I can't believe that no-one here seems to have pointed out the elephant in the room - price. The iPhone is a really nice gadget, but it costs a fortune.
The Palm Pre is also a really nice gadget, with numerous cool features (at least one of which is that it's not controlled by Apple). But, in the UK at least, it's being launched for the exact same price as the iPhone! Are Palm completely batshit insane?
I'd love a smartphone, but I'm not paying in excess of 700UKP for one. Get them under 100UKP, no contract crap, then maybe they'll take off. Maybe I'm unusual in that I don't need or want 30UKP worth of calls every month, but I doubt it.
Really? Rather than just being more accustomed to it?
The standard US connector is absolutely awful. The pins never seem to go cleanly into the socket, which isn't surprising, because the pins are actually blades, whose orientation is such that they're prone to bending together or apart.
There's no sort of insulation on the blades either, so you're quite able to touch them while the plug is only half inserted.
The earth pin is for shit - being a tube that's been pinched shut, rather than a solid pin.
I can only assume that you're stuck with it for historical reasons, rather than anyone "preferring" it. I find it hard to believe that anyone put any significant thought into actually designing it.
It is, frankly, shocking.
Flame on...
"I don't believe in sweeping social change being manifested by one person, unless he has an atomic weapon." -- Howard Chaykin