The Touch, soon to be on the market from Sprint, is not to be confused with the iTouch. Rather it competes with Apple’s iPhone. So while the two may have similar names they are at least in different categories.
Sprint’s Touch from HTC is a phone with many similarities to the iPhone including looks, featuring a full touch screen phone with almost no buttons. The touch screen may look the same but it is smaller than the iPhone by a full inch retaining just 2.5 inches vs the iPhone’s 3.5 inches. It too has a full web browser like the iPhone but instead of running OS it runs Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6. (at least its not running Vista!) It too will run music like the iPhone wirelessly, but through the Sprint Music Store. The store, like iTunes, also offers on-demand video and TV shows.
Sprint has signed an exclusive deal with Palm to be the sole carrier to release their Centro at least for the first three months. Palm was upfront about the first three month deal when they unveiled the phone Thursday night, yet they refused to talk about any other carriers carrying the phone after the 90 days were up.
The company almost seemed to be slightly peeved over the iPhone’s super successful launch when President and CEO of Palm, Ed Colligan answered in response to a query about the target market of the phone, “This (Centro) is not attempting to be an ‘iPhone killer’”. The iPhone is part of that 5% of the market; we’re going after the other 95% of the market.”
The iPhone out may have not been out long enough to take up a significant portion of the market, but it is the first that any other smart phone is compared to.
There was a time when iTunes was the only music service out there with cheap, only $0.99, songs available. Now, with the iPhone’s launch looming there is competition arising on every corner. Sprint has just upped the anty by announcing that all their 1.5 million mobile phone music downloads will be available in early April on their new Sprint Music Library Store.
Sprint has created the new music store to compete with the iPhone which won’t actually have a resident version of iTunes. You will have to connect the phone to your computer to download songs. Greg Joswiak said at the iPhone unvieling, “iTunes was designed to exist on the Mac and PCs. That’s where the music should live.†At the time of the statement however, iTunes was the only thing available, but with the new Sprint music store people will be able to access music anywhere - without a PC, a convienence that people are becoming accustomed to and may not want to then downgrade to the iPhone.
Sprint’s Touch from HTC is a phone with many similarities to the iPhone including looks, featuring a full touch screen phone with almost no buttons. The touch screen may look the same but it is smaller than the iPhone by a full inch retaining just 2.5 inches vs the iPhone’s 3.5 inches. It too has a full web browser like the iPhone but instead of running OS it runs Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6. (at least its not running Vista!) It too will run music like the iPhone wirelessly, but through the Sprint Music Store. The store, like iTunes, also offers on-demand video and TV shows.
Sprint has created the new music store to compete with the iPhone which won’t actually have a resident version of iTunes. You will have to connect the phone to your computer to download songs. Greg Joswiak said at the iPhone unvieling, “iTunes was designed to exist on the Mac and PCs. That’s where the music should live.†At the time of the statement however, iTunes was the only thing available, but with the new Sprint music store people will be able to access music anywhere - without a PC, a convienence that people are becoming accustomed to and may not want to then downgrade to the iPhone.
