I agree that the improvements in the iPhone 3G S are not as dramatic as the ones we saw in the move to the iPhone 3G, but the app ecosystem will add value to video capture on the new model. The extra $100 for the 16 GB 3G S is not a lot when amortized over the cost of a two-year AT&T agreement. And then there is AT&T’s 7.2 Mbps network upgrade, which could make the iPhone 3G S much faster at network operations in addition to local operations.

Regardless, Apple does very well with premium products. The 16 GB nano does quite well despite their being 8 GB nanos; it’s long been that way with higher iPod capacities. And especially with the iPhone, it’s in Apple’s long-term interest to accept some cannibalization of the high-end now in the name of extending the platform. I was surprised, for example, to see that there were already 5,000 Android apps and that the platform is accounting for 9 percent of mobile Web traffic according to charts that were presented at WWDC. Apple may lead in the smartphone app race, but it’s a long way to the checkered flag.

Palm was also somewhat notorious throughout the Pre’s development cycle about not letting people get much hands-on time with the device, leading some to suspect that it had something to hide.

Well, if it did, it has sure fixed it by now. The Palm Pre is a compelling handset, and easily the strongest competitor to the iPhone to date. It is good enough to attract consumers to Sprint based on its merits, but may not be as successful in that as the iPhone has been for AT&T due to Palm’s lack of brand cachet relative to Apple and the relatively limited exclusivity window that was revealed by Verizon Wireless recently.

From a hardware standpoint, the Pre is good if not outstanding when comparing it to other smartphones. It’s not going to impress you with its solid feel or materials like the iPhone or Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1. Sliders allow a good mix of keyboard accessibility and screen real estate, and the Pre’s arc opening, complete with the (somewhat funhouse-like) mirror backing is elegant. And while the overall impression of the Pre is more compact than the iPhone when closed, it is not much smaller than the boxier Propel Pro, the other vertical QWERTY slider smartphone currently on the market. I find both devices a little awkward when extended, but preferred the matte back that Palm includes with its Touchstone charger which makes opening the Pre easier..

The Pre’s keyboard has attracted much consternation and, while I have never been very fond of Palm’s keyboards, the Pre’s surpassed my expectations. Palm crowded the middle keys to free up more room for those hit by the left or right thumb. I still prefer the larger rubbery keys like those on Motorola’s Q9 or the forthcoming HTC Snap, though. Let’s face it. None of the four signature smartphones on the market today has a great story to tell in terms of text input. The Pre’s keyboard may be small, but it has a lower learning curve than a soft keyboard.

As with the Storm, placing the insertion point exactly where you want can be a bit of a hit-and-miss. I found the Pre to be about as good as the Storm with RIM’s latest firmware. Apple uses the clever loupe UI element to improve accuracy here, but the user must press and hold for it to appear, causing a delay. The G1 handles this best, using a scroll ball for more precise movements, and I think Palm missed an opportunity by not including one in place of the simple button on the bottom of the device.

Although advocates of one-handed operation would defend the smaller keyboard size of vertical orientation, both Palm and RIM, longtime rivals in the QWERTY candy bar format, should look to the onslaught of popular messaging devices and release a horizontal slider that would allow for a better typing experience and perhaps even bestow cursor keys upon us. There’s more chance of either doing that than Apple.

If the Pre’s physical keyboard provides better approachability than the iPhone’s soft keyboard,, the gesture area is an abstract concept that must be mastered. You are sunk if you don’t understand the Back gesture. However, it certainly has its benefits, eliminating the need for real estate-consuming and often unattractive Back buttons that are strewn throughout the iPhone’s user interface. This is especially true when navigating multiple mail accounts on the iPhone, which the Pre avoids anyway with a universal inbox.

Indeed, if the Pre’s hardware is merely solid, It is in the software and user interface where Palm has really excelled, showing a somewhat more progressive – or at least mobile-centric –  approach than Apple, which is clearly focused on turning the iPhone and iPod touch into powerful and context-aware pocket tablet computers.. Yes, lots of other smartphone operating systems have done multitasking for a while, but none like the Pre, which puts applications right in front of the user with its card metaphor, and makes it easy to launch, switch and quit applications without dealing with cramped task manager dialog boxes. Isn’t it better to use the screen real estate for open applications rather than pages and pages of icons?

The multitasking and Synergy architecture gives webOS the most fluid user interface of any smartphone on the market. It is more focused on swiping than buttons, which makes for a cleaner appearance. For example, in the iPhone’s calendar, one must press buttons to advance from day to day. On the Pre, it’s just a swipe. I also liked the application menu that sits in the upper left corner of the screen, which provides easy access to editing functions and preferences. That said, panning and zooming in the webOS browser is more constrained and jerky than in mobile Safari, and the performance sometimes gets bogged down like on every other smartphone.

Of course, Apple has hammered home that multitasking diminishes battery life and adds complexity, and I am actually optimistic about its push notification service that will relaunch with iPhone OS 3.0, but it’s still not a perfect substitute.

The application selection is sparse, but let’s remember that the iPhone’s was nonexistent at its launch. I don’t see this as a major stumbling block. Apple, of course, has been promoting apps heavily on television, and has claimed a billion downloads. But frankly we are still in the early days of consumer smartphone apps. Other than games, though, a lot of these will be driven by entities that already have a Web presence and so I am sure we will see a lot of useful programs appear for the Pre. Dredge up the Palm Classic emulator if you must, but most consumers won’t care.

At least for now, the Pre’s integrated apps go toe-to-toe with Apple’s and in some areas, like e-mail, beat Apple’s apps for now. I also preferred Palm’s dialer app to the iPhone dialer, which can get bogged down in showing and hiding interface elements.

The Touchstone charging device, a modern take on the old charging cradle, is slick. It adheres well to a desk surface and the magnetic bond is so strong that you can open and close the Pre while it is resting on the device without it slipping off. It’s not cheap, but I think it will have an excellent attach rate to the Pre and enhances the overall user experience of the device, which is what good accessories should do. However, after the Pre has been on the Touchstone, and indeed after just some heavy use, it gets quite warm – warmer than the iPhone, BlackBerry Storm or T-Mobile G1 gets.

So, as with the G1, the Palm Pre impresses more with its software than hardware.. But the Pre handily trumps the G1 on both, which is what one would expect from a product that has its hardware and software optimized for each other..The iPhone still retains a litany of marketplace  advantages over the Pre – brand, simplicity, screen size, slimness, better iTunes support, a robust app catalog, and game sophistication.

Palm has created a delightful user experience that bests Apple a fun for its money. Unfortunately for Palm, Apple has a lot more of it, but so do other competitors that are now clearly playing catch-up..The Pre is neither an iPhone wannabe nor iPhone killer and, unlike Android, it doesn’t try to democratize and water down the iPhone experience. It is blazing its own own trail, one that will lead into the palms of millions of happy customers across a broad group of wireless operators..

Removing the three-app limit, which was arbitrary in this day of Web applications that Google Wave has so aptly demonstrated, will remove potential frustrations that consumers of value-targeted PCs would have experienced while still providing enough of an incentive to induce consumers to upgrade. The losers here are Apple’s commercial writers, who will now have to dig a little harder to find something to ding Windows 7 on, and Linux, which, as I’ve noted, has increasingly had trouble justifying its presence in netbooks. But the potential of other “gaptop” devices such as Qualcomm’s SmartBook initiative, may offer new hope, It’s starting to look, though, that the opportunity is more around the smaller screen size than a lower price point.

The company acknowledged as i suspected that the first-generation Vue will be focused more on telepresence than security applications per se. That’s a bit of a strike against it as security seems to be the best justification for buying a bunch of networked webcams. Avaak also talked about social networking aspects of the system, which I think will be even more of a niche. But if it can be done securely, perhaps there’s opportunity to bring in remote relatives to a ceremony in a home and I can certainly see commercial applications. However, as PogoPlug is showing in relation to the NAS market, secondary applications (in its case, file sharing) can emerge as a viable alternative to a primary application (backup).

As to the Vue’s incredible battery life, I finally got an estimate on what the company considers to be the “typical use” that will enable a year’s worth of usage – ten minutes a day, which I think is more than fair. Some quick math, then, reveals that Vue should be able to broadcast straight for about 2.5 days from a full charge.

I also hadn’t seen any announcements from Avaak about pricing or archiving, but the news here was good overall as well. Avaak plans to include the first year of video storage (up to 2 GB) included in the purchase price. For subsequent years, the price would be an incredibly reasonable $19 per year for that amount of online storage. Avaak is also taking a smart approach to heavy users, saying it would welcome an opportunity to structure a tier of pricing to appeal to them. Overall, I remain very keen on this product and its potential to break open the market for networked cameras.

And yet, just a few years later, rumors are indeed circulating that Apple may be working on a media tablet and that the company has ordered a large quantity of 10” touchscreen panels from Wintek. Even Apple’s largest MacBook doesn’t weigh eight pounds (in fact, Apple promotes the 17” MacBook Pro as the thinnest and lightest 17” notebook), but it would be a sublime prank on the rumormongers if Apple foretold of a 10” iPod years in advance right before their eyes.

Upon further thought, though, there are at least two more synergies between Sprint and Palm. The first is that both companies are on the comeback and certainly the Pre will attract a lot of attention to the revitalized carrier. It won’t be iPhone-level attention, but it will certainly help Sprintt’s flagging post-paid business.

The second is Sprint’s focus on mobile. As Palm noted in the Pre launch, Palm, unlike many of its competitors with interests in consumer electronics (Samsung, LG) and PCs (Apple), does only mobile products. And while Sprint certainly has wireline assets, it is more of a wireless pure play than AT&T and Verizon. With limited exclusivity, Sprint and the Pre won’t be “2gether 4eva” but the companies’ many commonalities and long history should make for a strong launch.

A webOS-powered Foleo could have many of the characteristics that I ascribed to a potential iPhone OS-based clamshell without some of the iPhone’s limitations. Palm, of course, does not have the issue with smaller keyboards that Apple seems to, and webOS merrily supports multitasking in a way that is more visually akin to a PC user interface.. webOS is even slated to get support for desktop Flash nest year. And Palm has no fear about cannibalizing more expensive notebook PC sales (although it must be cognizant of netbook pricing, an issue that blindsided the initial Foleo).

Still, if the Foleo returns, it probably won’t be for a while. There is just too much opportunity for Palm in the smartphone space and the competition is thick. But it’s certainly an opportunity once the company has covered its international bases with webOS smartphones. Until then, feel free to go back to obsessing over Android-based netbooks.

The Ultra definitely feels brick-like compared to the diminutive Flip mino, but I think the additional flexibility is worth it. (The waterproof case for the old Ultra doesn’t work with it due to changed button placements; Pure Digital is planning a revised one.) The Flip’s limited recording capacity had really caused problems for me in the past, so I’m pleased to see it expand even though there’s no memory card slot, which is nice insurance in the event that the camcorder itself ceases to function (as my MinoHD did). I’ve used a Kodak Zi6, but the tendency for its arm to swing out is an annoying design flaw. I am looking forward to the svelte new RCA Small Wonder that Audiovox showed at CES, which trades in a pop-out USB arm for a microSD slot.

Pure Digital is now aiming the Ultra at its traditional audience of moms while positioning the mino toward the YouTube uploaders and that’s well-reflected in the design of the products. However, I remain skeptical that, with the possible exception of “extreme” helmet cams and , there will be much pickup for these inexpensive camcorders among younger consumers, who are comfortable using their digital cameras and phones to upload video. And in the case of cell phones, uploading wirelessly to YouTube will clearly be something more common in the future. So much of YouTube content is around the spontaneous capture, which means the spoils go to the camcorder you always have with you.

I’ll have more to say about competition to the Flip elsewhere, but Erica Ogg quotes me in a great post that includes an interview with Pure Digital CEO Jonathan Kaplan  in which he makes the bold proclamation, "The way Apple has revolutionized music, we will revolutionize video." Let’s start with FlipShare importing and transcoding the dizzying number of file formats out there.

Replica is also Seagate’s answer to a variety of brainless backup products offered under the Clickfree brand by Storage Appliance Corporation, including a number of hard drives and a cable that can convert any external hard drive into a ClickFree hard drive. The company recently raised a $10 million round of Series B funding and I touched on it in in a two-part Tech on Deck column I wrote last summer. These are good options to have in the market for the nontechnical user, or might also be one of those products that geeks give non-geeks, alongside MSNTV, the Ceiva digital picture frame, and the Presto printer.

You have to admire the lengths the designers went to to accommodate the awkward shape of the phone, but it seems that using G1 with this additional metal faceplate dangling off would just add to its already somewhat cumbersome experience.

And speaking of the Sidekick, now that the Sidekick LX 2009 edition has been announced, I wonder if T-Mobile purposely wanted the G1 to look less like the average  horizontal side-slider so as to further differentiate it from the now Microsoft-powered QWERTY device..