Pre Launch Announced
May 19th, 2009, 12:41pm by MikeThe day is finally upon us — no, not the launch of the Pre, but the announcement of the launch of the Pre! While it’s certain to be a great piece of hardware, it seems like Palm is making some weird choices about how they’re rolling out the launch:
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Launch timing: I know there’s buzz around the Pre, but launching on a Saturday is a good way to make sure it’s out of the overall news cycle and kill buzz. Not only that, but 2 days before the Apple WWDC, where it’s known that Apple will be announcing new iPhone software (¬± hardware). Even if Palm has an iPhone killer on their hands, I don’t think this timing makes much sense. Why not 2 days after the WWDC announcments, where the Pre’s features would be compared to the new iPhone’s, and differences are highlighted. This would make sense if Palm were confident that the Pre would really outshine the iPhone — that they’re announcing it before, to me, shows some doubt about being better than the iPhone (not saying that they are or aren’t better, it just seems like a weak roll-out strategy).
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Mail-in rebate: The phone will be $300 before a $200 mail-in rebate. Mail-in? I realize that the rate of response on a mail-in rebate is relatively low, but the sticker price will be 50% higher, and that apparent extra $100 that people have to shell out seems like it would be a big turn-off to potential buyers (not the engadget crowd, but interested people who come in off the street, and may be comparing to the iPhone or T1).
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Required plans: Sounds like Sprint could have helped out by making the required unlimited plan slightly lower-priced than the iPhone’s — even $5 would have been appealing, I’m sure. Even though they include unlimited minutes (+$60 with AT&T) and text messaging (+$20 with AT&T), it seems like they could have made it so that people don’t even have to look at the features to see a lower price of ownership. I think it’s dumb of AT&T to charge so much for the unlimited options (particularly the texting), but in reality, I doubt that too many users, on a phone like the Pre with IM, Twitter, and email, are going to use a ton of SMS messages anyway. Maybe I’m wrong about that.
Finally, I hope this isn’t the sale pitch for Touchstone, but I really don’t know how they expect to pitch it otherwise — I just don’t see the point of it. Anyway, in the press release, they say:
Pre comes with a charger in the box, but for anyone tired of plugging a cord into their wireless phone, Palm introduces the Touchstone‚Ñ¢ charging dock, the first inductive charging solution for phones, available exclusively for Pre.
I would think that anybody tired of plugging a cord into their phone would probably become more exhausted by carrying around a Touchstone!
So, do you guys think that Sprint could have planned the rollout or terms better? Even if they hit a homer with the hardware, I hope they don’t screw up the launch.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
As I said above, I don’t like the rebate idea, but Gizmodo is downright flipping out about it, and goes way over the edge, nearly suggesting that Sprint is being dishonest about their pricing because of the rebate. As if Sprint were the first ones to use a mail-in rebate.
The only interesting part is the figure that a 50% redemption rate is about the most that Sprint can expect, so the average sales price will be at least $250 per unit.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Yeah, I got the big news in my email direct from Palm, plus about 50 tweets from a dozen different contacts. For the launch timing, I don’t think the news cycle is that important. It might have a better chance of making the nightly news since Saturdays are slow news days, and is fluffy enough for weekend fare. Not sure how much the news cycle matters any more, what with 24-hour news & the web and all that. Right before WWDC is either crazy, or crazy like a fox! iPhone announcements are sure fire newsmakers, and now half the articles about the iPhone will mention the Pre. Since most people still haven’t heard of the Pre, especially outside tech circles, any comparisons can only be a plus.
Agree that the mail-in rebate is bogus, but the iPhone is the outlier here, not Palm. Blame the news media, for always focusing on reporting the “after rebate” price instead of publicizing the out-the-door cost. If the media (including the social media) emphasized the up-front cost, I think these rebates would whither rather quickly.
As for the plan, I think it requires unlimited data but not unlimited minutes, right? I think $70/month gets you the 400/unlimited/unlimited while it takes $100/month to get unlimited voice, too. Kelvin & I will probably have to figure out how to minimize our costs– hopefully it still qualifies for the VA discount. Right now, even official Sprint spokespeople are confused! But keep an eye on thread for developments.
And yeah, the Touchstone is pretty stupid. It’s really no easier than a standard dock, if it has to sit on the official cradle in a specified position anyways, there’s really no difference between that & a standard dock. I’ll definitely save the $70. Unless Palm hits $20/share. Then I’ll just get one because I’ll be rich.
So I’ll be camping out at a local Sprint store Saturday monring if need be. Hopefully I can get on the horn w/ Sprint & order my phone OTA, but I’ll wait to hear about early attempts before spending an hour on the phone.
May 19th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Nice! But I think I’ll still make fun of you if you buy the Touchstone.
May 27th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Nice article from the CNN empire about the development of the Palm Pre.
May 27th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I thought you stopped reading CNN for some reason, can’t remember what it was. Something to do with the layout of their page or something.
May 27th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I stopped going to the CNN.com homepage when I realized it was shallow and trite. I found this article via PreCentral and Twitter.