Comments on: Walled Garden vs Open Plain Strategies Debate

Assuming the virgin device CAN be programmed "correctly", and by all appearances the PALM virgin devices have on occasion been programed correctly (thus proving they can be), then tight control of the third-party "development" would have stopped the bad software right up front.

Giggle.


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/ or http://www.mepis.org/

I did!?

> ...my Ubuntu installation is the LEAST stable Linux I've installed...

to

> ...my Ubuntu installation is the LEAST stable OS I've installed (*)...

Yeah, it's still irrelevant, but at least it's now more correct.

Giggle.

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(*) When I was modifying "the lab's" UNIX back during grad school days (Version 7? - 1977-ish) running on a PDP11/45 there were times when it was less stable than the Ubuntu mentioned above (**) - but it wasn't meant to be a public distribution at that moment. It was, of course, an "open" system (one of the first?).

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(**) Writing a device driver for a trackball was my main lesson in creating an unstable system - VERY limited memory resources and a need to capture X/Y coordinates from a special device as they streamed (parallel, not serial) out of the device - I forget now but probably something like 12 bits (one 16bit word) for each coordinate axis. Spin the trackball quickly and the whole system came to a thudding halt. Used a fairly-large-for-the-time circular buffer to store the coordinates in an attempt to limit the memory footprint (when physical memory was something like 18-bit-addressable bytes long, max).

Since it's a retired system Vista, even if it COULD run on it, was not an option.

Search here for "Ubuntu virgin wireless".

Giggle.

I do think they dropped the ball leaving an email client out.

What you all seem to have missed is the point of the article. Palm was smart to open up to developers, whatever other problems they may have. And just because they're open, doesn't mean they couldn't build a stable OS (or product). The example they give is the Mac: it started out closed, but had to open up to developers (and embrace standards) to even survive. And, if the recent TV ads are credible, it's a very stable system. Palm could learn from that.The author also implies that the iPhone (and iPod) will eventually have to either open up to third-party developers or lose market share. If Palm can pull off an amazing new OS, it will push Apple to offer an SDK. So I hope it happens because everyone will benefit.

I hope you all enjoyed the article.

BTW, when I saw the iPod touch announcement I instantaneously thot about the dozens and dozens and dozens of posts on PIC for the past several years asking exactly for such a thing. It looks like Apple has played it smart and watched intently while Palm's atrocious management has fumbled the ball all over the field for 6-8 years. No, the touch is not yet as mature as the "open" Palm OS economy. But boy how it seems like they are actually listening, creating cutting edge devices, and laying a veeeery large foundation for the future mobile device market.

Meanwhile back at the home of the Palm Pilot revolution, we have just decided to indefinitely (eternally?!?) postpone the biggest Palm idea of all time and consolidate on only one Linux distro, coming in the indeterminite (eternal?!?) future. Wow, how encouraging.

Pat Horne

The iPhone is beautiful. The UI is stunning as is the physical hardware...and I have used several of them extensively...and I am sticking with my Treo for now because of the iPhone's limitations.

No, I'm not talking about lack of 3G, lack of a physical keyboard, or the closed software that requires developers to hack together solutions without an SDK and then host them in the world's most basic launcher. I am referring to major UI braincramps that make me wonder if Apple wastes all its UI brainpower on making things pretty instead of functional.

Examples:

Calendar - Try entering an appt. You just can't click on a time block and get to an edit screen for that time period. No, much like the other iPhone apps, you will be going through a range of dialogs before you are even close to setting up an appt.

Notepad - doesn't synch. I suppose Apple doesn't see the need to back those items up or allow you to access them from your desktop.

Cut and paste - doesn't exist. Fortunately, there are not a lot of applications available that would benefit.

Global find - not there...and it is (and always has) been an extremely useful function for me...especially since I have quite a few appts, contacts, and memos after using palm-based devices for nearly a decade.

Email - you can only delete one at a time. Anyone actually use email on a phone? I do...all the time...and I often "select all" and "delete" if I know that I have already read the items on a different client.

Contacts - can't just type and get to contacts that match your filter...you must scroll by name. I use this feature on my Treo all of the time...and I can find John Smith my Plumber by typing Joh or Smi or Plum...but not on the iPhone.

Todo/Task list - not there. It was one of the four hard buttons on the original Palm and is available on pretty much every single PDA out there...but not the iPhone

I could go on and on...about lack of video recording, 3G, user-replaceable battery, MMS, etc...or Palm's ease of installing new applications...and the thousands of available titles...including the dozen or so non-standard applications that I use on my Treo all of the time...but I won't. ;-)

Palm is not innovating...and they are being left in the dust. No argument...but IMHO, the iPhone is not Palm PDA killer...yet. The second it is, Palm is dead to me...but my Treo is sticking around until then.

-- http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/9501/#137349

Ryan, will you be able to get your hands on an iPod touch to do a review?

I would really like to see a review from a "Palm user" point of view.
* how well its PIM functions work
* is it possible to migrate my Palm data into the iTouch?
* is there any way to hack the Palm Desktop into working with the iTouch?
* does the iTunes desktop support PIM stuff?
* any way to view, edit, and create Word and Excel documents on the iTouch?
* How well does the email and web browsing apps work.
* Is there ANY way to get 3rd party apps on this thing?
* can talk (or bribe) Stuart Dewar into writing Datebk6 for the iTouch??
* how does the screen keyboard compare to grafitti for text entry? (could you see yourself being able to take notes with it in a meeting?)

Thanks!

I would really like to see a review from a "Palm user" point of view.
* how well its PIM functions work

Here's my try:

Let's break down the Apple Apps:

Calendar:
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The Apple Calendar app has three views: List, Day, and Month. There is no "today" view that summarizes PIM status. There is no week view. THere is no year view. There is no way to color code calendar entries like you can on the lifedrive. There is no way to limit the hours of the day that are shown in the calendar.

Creating a new event: You can't really select the time of day for an event to start before you create it. You can roll the calendar to about the time where you want to create an event and be "close" to the time you want. Then you need to tap the time/location field to enter a time and location. One thing I wish is that it was possible to enter a phone number in the location (i.e. a conference call number), and be able to just tap the reminder to dial that number.

Meeting times by default are one hour, and using a rolling wheel mechanism, you can change start or end date / hour / minute / am or pm. You can also set a meeting to be all day with a toggle switch

Repeat options for appointments: every day, every week, every two weeks, every month, every year. There is no every 1 day, end on date, but... an appointment end date doesn't need to be the same date. There is no ability to do "every 3 days", You can only do every N weeks (where N=1,2,4), There is no ability to do "every N months where N != 1, or the 3rd thursday of every month, or the 17th of every month. There is no ability to mark an entry as private.

Sometimes I do miss having a hard button mapped to the calendar. I have to hit the one button , then tap the calendar icon to bring up the calendar.

Contacts:
=========
You have to access contacts from the phone soft icon. Then, there are 5 choices: 4 are phone-related, one is the contacts.

You can use your finger to page through contacts, or if you run your finger along the right side, you can page through the alphabet letters. You can choose to sort your address book either by first name or by last name *ONLY*. As far a the available *fields* in the contacts app on Apple, I'm quite happy. You can add an arbitraty number of phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, urls, or an "add field" that provides the following "extra" fields: prefix, middle, suffix, nickname, job title, department, birthday, date, note.

Notes:
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This app looks like a yellow notepad with a font like "comic sans". Text entry is like standard iPhone apps, and notes can be scrolled up and down with finger.

* is it possible to migrate my Palm data into the iTouch?

If you can get your data from Palm Desktop into Outlook 2003 or 2007, then Yes. You may be able to uninstall palm desktop, reinstall and choose the outlook sync option, then sync your palm data to outlook. That will sync your calendar and contacts. You can then sync an iPhone with itunes.

Currently the iphone only has a "notes" apps. This is basically Palm "memos". There is no Tasks/todo app. There is no Notepad. I really miss Notepad. I used it for free-form note taking, drawing, etc. Notepad on Palm basically was my 'back of the cocktail napkin'. Noting on iPhone provides that ability.

There is no way on Windows to sync the iphone "notes" contents, but you can mail them to yourself or someone eles.

* is there any way to hack the Palm Desktop into working with the iTouch?

Not without any 3rd party software on Windows. Perhaps on OSX you could work something out. I personally think Apple's dependence on Outlook 2003 or 2007 on Windows for data sync is a serious weakness. I'd like to see them support sync to Sunbird and Google Calendar. I'd really like the ability to wirelessly sync with Yahoo calendar/contacts and/or Google calendar/contacts.

* does the iTunes desktop support PIM stuff?

iTunes is the interface where you can choose which supported PIM app to sync with, but it is not a PIM app.

* any way to view, edit, and create Word and Excel documents on the iTouch?

* How well does the email and web browsing apps work.

Web browser is *fantastic*. I've had some problems loading very complex and large web pages, but the experience is so much better than any browser on Palm, that I can't begin to explain how much more *useful* Safari on Apple is over Blazer on Palm. Flash is not currently supported in Safari. I don't believe Java is either. Honestly, the only thing I miss is being able to directly view flash videos from youtube or videosift.com. The youtube app provides *most* of the same video content as you can find on the real youtube webpage.

* Is there ANY way to get 3rd party apps on this thing?

Here is an "installer installer" that manages getting native iPhone apps onto a device: http://iphone.nullriver.com/beta/

The problem right now is that you need to do a "jailbreak" to your device in order to install or modify the filesystem and whenever Apple releases an update which comes to you via iTunes... if your device has been modified, itunes doesn't just update your files, it forces you to reinstall your entire device.

Also, I have to say that some pretty surprising apps have been released that are only using the web SDK. check out mockdock.com from inside of Safari for windows (which can emulate safari on iphone/itouch). Beejive mobile IM app is an excellent example of a web app that almost feels like

* can talk (or bribe) Stuart Dewar into writing Datebk6 for the iTouch??

* how does the screen keyboard compare to grafitti for text entry? (could you see yourself being able to take notes with it in a meeting?)