Apple and Palm

What a study in contrast. Yesterday, Palm announced that it is canceling its widely panned Foleo, a smartphone accessory that is essentially a stripped down laptop, before it was even released. While the idea is not necessarily bad, Palm needs to focus on its core products, the aging Treo smartphone line and the Palm OS, before it can go off and experiment in other markets. (Kinda like how Apple had to kill the Newton to focus on the Mac.) It’s a good, if painful, move by Palm.

Meanwhile, today Apple triumphantly showed off its new iPod models, adding video capability to every iPod that has a screen, and introducing the long rumored iPod touch (essentially an iPhone without the phone). 

 For my personal tastes, the iPod touch is the most compelling device Apple has released. I’ve never listened to music enough to want a portable music player, and the same with video. The iPhone was just too expensive, both the device itself and the monthly charges. But the iPod touch can do video, audio, and Internet access through Wi-Fi, in a portable form factor that makes sense. The main thing that’s giving me pause: still no word on native application development. I’ll wait it out some more.

It wasn’t all rosy for Apple though. Apple spooked investors by cutting the price of the 8GB iPhone by a third, only two months after introducing it. The investors are afraid Apple is doing this because sales aren’t meeting (high) expectations.