Stan Beer
Monday, 09 March 2009 13:18
Opinion and Analysis
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Talk about a
possible Apple lawsuit against Palm over the multi-touch functionality
of its impressive new Pre smartphone makes one wonder if Cupertino is
slightly nervous. Super aggressive anti-iPhone rhetoric from key Palm
investor Roger McNamee may make Apple wish that spiritual leader Steve
Jobs returns soon.
The enigmatic McNamee, simply can't restrain himself from
predicting the demise of the iPhone at the hands of the Palm Pre come
June 29, 2007. That's the date when the first of the two-year AT&T
iPhone contracts expire.
According McNamee, once iPhone users are free of their restrictive
contracts, they'll drop their iPhones like hot bricks and go racing out
to stores to replace them with a Palm Pre. Wishful thinking? Almost
certainly.
However, there is no denying that the Pre is a compelling device, so much so that it has Apple worried.
Quite
simply, from all reports and visual demonstrations of the Pre, it not
only matches the current iPhone for functionality but it actually
surpasses it in quite a few areas.
The Pre may even be able to
match the iPhone for its coolness factor - after all U2 frontman and
all-round humanitarian and good-guy Bono is an investor. More
importantly, so is former Apple hardware head Jon Rubinstein.
With
a 3.1 inch screen, the Pre has a lot of the same features as the
iPhone, including multi-touch screen functionality with the same
pinching, squeezing, flicking and tapping movements - which some say
could cause patent issues with Apple.
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