A research firm called Interpret recently did a study concerning smartphone purchase habits among consumers and found that getting phones into people’s heads makes a big difference. It’s not easy, though. In fact, Palm’s Pre and the iPhone 3GS are the only smartphones to have struck the balance between smart features, the cool factor, and increased productivity in a way that got people talking. Blackberry just didn’t make the cut.

The study is a mildly interesting read. It’s no surprise that getting people thinking about a phone is key to sales, but it’s strange that so few phones get it right. I was also really surprised to see that the Pre had done so well. It’s second only to the iPhone in terms of mindshare, though we know the sales aren’t even close. Looks like Sprint really scares people off or the Pre is just an afterthought in iPhone googoo-gahgah-land.

A couple days ago I posted the latest deal from Sprint – a $100 credit over three billing periods if you bought a Pre and ported your number. Well the deal’s over. In fact, it wasn’t even supposed to begin.

Sprint issued the following statement on the matter:

After further internal review today, the offer of a port-in service credit of $100 to new customers who buy the Palm Pre has been pulled because it was put into the system in error.

That’s a hell of an error. Sprint did say that it would honor the deal for anyone who signed up while it was live, but after that, no dice. I’d be curious to see what the subscription numbers looked like while the deal was running, and whether they looked any different from the usual.

On the upside, maybe Sprint doesn’t need as many customers as I thought it did.

Just three months after launching the Palm Pre, Sprint is offering a $100 service credit to new Pre customers on its network. The credit essentially cuts the price of the phone in half, which isn’t a bad deal. It’s not the first time the Pre has come down to the $100 price point, but it does show just how badly Sprint wants new customers to get the phone in their hands.

I think it’s a decent strat, too. The Pre isn’t my phone of choice, mostly because the differentiators don’t really matter to me. The keyboard, though physical, is way too small for my hands, and I don’t really need multitasking, especially for a phone that doesn’t have many apps. For a first time smartphone owner, though, the Pre is really a great choice. The OS is quick and easy to navigate, includes a decent camera, and has all the basic smartphone functions you need. You can also get a full data plan cheaper than with most Blackberry devices or the iPhone.

It’s no secret that Sprint needs customers, and it needs to retain those customers. Offering solid deals in the midst of a recession is an almost sure-fire way to get a few converts. You can get the deal by signing a two-year contract with Sprint before October 31st. The credit will be spread across three months.

Palm continues to baffle me. I wrote a post the other day questioning the judgment behind withholding the WebOS SDK from the general public, and to day I find this article from Medialets. It’s an explanation of the Palm strategy to date concerning their App Catalog and includes one hugely disturbing fact.

Pre users have downloaded more than 600,000 apps.

When I read that my thoughts looked something like this: “..” “….” “……??!?!?!??!?!?!” Seriously, what the hell. The phone launch was a relative success, we know that. It wasn’t huge. It wasn’t earth-shattering, but for both Palm and Sprint it was a success.

People want apps, we know that. There have been more than a billion downloads on the iPhone, the Android market continues to grow, and now this. With just 30 apps in the Catalog, users are piling apps on to their phones. Why doesn’t the market at large have the SDK yet?

Medialets cites some interesting theories. First, most of the available apps are in beta. So what, the apps need more testing? Several of these apps are running version 0.9, as in, the last major revision before 1.0. Will they really be so different? Can developers even vouch for their app’s stability under hundreds of thousands of scrutinizing fingers? No, they can’t. Apps are nearly never bug-free at launch, and the growing pains of a new platform are part of the geeky fun of owning a brand new device.

Medialets also suggests the App Catalog isn’t ready for the deluge of submissions that would come with a public SDK. I can understand this. It’s a lot to sort through, and it’s no secret that Palm has been struggling. The number of people required to handle a hundred submissions a day, making sure they (the apps) won’t brick anyone’s Pre, is enormous. Paying those employees will be a serious expense, which leads us to the last problem: money.

It always comes down to money, and the App Catalog has no way to make any. As of today, there’s no payment system in place to reap the rewards of a well-developed app. Palm isn’t the only one hoping for a revenue stream from the store. Developers need to be paid for their time, and their best efforts should be justly rewarded, affording more time for people to put together more great apps.

The problem remains that this wasn’t planned well enough before the Pre’s launch. I can understand and even empathize with Palm for their troubles, but they botched this thing. You can’t expect to launch a phone like the Pre without planning for a payment system for apps you know people will want well in advance. I don’t want to hear “we’re working on it,” or “it’s not ready yet.” Those are crap excuses, and the only reason for them is a complete lack of foresight.

I like the Palm Pre. I really do. I’m starting to wonder, though, if Palm does.

For all the excitement surrounding their best phone release in years, Palm seems to be doing their damnedest to let the Pre slip into obscurity. Perhaps the best feature of the new Pre is its operating system, named webOS because it comes built on web technologies that supposedly make developing on the platform a breeze. The platform also supports multi-tasking, a feature missing from the Pre’s ‘roid-induced cousin, the iPhone Unfortunately, Palm has yet to release the webOS SDK, which would give developers a chance to put some great apps in the hands of Palm fans and iPhone malcontents. In fact, the SDK isn’t coming until the end of summer.

“We’ve been working very hard on the SDK and are eager to open access on a wider scale, but the software and the developer services to support it just aren’t ready yet,” says Palm. I have to ask, then, did they pick the right time to launch the phone? It’s all well and good to try to gain ground before the new iPhone drops, but why launch when a solid app development platform could greatly improve the phone’s appeal? There are plenty of unsatisfied Apple/AT&T customers. Why not pick them up in the wake of the 3GS?

As of today, the Pre’s App Catalog sits at just 30 apps. At that level, they have no chance. Even if there were a couple hundred the Pre might have just enough appeal to lure in some the folks who spurned Apple’s advances. Show them multi-tasking with apps they love and you could start to build a base of very satisfied customers, and that’s exactly the way to gain market share.

For now, a lot of Pre users are content to homebrew their apps, porting games like Doom and piecing together tethering on the fly. But that magic can only last so long before serious developers get bored, or get so entrenched in the iPhone or Blackberry development that they all but forget about the Pre. That’s something Palm can’t afford. We’ll see how hungry developers are by the end of summer, assuming they stick around.