Sprint affirms Palm Pre exclusivity "through 2009"
By Darren Murph 
posted May 29th 2009 10:01AM
posted May 29th 2009 10:01AM
posted May 29th 2009 10:01AM
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He should have said something like, "We have the Palm Pre with functioning GPS, Wifi, and developer community through 2009" and let Verizon fall over themselves while trying to explain whether or not their version is going to be gimped or not.
LOL!!! You nailed it!!
HA- you beat me to it. Its quite a conundrum though. Verizon will have to release their lock on GPS's for their high end phones in order to carry the PRE. (remember when they said they were going to unlock the GPS on the Touch Pro and the Omnia?).
It will be interesting to hear the excuses they make for disabling everything on the PRE. without a doubt I believe they will cripple the RAM.
Well, I think Sprint is playing this right.... Don't give them the opportunity to change their stance on that info and let the users battle it out on the web.... Like right now. Not only does it keep them from slinging mud, cuz there is always enough of that to go around. It allows Sprint to re-iterate their features come December after they have a full stock of the phones.
Sprint absolutely should be slinging mud. Fuck Verizon for trying to steal Sprint's thunder over their exclusivity contract. They basically just kicked Sprint in the balls. Sprint should have forced Palm to not allow other carriers to release any information until AFTER the damn thing went on sale, at least!
You mean like how Verizon locked out GOS in their latest high end phone, the BB Storm?
Oh wait... they DIDN'T lock out GPS on the Storm.
Fail.
VZW's Pre will be missing absolutely nothing the Sprint Pre has. Bank on it.
you mean they DID lock out A-GPS, so their costly navigator could acquire a signal faster - but yeah, for the first time in their greedy history they allowed a third party app to access the GPS chip, but still locked out the assisted part.
wow. that is not very reassuring. that almost confirms what VZW said yesterday as they said they would have the Pre in about 6 months and with the Pre launching in June, the end of 2009 is 6 months. man this has me thinking now. i'm still leaning towards leaving anyway since Verizon's plans are too expensive and get tired of being nickeled and dimed on everything but still, doesn't bod well for Sprint at all who finally got a flagship phone and may be loosing it before it even releases.
I wonder if Verizon's pre will work with iTunes, let alone life?
What happened to Sprint having exclusivity on the Palm Pre for a full year? I thought I read that somewhere...unless that were talking about when it was announced in January as beginning the exclusivity...if that's the case, that's lame, as it took 6 months to get released (with limited supply)
--James
Im pretty sure Verizon CEO said 6 months or SO. Which MEANS 2010... idiots.
No wonder Sprint is going under. They didn't go to college.
i wasn't aware of a history of Verizon disabling phone features. can someone give me the quick recap & do you think it means for sure that the Pre will be more limited on VZW?
http://www.htc.com/us/product.aspx?id=77000 verizon
vs.
http://www.htc.com/us/product/touchprosprint/specification.html sprint
vs.
http://www.htc.com/us/product/htcfuze/specification.html
real easy to find whats missing.
well it's not for sure but it's a damn good possibility. you can see it on almost any phone that is released on other carriers as well as on VZW. i would hope that the Pre would be special enough that they wouldn't mess with it, but i won't get my hopes up. i'm all set to jump to Sprint if need be.
Let's guess how Verizon cripples this one. It's always the innards usually, but since the Pre is so special they're going to have to do something big. I'm going to venture that they take off the keyboard. They can market it as "The only full touchscreen WebOS device."
You know, as horribly crippling as Verizon Wireless is to all of their good phones, then explain their ability to not only retain, but get MORE new customers than any other major carrier virtually every single quarter? Sprint's amazingly wonderful lack of 'crippling' must not be so amazing, because they are hemorrhaging customers day, after day, after day. Sprint could make a phone that printed $100 bills every hour, on the hour, and Sprint's net adds would still be in the negative.
Face it. The overwhelming majority of people who buy Verizon Wireless phones/service are perfectly happy with their phones and service. Most people don't give a CRAP about the 'crippled' WiFi, GPS, blah blah blah. You all are in the severe minority. Besides, let's face it. Sprint has several phones with these features unlocked and they are practically giving their phones/service away. Why aren't more people biting?
So, why don't you all go cuddle up to your Sprint phones tonight and pray your call doesn't drop when you need to use the damn thing. Because I'm going to sleep easy knowing my 'crippled' Verizon Wireless phone probably won't.
Really?? First of all if anyone would sell a phone that printed 100 dollar bills, trust me, everyone would have that phone. So...that comment was really telling regarding your perception/feelings toward Sprint. Granted, VZ does add alot of customers every quarter, but they are cannibalizing their landline side of the house to do it. So you might want to stop drinking the Verizon Kool-Aid.
As far as most customers not giving a crap about features like GPS or Wi-Fi....are you serious?? You must be out of touch (in my opinion). Let's say if you ever were inclinded to join the rest of us in the 21st century and actually want and use those features, you'll end up paying alot more per month on VZ or ATT than you would with Sprint's "Simply Everything" plan.
i actually have to go with Um, Stop Whining on this one. i have VZW now and i absolutely hate the crippling and nickel & diming, but the fact is, the vast majority of people couldn't give two shits about the crippled features. they are very important to me personally but for most people, as long as the phone makes calls, they are perfectly happy, and Verizon provides that better than anyone. i honestly can't figure out exactly why VZW feels the need to cripple it's phones but it is damn annoying since they become unbearably buggy and since they are already onto the next phone by the time they release one, and firmware fixes are few and far between. you have to realize that most people are perfectly ok with the POS flip phone they got for free with their contract, us smartphone users are honestly in the minority (extreme minority if you talk about smartphone owners that actually use all their smartphone's features).
Honestly, 'Um, stop whining' has nailed it. Anyone who cares about a crippled phone isn't going to buy one, it's as simple as that. I think the phrase 'hemmoraging customers' just epitomizes what's happening. Sheeple don't care about features that smartphone users need, they simply go with the carrier with the best reception and the majority of their friends use. This is why T-Mobile, despite having the best call quality, pricing model, customer service, and complete willingness to bend over backwards for their customers, is dead last amongst the top 4. Smartphone users are a minority and in the end, with every carrier, it's all about the bottom line. If they ratio of people using flip-phones to smartphones is 1000:1, I think any idiot can guess who they are going to focus on. Hell even amongts smartphone users, power users are an even smaller minority. The best example is UMA, I would challenge anyone to ask any random 10 smartphone users if they have UMA or even know what it is and I bet more than half would say they don't. Do you know how many idiots i know that happily buy BlackBerrys because it 'makes TXTing easier'? It's a lot.
I would say that in terms of smartphones, VZW's crippling isn't nearly as people like to say. People like to invoke the gimped VZW Touch Pro as the bane of cellular technology but it's one bloody example. I happily enjoy my BlackBerry without any locked features; hell minutes after getting it I called them and they happily unlocked the GSM/UMTS radio for me.
Considering some of Sprint's recent business practices (like the fact that they are selling towers to pay off their debt and pushing a next gen cellular technology which no other carrier in the country is backing), I would be more concerned about whether or not my carrier is going to exist in a year, rather than the petty little things which give me a reason to argue.
In the end everyone should look to the future with a smile because once LTE roll outs begin it's an even playing field. In 2-3 years Sprint will have been absorbed by VZW, smartphones might be significantly more popular, LTE will be rolled out, and Verizon and ATT will be begging you for business by offering features like UMA and dirt cheap data. LTE is the great equalizer. If there's only one technology being used then suddenly the market becomes more competitive. I figure US cellular carriers will have to start emulating foreign markets and actually start working to keep their customers. Well, we can hope anyways.
@PREcisely
Please provide any coherent evidence as to how Verizon is 'cannibalizing' their landline business, because between offering glass to the door and the fact that they own every piece of copper strung around my town I would say they are in pretty good shape.
@PREcisely...
You've neglected to address my root issue - if so many people cared about those unlocked features, which Sprint offers on multiple phones, where are they're customers?
Would love to see this on AT&T, but the crappy service would suck.