A Bad Week for Palm Pre... Thanks to Apple?

[Michael Essany]

Something tells us here at ModMyi that the folks at Palm are glad this week is over.

As if Palm's announcement of lowered guidance yesterday wasn't bad enough, the real kicker came today - an occasion that Palm probably had higher expectations for. This morning, Palm said their Pre devices will receive a WebOS 1.4 update later today. If you haven't heard, that update includes Adobe's Flash 10 player.

Shortly after the announcement, however, everyone turned their attention to Apple. Why? Because we will soon see how well Flash works on the Palm Pre. With Steve Jobs's controversial (and disparaging) comments recently about Flash being a battery killer, everyone is going to take note of how well the Palm Pre performs now that it is Flash compatible.

Of course, it's unlikely that the outcome of Flash's test drive on the Palm Pre will ultimately have any influence on whether Apple will ever openly embrace Flash. Still, it's fascinating to watch every contemporary conversation about Flash somehow return to the subject of Apple. On a day when the Palm Pre should be basking in the limelight for its Flash update, here we are talking about Apple - and not just in these forums. Pretty much everywhere.

With Apple earnings perpetually blowing Palm's out of the water and updates from Palm leading to more talk about Apple than Palm, it must be quite a frustrating time within the walls of Palm these days. Is Apple responsible for Palm's problems? No. But Apple certainly isn't helping either.

Image via removethelabels.com

[Acidlump]

Nice, way to go palm. Can't wait till droid gets flash. Maybe I can even get flash on the iphone in 2-3 years.

[matthew1111]

Haha I feel bad for Palm, everytime we talk about them and something else, like flash, we think "ah, iphone is better!"

[RocketshipVirus]

I used to work at a sprint and sell Pre's lol Had a hard time
doing knowing that the phone people were looking for is in my pocket. I wish them the best but damn Palm
needs bigger buttons lol my on-screen button on my 3g are bigger than a Pre's!!

[ty22]

Ya It has been a bad week for palm. Over at PreCentral and its been like doomsday....haha. Anyways, a little correction, webOS 1.4 has full support for the plugin but the plugin itself is not coming with the update its coming in the app catalog. Its just the new OS has support for that plugin and adobe will get it into the catalog real soon. Oh and don't mind where in my device info it says 1.4, its not out yet, just getting a little ahead

[iTitoThemes]

iPhone is King!

[Zeal]

I used to work at a sprint and sell Pre's lol Had a hard time
doing knowing that the phone people were looking for is in my pocket. I wish them the best but damn Palm
needs bigger buttons lol my on-screen button on my 3g are bigger than a Pre's!!

This made no sense -_-

[lolcats1]

This made no sense -_-

then read it. that helps

he's saying that he has sold palm pres. and while he was selling them he had an iphone in his pocket. and he could tell they would be happier with that. and that the palm has small keyboard buttons.

[romeo_herman]

Ha..ha..ha....really pre....mature....

[Happy Noodle Boy]

The one thing I want the iPhone to take from the Pre is the nice little gesture button/area right below the screen and use that to replace the Home button so the iPhone has an entirely flush front (for the exception of the speaking to hear calls)

[TheOrioles33]

The one thing I want the iPhone to take from the Pre is the nice little gesture button/area right below the screen and use that to replace the Home button so the iPhone has an entirely flush front (for the exception of the speaking to hear calls)

I would also like the notifications system.

[lolcats1]

The one thing I want

and the fact that it can merge calendars.

and (for now) multi task

and a whole lot of stuff that wasn't good enough to put pre on top, but could make the iphone a hellofa lot better

[Nickaroni22]

iPhone is King!

Enough Said!!!

[dsg]

the Palm looks bloated kind of like a bank manager.

I think companies like Palm need to stop trying to imitate the iPhone and try something different, they just make them selves depressed when people say 'I'd rather have the iPhone'.

I hope flash works well and makes Apple have rethink about supporting flash, because HTML5 is not here yet!!!

[Blowfish64]

So the Pre getting an update and getting Flash is bad for Palm? Did I miss something?

Yes. Either that, or the writer is just having a slow news day and is trolling like a typical fanboy. I'm gonna bet on the latter.

[pyromcr]

it doesn't matter how good the pre does with flash, there is no way that apple will ever give it to the ipohone or the ipad...

[Happy Noodle Boy]

So the Pre getting an update and getting Flash is bad for Palm? Did I miss something?

The main reason the iPhone doesn't have Flash is because Steve himself has mentioned (numerous times) that it's simply too bloated terrible to work with in a mobile environment.

The Pre getting flash could (potentially) be bad because if it does end up being a terrible, laggy, battery-draining resource hog, it'll prove exactly why Steve doesn't want it on the iPhone.

So basically Flash on the Pre will become the biggest example of whether mobile flash is viable on a smartphone. If they pull it off, it'll be great for everyone. If they don't (likely scenario), it will be the nail on the flash for iPhone coffin.

The article isn't exactly a philosophy paper in figuring out the angle the writer approached the news. Pre's getting flash -> could prove Jobs right, make Palm look worse, solidify not having it on the iPhone

[Evilsaint]

Hmphhhh.....if they pull it off on other smartphones and Steve doesn't give it to us 3gs will be my last iPhone

[iBwizzle]

Hmphhhh.....if they pull it off on other smartphones and Steve doesn't give it to us 3gs will be my last iPhone

You took the words right out my mouth!

[Happy Noodle Boy]

But judging by the demos we already have, Flash looks like it's already optimized pretty well. By the time it comes out it theoretically should run great and possibly pressure Jobs into finally accepting the fact that it's here to stay, like the whole MMS situation.

I should have mentioned this on my previous post, but showing Flash can run on a mobile device like the Pre is the first step.

The 2nd step, which is entire on Adobe's court, is to show that can run it on the iPhoneOS/MacOS. Adobe has been absolutely TERRIBLE when it comes to flash support on mac. We're talking about a company that took SIXTEEN (16) MONTHS to fix a bug that would cause flash to crash your browser on a Mac. Apple has also released numbers showing how :
-a large numbers of the crashes reported by the crash report tool are Flash releated
-almost every bug report sent to Adobe is ignored.