The launch of the Palm Pre in stores took place over the weekend.  Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Walkley claimed that the launch of the Pre was a “solid” success.  Over 50,000 units were sold in the first two days.  I’m assuming that most people that bought the phone knew about the pros and cons beforehand.  I tried searching for a list of the pros and cons on the web, but I haven’t seen much of a list yet.  Since there isn’t much info about the pros and cons out there, below is a list of them for you.

Pros:
- WebOS is fast and easy
- Screen is high quality
- Network speed is fast
- Web browser is fast
- Option to use keyboard along with the touchscreen
- GMail push works
- Speaker is loud and clear
- Ability to multitask
- Threaded SMS

Cons:
- Keyboard is small
- Finger prints tend to remain on the screen
- Battery life isn’t that great (1 hour conversation takes up about 30% battery)
- No expandable memory option
- Tethering doesn’t work
- No ability to search e-mail
- Cut and paste has limitations
- Only a few applications available for download (App Catalog)
- Phone warms up pretty quickly
- CDMA (Sprint-only)

Following Monday’s announcement at the WWDC in San Francisco, investment banking company, Piper Jaffray Piper Jaffray Companies (NYSE:PJC) wants investors to bring their attention to the App Store of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). PJC analyst, Gene Munster stated that his prediction of the App Store becoming a $1.2 billion market is a best case scenario which could possibly add 1-3% in Apple’s operating income.

Munster analyzed that if 91% of Apple’s 85 million customers (61.3 million iPhone customers and 23.4 million iPod Touch customers) go into the App Store once during the course of 2008-2009, then the $1.2 billion expecation is possible.

Munster also based on Apple CEO, Steve Jobs’ assumptions about how many iPhone users surf the web (98%), send text messages (90%), and use 10+ integrated features on the phone (80%). If 77.7 million users download one or two applications from the App Store per year @ an average App cost of $10, about $777 million could be added in sales and $163 million in profit. If the adoption of the App Store is higher (which may be expected given the UI of the iPhone), it would bump up sales for Apple by $1.2 billion and profit of $254 million.

The Apple App Store is expected to launch on July 11, 2008 with the new 3G iPhone.

Information Source:
[1] AppleInsider: Apple’s App Store could emerge as $1.2B business by 2009 by Katie Marsal