All Things Digital

Turns out Apple (AAPL) isn’t the only company whose smart phones are in short supply this spring. According to Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt, Research in Motion (RIMM) and Palm (PALM) are suffering shortages as well.

In a research note, McCourt says RIM’s BlackBerry Pearl is pretty tough to find these days–online and off. And Palm’s Treo 755p has disappeared from Sprint’s shelves entirely. Customers looking for one must either settle for the Palm Centro or wait until the company releases the next iteration of the Treo 755p or the Treo 800w.

As McCourt notes, shortages like these are bad news for RIM and awful news for the downtrodden Palm. “The abrupt disappearance of the Treo 755p at Sprint is somewhat concerning,” observes McCourt. “This product was selling reasonably well and, although we expect its contribution to be marginal following the 800w’s launch this summer, the 755p’s absence at Sprint clearly means Palm is foregoing some near-term sales opportunities.”

It’s worth noting here as well that Apple is still dealing with a pretty lean inventory of iPhones. McCourt says about half of the Apple stores he contacted had the device in stock. Said McCourt, “While we believe this is related to a product transition, current iPhone shortages are almost certainly causing some degree of missed sales opportunities.”

Palm shareholders gave the company a kick in the Grape Nuts this morning in answer to news that it will shutter all but one of its retail stores by the end of the first quarter. The closure affects some 33 Palm locations nationwide, including airport kiosks. The only store Palm plans to keep open is the one in its Silicon Valley headquarters (which to the company’s credit is one more than Gateway kept open when it pioneered this particular brick-and-mortar exit strategy).

For Palm, which could likely use all the cash it can scrape together, the move seems wise. “It makes sense,” Global Crown Capital analyst Pablo Perez-Fernandez told the San Jose Mercury News. “They need to take every resource they have and focus them on their core product that will take them on a growth path.”

Assuming there’s a growth path to be found. And for Palm, which recently sacked a reported 10% of its workforce and just settled a class-action suit over defects in some of its Treo handhelds, that’s not exactly a certainty at this time. “They’re toast,” said Shareholder Value Management analyst Jeff Embersits.

So much for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s claim that “there’s no chance the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” According to market-research outfit iSuppli, Apple’s iPhone outsold all smart phones in the United States during July, outpacing sales of Palm’s Treo and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, not to mention handsets from Nokia, Motorola and Samsung.

In its research note published this morning, iSuppli said that the iPhone accounted for 1.8% of all mobile handset units sold during the month. Although this could reflect first-month demand for a product people had been waiting to buy since January, it’s nevertheless not bad for a new entrant in a very competitive market. And a remarkable achievement for one partnered up with AT&T. “While iSuppli has not collected historical information on this topic, it’s likely that the speed of the iPhone’s rise to competitive dominance in its segment is unprecedented in the history of the mobile-handset market,” iSuppli wrote. “While the speed of the iPhone’s ascent to the top of the smart-phone and feature-phone charts is remarkable, it’s equally amazing that Apple achieved this in the face of numerous, well-entrenched competitors.”

Seems Apple is well on its way to exceeding its goal of 10 million iPhones shipped during calendar year 2008–roughly 1% of global cellphone shipments.

The iPhone’s “virtual keyboard” technology presents early challenges for some users, particularly those accustomed to a physical keyboard. In a new study by usability consultancy User Centric, it took QWERTY users almost twice as long to create the same message on the iPhone as it did on their QWERTY phone. “For QWERTY users, texting was fast and accurate,” said User Centric’s Jen Allen. “But when they switched to the iPhone, they were frustrated with the touch-sensitive keyboard.”

So there is some merit to those early concerns about the device’s virtual keyboard after all. But just a bit. Because the methodology of User Centric’s study didn’t allow for much of a learning curve.

A total of 20 participants were brought in for one-on-one usability sessions with a moderator. All sent text messages at least 15 times per week. Ten of the participants owned a phone with a QWERTY keypad, and ten of the participants owned a phone with a numeric keypad. … During each session, participants were required to use their own phones. In addition, they were provided with an iPhone for use during the study. None of the participants were iPhone owners. … Although participants were given one minute to familiarize themselves with the iPhone’s touch keyboard, their texting abilities on the iPhone were still at the novice level.”

In other words, User Centric’s study of iPhone keyboard usability didn’t account for improvement over time, which most reviewers, and even Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself, have said is essential to its mastery.

“The iPhone has the best, most advanced keyboard in any mobile device,” Jobs told Walt Mossberg back in June. “Like all small keyboards, it takes three or four days to get used to. IPhone users will quickly learn to trust its intelligence to correct their mistakes automatically. So far, everyone who has used it loves it and reports that they are typing as fast or faster than they did on their Treo or BlackBerry or other smart phone. … We think the iPhone’s keyboard is one of its greatest assets and competitive advantages.”