not looking for anything more than fair reporting!
He is comparing the iPhone install base at the time that the App Store was launched to the Pre install base at the time that the device itself was launched.
A fair comparison will be how the Pre app store does when there are a million pre devices out there.
To claim that it is not where the Apple App Store was a month after it was launched is not right and simply bad journalism.
This is the pattern with MG. Unless your software/device/business plan includes Apple or Google in it, it is just plain garbage to MG.
This is not journalism. These are his opinions and many times, he does not back them up.
I equate this article to comparing Google usage today with the usage of a new search engine that just got released. There is no comparison and none should be made. Compare Google’s userbase the first month to the new search engine’s userbase after the first month if you want a fair comparison. Even then, it is not really a fair comparison because there are other factors that come into play such as the popularity of the internet, special marketing and distributions deals, and others.
This is just bad journalism.
Well, there were quite a few more iPhones than a million when the app store launched. If we have to wait until they hit any and every iPhone milestone almost 3 years later, well… we may never get to make that comparison then.
I couldn’t agree more
I would suggest that this article become a prediction of crappy performance in the future rather than commentary of current crappy performance… the math here just doesn’t seem to work as well as you would like to be “way way behind” Apple.
The article does convince me of one thing: TechCrunch loves the iPhone (I cannot disagree with that notion, however! The Pre is just an OK to good phone).
palm is gay
I can’t even masturbate without being gay? dammit!
Well technically, it’s a homosexual act.
“If you were buying a phone today and had to choose between a device with 50,000 apps and one with 30 apps, which would you choose? Yeah.”
And since there are no app’s available yet for the Pre, wouldn’t it be logical that people are buying the pre for other reasons? Perhaps they are buying the Pre because it’s simply a superior phone.
perhaps. certainly some feel that way.
Personally, I think it all comes down to preference. MG, you mentioned in an earlier article about the vast amount of useless apps in the App Store. I don’t think that could be argued, either.
However, what if Palm took an approach (one I would like to see) to stay “connected”. Apps centered around always having the utility needed anywhere, anytime.
Apps that throw notifications to the bottom of the Pre for things you feel you need to be in the know. Stock news, sports scores, fantasy results, emails, etc.
Palm wouldn’t need 50,000 apps to make that a success. And for a user like me, it would be great.
Once again, it all comes down to preference, in my opinion.
Btw MG, I noticed that you deleted a lot of posts all of which don’t agree with your myopic view. Do me a favor before you probably deleting my post but can you preface your article by stating if you are a current user of the Palm Pre and if not, which phone are you currently using? Many of us readers are curious to see if your opinion is biased or not.
Mike incognito?
yeh – he deletes a lot of comments. someone should fire this fool
He seems to reply to a lot of posts too. Maybe the commentators should take a hint.
I am not sure if he does. Posts sometimes just don’t show up for no apparent reason.
Are you saying that you saw your posts one minute then it was gone the next?
yep. nothing offensive either.
Oh no. He deletes comments. The other night, I responded to the Microsoft donations story and all of my comments got deleted one right after the other.
Apparently, if you make a good point, he deletes the comment.
Yep. He is deleting comments. I have seen several that were there and then disappeared.
How long did it take the App Store to get Pandora?
It was there day 1.
And to me, Pandora’s the only app I really care about (that and Slacker, really).
Besides that and a Twitter client (which was also there day 1 on both), the rest is really just dressing.
Business isn’t fair.
Apple came into this space and created the most successful and impressive app store to date. Everyone else will now be compared to them, regardless of if it’s their intention to compete with it or not.
In regards to quality versus quantity, having had both devices at launch, I can honestly say there was a higher percentage of quality apps available for the iPhone then there was for the Pre at launch. There is a serious lack of innovation in the apps we’ve seen so far for the Pre (that doesn’t mean NO innovation…).
MG’s article explains everything perfectly so I’m not really sure why everyone seems to be skimming through it simply to bash it. He compared it to the Android Marketplace just as much as he did the App Store and it sure isn’t doing any better than that! Ah, but it’s the TechCrunch comment board, bashing Apple and Twitter is mandatory right?
To reiterate his point: “The reason the Pre has so few apps is because it has limited who has access to its webOS SDK. Even today, only select developers can get it, to start working on apps.”
Great work MG!
If Sprint or Palm send you some buffet coupons in apology for no Pre review loaner at launch, will you guys stop bashing them? Pre’s got it’s share of problems, but this theme is getting tiresome on the Crunch network.
I have absolutely no problem with Palm. I didn’t expect a test Pre unit, nor did I request one. I have used one, it’s a really nice phone, there are many things to like.
That doesn’t change the fact that it has some serious problems it must overcome with its app store in the near future if it’s going to compete the way it has to.
Palm’s not Apple. We all know that. So where are the Nokia, Blackberry, and Android app store comparisons?
dont worry – he’ll pull some comparision of those stores out of his ass one day. no doubt, they will all be horrible, terrible failures.
He already did that story about a month ago where he compared the usage and came up with the conclusion (required a PHD in Physics) that the Apple App Store is the most successful store. He left out symbian and Microsoft devices because they do not have an App Store even though they have more apps than the Apple App Stores available for the devices.
MG,
Why do you feel that the Pre has to compete with Apple on the App Store front in order to be successful? There are plenty of phones out there that are successful without competing with Apple. Blackberry is such a device. Microsoft Mobile is such a device as well. Yes, they are creating an App Store but not having one does not mean that you are going to fail.
The Apple App store is full of crap that many users who use their phones for business will not need and nor will their corporate environments allow. I don’t allow my blackberry users to install games on blackberry devices that are owned by the company, for example, or are connected to our corporate network.
This is a great article. It shows clearly that Palm doesn’t really stand a chance. I think that Palm, unless Dell buys them, will disappear by March of 2010. There’s no way that this company will survive by selling 200K worth of handsets a year.
MS, would you short Palm? Do you think they’ll end up in deadpool?
Of course it’s Palm’s fault. Everything is Palm’s fault. Did you pay for the fault?
Some very rough math: if Palm sells 1 million apps but doesn’t deliver more than the initial inventory of 50,000 phones in the first month, that’s 20 apps per phone.
As @tialoc said, in the iPhone’s first month of sales they sold zero apps per phone.
In the first month of Apple’s app store they sold 60m apps to 1m customers… 60 apps per phone, yipes.
The numbers could be way off, but comparing apps per customer, Apple does better by a factor of 3. I do wish Palm would release that SDK.
Looking at customers who buy upwards of 20 apps in a month, we’re comparing flavors of masochists. What is that indicative of? Of course to a tech blogger the function of any company is to generate buzz and “innovation,” but gimme a break.
I want the Pre because of things like the keyboard, integrating sms and email, handling alerts more gracefully than the Treo, cut and paste, etc. Too bad those things come out of the box.
& as we used to say when comparing the number of PC vs. Mac apps: how many word processors do you need?
“if Palm sells 1 million apps but doesn’t deliver more than the initial inventory of 50,000 phones in the first month, that’s 20 apps per phone.”
probably one million for 200,000 phones, so 5 apps per phone.
“In the first month of Apple’s app store they sold 60m apps to 1m customers… 60 apps per phone, yipes.”
those are 1m 3g customers. don’t forget the ipod touch users, and the original iphone users.
so 60m apps for 8m customers is closer.
that’s 7.5 apps per customer
so
palm: 5
apple: 7,5
not that bad considering palm hasn’t even released an sdk yet.
As developer behind WHERE app (currently 3rd most popular app in Pre App Catalog) I can say is that WebOS is pretty amazing and once SDK is fully open the number of WebOS apps is definitely going to grow at a very fast rate. WebOS is without doubt great asset for Palm.
Also, it took Apple a long time to open iPhone SDK to developers. iPhone had to be jailbroken in order for developers to get some taste of iPhone development. Palm Pre was hacked on the 3rd day I think. That milestone
was achieved faster than on iPhone.
Also, Pre users are extremely active and the app usage (at least for WHERE) is great on Pre which tells me that the majority of users find Pre to be user friendly and love to play with their phone. They will be rewarded by many apps I am pretty sure. I wouldn’t be worried about WebOS apps, I am pretty sure that their number will be in thousands.
Nothing comes close to beating Apple’s App Store, You might say that Windows mobile does have quite a few apps, but Apple takes the win!
I was surprised that Palm hadn’t opened their SDK long before launch to get a BIG mass of quality apps ready right away. Building apps can take time and getting the SDK just before or during launch doesn’t help at all.
That said I really hope the Pre survives its first year. We need competition and innovation to push everyone forward.
I know it’s a different era, but back in the day, Mac people used to defend the paltry selection of Mac software vs PC software with “quantity doesn’t matter! it’s all about quality!” Now that the tables are turned, many of these same people are now content to play the “we have all the software” card. Interesting reversal.
I’m still pissed at Palm for not releasing the SDK for many developers. Makes one think it’s not ready for prime time. If not, then why launch the phone when they did? Just to ride the WWDC press comparisons with iPhone? Probably.
More ramblings about how Palm dropped the ball: http://michaelk...elease-weekend/
Siegler, you are just mainlining the Kool-Aid now aren’t you? I mean — in it’s powder form, not even waiting for Cupertino to mix it with Perrier and deliver it to your house.
Every article that leaves your Mac Pro is just dripping with insecurity, like you need to find a new way to prove to yourself the superiority of the phone and the platform with which you’ve dedicated your iLife.
Let’s try to explain this to you in terms you can perhaps understand:
Competition is a good thing. In fact, a great thing. Competition caused the very (non) benevolent organization you worship to both cut prices and add features.
You, as the worshiper of a near-fascist company who would strip you of every last penny while you invest in all their proprietary services and hardware interconnects, will benefit greatly by the success of Palm, and of Android, and (someday) of Windows Mobile — because of competition. That’s the way the free market works.
Does that make sense?
What are these hardware interconnects you speak of?
Routing for competition whether or not the competition measures up to the market leader isn’t competition or fascism — it’s communism.
No, your post did not make sense.
“What are these hardware interconnects you speak of?”
You’re kidding right? The connector that’s on the bottom of every iPhone and iPod.
“Routing for competition whether or not the competition measures up to the market leader isn’t competition or fascism — it’s communism.”
I don’t think you understand either free market economics or communism.
If Palm succeeds, your next iPhone will be better for it. And when Android handset sales surpass the iPhone (and they will), iPhone consumers will benefit again…Apple, not so much.
Oh, the ones that come free with every device. Got you.
“If Palm succeeds, your next iPhone will be better for it. And when Android handset sales surpass the iPhone (and they will), iPhone consumers will benefit again…Apple, not so much.”
Again, why do I have to prop them up? If, if, if… while ignoring reality.
I have no problem with them being successful and providing real competition. But if they aren’t, I’m not going to pretend they’re doing great and get a 3 year pass on criticism.
There is one MAJOR point that everyone is missing here. Palm has shown that they are willing to take as much time as necessary to do things RIGHT! When everyone else was rushing to release crappy iPhone knock offs, Palm decided to resist that temptation and, instead, spend 2 years re-building their OS from the ground up, almost running themselves into financial oblivion in the process. However, what they built is not only far from an iPhone knock off, it surpasses the iPhone in many regards! The folks at Palm are patient. They know that success does not necessarily mean beating all iPhone’s numbers. They’ve shown that their highest priority is to put out a quality product.
I can only assume that they are doing the exact same thing with their Mojo SDK. They want to make damn sure it’s right before they let it out to the masses. As anxious as I am to see more Pre apps available, I applaud them for their focus on quality.
I have the phone and I think it’s great. Very, very few issues… all of which are minor and easily fixable. To be honest, I can do so much on the phone as it is, I’m not sure I even need any more apps. Regardless, I don’t want to have to deal with any issues with any apps I do download. So as far as I’m concerned… Palm, take your time to get it right… my beloved Pre will be ready and waiting when you are.
“When everyone else was rushing to release crappy iPhone knock offs, Palm decided to resist that temptation and, instead, spend 2 years re-building their OS from the ground up, almost running themselves into financial oblivion in the process”
I thought Palm did that every 3 years no matter what. Didn’t know they were doing something extraordinary.
Well everyone else seems to have slammed the author for ignoring the fact that the app store came into being after a million iphones were on the market so I won’t go crazy about that.
However for as much as I like the Iphone if I get one, my Treo 680 will slip into duty as a dedicated pda, the apps already available for it are amazingly useful and I wouldn’t want to get thru my day without Agendus Pro for the Palm OS. Keep in mind before the Iphone had one app in it’s catalog the old Palm OS had better than 30,000 apps available.
I’m not sure if the Pre will ever be able to live up to it’s legacy apps in some regards. This is what drives me crazy about progress, I keep losing something I need to gain something I want!
Take care.
Marc
“If you were buying a phone today and had to choose between a device with 50,000 apps and one with 30 apps, which would you choose?”
I will choose the first that becomes available on verizon’s network.
Why are developers going to spend resources to make apps for a tiny platform base (around 100,000-200,000) during a recession when they can focus on Blackberry (best selling smartphone), Android (over 20 Android phones coming out this year), iPhone (over 40 million installed base) or Windows Mobile (tens of millions of users).
A smartphone is not just internet, calender and a clock. I don’t think people are lining up for Linux over Mac OS or Vista, the reason why Mac OS and Vista are the dominant operating systems is because of computer programs (Linux is less supported).
Nobody is going to buy a smartphone with no apps, its like a computer without programs.
The Pre is dying a slow death.
Your Linux comparison is rather odd.
If “less supported” means there aren’t as many applications available to Linux users, you would be incorrect. Linux provides many alternatives to your favorite Windows applications.
If you mean that there are less support contracts for Linux, then you would be correct. However, the price to build a site (like this one) on Linux would be nominally less expensive than using Windows or OSX. Including hardware and bandwidth. And the vast amount of resources for troubleshooting issues are huge. Thus, anybody with Linux experience can properly remediate any issues that may occur.
The reason OSX and Vista are more dominant, though, is because of end-user space. To sell a product, you must support the product. Most Linux distributions are free, thus support is not required. They rely on YOU to support the product. Which, if you’re a true geek, can be a welcoming challenge.
And just for a little fun, the site you commented on, Mike, runs Linux (TechCrunch).
The masses don’t have time or inclination to troubleshoot technology. Thus Linux will never reach a critical mass that developers will start to invest millions in developing programs in every software field from business to games, thus few people will use Linux as a PC platform, thus developers will not invest in it.
The same goes with any new platform such as the Pre… unless its backed by a company with deep pockets (Palm had a stock value of less than $2 before the Pre announcement and required a $450 million investment from Bono to save the company) or it offers a revolutionary step forward, neither of which applies.
Given that Palm is up against Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nokia and RIM. I would say its chances of surviving beyond 2 years are very low particulary given how slow sales have been for the Pre (Sprint/Palm have not released offical figures).
I agree that Linux will never lead in market share, and I never said they would. But to say that developers don’t invest there time in Linux is blatantly false. Look at IT appliances and notice that most of them run with Linux as their OS. Why? Because they can customize the OS to fit their needs. Consumer brand Linksys routers (before Cisco acquisition) run on Linux. Some if not all probably still do, also.
Many systems offering up services (web, shell, hosting, colocation, etc) run Linux.
Google? Linux. Gmail? Linux. Digg? Linux. TechCrunch? Linux. Twitter? Linux.
Apparently devs are paying attention and developing applications for Linux.
Red Hat has a multi-billion dollar market cap by selling Linux.
Oracle makes a good amount of their revenue by supporting databases running on and developed for Linux.
And most importantly — a lot of the services soon to come with “cloud computing” will most likely be served up by running on … Linux.
In terms of Palm not lasting beyond 2 years, that remains to be seen. However, there is plenty of room in the mobile market for Palm to have a niche market and still succeed from it.
And yes I know that web + hosting can be the same, and colocation can be a server running Windows. My point though was most of these colocation providers depend on their infrastructure (firewalls, IDS, etc) with Linux-based appliances, etc.
what MG is saying with this article is that Palm doesn’t realize that it is a platform company yet. The Pre is a good platform and will make some sales, but success won’t be determined by the device, it will be determined by developer support and carrier adoption.
Palm also needs to adress the $99 dollar iphone if they want to get a piece of the people who are entering the smartphone market for the first time in 2009.
I didn’t even have to think who was the writer after i read the title of the article. First palm had a very limited release compared to iphone. Second Palm concentrated more on getting its OS right for multi tasking than getting 100’s of partners to start with. With out having understood such basic things comparison is so wrong.
Another poorly thought out article.
You neglect to mention the fact that the iPhone had *no apps whatsoever* for the first year. So in actual fact, Palm is doing (literally) infinitely better than Apple.
And of course you’re forgetting the fact that Apple has an order of magnitude more resources (money and people) to develop the SDK and market the device.
Who are these dumbasses who say: it’s unfair to say they are behind, it’s apple’s and oranges, you can’t compare them because they are behind. No sh!t.
That’s not Apple’s fault. They raised the stakes. Not meeting those stakes is not an excuse for failing to meet the challenges of the current marketplace.
I think Mike makes valid points here about Palms culpability in the slow apps rollout, but I find it curious he didnt mention the Palm snubbing of the recent independant dev conference of prior platform developers wanting to code for the new OS. It is a strategic disaster for the new device and one that could very well spell its doom. I mean hell what is Palm always heralded for? Massive third party independant dev! I hope they can realize their mistake in time.
Apple Apps store is far ahead of Pre. Though Pre sells very well, there is never going to be a change in the apps catalog unless they open and make the SDK accessible to developers. 30 apps is nothing compared to 50,000 apps.
Folks, if you come to TechCrunch and expect anything to be said negative about Apple – or positive about one of its competitors – prepare to be constantly disappointed. Its not going to happen.
MG is great, was glad to see him come here, and my favorite TC writer. Yeah, I hate that he selectively deletes comments he doesn’t agree with, even more so that his articles have increasingly become mainstream pron for you Apple ifanboys. I figure someone (unnamed so this post isn’t deleted) got to him. He was much less biased in the beginning.
The rest has been said in defense of Palm, no need repeating. They’re doing fine, the Pre is great. Just another slanted article full of mistruths for the Jobs worshippers.
You must be in bed with MG. It’s the only way for me to comprehend your comment.
P.S. Written from my Pre while simultaneously checking and responding to email, sending SMS messages, reading daily business news and answering two calls. Not bad for a crappy little device.
Oh yeah – I absolutely LOVE itunes sync.
So your answer a call, reading news, texting and responding to email all at the same time? I want a video.
“you’re answering”
First of all when apple launched the app store there was already about 5 million iphones on the market. apple didn’t launch the app store until the 3g, so there were already about 5 million first generation iphones on the market, most of which were jail broken and people already had un official apps so were already use to the downloading of apps. So to compare the fact that plam pre was just released and there are not even 1 million palm pre phones on the markert yet and say that they don’t have the same amount of downloads as the app store downloads in the first month is really, really, really ridiculus and who ever wrote this article should know better. put 5 million palm pres on the market for a year and then release a palm pre market and see how many downloads you get in the first month and then talk. p.s. the new iphone is a flop
“To be fair, Apple had a built-in advantage at the launch of the App Store — there were already a few million first generation iPhones out there.”
this little bit is the only part of your article that actually matters.
the pre has been sold 100,000 times or so.
by january 2008, 6 months before apple’s app store was launched, the original iphone was sold 4 million times (source: ars technica: http://arstechn...les-numbers.ars) that;s excluding ipod touch sales, which are at least that number. bringing the total number of iphoneOS devices at a minimum of 8 million. that’s 80 times as much as the palm pre has been sold thus far (six months before the app store). despite that apple’s app store only had 60 times as much downloads.
so, the WebOS app store is actually doing better than apple’s app store.
So your article is completely rubbish. If you want to write an article about how good the iPhone is and how bad the Palm Pre, fine, but just use some relatively useful arguments like that “the iphone sold 100 times then the palm pre, thus it’s better”. even that would be a better argument then this.
once again a very bad article MG. I’m starting to dislike you.
Wouldn’t a more appropriate comparison be number of apps downloaded per user? Otherwise this feels like comparing box office revenue without adjusting for inflation and number of available theatres.
If the iPhone had 3 million users when the phone launched, or by the end of the first month, and had 60 million downloads, that’s 20 apps per person.
The Pre’s sold, what, 200K phones at this point, maybe? 660,000 sales makes 3.3 apps per person. Apple still clearly wins at that metric, and certainly you’re right to suggest Palm’s to blame for not putting more into getting everyone making native apps, but you should at least be making the right comparison.
So lets see, apple sold 3,000,000 iPhone 3g’s in it’s first month and sold 60 million apps. 20 apps per phone. Palm sold (reported so far) 50,000 phones and has sold 666,000 apps. 13.32 apps per phone. How is that “far behind”? Considering that the 3 million # is skewed by the amount of iPhone 1’s out there i bet the numbers are pretty close to the same no?
What the hell. Why are you comparing the Pre’s post phone release apps to the iPhone’s post APP STORE release apps?
For god sakes, when the App store came out, the iPhone was out for well over a year. The Pre’s app store was available immediately and although it doesn’t have very many apps, the phone’s been out for less than half a month. Why don’t you wait a year and then try comparing?
Anyone who wants to read a fair and objective article about the palm app catalog vs. apple app store, read this article: http://www.mobi...#comment-443558
Yes indeed, it’s a techcrunch article contradicting MG’s article. Even his own colleagues must admit MG is just plain wrong here.