Comments on: Additional Hints at Upcoming Devices from Palm

Seems Palm has now left the PDA market. Should I buy a new TX as replacemente for my old TX?

However, I'm going to sit tight for another month or two - and check out the first fruits of the iPhone / iPod Touch SDK programme... and how the 3G iPhone goes down when it's launched in June (or soon after).

Seems to me that Palm is a long way from where I want to go - and although Apple aren't quite there either, at least they are pushing in the right direction & have ambition, innovtion and momentum on their side. (Perhaps these attributes will help me get past the lack of a memory card slot!)

The future is interesting - as long as your not looking in Palm's direction!

1. Buy a TX (if you don't have one already). if you do have a TX, buy a spare unit (funds permitting) or at least an extra replacement battery/digitizer. Also grab a few spare styli and screen protectors while you're at it.

2. Get a 4GB SD 1.1 card (NOT SDHC) in case Dmitry Grinberg never finishes his SDHC driver for the TX. Barring that, get a few decent 2GB cards.

3. Download the latest versions of all of your registered apps and burn them onto CD/DVD or store them on a backup drive somewhere. Also note your reg codes (I do this once a year anyway).

Palm has not yet officially EOL'd any TX or E2 peripherals. And the Z22 has just had its travel charger and a few cases EOL'd. I think they'll stick around through at least the end of the summer. Palm will probably blow out the remaining stocks in some big back-to-school sales in Aug/Sept.

For what it's worth, Franklin Covey, Staples and Best Buy are still selling Palm PDAs and peripherals at retail here in the USA. I'm not sure about Office Max (haven't been in one in some time) or the few CompUSA stores still open under TigerDirect ownership or Fry's (don't have one near me). I know Circuit City and Office Depot dumped all of their Palm inventory a long time ago.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

why in the world would you go out and buy a palm pda now? that's the silliest thing i've ever heard. did you go out and buy a VHS VCR or a CRT TV too? how about a rotary phone or a buggy whip? 8 track cassette? the world has moved on and so should you. technology marches on. stop living in the past! THE FUTURE IS NOW!

There's no reason to buy/manage/charge/carry/sync/fight/fumble with 2+ devices when ONE Smartphone can do it all.

So....anyone wanna go out on a limb and bet that these are two/three Q3 '08 WM models are the FINAL devices from Palm Inc. that will be ever be released?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

OS? Nova, of course! The hackers over at Palm have all been working overtime to secretly deliver the next gen OS long before anyone expected them to.

You might have thought the Palm was done with PDA's, but they were just waiting until the rest of the technology caught up with their road map before finally releasing it.

So there you have it. And you know I wouldn't make this stuff up.


"twrock is infamous around these parts" (from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)

And you know I wouldn't make this stuff up

HAHAHAHAHA! Very funny. I had a good laugh. Okay I don't really know you well enough since I'm fairly new to this board. Forgive me if I don't believe you, but it just sounds like you listed 70% of the laundry list of features that we've been asking for for years. And I have as much faith in Palm under Colligan as I do in Santa Claus.

And I have as much faith in Palm under Colligan as I do in Santa Claus.

You should probably have more faith in Santa Claus. Unlike Palm, at least Santa Claus causes some excitement every year! ;)

Thus Palm can EASILY say "User interface!? We never said that was coming by year end!".

That's still not good enough. I want fullsize SDHC AND onscreen Graffiti 1 :-)

I assume the mantle of "Hypothetical Palm Device Wet Dream Creator" has been passed down to you from the good Reverend Horne?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

BTW - the CFO today said (repeated?) the "core OS" is what is promised to be delivered by year end.

Thus Palm can EASILY say "User interface!? We never said that was coming by year end!".

Since when does an OS not include a user interface? They might be able to get by by withholding a graphic user interface, but that's even a stretch. Not even Microsoft would consider that a core OS release.

We need Cervesas to come back and lecture you about kernels....

We need Cervesas to come back and lecture you about kernels....

I'm more than willing to be educated, if need be, but I'm pretty sure an OS contains a lot more than just the kernel. Simply having the Linux kernel (to take one example) on your system doesn't give you the ability to do anything with it, if you don't have programs that can take input and give output.

I could see "core OS" meaning the kernel and some very basic apps (maybe the standard PIM apps and a simple touchscreen interface), but that's about as "core" as Palm could go. Simply releasing code that boots up on a Palm and sits at a command line, impervious to the outside world, isn't going to cut it.

But of course, we're all speculating. Count me as a pessimist, though.

~k

And some of the old-timers here will remember the loooong wait for the m500 line when in actuality all we were waiting for was for Palm to unload warehouses full of unsold Palm Vx's and IIIxe's. So Palm has been known to make an anticipated "something" sound like it's just right around the corner but, more often than not, that "something" is still quite far from being reality.

So, yeah, I am basically in agreement with SV & Ktran. Heck, I still harbor a number of doubts that Palm will ever ship a device running Nova...

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

I sincerely believe the Nova "release" this year, if it even happens, will be WAY far from a usable version. This belief is because of those "core" words as well as the huge number of job openings at Palm (*) AND because of the words of the CFO today about all senior management people in the product development organization being totally different from a year ago.

The CFO's words that changed (at least our perception of timeframe of) the timing of new devices with Nova from "early 2009" to "1st half 2009" reinforce my belief that it's a long way to a finished device and maybe a REALLY long way to a finished SET of devices that mutually communicate, if that particular wish-to-see of mine was ever in the stars anyway.

=========

(*) I've commented before, maybe not here though, about the alrge number of (especially) user interface designers/developer job openings at Palm that, if STILL being filled as I type THIS, have NO WAY to design and develop "breakthrough UI" designs by end of this year...we won't discuss by "1st half 2009" yet...giggle.

Two.

No, not three.

Two.

Windows and Nova.

So any PalmOS that's gonna come out is gonna have to be third-party.

Palm OS 5.0 appeared on the T|T and was still (ahem) a bit rough around the edges. It was refined considerably in the OS 5.2.x products (T|C, Zire 71, T|T2, T|T3, Zire 72) thatappeared over the next 18 months before reaching its "finished" state with 5.4.x (Treo 650-755p, TX, Z22, T|T5, Centro etc). I am, of course, leaving aside the numerous NVFS woes etc. for the purposes of this argument.

I speculated once before that Palm may take the path of less resistance and launch Nova on LOW-END HARDWARE FIRST. If Nova ever sees the light of day, I feel this really might end up being a plausiable scenario. The advantages of this strategy are several--minimal expectations from users/carriers, less challenging driver writing, and the lower resolution + cost screen/memory/hardware means much of the "core" Nova UI can be reused from Garnet.

What if Palm were to ship, say, one or two low-end smartphones (Centro 2, anyone?) sometime in Q2 '09 that basically mimics the Garnet UI and have a bare minimum hardware featureset (ie no wi-fi, no GPS, still 320x320 LCD etc)? Then they'd follow, say, 6-12 months after this with the first high-end Nova devices with the large screens, dual cameras, GPS, wi-fi, WiMax we're all clamoring for.

Basically, Nova 1.2 for Palm's iPhone-esque deices, Nova 1.0 for their Centro replacements.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

????????????????

You mean......some other hardware firm licensing Garnet from Access?

I am taking this to essentially mean "Palm Inc. supports TWO OSes (WM & Garnet) now (2008). Next year (2009) we will support TWO OSes (WM & Nova).

-Did Andy Brown mention anything about Garnet EOL and/or future Garnet-based devices?

-How about Garnet compatibility/an emulation layer in Nova?

-Did he discuss Centro (diminished margins, high sell-through volume etc) at all?

-What about more "me too" WinMob devices? Did he distinguish between Palm's devices designed in-house vs. outsourced/rebranded designs?

-Is there a transcript (audio or written) available of the presentation available anywhere yet?

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

- http://www.veracast.com/webcasts/ml/tech08/33307191.cfm

The final PALM Device has been released, look at what you got, that's it. Some of the best PALM OS developers have announced their work on application for the iPhone SDK.

http://www.iampowered.com/archives/2008/03/11/iambic_titles_and_the_iphone_a.php

I currently am sticking w/PALM because of the software, less so of the hardware. With the SDK out for the JESUS Phone, the PALM developer community is leaving out of boredom and a shrinking market for more fertile grounds.

RIP Palm - too bad you had to drag Bono along

BTW, if you are looking for a new Palm PDA, I'd move sooner rather than later. When I was shopping in Best Buy the other day, all the Northern Virginia stores were out of stock on the TX and the store I was in showed none on order and had a DNI (do not inventory) sticker on the shelf tag. Staples' website says they no longer stock them in their stores. Franklin Covey's website shows them as out of stock.

It's too bad. If the TX had just been released with a phone instead of a wifi connection, Palm could have stayed on the leading edge. Instead they played it safe (and clunky) with the Treo design.

I assume the mantle of "Hypothetical Palm Device Wet Dream Creator" has been passed down to you from the good Reverend Horne?

http://www.iampowered.com/archives/2008/03/11/iambic_titles_and_the_iphone_a.php

Interesting stuff...except for two things:

1) It's vaporware to an even greater degree than Nova, at this point.

2) The iPhone SDK doesn't allow developers to run software in the background. Pray tell, how are things like alarms, etc., supposed to work, if you can't run anything in the background? As things stand now, Agendus isn't even very convincing vaporware.