Ok, I think I may have in fact figured out the logic behind this seemingly odd strategy by Sprint and Palm.
You see normally, a new phone launch doesn’t make more than a few geeky blog headlines when it launches. Perhaps a note a few pages in on The Wall Street Journal.
But not the iPhone. Due to the clearly insane Apple Fanboys (yes, I am one of them), people actually line up for new Apple products, and the Apple stores celebrate and encourage this behavior. It’s become a Woodstockesque cult thing to do, hang out in front of an Apple store until the latest product is for sale.
Heck I even participated in such a line. I was 5th in line for the release of OS X 10.5… and no it was not a line only 5 deep. It was hundreds of people deep, for an “operating system.”
So, it’s safe to assume this will happen again with the launch of iPhone 3.0. It’s also safe to assume that it will make headlines in regular papers, and the evening news all over the United States if not the world.
And being the balanced news organizations that we know they all are, they will want another device to compare and contrast it with.
Enter the Palm Pre, which by pure default of launching a day or two before the iPhone will garner all the free press in the world as being an iPhone alternative, that the press just happens to already have their hands on.
Interesting play Palm, interesting play. But you are still dependent on a lot of ducks lining up in a row to pull it off.
Update 5/19:
We have a confirmed release date of June 6th, and a confirmed Price of $199 (after rebate)
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