Since its debut in 2007, I’ve been a fanatical iPhone jailbreaker and general enthusiast of the device. As more and more iPhones have begun bogging down the 3G network in the Bay Area, Apple/AT&T seem to be taking their customers for granted (charging ever more for data, texts, and increasingly bad customer service). When I got my new 3G S this summer, I discovered that every time I’d jailbreak it, the SIM card would die and I’d have to restore it back into Apple jail to make it work. >:-( The jailbroken experience is half the fun of the iPhone, so I was pretty frustrated that Apple wouldn’t just leave all us poor hackers alone.

The final straw came when I was scheduled for a telephone job interview– I knew I couldn’t get cell coverage at my house in the Berkeley Hills, so I went down into the flats, in an open air park, with nothing between me and the cell satellites but a sunny day. The reception was so bad, the interviewer couldn’t hear what I was saying and asked to reschedule the interview when I can get to a land line phone. It was then that I knew that AT&T had to go. I called AT&T to complain AND THAT CALL GOT DROPPED. So I went into the AT&T store, demanded to be let out of my contract without a cancellation fee, and finally broke free. (Actually it took two hours of standing in the store, being transferred on the phone from manager to “manager”, but I held firm and they let me out).

I went down to Radio Shack and bought three Palm Pres– one for me and each of my parents. Since then I have been amazed that I can get through a day without a dropped call, delayed text message, or bunged up internet connection. Sprint service is great here, and the customer service people I have interacted with are generally much friendlier and more empowered to help me out. In addition, the service plan for 3 Palm Pres on a 1500 min family talk plan with unlimited text and data is under $150. Let’s see AT&T do that with 3 iPhones.

As for the device itself, it is indeed a worthy iPhone competitor. The interface is smooth and intuitive, and the fact that it can multi-task means that I can get up-to-the minute notifications when I get a new email, SMS, IM, or call. The slide out keyboard is a great tactile experience, although I am still much slower with it than I have become with iPhone’s virtual keyboard. The web browser is comparable to the iPhone’s, having the click-to-zoom and pinch gestures that make mobile HTML browsing a joy.

It’s designed not to need to be plugged into a computer– unlike the iPhone which is dependent on iTunes for its syncing and updates. The Pre does it all over the air. This is good and bad. As a Mac head, I had my Address Book, iCal, iPhoto, and iTunes all dialed in to sync to my iPhone. The Pre uses my Gmail contacts as the address book, so I had to go through my old email contacts and delete old students, colleagues, and craigslist response emails to clean up my phone’s contact list. On the positive side, I can use the Pre as a simple drag and drop USB device, putting whatever video, audio, or documents into its 8GB internal memory and being sure that they will work from inside the WebOS interface.

As a jailbreaker, I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Palm has basically said “go ahead! hack it!” There is already a burgeoning hacker movement, supplementing Palm’s nascent App Catalog with over 200 “homebrew” apps. This is a far cry from iPhone’s vibrant app scene, but AT LEAST WE HAVE A GOOGLE VOICE APP (two, in fact). Seriously, the Pre needs more developers and more apps, but the conditions for developing these things are really good. The Pre is basically a linux box with a snazzy frontend, so linux apps can easily be ported over to the device.

Even though I have only had it for two days, I am loving the freedom and quality of coverage I’m getting on the Pre. Sure, I miss all my snazzy apps, but I have faith that once developers realize that it’s so easy and safe to develop for the Pre, the apps will come through, too.