Comments on: Palm OS Cobalt Phone Shown at DevCon

Where are the honest three-year-olds when you need them?

Copland was a "real tangible product" too...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland

http://www.businessweek.com/1995/51/b345595.htm

In reality, until a company goes under or a product is clearly no longer in development, accusations of vaporware are supposition.

But that doesn't mean that they're wrong, either.

--
PalmPilot Pro (1997) -> III (1998) -> Vx (1999) -> m500 (2001) -> m515 (2002) -> ???

More like this:

Your baby's hungry and needs to be fed. The cupboards are bare and you're almost broke. You go to the store. On the shelf are a few remaining cans of the good ole formula you know she loves. Sitting beside them are on the shelf are hundreds of black cans with the "poison" label on them, no writing and a price tag double what the regular formula sells for. Which do you buy? Probably the same one that all of PalmSource's licensees are buying. At least that way you might be able to keep baby alive until she's old enough to eat other foOdS.

"PalmOS 5: Milk it, Baby!"

TVoR

Sorry, that should read "could be vaporware because...."

--
PalmPilot Pro (1997) -> III (1998) -> Vx (1999) -> m500 (2001) -> m515 (2002) -> ???

There are two definitions of vaporware in play here. You're using the "promised but never developed" definition. I'm using the "promised, developed, but never got it to the consumer" definition.

And the OS isn't developed for the hardware companies. They're the middlemen using it to sell their hardware - just like Power Computing did with the MacOS in the 1990s. The ultimate consumer of the OS is the user.

By your argument the Concorde plane never existed because none of the airlines wished to buy it....

Not really. Companies didn't want to buy the finished product because they didn't think they could run their business with it.

The equivalent OS example would be Windows XP, where companies are still choosing not to upgrade because it would cost them too much.

It's not as if Cobalt is available as an upgrade an no one is willing to buy it.

By the same token Cobalt is a finished product looking for a company to use it.

That depends on your point of view. Not only is Cobalt a finshed product, but it is, more importantly, a component of a PDA. Without the rest of the PDA, the OS is worthless.

No doubt judging by all the interest shown here Cobalt will be very popular once a manufacturer commits to it. The real mystery with Cobalt is why these companies seem so reluctant to commit.

On those two comments, we very much agree.

Look, my point isn't to slam Cobalt or to say that it's not a functional OS. My point is that unless it gets to the market so that you and I can buy it, it's the same result as if it was never fully developed. Vaporware.

And, for the record, I do hope that Palmsource dispells my fears.

--
PalmPilot Pro (1997) -> III (1998) -> Vx (1999) -> m500 (2001) -> m515 (2002) -> ???

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

While a phone like this would not be a revolutionary device, it'd quell much of the "Cobalt is vaporware" talk AND probably serve as a swift kick to the arse of P1 to put FrankenGarnet out to pasture and get _something_ running Cobalt out!

Also, I like the stylus in the pic next to the Sammy i500!

I brought one of these gems with me back from MSDC and I must say that it is a very nice device!

The screen resolution is 240x320, same resolution as the Qool QDA-700 smartphone running Garnet.

One other thing, when this phone goes into production the camera will be at 2 Megapixels, currently at 1.3.

I will try to get some comparison photos online with the other Palm OS smartphones soon.

--
Jonatan Fernstad
Palm OS Certified Developer
www.clievideo.com

Take a look at the Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard:

http://thinkoutside.com/stowawaybt_product.html

----------
"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog"
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

Not that someone can't be critical about certain decisions or disappointed by developments, but really, is there a point to reflexively vomiting up vitriol at every possible point here? If it's that you're hoping to effect some kind of change, then you need to realize that this kind of talk completely discredits you in the eyes of those who develop for the platform or work for PalmSource or its licensees. Their customers are mainly adults.

So why are you here?

Mind if I ask, Gekko: why are you still hanging around in PIC? It's not like you are an enthusiast or that you have anything insightful, thoughtful, or newsworthy to contribute. I've never got the feeling that you particularly care about Palm OS--am I wrong?

Not that someone can't be critical about certain decisions or disappointed by developments, but really, is there a point to reflexively vomiting up vitriol at every possible point here? If it's that you're hoping to effect some kind of change, then you need to realize that this kind of talk completely discredits you in the eyes of those who develop for the platform or work for PalmSource or its licensees. Their customers are mainly adults.

So why are you here?

This gentleman, is the true "Voice of Reason". Follow his post. He makes sense. Plain, simple sense. Keep up the good work. Maybe I will continue to follow this board. We need more with thoughtful commentary and an opinion worth consideration.

Not to change the subject, but what do you see as some of the advantages and dis-advantages to the Lineux platform as applied to Palm. Also, same question, as applied to the smart phone platform?

Sounds like SOMEBODY was taking notes during Palm's presentation at DevCon...

;-O

------------------------
Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

It's true that Cobalt is a better OS overall in certain respects and would be very nice on some devices that aren't smart phones, but most of the new features (including multi-threaded applications) were added with smart phones in mind: they needed a platform that was built around the concept of interruptibility, and that coped with the challenges of this in a secure, stable way. They needed to accommodate the desires of wireless operators for customizing the platform without fragmenting the API the way Symbian and Nokia did to their developer community. And they needed to bake in stuff to make streaming multimedia and games easier because wireless data is what would make the mobile operators money and encourage them to sell (and subsidize) Palm OS devices.

I'm not saying that there won't be Cobalt PDAs or that Garnet is going to be around as long as there are Palm OS PDAs, but PalmSource is going after a market that's at least an order of magnitude bigger than it was in the heyday of PDAs and the focus since Cobalt was announced has been on phones. If they help sell some more PDAs with Cobalt or with Linux (and I think they will eventually) that's gravy for them, not the meat and potatoes.

So, while I think it would be nice to see Cobalt on something other than phones and there could be some advantages, I don't think getting Cobalt on PDAs is nearly as critical as fighting the phone battle well.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

I'm not a Symbian developer, but what I see when I look at developing for Symbian devices is Series 90, Series 80, Series 60, Series 40, none of which can run the same apps. You've got all these different UI layers on top of the base OS and from what I understand the operators frequently make customizations that break apps that otherwise should work. The reason you don't see developers on Symbian is because it's hell developing for Symbian. And the reason you don't see demand for Symbian apps is because there has never been enough stuff available that people thought of their Symbian phones as something they *could* install 3rd party apps on. There's no awareness.

As for comparison with an iPAQ, have you actually tried using a Windows PDA to keep important information? Most people I know (myself included) routinely lose data. You just pick it up and its dead or it just crashes while you're doing something important. Multiple times a week. Palm OS has its problems and they need to be addressed, but they're nothing as serious as the crap you have to deal with in Windows Mobile.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

You either got a lemon, or you're doing something to kill it. I use PPCs all the time, and I have yet to see a spontaneous hard-reset due to the device just being dead. System crashes are also pretty rare--I'd be surprised to see one once a month, let alone more than once a week. Were you testing beta software on it? What model of iPaq is this? And what were these other people doing to their machines? Mistreat any device, of any make or model, and you can screw it up.

Ah yes, the old slight of hand, bait and switch strategy. After a long winding road of promises and broken promises, this story reminds me of a bit of bathroom humor I picked up way back when I was in college about a brothel named "Grandma's Cathouse".

A man goes into this brothel looking for some evening "entertainment". The manager of the establishment recommends the gentlemen try the "Golden Shower" treatment, a customer favorite. The gentleman eagerly agrees and hands the manager $100 for the service. He then enters a room where a large women slams him onto the floor and proceeds to urinate all over his face. Horrified, he runs out of the room and angrily approaches the manager, demanding a refund. Rather than give the man his money back, the manager then recommends a different service..."The Hershey Highway". Reluctantly the man hands over another $200 for this service and proceeds to enter yet another room. Suddenly another large women appears out of nowhere, slamming him onto a bed, where she proceeds to sh!t in his face.

Disgusted and furious, he exits the room, approaching the manager once again demanding a full refund. As before, the manager refuses, but instead recommends...for the ultimate pleasure experience he should try the old gal herself..Grandma. The gentleman is highly skeptical, but the manager insists it is the best $500 he'll ever spend. Taking the man's money, he instructs him to walk down to the end of a long hallway and go through the very last door. Following his instructions, the gentleman walks down the long corridor, eagerly opens the last door and goes prancing through...only to find himself not in a bedroom, but in a parking lot. As the door slams shut behind him, he notices it has no handle, preventing him from entering the building. At this point he notices a large sign on the door that reads...."You have just been screwed by Grandma. Have a nice day"

I'm sure many developers feel they too have been led down a long winding corridor to a one-way door with the words "You have just been screwed by PalmSource" scrawled on back. Heck, I still have the sh!t on my face from Nagel's Hershey treatment.

-------------------------------
Editor, http://Pocketfactory.com
Contributing Editor, http://digitalmediathoughts.com

Smart consumers would go back in the front door, biotch slap the manager until he refunds their money, walk out with Grandma's 18 year old triplet nyphomaniac sizzling granddaughters, drive over to Grandma's house (picking up BubbaSteve's wife on the way), go into Grandma's room with the four girls and make a video.

------------------------
Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

You dont know very much about Cobalt then. It was pretty much built for phones. There is nothing else out there with the security features cobalt has. If they would stop sucking at palmOne's teet and drop their draconian licensing, they have a winner here. m$ is making all of the same mistakes with pocketpc that they did on the desktop. Security was a second thought and as people begin to use phones more and more this will become more apparent.

I do wish they had gone the linux kernel route sooner but it's not too late if they can get some phones out in the next year or so.

So what's going on here is that PalmSource changed course (as with so many other things) and seems to be treating Cobalt as the smartphone-focused platform?

And as for the marketing-speak that David quoted, here's my interpretation and prediction: Cobalt will allow carriers to more easily lock down the platform and prevent users from loading Palm OS apps of their own. You'll have to buy apps through them that have been signed.

As for Symbian and Series 60...as ocspub stated, the platform is not nearly as divided as has been indicated. Series 60 is a Nokia-GUI on top of the Symbian OS and is available on a *huge* number of smartphones. And, yes, there is a readily available SDK and a very large and growing library of applications. That platform was designed from the ground up for smartphones so it has a leg up on the Palm OS there (so many of the apps I run on my Treo still look like they would be best used on a stylus-centric tablet-style PDA). It's certainly not perfect (which is why I don't own one), but it *ahem* does support multitasking and has been doing that for a few years now.

http://Tapland.com
- Tapwave Zodiac News, Reviews, & Discussion -

(PS - when will PIC add the ability to edit comments?)

I don't think they are the ones making the pricing decision about the Cobalt version. Notice that the WinCE version doesn't have their name on it. The Cobalt one may not either. All I can say is that the few "samples" that they sold at PalmSource were going for much, much less than $900.

Question: You say that this has a 320 x 480 screen...

Yeah, sorry... conflicting info. QVGA (240x320) is the actual resolution. My bad. And come to think of it, the reasons why I thought it was unlikely to be QVGA don't hold for Cobalt anyway. I was just half-dead from exhaustion by that point in the conference and wasn't thinking clearly!

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

900 SGD = 540 USD

The screen size was a concern of mine, too. The fonts are too tiny for a lot of people and, yes, the Graffiti area is small. Of course a lot of people use the whole screen for Graffiti now. And someone who buys a device like this (small size, no keyboard) probably has phone features and style as their #1 priority anyway. As for scaling of 160x160 apps, it presumably works the same as it has with devices like the T3: there's a dynamic input area that fills up the bottom 80 pixels of the screen to keep the aspect ratio square. Fonts scale beautifully in Cobalt because they are TrueType. I haven't looked into it, but I suspect that Cobalt uses its vector graphics capability to render things like icons, too, so those would scale to 1.5 very nicely even if the developer hasn't done anything special to support this. The apps I looked at looked great on the Oswin.

Series 60, OTOH, was designed from the ground up to be a very good smartphone platform. This still looks too much like Palm OS 1.0 to me. That was great for a stylus-centric tablet PDA, but it ain't so great for a smartphone.

I've been using a Nokia 6620 (Series 60) for a few months now just to educate myself. It's quite stable and the features are there once you learn to find them, but any time I want to input anything more than a menu selection I feel like throwing it against a wall. I'm starting to get pretty fast at typing with predictive text, but it takes a lot of concentration and still is much slower than using Graffiti or a thumb keyboard. Editing anything you have written is particularly hard. A phone like the Oswin works fine for one-handed navigation and you can use predictive text and the 12-button keyboard if you want to work with it the way you would with a Series 60. But then you have the option of pen input for when you actually want to write an email or edit a document.

Or here's the other thing: you can reliably sync data from your PC with Palm OS. I haven't found the SyncML client on my Series 60 phone to sync reliably at all. Not even just PIM data. I don't know if that's a standard problem or just my 6620, but it's frustrating.

From the little I was able to test, the Oswin seems at least 50% more usable than my Nokia 6620 and is more attractive as well.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

Look at a HandEra 330 and see for yourself. It's pretty much a non-issue. The OS handles the scaling of form objects. They look the same.

160x160 apps are 1.5x scaled to a 240x240 screen. The app can also write to the full 240x320 display with the virtual graffiti area shrunk.

When an app has bitmaps included for the 240x320 display, as they are with apps written for both 160x160 and 320x320 apps (where the OS selects the bitmaps as appropriate), again the app will look no different on a QVGA screen then it would on an HVGA screen.

Where there is a slight difference is where QVGA bitmaps are not included in the app. Then the OS scales the bitmap 1.5x. This can't be done as seamlessly as pixel doubling. Sometimes the result is fine, sometimes it's less than optimal. Depends on the nature of the bitmap.

The solution, as always, is for developers to include bitmaps for the device screen resolutions popular with the user base.

For a small licensee, HandEra had tremendous success with this. Back when the 330 was my primary PDA, nearly all of my primary apps had specific HandEra support. Nearly all of the rest ran the same without specific support. About 1% required running in a compatibility mode (writing to a 1:1 160x160 palette on a reduced size area of the display), and another 1% wouldn't run at all. But then PalmOne is somewhat familiar with compatibility losses such as those on a new generation device.

It's not like the Oswin guys weren't letting people touch it. It was just lying out on a table and people were passing it around. They brought a few to sell to conference participants so I imagine you may hear more about this after folks have had a chance to use it for a while. Jonathan Fernstad got one and mentioned he'd post some information about his experiences with it.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com

It *sounds* good, but I've been told that the font handling is not general nor systemwide and is, in fact, much of a disappointment from what I had expected it to be. Still: I want.

------------------------
Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

No one said Cobalt doesn't exist. It doesn't exist on a REAL, SHIPPING PDA/smartphone. You can't buy it. It's still vaporware. Sorry, Bubba. Don't cry.


------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

I would have bought one mainly because it's a curiosity - besides beta test sleds not much else is running Cobalt. Cobalt is of no use to me in its present form, especially since there are essentially no Cobalt-enhanced apps available.

The chicken + egg problem will make this phone a white elephant - even if it ever is released in quantities.


------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm Economy = Communism™
The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038