Comments on: CNET Interview with Jeff Hawkins

That's like saying you have a state-of-the-art Mercedes parked under a rotting old carport. Or a 1080p HDTV plugged into a vintage 1982 VHS VCR via coax cable.

Isn't it an oddball situation when the slave device is far, far more advanced than the host device upon which it is critically dependent?

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

But Hawkins still seems to think the the iPhone is "wrong" for going that route:

Look at what Apple's doing. They decided to punt the keyboard. Steve Jobs thinks that's great. I don't know. We'll find out.

If the PDA market is "mature" and Palm really isn't going to do any further development, then how about just finally integrating the best of their current/past lineup into the "mother of all" PDA's for one final release? Please Palm, give us the TX2 with the missing stuff put back in and "unlimited" SDHC support. The hackers have already shown you how easy it is to do! There is no good excuse for not doing it.


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Isn't it an oddball situation when the slave device is far, far more advanced than the host device upon which it is critically dependent?

That's strange. So you consider your PC to be a "slave device" to your Treo? Master/slave doesn't apply in any meaningful sense I can find here. Neither does client/server. The relationship between the Foleo and Treo seems to be peer to peer in every respect except for one: that synchronization seems to be initiated from the Foleo (at least that's all we've seen). You can initiate, flag or file an email from either device and its contents and status are synched to the other. Should work the same with other apps.

One new thing about this synchronization: they said it is optionally a continuous operation. I'm wondering if they really mean that. Could I be typing away on a document, hit save, grab the phone and leave the house and just have the document on my phone without any special action being taken? Continuous sync seems to suggest we're not talking about HotSync, but some new protocol more akin to ActiveSync.

If the sync protocol is new, what capabilities does it have? Could I sync over an IP network? Could I in fact initiate the sync from the phone? Say I didn't want to eat up my batteries and tempt Bluetooth fate with continuous BT sync: could I instead initiate a sync from my smartphone over a VPN to grab the latest version of a document that's back on my WiFi-connected Foleo at the office? (This is how Seven and some other PIM and doc sync products work today, but with Palm now controlling both sides of the sync it could be an integrated built-in feature.)

Thinking about the implications that Hawkins identified for how Palm might change the Treo now that Foleo is on the scene. If I can sync over the Internet, think about how nice it would be to have a Treo with drive mode: I never have to remember to sync up my stuff to my flashdrive before I leave for a trip now because I can do it anytime, anywhere. And I don't need the IT department to sign off on this or to have my personal data on some Google server somewhere to accomplish this. It's totally peer to peer.

Don't know if this is where they are going, but in any case I think it's interesting to realize that Palm has some extremely interesting options they can explore now that they own both the pocketable device OS and the new "personal computer" OS. That's an advantage that Microsoft has always had over them, and now the gap is being closed.

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

Palm to introduce services in the cloud for the Foleo + Treo

Palm to introduce new Treo devices that are possible now that the large screen and keyboard are on the Foleo

While they're saying that the Foleo is not a replacement for the traditional laptop, they should just come right and say that they envision that within the next 5 years or so the Foleo + Treo will completely eliminate the need for a general purpose laptop.

hkklife, I agree.

I am impressed that he doesn't seem as oblivious as the initial idea behind the Foleo makes him seem. Basically - hew comes out and says that he intends to use the 'smart phone companion' thing as a way to get a new class of personal computers in the market. And i think a *true* appliance type of device (i cringe when i think of my grand mother struggling with a window box) is needed and has been overdue for a while. and I dont mean a mac.

>>Look at what Apple's doing. They decided to punt the keyboard. Steve Jobs thinks that's great. I don't know. We'll find out.

twrock, i think what he is saying is that the iPhone is wonrg. What he is saying is that although the device doesn't need a keyboard, there does needs to be a keyboard option somewhere. In other words: he's implying that Jobs is wrong to think u don't need a real keyboard option and is basically saying that in the future, the Foleo is the keyboard (and screen of course) for the Treo. I=Or at least thats an option.

God - i need to read my posts before hitting submit. What i meant to say was:

twrock, i don't think that he is saying that the iPhone is wrong.

I actually thought Hawkins had said "I don't think so" instead of "I don't know". Yes, that is not the same meaning at all. Thanks for pointing that out.

Remind me, does the iPhone have Bluetooth? Will that allow for keyboard "connectivity"? I know that there will be an on-screen keyboard, but I also know from my use of Scott's very nice Thumbboard app, it isn't that easy to use an on-screen keyboard no matter how well the software is implemented (visual and audio feedback at this point). In another sense, it really doesn't matter that the first iPhone doesn't have an integrated keyboard. This is Apple's first smartphone product. If they think there is a good market for a smartphone with a keyboard and they can make money from it, they will be making one.

But I still think that Palm has been foolish for not delivering a large screen, keyboardless Treo. There has got to be enough market for that device to make it worth the development. Apple believes so. Palm left the door wide open for Apple to come along and establish themselves in the smartphone arena. The iPhone could have been seen as following Palm's lead. Now if/when Palm finally delivers that type of product, it is they who will be following Apple, trying to play catch up.


Thinking about Vista? Think again: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt
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Palm, go and beg Dmitry Grinberg (http://www.clieuk.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=4488) to come and work for you. Pay for his college education. Hire him as a consultant. License his hacks. Whatever it takes. He not only writes (and often gives away) the most useful hacks, but he figured out how to put back all the missing hardware you left out of the TX. He's even developed ROM replacements for the TX, enhancing it significantly. (I'd love to see how long it would have taken him to develop the 700p ROM update!)

Ok, I feel the tiniest bit better. I'd feel a lot better if I really could believe that there still was any hope.


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/

Now Palm has the perfect excuse not to to include wifi in their future devices. Clever Palm marketing dept: outfoxing the competition. :-)

When the foleo is available on ebay for 100$, it will be nice to get one, remove Palm DOS Linux and install something like Damn Small Linux (aka DSL): now that can be an interesting device.

--------------------------
Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?

Yeah, and maybe he's not.

Maybe he's someone who's simply living off a decade-old reputation and STILL getting away with it.

Maybe LifeDrive II really IS as bad as first impressions say it is, without thousands of "But it's GOTTA be!"s (or MUCH more correctly labeled "But it CAN'T be that bad!"s) dreaming up amazing projections of where it MIGHT be sometime down the road - EVEN including Mr-Closed-Down-Brain-Institute Hisself!

What was that quote? Paraphrased:

== "...where our thinking is leaning..."

!!!

Yeah, THAT'S ready for prime time, alrightee!

Giggle.

For sure.

But that is neither a TREO nor FOLEO.

A LONG time ago somewhere I posed a question something like:

== When is a TREO no longer a TREO?

in the context of "How much functionality can be removed before you have something other than TREO?".

Taking away the QWERTY keyboard, removing the ability to expand the device, whatever.

Is it a TREO?

[we already have the 1984-ish Marketing doublespeak of the Fooleo being somehow better than the TREOs at composing email on the road (or the equivalent of "two devices needed while typing on the road" (!!!)) , etc...what's next?]

As you said, there are real disadvantages with even a great touchscreen-based thumbboard, like I like to think mine happens to be ;). But there are some distinct advantages as well: The ability to customize it for languages, user preferences, app-specificity, etc. And I personally think that extended typing on a widescreen virtual thumbboard is more comfortable (even if a bit more typo-prone) as compared to typing on the Treo's too-tiny thumbboard.

I'd love to see a thin all-screen Palm OS or WM6 smartphone for me to optimize my app for. Maybe not entirely screen: model it a bit after the Zodiac so it has some form of "hard" navigation and hard-buttons (for comfortable gaming and countless other uses). Give it Wi-Fi, an 800-pixel-wide screen, and a great browser, and I would be a very happy man. For extended typing sessions, pair it with an as-yet-uninvented stowaway full-size keyboard with integrated trackpoint (aka eraserhead) and it would meet the needs this FOLEO claims to meet and would do so in a much more portable/pocketable design.

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

Yes, your Thumbboard app is well implemented, and even visually attractive. Your comments on what form-factor you would like to see for a smartphone are exactly what a number of us are hoping for as well. So far, hope is all we have. And you even like trackpoints too! It really would be cool to have a folding BT keyboard with a trackpoint for navigation.

In this initial implementation, the Foleo is being marketed as a companion to your smartphone to basically do two things: keyboard and screen. The keyboard issue is already resolvable via any number of add-on keyboards, most being almost as small and portable as the handheld itself. I'm curious about what might be possible to resolve the screen issue. Why not some kind of video out from the handheld where the power-hungry large screen has its own power source? And maybe some kind of "dual-mode" video chip in the handheld that has significant power reduction in "standard" mode (small internal screen), but that jumps up to be a higher-end graphics chip when paired with the larger screen or even a projector (and can get additional power from the screen's power source). I don't really know what might be possible, but I'm curious about other options.

Since I've got your attention, one more "out there" idea to attempt to implement for the Thumbboard. This comes from a discussion over at David Beers site a while back. Since the Zodiac has a vibrating alarm, might there be any way to implement kinetic feedback for key "clicks"? Maybe there is too much lag in the activation of the vibration or maybe it can't be short enough in time, but it would be kind of cool to see what can be done. Another possible problem might be a significant reduction in battery life. I have no idea what kind of current that little vibrator pulls.

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/

Given that it seems Palm is not going to do much -- if anything -- with PDAs, it makes me glad I have my LifeDrive (LifeFlash).

Before you drop PalmOS for WM, I'd give it a month and wait to see what the iPhone brings. If any new product will inspire devs, that'll be the one. And you can be sure there will be devs to make it work with Win PCs!

He's basically ceding the FAR-FROM-PERFECTED PDA market to Appls' iPod....it doesn't even have a touchscreen, removable memory, built-in networking or user editable PIM data!

He then thinks the Treo line is undeserving of IMMEDIATE big-time R&D expenditure and updating.

So he creates a device devoid of most of the hallmarks that have defined Palm Computing--no touchscreen, not pocket-sized, and completely derivative design (mini notebook formfactor with a tired old IBM Trackpoint cursor nub).

I figure Hawkins and Palm's engineers determined it was too difficult to try to cram a decent sized battery, a fullsize SD slot and a larger-than-320x320 screen into something the size of a Treo or a TX. So they gave up and went with the relatively 'large' subnotebook chasis filled with...absolutely nothing.

How sick is it that the four year old Tungsten T3 has more built-in functionality (and better multimedia capabilities out of the box) than the Foleo? And let's not even mention the Zodiac.

Had Palm been smart they'd have snatched up the remnants of Tapwave several years ago and relaunched it as a web browsing multimedia tablet. All Palm would've had to do was graft the superior Palmified PIM apps and Athena connector onto a Zodiac 2 and beef up the battery. And of course, churn out a solid set of drivers/init strings to ensure compatibility with BT DUN on a wide variety of mobile handsets. There's your real "mobile manager" device! Perfect form factor--larger than a standard Palm PDA but still pocketable. Larger screen, dual expansion slots, 3.5mm headphone jack etc etc. Then after a year or two of pushing Garnet to its limits with such a device, drop in PLinux and an EVDO modem. Bingo!

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

I was thinking and hoping for the same thing after Tapwave folded. It would have been so easy (and likely cheap) for Palm to have simply picked them up. Or for that matter, rethink the TX design and just clone much of the good the Zodiac design offered. Release it with and without a built-in phone and satisfy the needs of many all with very little R&D spent.

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

It would have been revolutionary if they came up with a PDA 75% of the size of the Foleo (or 125% of a Lifedrive, just approximating here, maybe the size of a Nokia N800?) with an included, but nicely integrated, detachable keyboard, the PDA would attach in landscape mode. The keyboard could be placed in your briefcase or laptop case and the PDA carried around with you. The unit would automagically switch between portrait and landscape a la the iPhone. Return to the original Graffiti. Then have all the features of the Foleo for those who want the Treo sync. Then you have that market and the market I want to be in, a simple cell phone with a PDA (with lots of cool software).

Palm Pilot Pro --> Palm Pilot III --> Zire 71 --> Franklin Covey Planner

Ken

Pair this with a T|X alike PDA/Smartphone companion with your new instant pairing system.

This would make a lot of people (Me & Vampy) very happy

How good are cargo pants, they're a gadget lovers best friend.

If the Palm PDA has reached this stage, and I believe it has, with the exception of some technological improvements. Then we must all realize that development effort on these products will be cut drastically.

Jeff is right to imply the end/decline of the pda, but he has not many declarations about Palm ceasing to work on the product entirely.

A new version of the TX with Palm Linux OS, and incremental improvements to wifi etc. is probably about all I would expect. But only time will tell, we will have to wait and see.

It is too early to rant.

There is no motivation for developers to support this when most developers want to support something they want to use themselves...

Developers are business people. Like all business people, the successful ones are more concerned about what their customers need than what they need for their personal use. A transcript of the last few days on the Palm Entrepreneurs Forum would thoroughly disprove your statement. I don't have results of a survey to back this up, but if the activity and tone on PEF is any indication, most of us who sell software to the masses (and understand their mindset) are realizing that the Foleo represents a very interesting new business opportunity.

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

Yeah, well, if buggy whip manufacturers had had internet forums I'm sure those, too, would have been interesting in the early 1900s.

Wonder what transcripts of Linux Developers Forums look like?

There are about 300 comments there, which says something in itself. Most are positive or at least show interest in the idea.

Of course, SlashDot really *is* the group that want a Foleo for themselves. They've been craving a cheap, lightweight, Linux PC for so long that they've even cast glances at Negroponte's OLPC. Now that's desperation!

Some samples:

When the Palm handhelds came out, everyone said the same thing. "Why do I need this?" "This will be a complete flop." "No one will buy it." And today, handhelds are an established market.
----
I think Palm have been quite smart on the market for this: email is the niche that will pull some discretionary business users (the sort who buy their own phone or other gizmos if not too expensive) that travel a LOT and don't need a full laptop - mostly execs, meaning it's critical that Palm connects the Foleo to Blackberry very quickly. The Linux base and openness are what will pull in the geek community to provide open source apps and make the platform more capable. And commercial developers from the Palm world will see this as a good way to expand their market, covering a number of different smartphone platforms.

One other interesting thing: Palm recently bought the developers of Chatteremail, a great push email app for Palm OS that uses IMAP IDLE to enable instant email delivery from most IMAP servers. This is great for people who want Blackberry style instant email delivery, without the cost of a Blackberry subscription and the clunky Blackberry OS and hardware.

Another smart decision is to work with all types of smartphone - the smartphone market is very fragmented so this could be a great way to maximise market.

Bottom line: Real road warriors hate the weight of "real laptops" and the delay in getting email, waking up the laptop, poor battery life, etc. Given a light power brick (apparently more like a phone charger than a laptop's), I think the Foleo is a real winner.
---
This is much more like what an OLPC should be. ARM == low power & cost relative to an x86. I think OPLC got it wrong when they went x86 - which looks like it was done solely to support Windows.
---
The most compelling features are instant on/off, e-mail sync, long battery life, and VGA out for presentations.
---
I expect the Foleo to be very good at what it does. What remains to be seen is if it is good enough that people will want the supplement for their smartphone, or the replacement for the large laptop. However, as a standalone device for people lacking a small laptop and a smartphone, it will still probably be good given the price.

There are plenty of cheap laptops on the market nowadays. Not too many at $500, but plenty at $700+. The problem is that those machines are often crap, and are seldom truly portable. The Foleo seems to be taking the approach of not pretending to be a desktop replacement, and instead focusing on being really mobile. So, while there are laptops that can match the Foleo in portability, they can't approach it in price.
---
[In response to a guy who says his Powerbook is far more capable:]
1) Sleep is not instant. A palm is instant.
2) You push ONE button on your powerbook, and up pops the email client from your treo right there on the powerbook screen? And you can edit all your email and any attachments right there? And the email stays on the treo?
3) When you send email from your powerbook, it sends it from the treo using the cellular network so you don't have to be logged in a local wi-fi network (if any) for it to work?

I have dozens of wi-fi setups on my laptop as I travel all over the world. The ability to do my email wherever there is cell phone coverage, on a big screen with a real keyboard and zero hassle is *very* compelling...throw in some presentations on a CF card and I can leave the laptop behind...

Sounds like the Foleo is FAR more capable than your powerbook for business travelers, you know people who already have treo's, blackberry's etc.
---
For your basic word processing, spreadsheeting, emailing and (sans flash) web surfing a multi-gigahertz laptop with 720i widescreen, DVD RW and about 30 minutes battery life is overkill. Laptop makers have been constantly upgrading the laptop into a full-blown PC and leaving the laptop ethos behind.

This is a solution to a very current problem. Smartphones are too small to be used for serious work, and laptops are too big, heavy and powerful to be lugged around everywhere.
---
Actually if the price gets down around the $300 range and it has enough memory I can think of a lot of uses for it.
The company I work for has a vertical product and we sell a good number of laptops. If we could bundle it with this device and if it could run for say 8 hours on a battery it would be great.
No more mucking about with multiple versions of Windows, no more virus's and malware. Just what we used to call in the industry a "toaster".
I could see a lot if uses besides sales reps. Frankly if they can get an Internet link then they don't even need Act. Salesperson.com could be your CMS. And if your company did things right you could use a VPN from it and use Web based apps for a lot of you industry specific work like placing orders.
Police officers could use it. Place a Wifi/WAN bridge in the police car and then use the wifi in the this device.
There are a lot of uses for this device. Yes a sub notebook could do but they tend to be more expensive than this device and more power hungry.
I still see the ideal price point as around $299 but it may sell even at $500.
---
Most decent subnotebooks are around $2000, and they have a boot-up time.

I kind of like the idea of pressing a button and it's just running, rather than waiting a minute or two for a notebook to boot up.
---
etc.

There are more, and of course there are plenty of disparaging comments too: jokes about the Audrey, comparisons to old Win CE devices, complaints that it's underpowered and won't stream video, complaints that it should be smaller. Overall, though, it's had a very respectful and interested reception within the Linux-oriented Slashdot crowd, I'd say. Especially when you consider what a rough crowd that can be!

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

Slashdot is hardly indicative of the Real World.

They said the same frikkin things about the Nokia Anti-Net Tabs. Oooh, big success they have been! Real paradigm changers. Everyone really *needs* one.

I better stop now. The bile is rising too high...

They said the same frikkin things about the Nokia Anti-Net Tabs. Oooh, big success they have been!

I don't know how to break this to you, Mike, but I think you're going to be seeing a lot more of those Nokia Internet tablets in the coming year. Sprint has staked Nokia big-time on this.

Anyway, my point wasn't that Slashdot is the real world. It was an answer to the question asked about what Linux developers are saying about Foleo. (Obviously, not a perfect sample, but Linux hackers do seem to be disproportionately represented there.)

I hope you don't believe PIC is the real world, Mike! Let's see... PIC commenters are:

1) Almost 100% male
2) Palm OS power users
3) Happy to spend all day in front of their PC talking incessantly to the same 30 other people about a product none of them have the least interest in.

Yeah, that's real, all right. :-)

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

I didn't go browse slashdot, but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the folks there are more interested in taking the Foleo and installing some other non-Palm variant of Linux on it.

Hey!

Two LifeDrives makes it a category!

If you want to think that all this hoopla is for one device, I'm fine with that, too. I might think you're a little dense, but hey, aren't we all sometimes? :-)

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

Happy to spend all day in front of their PC talking incessantly to the same 30 other people about a product none of them have the least interest in.

LOL

And what does that imply about workplace productivity?


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/

Then they will follow Amp'd to Chapter 11.

The Foleo is for people who want a full-sized keyboard and a letter-wide display in the most portable and easy-to use form possible. Post-it-note sized button-pads won't cut it for those potential customers. The Nokia iTab doesn't even have a keyboard. The eMate and other clamshells were before the time of widely available wifi with customers comfortable with Google Apps and their data from the internet cloud. The OLPC isn't available for retail sale, and doesn't even have a business-class keyboard anyway.

Ultra-thin PC notebooks are the closest competition; but I haven't see any recent brand name ones for under a grand; and that price difference puts the products in completely different market segments. If Apple makes an ultra-light notebook (and I'll be first in line to buy one), it's likely to have a price 2X to 4X that of the Foleo. If it's a hit, then potentially even more people, those who can't afford Apple's high prices, will be driven to the thin & light & much cheaper Foleo, as that product concept heats up.

Now if Apple were to come out with a 3 lb or less flash-booting MacBooklet for under $700, that might kill the Foleo. Doubt that that's going to happen any time soon. Apple can barely price their most stripped down (mini)PC that cheaply.

What interests me now are the rumors of a small Apple touchscreen mini-notebook.

But we both know that it would also be a very expensive device. That is generally what you get if you want to possess that Apple "coolness".


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/

And it's not as if other companies will stand still. Who knows what other products are out there waiting for launch? (In some deep dark inner sanctum of some vast corporation, one lonely engineer after seeing the Flopeo, started screaming towards the Top Floor: "You see! You see! That's what I've been working on and we can get it out asap!")

For me it's going to need some additional software (minimally PIM apps) to be useful, but those may actually be ready by launch time. I'll drop my $500 on one because I'm a freak and because I want to start developing apps for it right away. But I realize that the masses will need a lot more software, better specs, and better pricing before they'll jump. It'll happen, just as it did with the Pilot and the Treo.

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

Well, that's a business reason and business risk.

Look, even at the price of the original Pilot it had an IMMEDIATE "I could USE this!" factor. Maybe I'm missing that because I don't do mobile email. I can grant you that much.

Because LiveFaith is getting on my tits, I went again to YouTube to look at the vids about it there.

I will admit this much: Years ago, I would have *died* to have a machine like this. Instant on, relatively small, etc, just in order to do WRITING. I had seriously looked at the pre-PalmOS Alphasmart and the like.

But this thing, NOW, with me having more needs, seems like going back to black & white SD TV! I hate D2G; it's lost formatting on ALL documents I've created in it, so how can I ever trust it again? And why would I want something to do UNFORMATTED documents when I already have a LifeDrive that can do that (and which might even be able to now give me *formatted* text via tejpwriter, which I've loaded but not yet devoted time to trying)? I use free web-based YMail. I'm not going to spring for their for-pay POP3 -- and I'm not moving to GMail just for free POP3.

Maybe I'm just outside the target market for this. Maybe there really is a HUGE mobile email market I don't know anything about. But even so, I see people being satisfied with their Backberries and Sidekicks. If they weren't, they'd be carrying Treos. And I don't see them switching to Treos to get the Foleo (OK, satisfied I didn't call it Flopeo for once?).

I don't see them switching to Treos to get the Foleo

The Dana, btw, was the only thing I ever showed my wife that she remotely considered using for her writing (aside from her desktop PC, which she uses only because she doesn't have a good non-PC option). In the end she just didn't think the screen displayed enough lines of text or had enough contrast for extended use. That's why she glommed onto the Foleo immediately: it fixed the one thing she hadn't found in a simplified PC yet: a good screen.

Some people really, really want *simple* and they just can't get it from a PC or Mac. I wonder how many there are?

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

Whether Palm likes it or not, this looks like a subnotebook and it will compete for precious briefcase space against other subnotebooks (Micheal Mace is right about this). However its current features are largely insufficient for even thinking of competing.

Maybe Palm has great applications in the pipeline (but my trust in Palm is at a very low level right now), but what we saw in the demo doesn't look good. Documents to go is great on a small device because we understand the limitations of the hardware and are ready to accept a considerably lower range of features. But in a sub-notebook that doesn't play. In that kind of hardware users will expect a lot more: maybe not the whole office suite, but wordpad won't cut it.
Ease of use does not imply lack of features. The pilot succeeded because it did more than competing products, not less.

Finally. When I look at foleo's palm linux, it strangely reminds me of Dos. You know when applications worked in text mode, each one taking the full screen, with pop-down menus and keyboard shortcuts for each item. And I wonder: is Palm going to reinvent TSR (*)?

(*) terminate and stay resident, for the young ones

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Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?

Giggle.

Only a small matter of programming!

Of course, it DOESN'T work with ANY device right now, right?

Or do you call email-only WORKING?

[or did someone somewhere suggest special HARDWARE was a requirement for this thing to work?]

Ladies and gents. There is the story in a nutshell! I am one who is sick and tired of these idiotic and archaic laptop platforms. Because folks have not a had a reasonable option for "simple", they have just been lulled to the slumber of acceptance for the past 25 years.

Hawkins has probably bit off more than he can chew, but this could truly be revolutionary in time if it can get a little early traction. Once word gets out about "simple" it will take off like Michael Jackson to a playground. It really could happen.

Pat Horne

Oy. Sidekick is now hardware instead of a popup! (Old fogey's joke, kids.)

Michael Jackson to a playground -- not an image I wanted to have put in my head early in the morning...

Yeah, yeah, I saw my eejit switch to Treo line only AFTER hitting Save...

And, yeah, that's something I was blind to: people saying fek the email, just gimme the Flopeo for other stuff. But ... D2G?!!? God help your missus!

>>>Well, look at all the barnacles that have sprung up for the iPhone!

SHOULD have been:

Well, look at all the barnacles that have sprung up for the iPod!

C'mon man. Trade up that S320 & LagDrive will ya.

Pat Horne

Are you fekkin INSANE?!

I just tried Blazer on my LifeDrive yesterday at Bryant Park. Mother of Pearl, it made the Nokia Anti-Internet Tab look like a genius!

THAT is WiFi as delivered by Palm? And it's not meant as a joke?!!?

http://www.laptopmag.com/News/Portable-AV/Cowon-Delivers-D2.htm?page=2

Add an OS to these and you have a killer device.

http://www.laptopmag.com/News/Portable-AV/Cowon-Delivers-D2.htm?page=2&image=1

But Noooooooooooooooooooo... way too difficult for Palm. People want the FOLEO!!!! Yayyyyyyyyyyy!!

arrgh

With multiple XP-based systems in my household, I spend far too much time being SysAdmin. Most people simply don't have the technical capability to own an XP (or Vista)-based computer. That's why there are hundreds of thousands of PC's acting as spam Zombies and weighed down with various kinds of malware.

As I've said on previous posts, if Foleo can get to the point where most people can do all they have actually need to do, then for them it will be a superior solution. Excluding the people posting to this list, of course.

Corporations wil also be interested in having a portable device that doesn't port around critical datafiles, and also avoids the ongoing IT headaches of devices running various MS OS.

Yeah, and my damned desktop became one of them for I don't know how long before I caught on!! Now I'm running avast! anti-virus constantly and 1GHz plus is suddenly like a tired mule!

But the commenter after you is correct: the functionality of Foleo 1.0 is too limited. And Mace is ultrahyperbolic claiming it is Mac 1.0 all over again. Mac 1.0 could do a hell of a lot more than Foleo 1.0! And Mac was actually innovative. All Foleo has for innovation is trading on Palm's sync innovation.

The comparison is more with MacOSX 1.0. This was essentially a more polished GUI on top of BSD Unix (on top of a microkernel), with some token backwards compatibility. Jobs would probably fire any OSX GUI designer who tried to display something inelegant or unfriendly looking, thus making iMacs, iBook, MacBooks, etc. usable by non-geeky students and graphic artists, and profitable even at Apples higher price points because of this. You can still develop and run nerdy unix X11 code on the Mac, but almost no-one does because it's so ugly in comparison to native OS X apps. MS tries to copy the OS, but ends up with something so bloated that it almost requires a multi-GHz dual-core to run notepad!

Perhaps what Hawkins has in mind is to try the same OS concept, but with a light-weight linux kernel instead of BSD-Mach underneath... put a fresh new GUI on top with non-geek usability and good aesthetics in mind. By starting out fresh, they might be able to stay lighter-weight than OSX on PPC or Intel, which will give them a sustained advantage in battery life, weight and/or price over the currently shipping Mac architectures. (But, hey, it's linux, so nerds can try to overstuff memory and rapidly drain their batteries with stuff like OpenOffice if they really want...)

Apples ace card is that they've already developed a real-time light-weight version of MacOSX (maybe also on ARM) for the iPhone, which they could take into the same product space (fashionable and affordable ultra-light notebooks) as the Foleo if Jobs so desired. And they've got very competent GUI designers and a lot bigger R&D budget than Palm. Card delt. Fold, call or raise.

Ummm - no it couldn't. In fact - Mac 1.0 could not do 1 single thing better (OK - it's heavier - thus, a better door stop). You are forgetting your history there. Mac 1.0 ran on a monochrome computer with 64 or 128 KB (that is 1000 or 2000 x less memory depending on the option chosen!), at 8 mhz. It didn't have video (that was what - 6-to-8 years later??), it didn't have internet, it didn't have email applications, it didnt have a browser (and it was incapable of being able to have a nmodern browser - hell, most web pages today take up nore than 128 KB!!), and it couldn't in a million years edit a modern office doument.

A more apt comparison was mentioned above: Palm OS 3.1. Except that I believe ALL Palm OS 3.1 devices had faster processers and more memory (oh - and they added color in there for the IIIc too i think...).

Mac 8.0 is about equal.

I just hope to be proven wrong. But if that's the case, next year I'm going the iphone way.

--------------------------
Hey Admin: Why do we have to keep two profiles?

Seriously tho, Palm may not produce any more PDAs. That includes smartfones, mobile managers, or companions too. With all the apparent energy and resources of this announcement, I can't imagine what would be left in the tank if this vision fails. PDAs are dead by there own admission. Nokia, SE, HTC, Moto, and now patrol the smartfone reef, just daring Palm to come out for a swim. That leaves only one course for future survival.

Will it be Foleo or FOLDeo?

Pat Horne

You got 1/4th of your wish.

Plus a major reorg in the BoD.

Guess someone else thought Hawkins and Colligan were totally out of touch and put their money where's their thoughts were.

Whoa. Bye, bye, Benhamou. Go off and rot now, please!

I think PALM, assuming approval of this sale, is in for a REAL make-over (and a significantly lower stock price as that makeover is put in place).

Handhelds, anyone?

I think the this means, most significantly in the short term, that the Foleo will DEFINITELY be iPhone-enabled.

In the long-term, the Treo line will morph into something more like a a PDA (or is that a PDAPHONE ala iPhone?) and I could even see the PDA line reshuffled into more of a lower-end PMP type device.

Either way this strikes me as very welcome news. If nothing else it'll do something about the glacial pace of Palm product development.

I think that companies are finally beginning to realize what an albatross around their necks the carriers are. Palm was sniffing and fumbling at that realization with the Foleo but to gain maximum efficiency it still requires a carrier-sponsored/sanctioned device (Treo etc).

Going forward, I'd look for big things to emerge from the "new Palm" coming forward that are devoid of ANY carrier locks/subsidies/customizations, a serious push for the MyPalm portal & related online services, and a big leap of faith type relase (a WiMax product perhaps?) in LESS time than the current staggering two years of gestation it currently takes for Palm to release underspec'd, still buggy products.

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

From a PALM shareholder POV, however, I believe it's an intermediate negative since the new 1/4 owners can take a significant stock price hit as they follow through on their yet-unannounced reoganization ideas. Longer term it has the same chance of being a plus as above.

Shortterm, of course, it's a plus if folks bought last week or earlier and sell now.

For what it's worth, I think Pa,m OS is about %99 DEAD DEAD DEAD (low-end PDAs and smartphone aside) too but the hallmarks of the Palm OS experience--the ease of use, the UI, the one-handed navigation, the option of using a KB or stylus or d-pad, and of course, depiste it diminishing every day and with each hardware permutation, the "thousands and thousands of available apps".

If those elements and the "friendly" Palm UI/launcher/core PIM apps were grafted onto another OS (Linux in this case) and put into a POCKETABLE, WIRELESS DATA-CENTRIC DEVICVE WITH STORNG MEDIA CAPABILITIES (I cannot stress this enough) I'd not miss a beat.

If I have to throw out my 4 dozen+ registered Palm OS apps & games & utilities (hopefully fewer depending on the prowess of the Garnet VM), at least let it be going to a new OS where the learning curve won't be as steep. Remember, 10+ years with the essentially unchanged Palm OS makes me (and many others here) constitute the same group of users who immediately flip whatever Microsoft's latest OS is back to the classic Win 9x "Start menu" theme.

That's what I think this ex-Apple crew can bring to the table in faster fashion than Palm ha traditionally done: A new foundation (Linux) for a wide variety (formfactors) of old house (the classic Palm UI & PIMs)).

Funny how Palm went from once being staffed by ex-staff crew from the "bad old days" of Apple to ex-staff from the "2nd golden age" of Apple being hailed as the saviors of the company.

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

this sums it up very nicely.

Expect one of Nokia, HTC, or Moto to finally displace the Treo, and for the slow decline of Palm to continue.

The amazing thing is that Hawkins was able to announce this pile of FOOLeo Feces with a straight face. It's hard not to feel embarassed for the guy. Then again, he's already sold off a large chunk of his Palm stock, so what does he care?

TVoR

What's amazing about ANYTHING he does?

I'll bet most of the people who post on this site have already accomplished so much more than Hawkins ever will even if he lives to be a hundred.


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/

-----------

Note - saying "X is crap" says nothing about Y. Try PHIL 101. You need it.

>>>I'll bet most of the people who post on this site have already accomplished so much more than Hawkins ever will even if he lives to be a hundred.

The guy is an utter worthless failure. He just gave the world the first mass-market unistroke handwriting system and a pocketable computer. Big deal!

Why, most of the people here have done more than that!

ROTFLMAO.

Oh mu God... I just looked at those iPhone ads.

It is exactly my vision of what mobile computing should be.
Look at how fast that touchscreen seems to be.
Look at the smooth flying 3D graphics, amazing web surfing (zoom, scroling at blazing speed).

Holy crap... :(

As much as I hate Palm, I also have a special place in my life for them because I been using their products for a decade. So I am very very scared for them now. Not only can Apple leverage they massive branding clout but the device seems brilliant.

:-(
< eyes staring blankly>

Steve Jobs presented a "revolutionary" phone, ipod and internet communicator in one. Look at it. It has a high-speed (sort of) internet connection, switching seamlessly (apparently) between EDGE and WiFi. It has a large-ish HVGA display with an on-screen keyboard and it has the great performance of an iPod video (now widescreen). This is exactly the answer to Jeff Hawkins' question... and it just works.

Add to that Hawkins question about the two problems with today's smartphones (which Jobs referred to explicitly): too small screen and keyboard. The iPhone has a 320x480 160 dpi screen, while still being pocketable. And if the multi-touch on-screen keyboard works in landscape, that would be pretty useful for typing (though not for extended periods, probably just for SMS, email, etc.). And I'm sure that a multi-touch screen will respond to finger input way better than Palm's digitizer, which wasn't made for fat fingers.

This is why I expect the iPhone to sell well. Who knows about the Foleo. I also hope that the iPhone will be released in a no-phone version (next-gen iPod) for those of us who don't want a cell phone. However, I'm sure the only way they can hit the $499 price point is by having carriers subsidize it. The Foleo doesn't have this drawback, since it costs $499 now and it doesn't have a built in phone.

You have really swallowed the cool-aid here haven't you? What in gods name is revolutiuonary about the iPhone? It is a slick interface to-be-sure. But that does not make it revolutionary. What is revolutionary is the work done by about 5000 companies that collectively have already done every single thing that the iPhone is capable of. I think Apple products are great - they are well designed, slick, and easy to use. But i have a hard time thinking of anything that they have - you know - invented. revolutionary??? The internet is revolutionary. Email is revolutionary. The web is revolutionary. The mouse and windows type interface (not invented by Apple btw) is revolutionary. The computer itself is revolutionary. The wheel is revolutionary. etc.

God - this term is so over-used. Apple is no research and development shop - they don't create core ideas. Thats fine and i respect what they do (they do it VERY well). But don't go saying something like that! sheesh. you are diminishing the weight the of the word itself!

Anyone can create a craptastic smartphone with games and multimedia and stuff, stuffed into a dumb interface, with buttons and trackballs and side buttons, etc. And stick a Windows 'Start' button on it too!

Was the original GUI revolutionary?

It's not about FEATURES, its about how 95% of the users access and use those features. The iPhone is chock-full of eye-candy, but none of it is superfluous, its all designed to help the user navigate and use the phone. Without pulling out a stylus, or having to cramp the screen to fit in a keyboard.

It's not the end-all be-all for all markets (no document editing yet, and onscreen keyboard probably won't be for Crackberry addicts), but conceptually Apple knocked it out of the park with this one.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YgW7or1TuFk

it's obvious that the boys at palm have just been sitting on the ball for a long time collecting their paychecks and cashing in stock options for sleeping under their desks.

don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining and don't show me a flopeo and tell me it's revolutionary. don't insult my intelligence.

"Death can come swiftly to a market leader. By the time you have lost the positive-feedback cycle it's often too late to change what you've been doing, and all of the elements of a negative spiral come into play." - Bill Gates