Over the weekend Kevin Rose said that Apple would aim with the iPhone 3.0 OS to match the upcoming Palm Pre feature set. Now that we know what the iPhone 3.0 firmware is going to offer a comparison makes sense. Since both are unreleased the comparison is even somewhat fair.

Kit Eaton over at Fast Company already did the leg work and published a feature-by-feature comparison between the iPhone 3.0 and the Palm Pre.
Looking at the comparison Apple seemes to have closed all possible gaps, like universal search, copy and paste, and syncing. The background process topic is now answered with push notifications and Apple highlights that real background processes just eat battery. Push notifications are the better way to go to implement for instance IM.

As it looks the decision between an Apple iPhone and a Palm Pre will mostly be guided by the hardware keyboard offered by the Pre, the different UI appeal and the number of available Apps. It will not be about the lack of features on either side.