The three "super phones" coming onto the market have all received great reviews and won over a good share of fans. However, the overall opinion seems to be that Nokia and Palm still have a way to go if they really want to dent Apple's hefty share of the market, reports Christopher Backeberg...
All three new phones are packed with glitzy technical features. But this review isn't about the fancy interfaces, screens, speed, battery life, cameras and video options you can get with any of these cutting-edge devices. It's about the initial impact they're making on the people who will use them and the people who will want to sell through them.
The iPhone 3G S rolls out with two advantages over the Nokia N97 and the Palm Pre. For users, it provides access to the massive range of goodies in the Apple App Store. For advertisers, Apple has scored something of a coup by incorporating a new set of ad formats from AdMob, the daddy of all the ad engines.
Comparison 1 - applications
From the minute their phones are charged and switched on, iPhone 3G S users will be able to choose from the 50,000 or so apps in the Apple store. Just having the biggest app store in the world is an advantage in itself, and it's even better for Apple that its apps have been so well received.
The 3G S uses the new iPhone 3.0 operating system, which introduces more than 100 new features. They include improved controls for some of the apps as well as expanded parental control settings for video and movies.
The Palm Pre launch generated praise for its WebOS operating system and hardware features, but also some concerns about the lack of new apps to make the most of the improved OS. There were no more than a dozen new apps in the catalogue on launch day. Additional apps have subsequently been announced. They are good ones but there is not a huge number of them. They include WHERE, a location-based app that will find different content depending on the user's location, and Photobucket, which lets users send and upload photos directly from their phones.
Mojo, the software developer kit (SDK) for Palm's WebOS, should lead to a range of new apps, but the public Mojo hasn't been launched yet.
Older Palm OS apps will work on the Pre. However, they won't be able to make the most of the WebOS features since they will have to operate in a Palm OS simulator that runs in WebOS.
Nokia has plenty of goodies to offer its users - but not all of them are available in the US, one of Nokia's key target market areas. Currently Nokia has 40% of the global market share for mobiles but only 10% of the US market. The N97 is intended to spearhead a new thrust into the US, according to Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
One way Nokia intends to expand in the US is through its growing relationship with AT&T. But the carrier will only make the Nokia Ovi Store available to customers later this year.
Comparison 2 - wooing the advertisers
This is where Apple appears to be setting the pace, thanks to AdMob's formats designed specifically for the iPhone 3.0 OS. The new units will be applied to social networking, search, and rich media display advertising on iPhone apps and the mobile Web.
According to AdMob's VP and general manager for North America, the new ad types reflect innovations requested by advertisers. "They're almost all advertiser-driven," he comments.
AdMob will offer a unit that provides links to brand pages on social networks including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. It is combining search and display in a separate new format that will enable advertisers to add search boxes to banner ads. A multi-panel unit will expand the options for rich media ads on the iPhone by providing "interactivity and animation with multiple calls to action in a single rich media unit." And another format, a "scrolling canvas" unit, expands to a full mobile Web page when tapped without requiring the user to click away from a website or an app.
AdMob has released a new version of its SDK so that app developers can accommodate new ads as they are launched. Spero comments: "Free apps rely on advertising, so developers are constantly looking for ways to maximise monetisation."
The iPhone 3G S may be their initial vehicle of choice.
Comparison 3 - location-based services
This is actually one area where there doesn't seem to be much to distinguish any of the new phones above any other. The iPhone 3G S, Nokia N97 and Palm Pre are all optimised as much as the state of the technology allows for sophisticated LBS. Maps, friend finders, what's happening in your area, all three phones can run apps that do those things.
For iPhone LBS apps, there's a wide selection in the Apple App Store. WHERE, available for the Pre, highlights local content including weather, news, movie times, restaurant recommendations and so on. N97users will be able to take advantage of Nokia's continuing program of enhancing its location-based services and social applications.
Indeed, what Nokia's Kallasvuo says about the N97 could just as well apply to the Pre and the iPhone: "The phone knows where you are. It might know where you're going or what you're going to do."
