Comments on: TreoMemo v1.1 Update Released

There will soon be NO non-Treo Palm users...

... just Treo and *iPhone* users!

With the latter out-numbering the former before 2008!

PDA's are dead, I tell you, DEAD! No one uses one anymore. No company will ever realease another PDA. The market for PDA's has completely dried up and blown away. Anyone who mistakenly thinks that they want a PDA is an ignorant fool. If you think you want a PDA, you are wrong, wrong, WRONG! No one wants PDA's; no one uses PDA's; people should stop talking about PDA's or even thinking about PDA's. Mentioning them here on PIC is a waste of bandwidth. I wish you people would go away and stop wasting all of our time by posting all this drivel about PDA's.

I own a smartphone, and it is the perfect device. If you don't agree with me, you are the ignorant fool I mentioned above and you really need to get a life (exactly like mine, since all of the choices I make are obviously right for everyone; you are just too stupid to recognize that).

So just crawl back into your cave with your useless PDA and rub some sticks together. That would be a better use of your time.

(You know, it's scary to think that some people out there might actually be saying, "Yeah, what he said!")


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Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/

While speaking to a customer on the telephone, an independent software developer was overhead saying...

"Yes, we are aware the feature set in our product lags behind the feature set in our competitor's product."

"However, we perform hours of quality assurance for every release to ensure that our software runs on all Palm handhelds. Our competitor does not guarantee that."

"Therefore, rest assured that our application runs as flawlessly on your new Treo 680 as some other person's Palm III running Palm OS 3.0 with PalmPilot Desktop 2.0 introduced back in 1999!"

*click*

"Hello? Mr. Sternfalter? Hello?"

PacManFoo, if you don't own a Treo, then what difference is it going to make to a company that makes Treo-specific software if you boycott them? Personally, I love their stuff. Their excellent PocketTunes skins work on both 320x320 and 320x480 devices, in portrait and landscape. And as far as I know other useful apps like LibertyControl are compatible with all Palm devices, not just the Treo.

You can't really blame them for focussing on Treo owners. That's where the growth is, and it's not their fault.

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

There must be billions of them out there though now that everyone has thrown away there traditional PDA, I hear that PDA landfills are what is actually causing global warming.

You know, I have the same experience. I see a ton of Palm PDA's, everything from IIIc's to V's to T2's, T3's and TX's. I don't see a lot of Treo's. And the Treo is a fairly distinctive design, not that easy to miss. I know the numbers don't lie (total sales), but there still is a huge "installed base" of PDA's out here. Yes, converged devices seem to be the growth market, but I'd think you could still sell a few "products" to the large base of PDA users.

Maybe it has more to do with the stability of that installed base; they already have tweaked their devices to work just the way they want them to. Why go looking for more software when I like what I've got? Why use a converged device when I like using two? Why "upgrade" to a tiny-screened Treo when I have a much better looking screen on my TX (and I don't need special reading glasses to watch movies, Jeff Hawkins)? Why add the complexity of the Treo when I wanted the simplicity of my PDA? I guess there are a few reasons to just stick with what you've got.


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Want an alternative? Try this: http://www.ubuntu.com/

"These are not from the III era of Palm but the present."

Hold the phone! In your first post, you said, "Boycott any Palm Software that isn't made for all Palms.".

The Palm III is included in the "all Palms" set. The Handspring Visor line, the HandEra line, the Sony Clie line and the Palm m5xx line are all included in the "all Palms" set. I could be a bastard and remind you the original Pilot 1000 and 5000 are also in "all Palms" set. :)

This guarantee requires quality assurance testing on device emulators and simulators and actual devices to back up that guarantee. It also requires extra coding to enable/disable device features based on the device and capabilities of the Palm OS version present. This is time and effort that could be spent on additional product features or new product lines.

If an independent software developer decides to release an application for the Palm OS or Windows Mobile platforms, which class of devices should the developer ensure their application runs properly?

Here's my assertion. Help refine it.

For the Palm OS, I would guarantee great performance and would support my application on all Palm OS 5.0 handhelds except the Tungsten T and the black and white Zire series. Palm Desktop 4.x is required.

For Windows Mobile, I would guarantee great performance and would support my application on all Windows Mobile 5.0 handhelds and reserve the right to require the .NET Compact Framework on the device for the application.

As I am reading your postings I have to react. I was a PalmOS programmer for 3 years. The main problem with PalmOS that each device and each version is comming with some library or device specific SDK. Libraries are OK, however the device specific SDKs are what is killing the compatibility. Developer has to decide whether his application will work like on the good old PalmV = will be compatible and uniform with all the PalmOS devices, or whether he will make something different. In second case he needs to test it on large scale of devices, otherwise he is not able to sell it. (You can not sell the application to user with T3 when you have not tested it. and believe me, simulator is not good enought). So just for fun, start with calculation .. when the price for the software is 7.95$ how many pieces needs to be sold to have enought money to buy all the different types of PalmOS devices? Perhaps when they will see it is worth to invest to other devices they will do that. But for sure they won't do that if nobody will buy the software.