Palm in the Apple Grove
So, it seems Palm has decided to move into the retail space, just a stone’s throw (and a backalley) away from Apple’s LA flagship store. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence - Palm would love to replicate Apple’s retail success, and likely sees themselves as similarly able to benefit from human interaction with their products, especially the Treo (650 which, unsurprisingly, is the only product on the storefront - wither the Treo 700w…?). In fact, based on the way things are going, I think Palm will be pushing the Treos at this store like a dealer to his cronies. There are several problems with this for Palm, though.
First of all, people already have access to these devices in places where they’re much more likely to buy - cell phone stores, electronic stores, etc. Unless they will be selling Treos for all the carriers (which seems unlikely to me) in this store, it will necessarily be more of a showroom. And even if they are…doesn’t Palm make less than 10 devices at a time? How much space can you possibly fill with accessories?
And that’s another problem. While I was trying to upload this pic, my Treo crashed. I had to hard reset. This is not uncommon. Palms (and Treos in particular) are not the most stable devices out there. White screen of death anyone? No, I’m not convinced that a lot of people won’t crash a Treo by casually toying with it in a store. And what was the last thing that broke in front of you that you handed someone hundreds of dollars for? Apple products are not perfect, but they don’t crash or behave oddly as often as others, and thus seeing that happen can be a powerful inducer to buy.
And, of course, there’s the design. A lot of the Apple store philosophy is that if people can actually see an iPod and an iMac, touch it, they might fall in love. And I can attest to that power: I’m writing this on an iMac G5 right now (a celebrity iMac, I might add - my computer used to sit in the Big Brother 6 house), and every time one of my coworkers with a black Dell box walks past my desk, I hear an “I love your new monitor!” And then…”What?!? That’s the computer?!?” Heh. This is a product that’s been on the market for almost a year, and that sits in an Apple store a quarter mile from my desk. I, personally, have gotten people in that store. And they don’t come out of it thinking about computers or electronics the same way. This is how I know Apple is only beginning to gain market share.
And my Treo, which sits next to my iMac? Nary a glance. Sure, some people get all intersted, and ask if it can get email. Most say “wow, that’s big.” And some ask to play with it, but quickly hand it back because they can’t figure it out, or press a button and end up somewhere unexpected. Not many people I know have bought Treos because they used a friend’s - most people have them from work, or because they’re geeks.
And that, more than anything, is why this Palm store won’t do well: they have nothing to gain by having someone hold a Treo. In fact, they can only lose people who might have bought one sight-unseen if it crashes in the store. Don’t get me wrong, for my own purposes, I’m glad the store is coming - buying accessories will now be much easier than going to a (blech!) Sprint store. But I fail to see how their own retail stores could possibly be a winning strategy for Palm.
Oct 14th 2005
Treos crash primarily due to third-party software that doesn’t behave well. A second reason is faulty hardware. I think they can control and test for both in a retail store.
As for the wow factor, apparently you don’t do anything cool with your Treo! My Treo *always* amazes people. I have a movie and a lot of mp3s loaded on my sd card. I have some awesome games. I have a collection of local traffic cams bookmarked on my web browser. I can pull up the flight status of nearly any airline. And I have a pretty good selection of Palm software. One app allows me to pull up a live view of my PC desktop so that I can control my PC from my Treo. Pointless for most people, yes, but pretty stunning to see on a cell phone. And of course, there’s push e-mail with Chatter.
The Treo isn’t a work of art. It’s a powerful device that needs to be demonstrated properly in order to excite people. Palm understands this, and I hope they execute well.
Oct 14th 2005
don’t worry, Palm will fuck it up. I have an i500 (Samsung Palm phone) and I can’t believe that Palm no longer controls the Palm OS. They still have the better UI, but the WM version will take care of that. What could be more confusing for the non-geek?
It’s like watching an accident in slo-mo.
Oct 14th 2005
It’d be interesting to see to what extent palm stores start showcasing aforementioned third party software. See Epocrates for an example of software that is quietly forcing its way down the throat of every practicing member of a profession. The free formulary tool is so ubiquitous that older textbook formularies have gained kitsch value in charting rooms.
I’m not sure how much epocrates or companies like it would gain from showcasing in a Palm store (epocrates is already filling their marketshare by throwing pizza-accented workshops at medical schools around the country), but it seems that Palm would stand to gain a lot. Dedicate a display case to programs like this that a) have their shit together, and b) have a clearly defined audience already hooked onto palm devices, and you could fill your store up pretty well.
On another, entirely unrelated note, apples grow in orchards and not in groves. Silly Los Angelite.
Oct 14th 2005
Sam,
Let me be clear: I have a love-hate relationship with my Treo: I love what it promises (and delivers, half the time), and hate the buggy implementation.
Of course there’s crap 3rd party software out there that will brick your Treo, but I’ve had lots of problems with the hardware itself and the OS’s built in software. Like I said, it crashed when uploading that photo (Versamail, in this case). A lot of it has to do with the phone/data functions being superglued to the Palm OS, but that’s not an excuse for the average consumer. Maybe having someone walk them through it in-store will help. Personally, I’ll be glad to be able to take my Treo in and say “hey, it’s not working. Fix it!” and hope that they’ll be more responsive than Sprint.
As for all of the cool stuff you can do, yes, it’s true, it’s very flexible and there’s a lot of useful apps out there. But they’re not easy to find and (as you said) often cause serious problems. I need my Treo to be a reliable phone before anything else, and so I’m sometimes reluctant to install new software. I’ve done some neat tricks with my Treo, too, but even though you and I know that they’re very technically significant, non-technophiles are still put off by the complexity. Even when they see me playing videos on it, they’re baffled by the file conversion. Heck, the (unreliable!) syncing is baffling to most people.
Oct 14th 2005
Amit,
That could be an interesting twist, and possibly the killer app of the Palm store - someone to reccommend and let you try software without the risk of bricking your Treo. Part of the problem is that there’s so much software out there and (as mentioned above) a lot of it is crap. Even the Treo sites aren’t great for sorting through it when you need something specific. Also, I’m really hoping for good in-store tech support. The cell carriers are bad about this, and often know nothing about the Treo. If Palm can fix things in-store (a la Apple), that would be a good move. I don’t trust them to be that smart, however. I’m (clearly) wary of this venture.
In LA, apples do grow in Groves. It’s like lookinglass land here, didn’t you know?
Oct 15th 2005
You’re right that there’s a great deal of complexity in dealing with the Treo, much more than with most Apple products. And the instability can be frustrating to even the most tech-savvy user.
I don’t use Versamail (I’ve heard bad things about it), and of course I don’t know what’s happening with your particular Treo. But I’ll note that the app that’s running when it crashes isn’t always the app that causes the crash.
Oct 18th 2005
All I can say is I miss the old Palm OS (like 3.x). They just worked. This new stuff (5.x) is just sad. If they’d rewritten it to do away with all the compatibility then it might rock yet again, but no. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Sigh… Hello? Doesn’t anyone at Palm (or anywhere, other than Apple) understand that backward compatibility is NOT the best thing and that even a dumb consumer can be convinced of this fact?
Oct 19th 2005
Todd - I definitely agree. Especially with the Treo, it would have behooved them to wipe the slate clean, I think. Maybe once this Linux-based Palm OS is revealed (in, oh, 2008), we’ll get a fresh start and some true innnovation.