Comments on: PalmSource: OS 5 at the Center of Attention

It's called an Ultralite notebook.

I have the new Portege 2000 notebook that weighs 2.6 lbs. Damn is it ridiculously light and I can run the Palm emulator too. And OS 5.0 when it's available to us developers ;-)

You have the Portege 2000 notebook already? They won't ship it until 2/15/2002 in US. I'm still waiting for it!!!!

-- You have the Portege 2000 notebook already?

Yes, my best friend works at Toshiba America. No, I didn't get any discounts and paid the full price you would pay on the buy Toshiba website, but I did get it extra early ;-)

It is sweet. You will be very, very happy. I could have gotten one of those 10 lb Dell Inspiron 8100 with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in, but size and especially weight do matter. I do hope the next iteration of the Portege 2000 includes the Geforce 4 Go chip. The only thing I'm not happy about but can live with given the other awesome attributes is the shared memory video chip. WTF !!! Why is everyone including HP going this route. Yes, it shaves off a couple of bucks off of production costs, but if you're going to charge premium $$$ you better have the real deal with real VRAM !!!

Excuse my digression, but the Portege 2000 is the best ultralite to date. I still own a Portege 3440ct and some overpriced. IBM thunkpad.

Hmmm... does the video performance that bad with the Portege 2000? Can you play any 3D games on it?

Well, you aren't going to be buying the Portege 2000 for 3D gaming. I can run 3D programs like the incredible Aquarium screen saver, but you aren't going to be playing Quake 3 on it.

That's why I would like to see the GeForce 4 Go in the next refresh of the Portege 2000... I guess it will be called Portege 2100 due in the next 6 months.

I agree. Furthermore, I have no interest in upgrading until I have a wide selection of hacks available to me.

You have an excellent point and in many ways I feel the same as you do. I love my m505 (and the Pilot 5000, PalmPilot Pro, Palm V, and Palm IIIc before it) but am terribly disappointed that OS 5.0 will still not see major weaknesses in the basic PIM functions addressed (ie. assigning contacts to multiple categories, adding more fields per contact etc.) and appears to have little in the way of visual GUI improvements (ie. more effective use of color and high res displays to make the interface more attractive and easier to use.) although I suppose maybe the themes which we haven't seen yet might do that.

I suspect I will likely purchase an OS 5 Palm if only because I like to buy a Palm every year and I do want to make the leap to 320x320 resoultion. I suspect both Palm and Sony will come out with m505/T615 like units but with ARM processors and high res color screens and I will pick the best amoung them. Hopefully Palm hardware will make up for their lackluster performance of late and have a beautiful but cutting edge unit to compete with Sony's recent leaps this fall as Palm units tend to have slightly better tech support, are more supported by aftermarket products, and tend to have a long history of upgrade potential in terms of the OS.

PS: Make sure all the OS 5 handhelds can upgrade to OS 6!

What specific extra fields do you need in the Address Book app? Chances are, it can be accommodated with the existing standard app.

Scott

Palm has disappointed me. What the hell is this?! The OS looks like it did 10 years ago! I've given up on Palm. Seriously, this is bull ****! Those PPC's are starting to look good right now...

ah come on OS 5.0 is only based on a 6 year OS!

"What specific extra fields do you need in the Address Book app? Chances are, it can be accommodated with the existing standard app.

Scott"

Here is an example contact: 1 buisness address, 1 home address. 2 home numbers, 2 buisness number, 1 fax number, 1 cell number, 3 email addresses, a webpage, information on spouse, children etc. I want to assign this to two categories, 1. work contacts and 2. personal friends.

As it stands right now to do this I need to 1. create 2 contacts, 1 for each category. and 2. put much of this info into the notes of the contact causing it to not sync properly with Microsoft Outlook (my desktop PIM) via PocketMirror and causing additional hassles with the general display of the contact and search of info in the contact. The reality is the explosion of technology has added a lot of info we need to track on folks and the current PIM just doesn't keep up. Because Datebk4 and ActionNames 5 use the basic Palm OS contact datebase as a starting point they can only overcome some (sometimes in an inefficent way) but not all of these problems. Plus they require me to pay $$$ for a soultion that should come out of the box. Forget MP3s, forget video, forget high res action games or Gameboy emulators (the stuff I imagine we will see taking advantage of the ARM processors first) why don't we see the ARM being used to create a more attractive GUI that properly uses color and finally after 5-6 years we should update the core apps!

"Here is an example contact: 1 buisness address, 1 home address. 2 home numbers, 2 buisness number, 1 fax number, 1 cell number, 3 email addresses, a webpage, information on spouse, children etc. I want to assign this to two categories, 1. work contacts and 2. personal friends."

I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know, and I don't know how well this will sync, and it *is* definitely a bit kludgy, but...

* Assign business address to a Custom field called "Work Addr". You can put line breaks in here.
* Assign home address to the standard address fields.
* Assign both home numbers to a multi-use field called "Home" (again, use line breaks).
* Assign both work numbers to a multi-use field called "Work" (again, use line breaks).
* Assign fax number to a multi-use field called "Fax".
* Assign cell number to a multi-use field called "Mobile".
* Assign all three email addresses to a multi-use field called "E-mail".
* Assign web page to a Custom field (renamed as you like).
* Assign spouse and children info to one Custom field (renamed as you like, use line breaks).

Problems with what I described:
1) This won't fix the multiple category issue.
2) If you have a smartphone (like my i300), you won't be able to dial numbers that stored in one field using multiple lines.
3) You won't be able to send an email to an email address using one field with multiple lines.

Sorry if I'm coming across like a know-it-all. That's not my intent. Just figured I'd offer this "solution" in case it meets your (or someone else's) needs. Your example is certainly an extreme one. I'll modify my previous comments to say that I would like Palm to add two new multi-use fields as well as a Birthday field (combined with built-in birthday checking in the Date Book app) and a separate "Holidays" applet for storing other types of recurring anniversaries, etc. That said, I stand by *my opinion* that adding too many *specific* (non multi-use) fields can create too much clutter to have to scroll through for most users who will be needing far less fields.

Scott

Well I agree with the both of you. But to satisfy everyones needs, including my own, why don't we make the software, upon installation , asks us the fields we are going to need in our handhelds, For I think your approach is very well thought, however a little too complicated for me, since I already have other information in the custom filed.

I would need:1 buisness address, 1 home address. 2 home numbers, 2 buisness number, 1 fax number, 1 cell number, 3 email addresses, a webpage, information on spouse, children etc. I want to assign this to two categories, 1. work contacts and 2. personal friends plus account numbers field if I am inputing a company only. So on and so forth. Obviously we cannot please everyone.

I will like to see Palm modify its basic Datebook including its Desktop PC application to sync in with the times.

The point is that is shouldn't have to be klugy!
Personally, I'd like to see the ability to set an apointment and have the time show as free. For example I'd like to put my 3 day business trip in and be able to schedule meetings during that trip without having the meeitngs show as conflicts

> Plus they require me to pay $$$ for a soultion that should come out of the box.

I disagree. Strongly. The apps that are included with the Palm OS should be good genaral purpose apps but not the very best available. Bascially what you want is for Palm to put the makers of ActionNames and the rest out of business. You also want me to carry around a 600 K app when all I need is a fairly minimal one at about 50K.

What PalmSource does best isn't make PIMs. They shouldn't try. If you want a better than minimal PIM, buy one.

Sounds like Micro$oft. Put everything together into the OS.

While it's true that thus far OS5 doesn't look drastically different in appearance, that's not the real updates. It's also true that data formats for the built in pims won't change with this version. However, what was shown is that this device can do a lot of new things. Rich multi-media. It has great sound, with a 16 channel mixer. MPEG decoding for video, System wide security either through the new RSA API's or through the data manager. Also in pre-OS5 there was no access control. We now have Authentication Manager and Authorization Manager. This means code signing to verify/authenticate code patches. Also databases can have restricted access. Both restricted to certain authenticated apps, and restricted to authenticated users. Also deallocated memory is now automatically zeroed out. It's going to take a lot more than Beam Crack to arbitrarily offload a database from a device.

What's more this is just the initial release of OS5. Followup additions are scheduled for release quite quickly.

-Craig Bowers

You say follow-up additionals will come quickly... who said this? Are we talking about the features they discussed in their slide show presentation for the "next big OS" ie. OS 6? Surely that is a year away after OS 5...

"> Plus they require me to pay $$$ for a soultion that should come out of the box.

I disagree. Strongly. The apps that are included with the Palm OS should be good genaral purpose apps but not the very best available. Bascially what you want is for Palm to put the makers of ActionNames and the rest out of business. You also want me to carry around a 600 K app when all I need is a fairly minimal one at about 50K.

What PalmSource does best isn't make PIMs. They shouldn't try. If you want a better than minimal PIM, buy one."

I couldn't disagree more. One of the basic features of a PDA and its operating system, since the dawn of the Newton and certainly the Pilot, PalmPilot, and Palm has been the PIM. The hallmark of a quality PDA is a wonderful out of box experience that replaces paper planners etc. with easy to use YET POWERFUL softwear built into the OS. An additional feature of a PDA OS is to allow developers to create other softwear to use on the PDA, but the PIM is always at the core.

I agree about improving PIMs but also agree (with others) who state that it should remain simple. This is a delicate balance and is difficult to accomplish. Further, there's the balance of not putting some of your loyal developers out of business. My comments previously about not adding tons of new "specific" fields at the cost of having to scroll through them comes from my experience with the PPC. I don't like how they implemented it. I far prefer the Palm OS PIM design in that it offers a minimal number of fields while still offering a good deal of flexibility. Is it possible to add additional fields to remove some of the kludge of the method I previously described while still maintaining a highly usable design? Yes. As I said, it takes good usability designers. My point is simply that while I, too, would like improvements and some additional fields, I'm naturally concerned that it could be implemented poorly. Usability is one of those things that you don't really notice when it's there, but you do when it's not.

Scott

Does anyone know if an m505 can be upgraded to OS 5? Since it's supposedly modular and can work with multiple processors and screens, shouldn't an upgrade to OS 5 be available for older palms?

PalmSource: Where next for Palm?
Thursday 7th February 2002
ZDNet UK staff

Palm rolled out its latest operating system, new hardware appeared and Bluetooth is promised. Palm's chief executive explains what the next steps are. A ZDNet UK News Focus

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/

Palm using Bluetooth with it's New Software called Cambio: check the following Video

Streamed video: PalmSource unveils syncing software
Palm's OS company shows off an early version of its synchronization software, code-named Cambio, to PalmSource 2002 keynote attendees.

Streamed video: New Palm OS prepares for battle

At the opening of PalmSource 2002, CEO David Nagel says the new Palm OS will help the company fight off Microsoft's Pocket PC in the enterprise market

Streamed video: OS development vital to Palm's future

IDC's handheld analyst says tomorrow's PalmSource conference takes on added significance as Palm rallies developers to help maintain its lead in the handheld industry.

Motorola breaks out new chip at PalmSource

Correspondent Melissa Francis demos Motorola's first ARM-based processor at PalmSource 2002.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t294-s2103931,00.html#

If the link doesn't work check http://news.zdnet.co.uk/

"I couldn't disagree more. One of the basic features of a PDA and its operating system, since the dawn of the Newton and certainly the Pilot, PalmPilot, and Palm has been the PIM. The hallmark of a quality PDA is a wonderful out of box experience that replaces paper planners etc."

Have you ever tried to put all of what you're asking for in the address/phone section of a paper planner? The average paper address book has 3-5 lines. The palm setup is more than adequate for at least 90% of its users, that's not a bad rate. Specialized needs exist but you can't expect a company to design an app for less than 10% of its user base when there are other companies who concentrate on that exact thing.
We all say we want the perfect PDA but what we really want is OUR perfect PDA. You can't expect Palm to build YOURS.

Yesterday Palm said that there will be basically no changes to the built-in applications for OS5. Basically you get OS4.1 running on ARM chips.

Cheers
Russell

---
russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

ALSO - Can you pin someone from Palm down "off the record" about the m515 and m130 retail availability dates?? THANKS!

How bloody hard is it for them to improve the APPS? That's pretty disrespectful for the people making the upgrade to have the same crap they started with plus multimedia and bluetooth which SHOULD'VE been done already.

I'm seriously looking forward to having a bluetooth enabled palm and a bluetooth enabled phone so I'll be waiting on the first integrated Bluetooth Palm.

---

Sir Tez
IT is a rough life

| no changes to the built-in applications for OS5

This is really lame. I have nothing against 3rd party developers as many just simply rock, but Palm should do a much better job with the basic apps. Is it too much to ask?

Bottomline: If this is the best Palm can offer, then there is ZERO reason to upgrade. Bring on OS 6.0 and then we can talk about an upgrade.

I prefer that the standard PIM apps remain simple. There are a couple of small improvements that I would like to see them make, and I'm disappointed that they aren't doing so. But, I definitely don't think that they should turn the standard PIM apps into the equivalent of some of the hard-core 3rd party PIM apps out there. Plus, where would it leave those developers?

Scott

I have owned each years generation of Palm since the Pilot 5000 in 1996. The only major change (if you call it that) in PIM function was from OS 1.0 to OS 2.0 which added several views in the Date Book application. Since then... nothing. People begging for simple fixes like adding multiple categories per contact, or additional fields... nothing. Palm has always stated they would remain true to their core and now they pump up processor speed so we can get gee wiz video and sound BUT DARN it what about a class leading, easy to use PIM? Something not based on a 5-6 year old program? If I wanted to play video clips I would buy a Pocket PC!

> what about a class leading, easy to use PIM?

If you want it, why don't you buy one? It seems to be important to you. Why does PalmSource have to make it? You've been using Microsoft for too long. MS is in the business of putting everyone else out of business. If there is any good Windows app, MS makes a version of it, bundles it with Windows, then puts the other company out of business. Why do you want PalmSource to do the same thing? Let the third-party developers do what they do best.

"How bloody hard is it for them to improve the APPS? "
If you saw how much work went under the hood, and how much of a nice framework has been laid out for developers, you'd see there was little time to fuss with the applications. This has some amazing stuff for developers to start using. You're right, it would be trivial to enhance the built in apps somewhat, but that's not the focus of this release it would seem. In any case it's still quite early, and there's plenty of time for a fresh look to the apps to be implemented by release time. The OS is still very much a work in progress. They've also hinted about some future Skinnable functionality.

"> what about a class leading, easy to use PIM?

If you want it, why don't you buy one? It seems to be important to you. Why does PalmSource have to make it? You've been using Microsoft for too long. MS is in the business of putting everyone else out of business. If there is any good Windows app, MS makes a version of it, bundles it with Windows, then puts the other company out of business. Why do you want PalmSource to do the same thing? Let the third-party developers do what they do best."

From whom? Both ActionNames (which I use) and Datebk4 has problems at their core directly as a result of the fact they use the Palm Date Book database structure. If I go buy a PocketPC 2002 I get the PIM functionality but in a clunky interface with non of the extra softwear support of the community. Plus I would have to use Microsoft in an arena I still believe I will never have to.

SOOO... I continue to have great hopes that someday Palm will once again innovate and get things back on track. Properly using the power of the ARM processor to improve those things that get us to buy a PDA in the first place, the GUI and PIM functions. OS 5 won't, maybe OS 6.

I'ld rather prefer PalmSouce to keep the built-in PIMs simple and concentrate on the other useful features like security, network, etc. Let the licensees do the improvement on apps. Handspring has been using their versions of the PIM apps. Licensees can customize the apps depending on the devices (like Treo has a whole set of new apps for phone). What you want now (an improved datebook) is available now. Just buy it.

HandEra announced last August that there would be more QVGA devices, so I wouldn't say it was that recent.

I agree,

Color on my Handera would hold me over until OS 6.

That way, I get all the TRULY important features and buy time to get the kinks worked out of the new migration to OS5...

What I would like to see is the 320x320 extended to soft graphiti area. This would be like 320x480. And guess what? That is HVGA! That would be a half VGA screen! That would be great! After using the 320x320 screen, I just cannot get excited by QVGA of 320x240.

Symbol is in fact showing off a color QVGA prototype at their booth using the Epson chip mentioned in the HandEra press release. It's running OS 4.1, with typical HandEra high-res features (landscape etc), and if you look closely, a new icon on the bottom right when graffiti is shrunk. Tapping it lets you write graffiti anywhere on the screen. It's very pretty.

> This would be like 320x480. And guess what? That is HVGA!

Only problem with your 320x480 is that the scaling would be awful to 480x640. I'd much rather see us go from 240x320 to 480x640.

I think it is unfortunate that they are sticking to the 160x160 ratio, instead of moving to a traditional ratio.

Yes, 320x320 square screens have a better dot-pitch than 320x240, but really, the difference isn't that great on such a small display.
I know Handspring is releasing products with no Graffiti area - the Treo 180 is the first - so a quare formate was probably important to keep.
But I'd still like to see built-in support for other aspect ratios.

HandEra developed their own, but they held onto it and required other vendors to license it from them. I can see why PalmSource wouldn't want to incorporate it. I have to wonder if HandEra had 'donated' their tech back to PalmSource, would it be in OS5?

I bet the 320x320 solution is the one Sony developed, just like the 16bit color code came from Handsping.

I think the Treo is sexy tech - I'm still using the first model digital StarTac phone and a Visor Deluxe. I am very tempted to get a Treo 180g if the CDMA model appears and is picked up by Verizon. I like Graffiti and I generally write short notes to myself that I can do faster that way than with a thumbboard. I'd wait for the Treo 270 - but right now they've only commeted to the keyboard model, the 270g is a possibility only. Of course, it *should* have an SD/MMC slot and I think it is stupid that it doesn't.

So I might just wait a bit longer to see what comes out later in the year - unless something breaks on me.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Well, I won't be calling it the universal connector anymore when I mention it. It's just the latest Palm connector.

Knowing HandEra, they will probably come up with some intelligent solution for this, better than Palm's "universal" connector. Maybe the Palm III connector with a USB off to the side of it somehow, or maybe a module where you could replace one connector with another. It'd be cool if they could come up with some way to integrate a standard USB slave connector even.

I'm glad other people noticed this. Palm just loves to shoot themselves in the foot with stupid policies like this.
-Terry

Agreed!

I CANNOT phathom that Palm will not let Handera use this connector!!! I thought that was the whole idea of the thing when they introduced it at last years Palm Source.

PATHETIC PATHETIC PATHETIC ! ! ! ! !

I swear, someone at Palm should be taken in the back and put down like a sick old horse...

You are living in the past, when Palm made both the hardware and the software. The Palm hardware group, which owns the Universal Connector, is in direct competition with HandEra. The UC is one of the selling points of their handhelds. Does Dell give Compaq free access to everything it makes?

Yes, but Dell and Compaq still use standard USB connectors, serial connectors, PCI slots, etc. Just think if they started making slightly different types of those peripheral connectors. It would really be a nightmare for third party vendors.

If Palm really wanted to quash the competition all they have to do is make their OS proprietary. ;-)

I think the universal "connector" SUCKS anyway and should be abandoned. It is more like a slip joint. It is ok for the device in a cradle, but is completely useless when trying to CONNECT a cable to the PDA and move around freely, the damn thing just falls off! I want a PDA with a true "connector".

They should try using the Handspring connection. It seems to be compatible with lots of add ons. I wonder if handspring is willing to license its springboard out?

Agree! Strongly Agree!

Some of those things OS5 will be capable of, but the APIs will not be opened up to 3rd party developers initially. Basically OS5 is OS4.1 running on ARM chips, with great backwards compatibility, so you can continue to use all your current applications without them having to be rewritten.

And that's about it. The point of OS5 seems to be to smoothly transition from Dragonball 68K processors to ARM chips. The addition of user task / threads, protected memory / databases and so on will really come with the next major OS update.

Oh, also there's a lot more security added to OS5, which is mainly aimed at the corporate market. The OS5 security session is happening in about an hour, we'll know more after that.

Cheers
Russell

---
russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

If that's the case I still don't see the point. I mean, the dragonball is now at speeds of 66MHz, and it being a CISC and all, how exactly will the new OS be so much faster on a RISC ARM running at 133(say)? Anybody who has ever developed for a 68K processor knows how nice it is, its actually much more like a 32-bit processor then 16-bit.

I was hoping for more or less the same GUI, only with a solid OS underneath. What we've got is a simple port. This is not progress. Are palm still just going down the easy marketing-led route of faster numbers?

The time to build a solid micro-kernal is at the onset, it will be a fudge to try and do this later.

-Liam

* The point of OS5 seems to be to smoothly transition from Dragonball 68K processors to ARM chips

**

If this is true, then I don't see why I should pay my hard-earned money to fund Palm's R&D. I'm happy with my Palm Vx and will keep it until Palm comes out with a compelling reason to upgrade.

"If this is true, then I don't see why I should pay my hard-earned money to fund Palm's R&D. I'm happy with my Palm Vx and will keep it until Palm comes out with a compelling reason to upgrade."

You're right. And no one is forcing you to. In some ways this may be good for OS4 device owners since new apps which run on OS5 ARM devices should be backward compatible with OS4 devices.

Scott

OS 5.0 is OS 4.1 running on ARM. Heck even the apps for OS 5.0 won't be native. What is the point of a high powered processor if the OS doesn't take advantage of it (with nice color GUIs, stronger built in PIM functions etc.?)

You get buy ARMed device first; later on, you can probably upgrade a even newer OS or OS with modules.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Buy ARM device now - get the 'solid' OS later. But the thing is - this sound like a vast con job. Look at win 9x - it took twenty years to leave DOS behind. If microsoft had ignored the 80286 altogether and moved to a protected memory 386 based OS which supported 16-bit real mode via emulation then we would be 5 years ahead of where we are now. This really reminds me of the route MS took in the eighties. What next 16-bit to 32-bit thunking layers?

OS5 should have incorporated an emulator that allowed dragonball apps to run, a modern micro-kernal and a GUI similar to the current GUI.

What are we going to get - fast RISC processors emulating slower CISC processors. And paying $$$ for it.

I will probably stick with my M505 now. I tried a PPC, but Palm OS kicks ass on the GUI, ease-of-use front.

I'm very disappointed.

-liam

> What is the point of a high powered processor if the OS doesn't take advantage of it

Because companies are going to start making kick-ass applications for it. Expect MPEG players, 3D games, MP3 players and all the way cool stuff you've always wanted. Why the **** are you so hung up on the Launcher? You use the Launcher .01% of the time. If you want a better PIM, buy one.

People, the point is that the OS is fully ARM native. I won't get into the technical details of how they're PACE's emulation is NOT comparable to say 68K emulation on a PowerPC, or other emulation examples, but for the most part 68K code is going to run VERY fast on the ARM hardware. PACE is very efficient though, hand coded in ARM assembly. Also for those developers who choose to, they can write native ARM routines (it backwards compatibility to OS4 devices isn't required). It makes very little point to waste time rewriting the PIM apps to ARM when they'll run plenty fast enough through emulation. That's not where palm should be wasting their developement time at the moment in my view.

So the emulation program and the OS is native... great. How about the apps? In fact how about the apps that come in the box, ie. Memo Pad, Date Book, Address Book, etc.? They are still 68k! Furthermore I know some are claiming you can write apps for OS 5 with native code but that is only partly true, in reality you can insert some softwear hooks into your program to make native ARM calls to help speed up some issues, but the bulk of the code remains 68k and emulated. Will it run faster? Maybe but only through the brute force of the ARMs put in these machines, not because the OS is elegant enough to allow programmers to take full advantage of the hardware.

Palmsource, Inc. creates the OS which they market to many companies including Palm (which they used to be a part of), Handera, Sony, and Handspring. The companies that make the Hardware are under no obligation to share their format which each other and certainly do not because all of the companies directly fight with each other for marketshare. The ONE AND ONLY company in the "Palm" universe that shares is Palmsource, Inc. and that is for the OS only.

Palm wants you to buy THEIR handhelds and one of their selling points is that they have standardized around one connector (the "universal") with one expansion soultion (SD/MMC cards) which helps assure you that hopefully if you buy a m125/m500/m505/i705 today that the Palms of the future (ARM, OS5) will share the same format and therefore many of the same accesories.

You make a good point. I think it's hard for us to adjust to Palm OS and hardware no longer being the same company.

I would assume that Palm, Inc.'s hardware side holds a patent to the universal connector, no? Otherwise, what's to stop Handera from "using it anyway". It's not like it requires any special technical expertise to design the connector appropriately.

Scott

Keep in mind, folks, that Handspring did not allow anyone else to incorporate the Springboard slot into their devices. This was not simply a matter of no one wanting to support Springboard, Handspring wanted to keep it to themselves. Now, whether or not anyone would have made such a device had they been allowed is another question.

Scott

OTOH, look at how well Springboard is doing now. Maybe if they had been less "strategic" they might be more "successful."

Obviously Palm has the "right" to make stupid decisions like this. We all know that we're jsut saying it is stupid and short-sighted.

I think the universal "connector" SUCKS anyway and should be abandoned. It is more like a slip joint. It is ok for the device in a cradle, but is completely useless when trying to CONNECT a cable to the PDA and move around freely, the damn thing just falls off! I want a PDA with a true "connector". Am I the only person out here that wants a connector that attaches firmly?

Actually I really don't quite see the point of cradle, can't we just build a damn mini-USB or mini-Firewire port on the palm device ? u'll end up connecting it to the computer by USB anyway, and with firewire you might even be able to charge it with firewire too.

do you really need a cradle just so that your PDA can stand up !?

I could not agree more. I think that while PalmSolutions has 100% right to restrict the increasingly missnamed "universal connector" I think sharing it would serve them better. (Not to mention all of us users.)

You know what someone is going to do is create a real universal connector and then everyone but plam will have it and a couple of years down the road, Palm will have to adopt it.

Yes, I like to have a cradle. I can stick my Visor in the cradle with 0 effort, and pick it up again without a second though. I have a travel cable that you have to attach/dettach and I think that's a pain in the ass. That's one of the big problems I had with the Treo - no cradle. I'm hoping it is at least possible to design one for it (I haven't seen the connector firsthand) and either Handspring or a 3rd party sells one. If not, then it'd be another tick in my 'reasons not to buy' column. A cradle does weigh into my decision.

Just like I won't buy a PDA that uses a serial connection. I loved the HE330 and think it is very nice overall - but I went from a IIIx to a Visor Deluxe and I'm not going back to serial - no way, no how. If they had made it with USB, I probably would've bought one when it was released.

Now, a year later, I'd also want color. The only non-color device I'd consider at this point is the Treo 180 because it has many other advantages.

Even there, expansion is starting to creep onto my 'basic requirements' list - either SD/MMC or MS. I think Springboard is effectively dead, except for the MemPlug line, which is nice.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Why can't they just put a USB port on the bottom of the thing and the be done with it. Instant and cheap 100% compatability with all kinds of things. Laptops, digital cameras, MP3 players etc all use USB ports why must PDA's be different. Then you could use a cheap USB cable/port to connect it to whatever you wanted.

By the way Handera is so clue less as to how to sell a PDA that they will be lick to be in business for OS6. Hell they are the ONLY morons still shipping a serial, B&W PDA with OS 3.5 in a IIIxe formfactor! Gimme a break. Sony right now is the industry leader and the ONLY Palm PDA innovator. If they weren't pushing the limits of the Palm PDA we would still have a $500.00 Palm V. As for PPC2002 it is getting colser and closer to the ULTIMATE PDA and given enough time and MONEY (no problem there) they will eventually succeed. Palm better get there first!

well yeah ..... and the side effect of that feature would be continue slip of market share ...

frankly all the comments on this site for the last 2 days have all been fairly "fair" if you ask me. and they sound like they come from Palm users, not PPC zealots. i am a longtime Palm user who has posted MANY, many comments to this board with the basic theme of "ARM is great, OS 5 is great, 320x320 is great, lack of updated GUI is bad, lack of updated PIM apps is bad, OS 5 is a step in the right direction but not the soultion to the slips Palm has been making in the last 18 months."

Oh lighten up you two, that was a pretty funny comment.

Yep, basically Palm has shot themselves in the foot as far as I'm concerned. They can't even seem to do with Palm OS 5 what HandEra has already done with 3.5. We're stuck with square screens, no virtual grafitti, and it sounds like their approach will probably make that even less likely in the future.

This universal connector deal stinks too. Clearly HandEra was interested in using it, and Palm turned them down. Does Palm make that much money selling replacement cradles or what? HandEra seems to be the only company on the boat with well developed technical ideas. It is too bad they aren't running the show, and leave the rest of the companies to put it in a pretty package and sell it to the masses.

Let me know when Palm's technological ideas catch up to HandEra, because it sure isn't happening anytime this year. No wonder HandEra's president has lots to say, they're the only ones with good ideas. Unless Palm resolves some of these awful design issues, I don't see another Palm OS device in my future.

For me it isn't just the new screen real estate from having a virtual graffiti area... but have you ever tried using a Palm in the dark? The backlight doesn't illuminate the graffiti area, so you can't see the letter/number side, nor can you see the buttons for applications, find, etceteras. With a virtual graffiti area, not only can we get more screen real estate when we need it, but we'll also be able to actually use the damn thing in the dark.

I've been using PDA's for a while, and I remember when Apple finally ditched the silkscreen for buttons and made it virtual. It's about time palm did this.

Agreed. Looks like Handera's OS 3.53 will continue to be superior to the OS 5 models until Handera comes out with Color OS 5, which might make me consider selling my 330. Otherwise, PPC.

Just because Palm isn't doing it, doesn't mean that companies like Sony can't. Look at Handera, they use a virtual graffiti pad. I wonder why companies like Sony haven't followed Handera is using virtual graffiti?

Dave

Well, Sony or others can do it. However, since it is not supported on the OS level, it will be a nightmare for application developers to support different devices. How many apps support Handera 330's virtual graffiti area now? Very few ASAIK.

There are actually quite a few. There are LOTS of programs that do not, but a lot of them wouldn't see much benefit so the conversion isn't worth it.

Palmsource, Inc. has made it clear that OS 5 will remain very modular to allow for a great deal of flexibility with vendors adding their own features or removing those they don't care for. The basic reality is that until Palm or Sony takes aim at a virtual grafitti area there will not be enough penetration with HandEra alone to allow for many apps to take advantage of the virtual grafitti area. In the meanwhile it seems Palm will likely support 320x320 in their own ARM handhelds, Sony has already supported 320x320 and more applications by the day with 320x320 support will continue. Its if you like Palm having a square screen and a hard grafitti area is a way of life unless you want a niche player model with a screen that will have sub par resoultion for many future applications (ie. games designed for 320x320 etc.)

Why with ARM processors should we have to worry about a dedicated Graffiti area at all. That is a joke if they continue down that path. What's the point? Why can't I have a choice? This additional screen space would be nice for handwriting recognition apps or alternate input methods. Look at all the alternate input methods available for the Pocket PC, made possible by a collapsible SIP area. This was ONE thing I thought Palm would get right with the new OS. Who cares if there's only a few apps that would take advantage of this, there would be a whole lot more if soft Graffiti was a standard in OS 5. These people don't have a clue...

I am totally with you! Screen real estate is VERY VALUABLE in the handheld form factor. That's where we interact with the device. More screen space, more information can be presented. Not to say that there are tons of ways to use a virtual graffiti space...

I'm sure Ed'll have a new topic on what we just heard about the new APIs, but here's a little on the old Virtual Graffiti / longer screens in OS5...

The new High Density Screen Manager will support screens of a size that is not square, or not a multiple of 160x160. Thus it's quite possible for an application to ask 'how big is the screen', and if the screen is longer than normal, use that to draw more lines in an eBook or whatever.

So applications that want to take advantage of non 160x160 multiple resulutions can do so using the standard OS5 API.

The OS will also include support for blitting images of one density to another density, but only at one scale factor. For example, if you have a bitmap that's 100x100 in normal 160x160 screen rez, the OS can automatically blit that to a screen that's has a resulution of 240x240 or whatever.

What it can't do is just take a regular 160x160 and stretch it to be 160x240 - then again this would look really ugly, and fonts would be pretty much unreadable.

So... in conclusion, OS5 has support for 'longer' screens (possible due to a virtual Graffiti area). However, application developers will have to explicitly code for this - but is there really any other way to do this?

Cheers
Russell

---
russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

Thanks Russell. That's what I have been looking for! Palm was not as stupid as I thought :-> They have to have this to compete with PPC in a long run...

yeah but I don't expect any of the current Palm companies to offer a 160x240 option except maybe for HandEra in a sequel to their current model. Sony will stick with 320x320 and Palm has already showed images running on a 320x320 screen and their TI processors so it looks like that is what they will use too.

320x320 provides more screen "real estate" than a 320x240 screen with "Virtual Graffiti" does. Just coz it's square, doesn't mean its a smaller screen.

Wouldn't everyone rather the bigger screen AND dedicated full-time graffiti?

"yeah but I don't expect any of the current Palm companies to offer a 160x240 option except maybe for HandEra in a sequel to their current model. Sony will stick with 320x320 and Palm has already showed images running on a 320x320 screen and their TI processors so it looks like that is what they will use too."

Palm's shown the OS on a LOT of ARM prototypes with a lot of different screens, some with a virtual graffiti area. And as for other non-HandEra 240x320, virtual graffiti examples, Symbol is showing off one at their booth now. Also while not end-user controllable like the two above, technically Samsung's i300 also uses a virtual graffiti area.

The main point though is that OS5 and correctly written apps, won't care about screen size. They can use small screens, and very large screens.

>"320x320 provides more screen "real estate" than a
>320x240 screen with "Virtual Graffiti" does. Just coz
>it's square, doesn't mean its a smaller screen.
>Wouldn't everyone rather the bigger screen AND
>dedicated full-time graffiti?"

NO. 320x320 is the same size (or even slightly smaller in the case of Sony Clie) than the origial 160x160. Higher resolution doesn't mean more screen real estate. A dedicated graffiti area ALWAYS reduces the screen space if you want to keep the palm form factor. Unless you make a square device, there is no reason to use 320x320.

320x240 is cheaper to make since it is the same as existing PPC screen. However, for compatibility, I would prefer 320x480.

Now THIS is what Virtual Graffiti should look like!!!

http://images.palmstation.com/symqvga/pic3.jpg

(courtesy of Symbol and Palmstation.com)

Mike Cane - are you drooling yet?

Wow! Excellent picture of the new Symbol device. If that's color QVGA it's looking sweet. Which version of Palm OS was it running? 3.5.3 or 4.1?

> but I don't expect any of the current Palm companies to offer a 160x240

I thought the Samsung i300 was 160x240.

Agree 100%. We need more screen real estate! Make QVGA part of OS 5 and do it NOW!

"Now THIS is what Virtual Graffiti should look like!!. . . Mike Cane - are you drooling yet?"

No. This is simply HandEra's Soft Graffiti method. Read my Wish List to see why I don't like it.

> No. This is simply HandEra's Soft Graffiti method.
> Read my Wish List to see why I don't like it.

I've looked at your wish list. There is nothing keeping you from using the "silk" APIs that HandEra has provided to write a replacement graffiti area that does what you want. I think HandEra's virtual graffiti solution is very elegant and fits the Palm style. They are not going to do a custom tailored solution for every individual.

Send HandEra your feature suggestions, maybe they will implement some of them.

I heard OS 7 is going to be really great....THAT's the one I'm waiting for...

(sarcasm)

Yeah, OS 7.0 is IT.
I'm so excited by OS... I mean BS 5

Six years later we'll have
- Flexible Screens
- Batteries last for months (Fuel Cells)
- Speech regonition
- Always on (no idea what always on but it's always better to be turned on right ??)
- Broadband wireless
- and 1.56 GHz stuff ....... somebody please explain why we are having 200 MHz and 1.56 Ghz in the same picture !?
AWESOME !!!
Guess I can wait for 6 years for that ...

On a partially serious note, expect major BE-ness in OS 6.

Oh yeah OS 6 sounds great but in 18 months will the competition have come up with a better soultion to PPC 2002 problems? Why is OS 5 suprising the world by shipping in Spring? Because it is OS 4.1

I agree about being able to assign contacts to multiple categories, but *please* don't add tons of new fields. I, personally, prefer the way it currently works where Palm gives us several "multi-use" fields as well as some Custom fields. The more fields you add, the more you have to scroll through to find the ones you want. I know, I have a PPC (iPaq) in addition to my Samsung i300 and entering PIM data is frustrating (for several other reasons besides the ones I just mentioned).

Scott

in Spring is OS 5 really ships, I think everyone should congratulate or thank David Nagel for not repeating his Copland Legacy.

oh it will ship in Spring, but unlike Copland which was so ambitious it never shipped, Nagel made sure this would ship by making sure it had next to nothing in improvements for the average consumer. (enterprise level security for me isn't important, nor is the potential to run videos on my handheld... slick modern looking color versions of the basic Palm GUI is, as is a major update to the now 6 YEAR OLD PIM functions.)

Wait Hold it! Did anybody scroll to the end of this URL and notice the NEW CLIE with a keyboard built into the case! Any comments about this. Here is the URL on the models:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2CA2126

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T2BA1226

I like OS X

No..this is Nagel's "non-apparent" innovation vs. "apparent" innovation. He wants you to be happy and excited about all of this "non-apparent" innovation in OS5 despite that fact that the average user won't see any difference vs. OS4. It's this kind of "intellectual" thinking that gets companies in trouble. (See: Reality Distortion Field).

Hey nice to talk about your wish list for OS5 but what about Palm DESKTOP 5.0??? One thing it REALLY, REALLY, REALLY needs is a search/sort function that allows you to COPY all of the sorted/searched records and paste it any where you want (without having to Categorize them every time) on the DESKTOP. For instance, let's say I want to give a friend of mine all "Restaurants" listed in the "123456" Zip code. I want to be able to do a search for "Restaurants" (assuming I have them listed as XYZ Restaurant in Company Name) AND "123456" simultaneously and have a window pop up on my desktop with all of those results. Then I want to be able to COPY those results and PASTE it in say an email. So I guess I want two things in Palm Desktop: 1. An "AND" search function. 2. Ability to COPY Search Results - ON THE DESKTOP.

Anybody agree? Anybody have any other suggestions for Desktop 5?

You are way too hung up on what the Launcher will do. There will be great multimedia programs available for OS 5. Awesome games, too. PalmSource may have decided to pass on the making use of the extra power, but Astraware, Red Mercury, and the others sure won't.

With the only difference between the Palm OS and PPC being the GUI, PPC is doomed. Thier GUI stinks.

Looks like someone leaked Syncup information.. :(

One last thing I forgot to mention for Desktop 5.0 is a "SEND TO MAILING LABEL" option on the contact. This would be similiar to the current "Email" option when you right click on a contact in Desktop. With the mailing label option, it would automatically copy/format the contact's mailing info into the buffer. And when you hit paste, the contact's info would read:

JOHN DOE
123 MAIN STREET
CITY, STATE, ZIP

You could then use label and print or just cut out from paper and tape on your package. Sure beats re-formatting.

"You are way too hung up on what the Launcher will do. There will be great multimedia programs available for OS 5. Awesome games, too. PalmSource may have decided to pass on the making use of the extra power, but Astraware, Red Mercury, and the others sure won't."

The purpose of the palm is not a gaming platform. It is a "Digital DayTimer". Most PDA users dont even bother to download games to their devices. PIM updates are a MUST since it hasnt truly been updated since '96

You hit the nail on the head. While this ARM power is nice for better looking games, video, and sound if I wanted that as key to my PDA I would buy a PocketPC. Instead I was hoping Palm would use that new found power to improve the GUI and the native PIM apps... but alas it is not to be.

ooo I want major Be-ness. But OS5 will do for now. it will have the speed. And most important for me (that very few here have mentioned)-it will have good security. I want to store important info on a wireless Palm and not have to worry about it. There's no way I can ever trust Microsoft with security so for me it's just a toy

Hello kettle, this is the pot, are you black?
Just as most people only use the PIM functions, those same people are perfectly satisfied with how those functions work. If you want to rip on those with above-average needs for multi-media who are excited about OS 5, you should really consider yourselves in the same category--users who have specialized wants and needs.
Can't we all just get along?

Everyone wants games for their Palm!!!!!!

Your right I don't think there is a PDA user alive who doesn't download games to their PDA. Be serious, everyone loves games for the Palm.

I don't-

Trust me: the software API is pretty much the same. The PIM apps are the same. You aren't missing much. Until Palm opens up the API we developers can't fully support OS 5. This is a fiasco in the making. Nagle is the same genius who royally screwed up Copland at Apple. I don't have any confidence in that man and he looks like he's repeating the same mistakes. Perhaps, Palm needs to hire Avi Tevian who corrected Nagle'gsrstake and was the brains behind MacOS X.

Considering OS 4.1 runs very well on a 33 mhz Dragonball isn't it safe to say we deserve a reason for the migration to ARM? The reason evidently is video and audio, good reasons I admit but what a shame that the OS itself doesn't take advantage of the power? I mean come on with a 200 mHz ARM chip why just add smooth 30 second clips of videos? Why not add graphical touches to GUI featuring smart use of color and boost up the core PIM functions while retaining speed? As it stands I suspect most who upgrade to ARM OS 5 Palms in the future will do it for the 1. Higher Res color screens, 2. To have the latest and greatest, 3. to maybe use some audio/video apps, 4. in the hope it will be flash upgradable to OS 6.

> Trust me: the software API is pretty much the same.

Why should anyone trust you? You post anonymously and you sound like a troll. I don't trust anything you say.
______
Larry the Tomato

"Perhaps, Palm needs to hire Avi Tevian who corrected Nagle'gsrstake and was the brains behind MacOS X."

Oh no. So, that's the same "brain" that through out everything that Apple knew about usability and replaced it with eye-candy? Which one of those three identical circular buttons minimizes the window?

Scott

I see no problem with the traffic light like title buttons. Anyways there's some $ucker in M$ copying that in XP already ..

That guy wasn't a troll... look at the info coming from Palmsource yourself, look at the slide show photos on several websites... Palmsource, Inc. themselves clearly show that APIs are changing, OS 5 applications aren't native to ARM, memory protection, multi-threading etc. won't be implemented, the GUI isn't changing at all, and the basic PIM functions won't be updated until the "next OS revision" which apparently is the update so many of us really wanted in OS 5. While we can fool ourselves into think OS 5 would finally be the major OS changed we were all waiting for the reality is only major change the end user might notice is that I bet most all of the companies with ARM OS 5 handhelds will have 320x320 screens... but then again Sony Clie users have that now. Everything else remains the same.

obviously I meant "APIs are NOT changing"

What have they been doing for the last few years... try to compile OS 4.1 on ARM ? Not even one new exciting API. good god.

I think I'll see what Sybian has to offer.

There are a couple of new APIs in OS5, although that's not the main point of it.

There's the new Sound Manager that will support 16 channel sound.

There's the high density screen manager to provide a common API for differing screen resolutions (more info on that should follow at about 5pm PST when we've seen some of the APIs - specifically whether there will be support for other screen ratios and virtual grafitti areas.

There's the new security library, providing enterprise level security for Palm devices - something that really is needed.

Cheers
Russell

---
russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

Thanks Russell! Do post more info on the APIs when that info comes out.

IMHO = In My Heated Opinion?

I'm sure Ed'llcover this in a full article soon, but here's a quick overview of the new APIs.

Sound - 16 channel stereo sound API with sync / async / streaming support. Native WAV file support.

GFX - New High Density / non square screen support. Auto blitting between screen densities.

802.11b - Native support for 802.11b - to allow 3rd party apps to manage and interograte any 802.11b add-on in the device.

New notifications - as 68K hacks will no longer work on OS5, many many new notifications have been added. Thus any app can be informed when the user taps or strokes the silkscreen area. Or be told when the device goes idle, or when virtual chars happen. And even be notified whenever an event is dequeued. Basically that covers many of the most popular hacks - like PopupCalculator, any quick-launcher, background processing and so on.

And then there's a new security library - full crypto support for Enterprise apps.

And... erm.. well that's pretty much it it seems.

Cheers
Russell

---
russ@russb.fsnet.co.uk

The simulator is already available. Developers are playing with it in the PalmSource laps and going through the code with Palm engineers. They're also running their apps on several dev devices running ARM. As for the API's they're all being described by name in the sessions (well the ones that are more finalized), with specific arguments, and source code examples.

Win (NT) 3.5 had exactly the same look as Win3.1.
Win 4.0 was updated to look like Win95 (NT 3.52 also had new look released after 4.0), XP is NT 5.1(5)

yes but WinXP don't look like Win95 and Win95 didn't look like Win3.1. Please don't compare Windows GUI innovations vs. Palm OS1 vs. OS5. If Palm was any slower on the GUI improvements, we'd be using a stone tablet and chalk for a PDA/Stylus. Palm should learn from Newton or Silverscreen and copy the best pieces. for all of you crying "just use Silvercreen" - I like the native speed. This overlay crap slows everything down. Palm should clean up the NATIVE GUI. Thats not too much to ask for.

at least add support for 16 shades of grey on the non-color models.

>>Win (NT) 3.5 had exactly the same look as Win3.1.
Win 4.0 was updated to look like Win95 (NT 3.52 also had new look released after 4.0), XP is NT 5.1(5)<<

XP is technically NT6 (windows 2000 is NT5).

> at least add support for 16 shades of grey on the
> non-color models.

That support has been in the OS for some time now.

No, Windows XP is Windows 2000 update (aka