Playing with my iPod Touch today, it suddenly occurred to me that this device is actually a multiple more powerful than my Tungsten | T Palm-powered device. This device has 8GB compared to 32MB in my palm; a screen 1.5 times bigger and brighter; and with two times the battery life and almost equal functionality. The only thing the palm device could do better is that it has bluetooth hardware. Everything else, including pricing, this Apple device triumphs; even 802.11g wireless.

Price-wise, the Apple device is half that of my previous Palm-device, at S$388. I bought my Tungsten | T 5 years back for roughly S$700.

Software-wise, given the recent release of the Singapore Bus Guide for the Apple device, this handly iPod is possibly on-par with the Palm at the height of its success.

Little did I expect, it is Apple, Inc. that surpasses Palm, Inc. with an equally easy-to-use device at half the price and double the technology.

Historically speaking, looking at the past decisions of Palm and Apple through their respective valleys of deaths, Apple has taken the route not travelled while Palm has taken the route most recommended by commentators, Dvorak and the likes. It’s an extremely rare and compatible foil between the two companies.

Commentators have suggested, when Apple was on the verge of collapse, some of the following:-

  • License its OS to other hardware makers
  • Copy Microsoft’s Windows strategies
  • Compete directly against Microsoft in IT markets
  • Split into hardware and software companies
  • Buy Be, Inc. for its BeOS
  • Adopt the Linux kernel
  • License Windows from Microsoft

Those advice is what Apple has not taken but wholly adopted by Palm.

Look at the difference now: The Egregious Incompetence of Palm.

In other news, the iPhone is sold totally unlocked and contract-less at Apple Store Hong Kong, online, at ~S$1000 for the 8GB edition.