Deathmatch: Applications Galen: Palm has made a lot of noise about the Pre’s ability to run multiple apps simultaneously. The iPhone can’t do that, and often when you switch from one app to another and then back, the first app resets. I really like how the Pre handles multiple simultaneous apps, letting you move among them through the row-of-cards metaphor. It really makes Apple’s push notification addition to iPhone OS 3.0 look pathetic.

Brandon: This is the Pre’s strongest feature compared with the iPhone. If, for example, you need directions to colleague’s office, you can dial the first few letters of the person’s name (first or last), choose the contact profile from a list of search results, tap the address, and automatically launch the Google Maps app to get directions from your current location. As soon as you get to your destination, you can use a left-to-right gesture to scroll back to the contacts app where the phone number of your colleague is still displayed.

Galen: Where I think the Pre falls short on apps is in its app store, which has very little to offer, and Palm’s delay in rolling out its SDK won’t help matters. So there’s not a lot you can do with the Pre in terms of apps, even if you can switch among them easily. The inability to peruse Pre apps from the desktop is also a detraction, or it will be when there are enough apps available that the confines of the Pre’s screen inhibit finding them.

Brandon: If Palm wants to gain an edge over Apple in this regard, it will let users load applications from anywhere rather than having to go through a central app store. This open platform approach would complement the already more progressive multitasking capability of the Pre’s WebOS, which facilitates interactivity among apps to accomplish tasks.

Galen: What really frustrated me on the Pre was its Launcher, where your apps reside. By default, it’s one screen that you scroll through vertically. But that screen shows only some of your apps; the rest are hidden on additional “pages” that you have to scroll to horizontally. But you can’t scroll to them until you move this little slider icon at the bottom right of the Launcher. Who would figure that out? Making you scroll vertically implies one long page, à la a Web page; the hidden horizontal control is hugely unintuitive. The fact that you can’t launch apps from the Launcher’s list view also mystified me.