What Apple Could Learn from Palm
I have a friend who still uses a Palm Pilot. Not a Treo, mind you, but an honest-to-God write-with-a-stylus-and-make-no-phone-calls PDA. He doesn't like the Palm, exactly, but it's paid for and there aren't any monthly fees and he has a Verizon phone. So he probably won't be getting an iPhone to replace the Palm any time soon. And then there's the boatload of old Palm apps that don't exist anywhere else that are, he claims, keeping him stuck to Palm.
This got me thinking. Classic Palm OS is dead, practically speaking, and it has been for a long time. My friend could get an iPod touch, which does most of the same things, does them better (I saw Blazer once, and it chilled my soul), and does a lot more to boot. Plus, in a couple of weeks (at the not-yet-announced-but-not-a-surprise-to-anyone September 9 "music event") the Touch will get better in modest ways (maybe it'll add a camera, surely it'll increase storage). I'm skeptical of the mythical tablet, but if it ever shows up, that might be an option, too. In the face of devices like this, it was obvious that Palm couldn't hold out forever on TXs and Treos. Hence the Pre (which, like Android, I hope will eventually be awesome). But in the meantime, app lock-in bought Palm time to hire a bunch of Apple people to make the Pre, time that they wouldn't have had if people like my friend could have fled more easily.
Much has been made of the App Store, which is plainly thriving in spite of its problems with (some) developers. Apple was smart to create it - and other companies are smart to follow suit - not only because it makes the iPhone and Touch better gadgets now, but because it'll make it harder to switch away from them in the future. But networked storage and services make this less important than it used to be. If all your data lives with Google, or if you just need to check a Web site, it makes less difference how you access it. This might be one of the reasons Apple has been pushing gaming as a major use for the iPhone and Touch alike. Games are much harder to move online, so they provide better lock-in. Just ask my friend, who's currently clinging to his three-year old high score in Euchre. Lock-in alone didn't save Palm, but it didn't hurt, and Apple would be foolish if they weren't angling for the same kind of advantage.