Comments on: Foleo Product Announcement Strategy Analysis

I have issues with what Palm has done over the past few years - but I could give a poop about what Colligan or anyone else does on their free time. It's about what they do when they're WORKING that's been the problem.

Ah - Mr. Lyons confirmed as the Obsessed Fan so obsessed he took on my Yahoo ID here.

But we knew that already.

Giggle.

but those evil white heterosexual men are all fair game.

you've got to love liberal hypocrisy and san francisco values!!!

My gosh Vampy. They are protected because of all the cutting edge products the have pushed out for the last 4 years. Gotta stick with the innovators baby!!! Woof-woof

Pat Horne

The nicer side is just giving them directions on how to go bankrupt, so what you have essentially said is, both your evil and good sides wants them to go under.

Get into 2005 already. If standalone PDAs had a market, Palm, HP, Casio or any number of other device makers from yesteryear would be doing it. There is no market. It is about the cell phone.

And actually we are talking about the same thing really, more or less. I am all in favor of cellular radios in pdas. My problem with the Treo is screen real-estate and dependence on carriers.

I think Palm is in for one helluva rough debacle once the iPhone is released. The iPhone merges the Treo and PDA worlds together intelligently. It is a powerful full screen multitasking mobile computing device which so happens to offer perfect telephony as well.

Remember the days when we were all screaming for a 320x480 PDA with a virtual graffiti area? Or the days when we wanted the T3 to become a solid 320x480 device? Well my quarrel with the Treo is the same. The Treo is a pda with cellular. Just not designed the way I like it.

The iPhone TV ads are extremely appealing to me. I like many millions of others I am sure are seriously considering the iPhone as the first serious mobile computing device with telephony.

Ok, whatever.

Your (original unedited) post clearly drifted into what appeared to be discussing the guy's sex life. Whether you believe you "didnt write anything offensive" is for you to decide, I don't really care. The fact you said you wanted to go back and edit it might give you a clue about your own feelings. Attempting to blame others for that desire is another clue.

Your ridiculous personal attack against *ME* (copied above) was unnecessary. If it scared you *that* much that I pointed out that your off-topic comments about his personal life don't seem to bolster your case against Palm, I'm deeply sorry.

A lot of your perspectives in this thread are very thought provoking, but I'm really not interested in reading your amateur psychological profiles of me or anyone else in these forums.

Sony went down that road when it designed its brilliant OLED-screened VZ90. With both CompactFlash and Memory Stick slots, it works well as a media player. Unfortunately, when the device came out (Japan-only) it was hideously expensive and Sony had already decided to pull out of the market. There could've been a great market for such a device, but with the demise of Tapwave and Sony, don't hold your breath.

If you're looking for a solid, inexpensive PalmOS media player, get a Tapwave Zodiac 2 (dual SD slots!) and an old copy of TCPMP (freeware media player). With its nice, big screen, its ATI video chip and 128 MD of RealRAM™, the Zodiac 2 is probably the best cheap media player you can get. Last year the company responsible for selling off Tapwave's inventory after the bankruptcy was selling new units for only $125. They started with several hundred units and the last time I checked, they still had a couple hundred left.

TVoR

The problem with Palm was that (around the time of the T|T to T|T3) they should have repositioned the entire PDA line as mp3-playin', video viewin' devices. But Palm bungled the audio output on the original T|Ts and Zire 71 and then crippled the T|C with a mono headphone jack. Then they got everything right on the T3 other than the slider and the battery life. Now you have tons of PMPs flooding the market that have (at best) an FM tuner and a calendar or phone book app in addition to their multimedia functions. Palm has been missing the boat for ~5 years now in regards to multimedia.

A Zodiac 2, nice as it is, is a tad bit, lacking internal wi-fi and has SD slots hobbled with a maximum capacity of 2gb each. A TX with a 4gb SD card is nearly as good as an mp3/video player while having superior pocketability and PIM functions.

Palm should have pushed the Zire 31 and HARD as an mp3 player that did "other stuff". The Z22 should have an SD slot & headphone jack. ALL Treos should have A2DP or at least a 3.5mm headphone jack. PalmDesktop should have been seriously overhauled 4 years ago with built-in media functionality and online integration.

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

let's not forget that a big reason for the ipod's success has been due to:

1. ipod's intuitive, best of breed GUI for media playing.
2. itunes and its revolutionizing of the distribution of music.
3. Apple's smart marketing.

the leadership at palm was not smart enough to create any of the above.

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/A_Plea_to_Developers__10_UIQ_3_Applications_Wishlist.php

#1 makes UIQ a no-go for me.

Palm Vx (a classic) -> Palm 505 (*yawn*) -> Dell Axim (slooow...) -> Palm TE (great) -> Qtek 9090 (great idea, lousy platform) -> Nokia 6630 (a toy) -> iMate SP3i (not bad) -> Nokia 9300 (can't sync notes!!) -> Treo 650 (awesome) -> hw6915 (almost perfect)

Hehe. Servers would probably be shut down in overload.

Pat Horne

To joad,
Don't go all mental on me. Take a deep breath before you go off on your pre-programmed rant. I didnt write anything offensive, and when I wrote "poodles with pink ribbons" I knew I had to type an explanation because people like you have a mental block then go ballistic like a pitbul. Which explains why people like Gekko are unfortunately furious at the "liberal left".
I actually appreciate Ryan editing my post because I had no way to remove it and I couldnt be bothered emailing him. Then again, now with my explanation gone and your post I now appear as being homophobic; WHICH I AM NOT!

I am not commenting on this issue anymore. I wanted to clarify for fear if being badly perceived.

Pat Horne

Pat, you proposed a model around THREE years ago (the Treo 800g) that would in essence have been Palm's version of the iPhone. Palm could easily have released such a model 2 1/2 years before the iPhone's expected released date. Had Palm released the Treo 800g, the company would still be the smartphone design leader today, rather than a rapidly-fading has-been.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/7073/#96697

Can you upload the Treo 800g photos again?

TVoR

iPhone spec says: "Input method Multi-touch"

What is multi-touch? Did that even exist 3 years ago? Perhaps Palm could not have done the iPhone 3 years ago.

* staring in quiet awe, in fear for Palm *

What is multi-touch? Did that even exist 3 years ago? Perhaps Palm could not have done the iPhone 3 years ago.

Multi-touch is nothing more than a gimmick. It's no big deal to simply tap an area of a screen once, but many iPhone users are quickly going to realize the folly of slip-sliding their greasy fingers all over their (initially)-pretty iPhone screens every time they want to do something. The Treo's D-pad is a much more intelligent design and a small D-pad could easily have been added to a 320 x 480 keyboardless Treo. Also, a full-screen Treo could easily have been shipped with a CLIE-style jog dial in order to facilitate faster navigation.

If you've ever used a laptop that has an IBM TrackPoint-like pointing stick and compared it to a typical laptop's touchpad, you'll understand why nudging physical buttons make more sense than moving your fingers around on a screen/pad. Palm's decision to include a pointing stick on the FOOLeo suggests that their designers are not quite completely brain-dead. Yet.

TVoR

http://www.apple.com/iphone/technology/sensors.html
Sensors =
a) IR proximity detector which shuts down the screen when its close to your ear.
b) Ambient light detector (adjusts screen auto)
b) accelerometer, auto landscape/portrait when rotating iphone.

wow

Is Palm now allowed to steal all those ideas? or are there patents?

Of course, for the people that the iPhone will appeal to, this isn't too much of a negative, since the device will be shipping with most of the applications that they would ever want. (Or at least most of the applications that His Steveness TELLS THEM that they would ever want...)

Maybe Apple wants 3rd party devs to program a PIM suite.

Only if that suite runs within the limitations of their Safari browser. But not to worry, Steve knows what you "really" want.

http://tinyurl.com/yuwwtm
http://www.pikesoft.com/blog/index.php?itemid=190


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/

Yep. His Steveness can denigrate the stylus all he likes, but there are plenty of times when I'd rather use that than push my grubby fingers all over the screen. On a hot day, my Treo's screen can gets very tacky very fast. iPhone is going to exacerbate this problem. And people better hope that screen is more scratch-resistant than the iPod...

Vamp:
a) IR proximity detector which shuts down the screen when its close to your ear.

Nothing more than a (admittedly cool) gimmick. The only reason you'd need it would be if you were a stupid enough software designer to put touchscreen buttons at the top of the screen where your ear will mash them. Waste of power to have an IR sensor running all the time. (some will argue that it saves power by shutting the screen down, but since nearly every other phone on the planet already does that automatically after about 30 seconds or so, I'm not really seeing the savings.)

b) Ambient light detector (adjusts screen auto)

Again it's cool, but doesn't really add much - unless your device has such a small, puny battery that you need to save every spare erg of power...

b) accelerometer, auto landscape/portrait when rotating iphone.

Now that is useful. And cool.

The coolest things about the iPhone are its excellent-looking browser, the landscape screen and the wi-fi. All easily matched by competitors. The rest is just hype. Don't be fooled! It's not the Holy Grail of Phones. Not by a long shot.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

Now that is useful. And cool.

It's also in my (year old) Canon SD700 digital camera. And I ended up turning off the feature because it got annoying - sometimes I want to decide I'm going to view things. The auto switching became intrusive.

TVoR

Good analysis IMO. The cool factor is through the roof, but the reality is going to send a lot of Palm / HTC / SS / Sony / Moto switchers back home in a hurry. If all I want to do in the priority that I want to do it is hit squarely by this phone in OEM form, then it's outta this world. Otherwise, you had better stick to real (relatively mundane) Treo, HTC & Nokia etc smartfones.

List list of can't dos is very long on the iPhone. I hope that doesn't give Palm anymore bad ideas.

BTW, accelerometer was standard on my Kodak DC290 digicam in 1999. Loved that feature and it's nice to see Apple include it. Surely they'll allow turning it off tho. I lay in bed on my side often and read Scripture, web, docs, and or e-mail with my Treo in portrait. The iPhone would go L/S when I may not want it too.

Pat Horne

Treo 480v ...
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa125/livefaith/treo480v.jpg

Treo 800g ...
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa125/livefaith/treo800g.jpg

Ahhh, both forerunners of the iPhone. So close, yet so far away. :-

Pat Horne

Sounds about right. But this is an Apple product, and like all Apple products It Knows Better Than You Do™. So don't worry, iPhone's screen switcher will be perfect. Don't question it. Go with the flow, baby. ;)

LiveFaith:
BTW, accelerometer was standard on my Kodak DC290 digicam in 1999. Loved that feature and it's nice to see Apple include it. Surely they'll allow turning it off tho. I lay in bed on my side often and read Scripture, web, docs, and or e-mail with my Treo in portrait. The iPhone would go L/S when I may not want it too

An amusing thought struck me as I was reading this. I had visions of iPhone users accidentally covering the IR sensor with dirt, grime or their fingers, frantically tapping at the screen, wondering why it wouldn't respond, getting more and more frustrated until they start yelling. To quote Seldom: Giggle.

It's unlikely to be so poorly engineered, of course, but the old maxim always holds: the more you put in it, the more that can go wrong with it.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/8140/#113709

Palm's extracurricular Linux activities
cervezas @ 10/12/2005 11:47:34 AM #

Nothing definite, of course...

First, recall that we heard almost a year ago that Palm was working on Linux stuff from the same people who correctly stated they were working with Windows Mobile. This was even before PalmSource announced their Linux plans, in fact.

Fast forward to today: we've got a member of this community who appears to be within PSI talking about a Linux clamshell device they are aware of being developed within Palm. And we've got Palm showing up as a customer on Wind River's website (which doesn't mean they are customer for Wind River's consumer Linux platform, but it could). And we've got LinuxDevices.com saying they've been told that Palm is developing devices on a Wind River Linux OS... but seeming to get the "phone" part of that leak wrong, since it's in direct conflict with public statements by Palm executives.

Any one of these is easily discounted, but together they start to add up to a picture, especially in the current context of Palm's business.

Palm has finally made definite statements that they will replace Garnet with Palm OS for Linux once PalmSource has it ready. According to ITWeek, Ken Wirt said Palm is "waiting for PalmSource to port the Palm environment to Linux before moving away from Palm OS 5." But that doesn't mean that they couldn't have non-Palm Linux products along side their Garnet products for a period of time. And just because Colligan said there weren't any plans for (non-Palm) Linux or Symbian *Treos* doesn't mean they wouldn't consider a new Linux platform for a device that is not a phone.

Basically, I'm thinking that all this sounds like the first rumblings of devices from Hawkins' infamous "Third Business" coming on the wind. If it's as "disruptive" a device class as Hawkins claims, it wouldn't be surprising that Palm thought it would need a different kind of middleware than Palm OS will provide for Linux.

David Beers

I suppose to some extent that was part of the picture. But I do find that I'm truly tired of all of the bloat that comes from the "Wow! Look at this great new feature/program/function!" and "more is always better" mentality.

Why am I very happy choosing to run Linux on my dual-boot laptop instead of Windows? Because I find it to be more "lean", quicker to boot, quicker to shut down, and simpler to maintain (and more stable as well). In the form I choose to run it, it is simply "simpler". I don't think I'm being brainwashed into wanting something to be simpler. I'm choosing that with a very open mind.

(Of course you choosecan add as much bloat to Linux as you want to as well, so YMMV.)


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/

TVoR

If it's a shit product, marketing won't help.

That hasn't been the experience with Apple. Conversely, companies like HandEra have shown that superb products are often ignored if they aren't marketed properly.

In any event, I'm going to wait until the FOOLeo is actually released before condemning it to death and stoning Hawkins and his biotch, Colligan. Similarly, I would suggest consumers wait until the iPhone is actually released before declaring it the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Palm has had two or three years to develop the FOOLeo concept. They also reportedly diverted most of their more talented codemonkeys into the FOOLeo project (which would explain why the company had so many problems fixing all of the bugs that cropped up in PalmOS 5). Do you REALLY think that the piece of crap that Hawkins demonstrated is ALL the company has up its sleeve?

At the risk of sounding like a Beersy-style Palm Apologist, I'm going to stick my neck out and go on record predicting that Palm will soon be delivering the most significant innovation in mobile computing since Handspring released the brilliant Treo 600.

[Palm should be VERY worried that it's starting to look like TVoR - Palm's harshest critic over the years - seems to be the only one defending the FOOLeo. They really need to do some damage control ASAP by leaking some more information about the FOOLeo's capabilities. An "anonymous" YouTube video showing a FOOLeo loaded with PIM, spreadsheet, word processing, database, multimedia, etc. applications and syncing to corresponding online +/- handheld applications would go a LONG way towards quellng the impending revolt by the Palm Faithful.]

TVoR

Cobalt was in it's heyday, about 3-4 months before the much glamorized Jan 1 ship date to licensees? It was right about the time of the spinoff, Handspring absorption, and Sony was still in the game etc etc. Everybody pretty much expected greatness and debate raged about head to head with M$ etc. Nagel was talking about all the devices that Cobalt would turn to glory. He said in so many words that "Palm was shopping for a licensee to build a laptop around it." This was the first thing I thot of when I saw HNGT (Hawkins next great thang) leaked. I remember helping Palm with this concept device which they purchased, downgraded, and called it Foleo. :-D

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa125/livefaith/laptop.jpg

@ marketing ...
The week before the insane PSP retail rollout, I was in a EB Games store (Electronics Boutique) that was ready for the rush. As my kids were digging through the games, I struck conversation with the manager/owner, who handed me a PSP demo unit that I tinkered with a bit. I asked him what he thought about the Tapwave Zodiac (2 yr old BTW) and how it would compare to the PSP. He asked my what a Zodiac was. Nuff said about marketing I guess.

Pat Horne

So 2004-ish is probably most accurate for Fooleo-first-thoughts.

Hawkins' revisionist view on history aside ("We made a prototype outta foam board five years ago!), ....

Awesome! So you were there, seeing and hearing all of this. That's cool!

So what else did Hawkins do? What are the other design ideas that he's "not" been working on? Did you get to work with him often? How often did you get to meet with him and/or Colligan? Were they interested in any of your product ideas? What were those? Any other anecdotal stories you can share with us about your experiences? It's great to hear from an insider about all of this stuff.

It'd be really cool if you could write up some of your experiences for an article here on PIC.


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/

But by all means, show me that "recorded history" of which you speak. I'll be happy to have a look. I will be happy to read it, and I will readily admit it if I am wrong. Or is this just another example of how you want your "conclusions" to be "facts"? How about the links?


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=================

However, HERE:

-- http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=272891&postcount=3

is a contemporaneous comment made the day after the event where it was noted there were two camps at PalmOne. Note that the comment comments on Hawkins' and Wirt's words from the day before in November 2003, a mere =4= years ago.

As an apologist can-do-no-wrong fanboy you will say something like:

== "Linking to an unsupported opinion from yourself!!"

completely ignoring that the original not-that-controversial post told readers multiple times to go listen to the previous-day's event themselves.

Note carefully the word "overt" in the linked post - that means, due to the way I use the word "overt", that the parties in question actually outright stated whatever the "overt" was about (for ALL such uses of the word "overt" in ANY of my posts about anything), not that there was an indirect implication or something equally ambiguous.

And here, from 2004, is a comment, again contemporaneously from myself, where I note the change in the Colligan/Hawkins stance to that of Wirt:

-- http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=338530&postcount=9

BTW, I distinctly remember that these TreoCentral posts were mere summaries of much-more detailed SETS of posts I made on the Yahoo Financial message board. I don't remember WHAT I said there but I DO remember being surprised by the turnaround and posting - probably interacting with other posters - much more detailed about both incidents.

Unfortunately, one of my more Obsessed Fans complained a few months ago about a bunch of "Don't Forget Now!" joke posts of mine and got Yahoo to erase YEARS of my posts on the PALM/PLMO boards so I can't link to them! Here's an example of a thread where MY post has been deleted but others have not - May 2004:

-- http://tinyurl.com/yvmtvo

So - contemporaneous to Colligan's/Hawkins' stance on what a converged device is in 2003 comments were made in multiple places. Contemporaneous to Colligan's/Hawkins' CHANGED stance to be what Wirt had said all along were made in 2004 in multiple places.

And, of course, those were simply contemporaneous uncontroversial comments made on overt statements by those in question, not controversial-in-fanboy-heads present-day comments on how those in question are attempting to revise recorded history.

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/mb/PALM:

Poor bastard (3 Ratings) 13-Jun-07 11:23 pm For those of you who been around less than a year, a couple of facts you should know about hengeem.

1) When he first came on this board almost 5 years ago, he was exposed by one of his coworkers as the guy that got fired from Palm (at that time, Handspring) because he objected to the company's new direction in smartphones, and thought the company should stick with pda's. He kept telling everyone "Treo will not save us" and they "will never sell more than a 1000 of them" (later revised to 10,000, then 100,000; as far as I know he gave up after that). Anyway, they put his rear end out to pasture.

2) First thing he does is goes to the Treo forum board, signs up as "Seldom_Visitor" and starts papering the boards with his ranting and raving. Eventually, he is kicked off by the board moderator.

3) So he moves to the Yahoo msg board, and is here ever since. He begins by boasting that he has mortgaged his house to short Palm at a split-adjusted 5. Not clear whether he ever covered this. Perhaps not, which is why he is still around.

4) Over the last 5 years, apparently he has become so palm and treo-obsessed that his wife left him, taking the kid.

5) On days the stock shoots up, he is nowhere to be found.

6) He spends 24 hours a day scouring the entire Web looking for any negative piece of info on Palm. When he can't find any, he resorts to making it up.

7) Now a bachelor, he has taken to visiting the local leather bar, where he likes to giggle.

Any more questions about Hengeem?

Wow, hengeem. Is that true? Say it ain't so, Little Buddy.

Giggle.

TVoR

First, did you not see what I had quoted? Let me put it here again so that you are reminded:

Hawkins' revisionist view on history aside ("We made a prototype outta foam board five years ago!), ....

Now, I should probably just stop right here, because that is the whole point I was trying to make in my previous posts. But since you offered so much "evidence" to support the rest of your "statement", I guess I will continue.

I will quote someone who somewhere made a statement that I thought was true. It went something like this:

Linking to an unsupported opinion from yourself!!

In our previous arguments here on PIC, I have made a point of giving you links back to the "sources", not links to posts I wrote where I was drawing my conclusions about what the sources meant. You could look at those links. You could read the same things that I read. You could argue back in an attempt to show that I was a complete nincompoop for concluding what I had. But at least you have to admit that I didn't try to insult your intelligence by asking you to accept my conclusion as "findings of fact". Please don't insult my intelligence by asking me to do that very thing.

However, with regard to the links you gave me, I did look at them. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure that there is anything worth arguing or discussing there. If there wasn't arguments within the Palm leadership about what direction to go and what paradigm to adopt in the future, I'd be quite surprised. Maybe instead you can try to explain what is so significant about that.

In the mean time, I need some sleep.


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/

Good Lord Almighty!

Since when is a post by someone who names his Yahoo ID after my TreoCentral/PalmInfoCenter ID NOT believable in its entirety!

Sheesh...some people.

Giggle.

Please note that "hengeem" here is one of my Obsessed fans, R.E. Lyons, who has taken on my Yahoo ID here due to his obsession (*). It isn't me.

Note, too, that "hengeem" on TreoCentral is ALSO one of my Obsessed Fans - regardless hwat the long gone immodertate moderator WhatATool (or whatever his ID was) lied about, I only used SeldomVisitor on TreoCentral - ever.

============

(*) Ahem - the obsession in this case is his obsession with me, not his historical obsession with public observations, his own and others, on sexual orientation.

Tell me about how that made you feel, hengeem. Let it all come out. I'm here for you.

Did what they did to you make you want to "lash out"? It's OK to feel anger. It's OK to be ashamed. I don't judge you.

Apple is about to trigger a whole new universe of Mobile OS X programs.

Please explain.


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/

bwaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Then it's a piece of crap.

I thought it was completely open and an SDK would be released.
The latter and also lack of stylus will most definitely temper its sales.

You can't have a serious mobile computing device without 3rd party devs and a stylus.

-- http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/9005/#133844

How about that - Colligan just said PALM has been investing in the Fooleo for the last 3 years.

5 years, 3 years - about the same!

Giggle.

(Now what was that you were saying? I can't see through the tears of laughter. No matter; it's likely something akin to "since 1=3 in my world, a truck is smaller than the color red".)


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/

- Little cheap phones often don't sync to your desktop and have no security, if you lose your phone you lose everything.
- Palms have tens of thousands of exciting programs. Anyone can program for it.
- Palms have a stylus.
- Palms have a touchscreen.
- Palm's Desktop software manages multiple profiles very simply, it is easy to use and Hotsync is friendly and just works.
- Palms sync over Wifi with great easy (unless WM which completely bans it).

And let's face it, although many of us complain, we are still here talking about Palm. Why? Because deep down we like Palm and we want them to succeed. You know what they say, we often hurt those we love the most.

* *violin playing** because I am being a bit too cheesy* hehehe

Only a few more weeks. Just haaaang on. It's called Foleo, and it's only an inch thick too. :-D

Pat Horne

If I want to run into the living room and check email or site, I should be doing that with a Palm TX 2 using an OLED 640 x 960 screen with no buttons on the front. I should be entering error free text at BLAZING SPEEDS with software keyboards using word prediction like WordLogic.

R - E - A - D M - Y L I P S: It has to be pocketable.

Let me explain something here on what the hell happened at Palm for them to conclude that the Foleo is a revolutionary product:

a) Palm is Treo-anal. They only see Treos. When they sleep, they count Treos, not sheep. So of course with that tiny little 320x320 Treo screen, they have to concoct a larger screen .... the Foleo.

b) They totally forgot about the incredible speed and advantage of software keybs and their word prediction.

The Foleo was spawned out of the need to have a) a bigger screen and b) a bigger keyb.
They forgot how critically important it is that the device remain pocketable and no dependant on a 2nd device called a Treo. See, in Palm's utopian world the Treo cannot be forgotten. Who the hell wants to sync the Foleo and Treo?! This is retarded people!

They failed. And dear Mr. Combee, I strongly recommend you find a way out of that team project because it is destined to fail. I am sure the members on the Foleo team can be put so much greater use on a handheld project with multiple radios or a Treo, or something, but get the hell away from the Foleo project asap.

I have 2 laptops at home, 2 at work and a Palm TX in my pocket. WHY, (now please stop and think seriously for a moment here please), why would I integrate a Foleo into my life? (which would force me to buy a Treo of course). What the Foleo can do, my TX can do better with only slight modifications (larger screen frontal use and Wordlogic.com); which PALM FANS HERE HAVE BEEN SCREAMING FOR YEARS.

This Foleo is the result of the Treo obsession and blindness.

I hope to God these new Apple guys can talk some sense into the remaining Palm leaders.

I hereby predict, that if Palm proceeds seriously with the Foleo.
Hawkins, like he is already hinting, will come out with a tiny keyboardless, stripped down Treo; his logic will be "Well you can have this ultra compact cool low cost Treo and not worry about its shortcomings because you can buy a Foleo companion! Yay!".

THEN... hehehe this is where it gets funny. Palm will start to realize they came full circle and they are back to the days when they were trying to promote use of the Palm TX in conjunction with smallest coolest tiny featureless cellphone.
Problem here is that instead of a cool pocketable TX, they will be presenting their consumers with a comparatively huge Foleo that no one will want because its not pockeatable. And since the Treo model will be stripped down, many people will end up buying cell phones from other companies.

Full circle. Just watch.

Look, this is all very simple. Consumers want 3 major things: cellular, mp3s and then the rest encompassing general mobile computing (movies, docs, email, ebooks, games).
Palm has to calm down, splash some water in their face and do this:

a) Copy all the ideas and technology they legally can from the iPhone and HTC devices.
b) Take the dumb Treo, slap on a VGA (so PPC devs can port to PalmOS Linux) OLED screen with graphics chip, advanced keyboard software (pick up the phone and go talk to Wordlogic.com and make a deal for a Palm OS port).
c) Give it a new name.
d) Put the buttons on the side. And maybe 3 big plain ones on the front in order to protect the gaming market.
e) Copy the Iphone browser, the tap and zoom thingy. Quick slide touch screen.
f) Put the speakers on the front.
g) replaceable battery and camera like on the Treo now.
h) better soundchip than in the Tx.
i) little foot in the back for the device to stand up for speakephone and video showcasing/
j) SD
k) Wifi, Evdo and other radios.
l) Improve the pim with rollover and a few other usability features.
m) multitasking
n)easier security (biometric scan best, if not possible, simple password protect like on the HP rx1950)
o) better out of the box MP3, movie playback software. iPod consumers are used to ultra-simplicity. Make anything complicated and you lose them. And dont put Fn demos! Put deluxe versions!
p)standard stereo jack.
q) USB
r) Boolean searched in Palm Desktop.
on and on and on.

COME ON GUYS GET TO WORK!! Stop this Foleo nonsense. Time is a wastin.

I still don't think it's the "right" product for me, but I can see the "point".


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/

sorry ben, but the foleo is DOA.

i bet everyone at palm was afraid to tell hawkins, the emperor, that he had no clothes when he came up with this idea. of course, it was probably the only new idea that anyone in the company has had in the last 5 years.

now palm employees are stuck spinning, towing the company line, and passing out the kool aid.

customers aren't dumb and they're not going to by this pig. don't insult our intelligence.

There is a VERY good reason the Fooleo was "demonstrated" with essentially NO software - there is no compatibility across the (PALM) ages in how applications treat data, thus no single automated sync program can easily be defined and programmed.

given how buggy the palm pdas and treos have been over the last 5 years, how buggy do you think the foleo will be???

Theoretically, however, those buggy apps won't bring down the device AND bringing down that device won't freeze up your TREO.

Hmmm...let me think about that...inside a comm module, no response from dead Fooleo, poorly written TREO module...freeze...

Okay, maybe we'll have to wait to see what doesn't happen!

Giggle.

possible fooleo tv commercial song?

F-F-F-Foolin'! Ah F-F-Foolin'!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FaSD_TOSQjQ

Base on the PR-fluffs that are beginning to come out of PALM (tonight) about "Foleo Software" it appears exactly this is how they'll get auto-sync working - require new apps.

http://www.motionapps.com/mexpenses/_treo680.jsp

Very cool idea, and very much in the "mobile is the new PC" spirit of the Foleo. I'll have to give it a try.

Sounds like Voja's new Foleo application uses synchronized data stores instead of always working off the one copy on the Treo like mExpenses:

http://investor.palm.com/pressdetail.cfm?ReleaseID=249868

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
www.pikesoft.com/blog

PIM apps
Financial app
VNC app
FTP app
File manager
Zip utility
Backup utility
Photo viewer/editor
Database app
Video player
MP3 player
Word-compatible document editor
Excel-compatible spreadsheet editor

etc., etc

TVoR

That is a Treo-centric vision where everything revolves and evolves around the phone.
That is where I am not sure your argument stands up. You 'could' be right though. It is a complicated projection into the future.

I think that the future of home/work computing will include Foleo-like devices that boot instantly, are quiet and are very compact/portable.

But what is wrong with a world of Foleos athome/work and iPhone-like expanded Treos, mobile computing centric devicesin our pockets?

And what is wrong with a world of tiny plain phones in 1 pocket and an ultra slim, large screen, powerful PIM and multimedia specialized handheld in another pocket?

The concept of "instant on" is a fantastic one that needs to be developed. The Foleo is a confused project in my mind. Don't forget that Vista now uses SD cards to boost performance and I think it already (or will soon) partially boot from flash rom on hard drives. So the instant-on thing for laptops is right around the corner.

I think Palm should focus on improving the Treo so that it becomes a more powerful multimedai device like a larger screen handheld with perfected software keyboard prediction (www.wordlogic.com) and an amazing enhanced PIM and overall software experience. I need that and many others need that. And the device should be priced fairly for all. I am not giving away my rights by locking myself down into a Treo carrier contract under the threat of paying hundreds of $ more for a Palm if I dont bend to the carriers. Sell devices full featured with wifi and cellular, priced fairly and if someone wants to sign up with a carrier then that is just one option among many. This sickly culture of bending to carrier threats e.g., wifi interdiction is not something I will endorse with my hard earned money.

I re-read your post a dozen times and analyzed every word and every concept repeatedly.
Your analysis has definitely got me thinking very deeply.

For fear of grossly contradicting everything I said in the past, you might actually be right. :-/ However, if I am wrong, I will admit it.

I need to think a lot more about this but your logic seems pretty strong; it is up there on the intellectual level of what I would expect from someone like Mr. Hawkins.

It is 'conceivable' that the near future might be one in which people have cells in their pocket for rapid fire in the field basic computing needs and when they settle down a bit, they can expand the experience via the Foleo.

You say that the Foleo is not meant to replace the laptop, but I think your logic leads down that path. I actually am starting to see the possibility of me porting over day to day personal life activities over to the Foleo and leaving the laptop in a special "just in case I need" room (gradually destined to be used less and less as time goes by and the Foleo application base and hardware specs improve).

hmm... You might have actually set in motion a working viable usability rationale in my head. You might have actually sparked something; for the first time I am actually considering buying a Treo and a Foleo and giving the next-gen concept a try.

So I just went to palm.com and they have a place where you can enter your email address to be notified when they ship.

Unfortunately this is the answer I got:
============
Service Unavailable - Zero size object
The server is temporarily unable to service your request. Please try again later.
Reference #15.a4ea7ce.1182150164.1bea7c6d
============

To any early Foleo developers out there,

PLEASE program a little program that demos the Foleo but that hides all my private data. I know that if I bring a Foleo to work, people will constantly bug me with questions like:

"What is that?!"
"Can I see?"
"Show me how it works."
"Can I touch it?"

It is real annoying.

I don't want to be impolite and say "Look, I would love to, but I have personal info on there and I don't want people messing around in my Foleo".

Is the Treo 680 a good choice to accompany the Foleo?
I am looking to buy it here:
http://canadastore.palm.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2573588&cp=1806915&parentPage=family

I am going to read up on all the Treo models but seems to me the 680 is a low cost fully featured, antenna-less, unlocked device that works in Canada. I don't actually need a powerhouse of a device. I mainly do PIM, MP3s, eBooks and the occasional movie.

I would appreciate any cautions or advice on the choice of the Treo and/or carrier in Canada. I think we pretty much only have a Bell and Rogers here.

I AM TAKING A LEAP OF FAITH AND TRUSTING JEEF HAWKINS ON THIS TREO+FOLEO CONCEPT ONLY BECAUSE HE IS THE INVENTOR OF THE PILOT. I hope I am not wasting my money.

Palm can thank Hawkins' Foleo for making me make the jump to the Treo.

but also:

> ...But since this Foleo has Wifi and it pushes data both up
> and down w/Treo, it changes the calculation...

Hmmm...

The whole point of Treos is the fact that they allow you to have a wireless connection (email, web) wherever you may be, in addition to PDA data. If you can't afford a data plan with a Treo, then it makes the whole concept of having one and putting up with the small screen rather pointless. In that case, you're better off getting a good, simple, TINY dumbphone and the best traditional large-screened PDA (a Sony CLIE TH55) and keep syncing with your laptop.

Whatever you do, don't get caught up with all of this hype. Make your choices intelligently and then you'll be less likely to get burned. Weren't you saying just a few weeks ago that you would be leaving PalmOS behind? I would suggest you sit down, take a deep breath, and think about what you NEED in terms of equipment.

As I've tried to explain in the past few days, the FOOLeo concept is definitely intriguing. But it's one thing to go from concept to reality. After seeing how many mistakes Palm has made with the Treo (a device that was already almost perfected by Handspring - in 2003!) I don't have a lot of faith that Palm will be able to come anywhere near perfecting a system as complex as the FOOLeo, especially on its first attempt. Think about it: Handspring gave Palm the Treo 600, which was only crippled due to Handspring's lack of budget. The device could easily have shipped with Bluetooth, WiFi, 128 MB of RAM, good-quality speaker/microphone and solid construction if only Handspring had had the money to spec those features. In the subsequent four years after the Treo 600's introduction Palm has spewed out the equally-flawed Treo 650, Treo 700p, Treo 680, and Treo 755p. After four years, Palm have either failed to fix the few flaws that were present in the original Treo 600 or have managed to introduce new problems. Pathetic. Do you really expect them to be able to deliver on the things that I have suggested that the FOOLeo concept should be capable of out-of-the-box? Don't be silly. If you read Ben Combee's blog you will see the excuses he's already starting to make for the limitations that we'll be seeing with the FOOLeo:

"Could we have made it thinner? Maybe.."
"Jakob makes a big deal about us not announcing full specs. They are coming -- he misses the point that we've not actually shipped the device yet. The D conference was a technology demo and a launch of the "idea" of Foleo, but we're still finalizing everything." (Translation = We are desperately trying to finish coding some more applications for this thing.)
"Yes, there are some limitations to the device. Some can be fixed by refining and adding to the software that we'll ship with it, some will have to wait for future versions. Some are artifacts of our team having to pick and choose from features to spend time on in order to actually ship the device." (Translation = early adopters will once again be Palm's suckers beta testers. Yikes.)

While I'm all for giving Palm the benefit of the doubt, if they fail to deliver the goods, I don't see why they deserve anyone support. The Palm Faithful have supported them for YEARS despite the company's substandard products. Everyone here likes using the PalmOS, but I believe most of us are reaching the limit re: how many screwups from Palm we're willing to tolerate. Remember: you can always get a good used CLIE or Palm on eBay and tell Braniac Hawkins and his biotch Colligan to go F themselves.

As I've said before, it's getting to the point where we can now get microlaptops capable of running Real Windows®. On top of that, all of the major cellphone manufacturers are shipping smarter and smarter phones every month. If you have a fast connection and a cellphone or WiFi-connected PDA running a VNC client like Mocha VNC (http://www.mochasoft.dk/vncce.htm) then a device like the FOOLeo may be pointless. To be honest, there are so many ways that the competition can outdo the FOOLeo that unless Palm executes PERFECTLY right from Day 1, I don't see them having a chance. Consider these other options INSTEAD of paying $500 for a FOOLeo:

1) Windows Mobile with VNC (already here).
2) Windows Mobile with expanding syncing abilities (likely coming Real Soon Now).
3) iPhone with VNC (likely coming Real Soon Now).
4) iPhone with expanded syncing abilities (likely coming Real Soon Now).
5) Symbian with VNC.
6) Symbian with expanded sinking abilities (likely NOT coming Real Soon Now).
7) Real Windows® microlaptops with flash hard drives (already here, but expensive).
8) Mac microlaptops (likely coming Real Soon Now).
9) Any of the above with WiMax.

Most of us would choose to not carry an extra device, unless absolutely necessary. To get users to carry a large, completely nonstandard (non-Real Windows®) device is going to take a LOT of convincing on the part of Palm. Had the FOOLeo been released two years ago with EVERYTHING working perfectly (flawless syncing with properly-speced Treos, online applications and a smaller-sized FOOLeo) then the company would have had a lot better chance at carving out a solid niche as an alternate to expensive (and expensive-to-support) Windows laptops.

By the way, I assume you know about the battery life "issues" with the Treo 680?

Looking back on your posts here, you don't seem to be the kind of person that is ideally suited to being an early adopter. The FOOLeo is a waste of money for newbies like you and likely will not yet be advanced enough to appeal to power users. And it doesn't run Real Windows®. Looks to me like the market for the FOOLeo is going to be pretty damn small. Unless Palm absolutely NAILS the software end of things, I'm predicting that the FOOLeo is going to be a spectacular bomb.

If you go ahead with your plan to get a Treo 680 + FOOLeo, please don't come back here biotching about how horrible your setup is.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

TVoR

Well, you can't be any clearer than that. hehe I thank you for taking