Clash of the Touch Titans: The Battle Begins!
Matt Miller, our podcast co-host, just kicked off a must-read series on his ZDNet blog. He calls it the “Clash of the Touch Titans” and it’s expected to be a five-part series: one part devoted to each major touch-based mobile operating system, the hardware, carriers, third-party apps, and overall functionality.
Matt started with a great overview and comparison of what’s expected from both the Apple iPhone 3.0 update and the upcoming Palm Pre device. While there could be a difference in what’s planned versus what’s implemented between these two, Matt offers of a ton of solid analysis on both. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series as he’s planning to cover the HTC Magic, BlackBerry Storm, Samsung OMNIA HD, and HTC Touch Diamond2 in the near future.
I posted this on Matt’s ZDNet and am posting it here since his article is being promoted: How can you do a review/comparison/shootout using an operating system that has not been released? I submit that one cannot do this type of comparison with any credibility. Matt is a good write and seems to be very intelligent, but this article looks like an attempt to drive traffic to the web site by using two hot names – 3.0 and WebOS.
Shawn, he’d have no credibility if he were making up information on the two devices. But he’s not. He’s comparing the facts that we know about both platforms. You might disagree with his conclusions based on the facts, and that’s perfectly fine. But to question his credibility and motive is disingenuous IMO. If we took your reasoning to heart, then everyone reporting on Apple 3.0 and the Palm Pre are writing articles that have no credibility.
Kevin,
With all due respect, reporting on the soon to be released OSs and claiming to write a valid comparison article are not the same. And then taking it further to compare these two (3.0 and WebOs) with other touch-based OS that have been released is silly.
The facts that we know about both OS are virtually meaingless at this point, not having actually been tested through actual use. THERE IS NOTHING TO COMPARE, except spec sheets. If spec sheets were useful, then the Samsung Omnia and Samsung Instict would surpass the iPhone as quality devices. However, neither is close to the iPhone in user experience while both arguably have better specs.
As one commenter on Matt’s article wrote, the BlackBery Storm was a great idea . . . until it was released. My point is that a valid and useful comparison article cannot be written until both OS (3.0 and WebOs) are released and have actually been tested by Matt.
That being said, Matt is certainly free to write whatever he wants, but to some extent, I am free to point out inherent problems with the writing.
[Kevin: would you delete my previous, I tried to clean up some of the typos].
Shawn, if you got no value from Matt’s article, that’s fine. I respect your opinion in that matter. The problem I had is in your questioning of his motives. Again, that’s your opinion as well, and you’re more than entitled to it.
My opinion was that the article offers a solid comparison of what we know now. It serves as a nice reference point. No, it’s not the end-all, be-all analysis nor comparison between the two; I don’t believe anyone said that it was or believes it to be so.
Kevin,
You are right that questioning Matt’s motives may have been a bit much.
Shawn
For the record having spent about half an hour with the Pre in Vegas- Matt’s observations are spot on. I’m just sayin.
Titans?
According to a recent Gartner report, 4Q 2008 worldwide sales of smartphones places Apple at 10.7% and Palm at 0.9%
Touch Titans? Well, given there is little other competition, then yes, these two are huge. But given the overall sales of smartphones, nobody cares.