Who assumed that authors write on virtual keyboards? Not me. Read again... I said typewriters (vs. computer keyboards).

Finger size has nothing to do with anything. You don't press the keys on the iPhone, you only need to touch them. And regardless of a finger's size, the touch screen only requires a tiny little area of the finger to touch the keys (assuming your fingers are curved on bottom like most people's).

Even my friend who works at Apple agree that the virtual keyboard is not easy to type.

I don't mean to say iPhone is bad. All I am saying is Palm is smart to observe a big weak point of iPhone and come up with an alternative for a class of users who just wish a real keyboard for iPhone. Those friends of mine who get Blackberries from their companies envy my iPhone but when it comes to typing, they still think their Blackberries are better.

Imagine this. A virtual keyboard is so easy for Palm to duplicate and cost nothing to implement. Why wouldn't Palm want to do away with the physical keyboard and make Pre slimmer also?

By the way, I don't need or want GPS and Palm has always been a better "business" phone. Even the bulky Treo P series had better business capability than the iPhone.

I used backspace once in this reply

Regarding hype: there's always hype at a smartphone launch. The palm platform, at launch, will be more capable in many ways than the iPhone's was, due to the strength of WebKit/KHTML and Palm's building their platform around it. The Pre hype level is nowhere near the hype that was around for the iPhone.

Sprint is losing subs on the Fossil of a network known to most as Nextel (IDEN), which is nothing on the scale of CDMA where Sprint actually adds subs..Just not enough to offset the people jumping from Nextel.

ATT does see the pre as a threat, anyone with half a brain cell would. Prior to the iphone coming out competing carriers were sending memos such as this. I think it’s standard protocol for carriers to do this when they feel threatened by a device offered exclusively to rival carrier.

The pre looks awesome to me, and I hope it does well. A little competition never hurt anyone =)

This is precisely how I would promote the Pre to people on the fence of decision.

Should work too for those with little or no knowlege of the iPhone.

Especially with those in tight financial situations.

I would have gone for it when I was with Sprint & considering the iPhone.

$720 is a big difference without really knowing the differences.

There's a battle brewing here & the Pre will survive with it's own me-too niche market.

There may be even some connectivity apps that will develop running the same on both products.

The simultaneous announcements would benefit the Pre to stay in the game.

I'm getting a grandstand seat on this one.

This is exactly what I see in Pre. Plus, with Sprint's super cheap and fast data connection, I'm all for a Pre. As a comparison of price, Sprint SERO plans offer unlimited data for less than $40 bucks a month and my employer negotiated Sprint plan offers unlimited data for less than $20 bucks a month!

So if you want to have an iPhone with keyboard and save $720 bucks (or $1400) over two years, you will choose Pre.

I do love some of the features on the pre, for example, the way notifications are handled (far, far better than the iPhone) multi-tasking, intergrated phonebook with mail, IM's and Facebook, all very nice features. I just think the timeing is all wrong, the success of the phone depends greatly on what apple has up their sleeves come WWDC 09.

Okay, then... it's more precise, quick and intuitive to type on a screen rather than a keyboard.

(the iPhone's keypad is also QWERTY)

and i love canadians.

true story.

With that said, there is also a lot we still don't know about 3.0. I would expect that much of this we won't know until the launch presentation in June. Even then, there will be some hidden gems that don't come into full view until Apple releases the demo video. In other words, Pre 1.0 is going to have to match iPhone 3.0. That's asking a lot from Palm and I don't think that they'll succeed at that challenge but will come close to 2.0.

I would absolutely argue that the iPhone virtual keyboard is profoundly better for me than any hardware keyboard I've ever used. That's personal opinion, not fact.

Virtual keyboards can transform languages (if I want to type in Chinese or Greek, how would you do that on a Pre keyboard?) and can transform buttons if I want, for example, video editing controls rather than letters or numbers (can't rip and replace a BlackBerry Bold keyboard).

All arguments are just that -- arguments. I'm an old school Treo 600 and 680 user, and I hope the Pre rocks, but until then, AT&T memo leaks, like the above, are just fun blog fodder.

Firstly the so called "Memo Leaks" it's just a table which compares all the functionalities of iphone/palm pre/windows mobile and android.

It's "not official" in any ways and it outlines a lot of valuable info that you (oddly) forgot to mention.

This is the so called "memo" http://is.gd/ojZ9

As you can Clearly see the iphone (compared to the palm pre) lacks of the following: -Full OTA Exchange Synching (I wonder how you forgot to mention this point...) -Physical Keyboard: I challenge you to say that it's more precise, quick and intuitive to type on a screen rather then on a qwerty keyboard...

I wouldn't underestimate the fact that there're several points still unknown (tethering, office apps...) which means that (while they're are NOT on the iphone) they could be present on the upcoming Pre.

Next time guys try to be more precise in what you write and try to see the Big Picture ... not just what you want to see

Sorry but the numbers don't lie. If Sprint were that good, people wouldn't be leaving in such large numbers.

I for one hope the Pre is a great device. Hopefully, it will continue to keep Apple and the others working hard to stay ahead. But history always shows that the next "iphone killer" is never even close. (Instinct, Storm, Voyager...)