Comments on: Linux Based Palm OS Due Sometime in 2008

I'm not sure how anyone who is reporting this understands the context here or has bothered to look into the facts.

Oh, yeah, there's that, too.

Giggle.

If Apple would open up decent 3rd party development options (and preferably minimum Java CDC support), I'd likely pick one up tomorrow. I suspect the lack of 3rd party apps and more general 3rd party security controls are going to make it a diffcult sell for enterprise environments.

I don't expect major iPhone changes over the next year, other than the possibility they'd open up a developer's SDK. They'll still be AT&T only, and I doubt the price will go down much if any. So, Palm still has a shot iff they can keep the current Treos cheap and plentiful while getting a real OS out by early next year. Then again, Palm has needed a real OS for 5-7 years and hasn't pulled one out of the hat yet.

It doesn't even do freaking copy-and-paste!

:o) Oh yeah...That will surely kill the iPhone. :O)))

Another PC cultist who can't stand Apple. Now there is an insight. ;)

Another PC cultist who can't stand Apple. Now there is an insight. ;)

Hey, even Macs can copy-and-paste, last time I checked. ;)

You disappoint me, hengeem. There's more to the FOOLeo than meets the i.*

* Clue #1

Or planned?

How about already here (in gloious beta)?

The $30 million question is: "How stupid do you think it Palm is?"
The $44 million question is: "How do you make a silk purse out of a sow's ear?"
The $324 million question is: does someone have to lose in order for someone to win?
The priceless question is: "What is the sound of one Hand clapping?"

Got a PALM-sourced pointer to back up that belief?

Weaning time: you need to be plucked from the breast. Open your eyes.

[alas, The Kidlet is using my main computer right now so I can't easily check my personal copies of various PALM thingees to try to check for such a beast - but I don't remember seeing one]

Are you "a wee bit obsessed"?

Enjoy the game, hengeem.

SMITHERS, RELEASE THE HOUNDS!!!

Here's your final clue: Palm's representatives actually speak truthfully. And Colligan would be dead if he was a spy.

That's all. Please stop begging for scraps. You have shamed the House of hengeem, Grasshopper.

The eagle flys at dawn...

TVoR

Name one other phone which does half of what the iphone does - as well as the iphone does it.

OS X currently uses 700 meg. - so what; the phone comes with 4 (or 8) gig. One a 128 meg. POS device, that would be impossible.

At the end of 2008 after apple sells 10 million devices, let's see where Palm is with the Treo. They'll likely be selling them for $49 on QVC.

Blackberry is squeezing Palm from one end and Apple is squeezing them from the other.

Palm can't keep putting lipstick on their 10 y/o pig and selling it as an innovation.

I will never use the foleo as a companion to anything, not treo, not iphone and no, not even for another foleo :-) i believe a mobile phone should be as simple as possible, light, unbreakable... i do not want to go out carrying some fragile, easily scratched super expensive treo.. it is simply a compromise i can't except! to little to actually work on it, to big and fat to take everywhere! i want to separate the phone from the computer, give me a small compact nokia 3120 http://tinyurl.com/23n9en
small, super-strong device, i can really take anywhere in my back pocket without the fear of sitting on it... and when i travel, and need computing on the road, that's when i take the foleo! as a multimedia device, an office platform and as a teminal to my computer at home.

Bitter? Moi?

It's not as if I'm an angry codemonkey that some vicious "rumor" claims Hawkins fired, right, hengeem?

If the FOOLeo was $300 and came with a complete PIM suite (on-device + online), a tabbed browser, a solid + autonomous email app, a decent media player and a PalmOS emulator then I would buy it and leave my ThinkPad at home 2/3 of the time. Really.

Newsflash: Treos are actually fairly rugged, given all the things they do. Or maybe I lucked out and got the one solidly-built Treo 700p Palm had built in 2006.

Smaller Treos are coming. Yes, they are 3 years too late, but better late than never, right? Right? RIGHT?

TVoR

How much can you take away from a TREO before it is no longer a "Treo"?

On that topic - has anyone commented on the 755p's audio quality yet? Is it better than the 700p?

I think that is key here; PALM started losing its name-strength when the competition started getting interested in the smartphone sector. Prior to that interest (or corporate decision that the sector was mature enough - thanks to PALM - to start attacking (*)) PALM had tons of name-value. Afte the Q and the Blackjack and the Dash and the Fooleo and now the iPhone, the reputation is shot.

========

(*) I don't swallow the fanboy lie that ONLY PALM can do what PALM has done. Instead I completely believe the Big Guys simply did their market research and decided the quantity of sales they were used to weren't going to be forthcoming way back when Handspring/Palm started up the Treos. Only after the hardware got to the point where cheap power was available did the Big Guys say "Okay, let's do it now". We're seeing the fruit of those decisions VERY rapidly.

No touchscreen. No super-handy silent switch. No SDHC support. No A2DP. Yeah, great upgrade! :-
In that regard iPhone scored well. Even at this first generation stage it performs better, does more, and is far more innovative than even a fifth generation mobile platform.

Four words, Foo: No cut-and-paste. Wake me up when it has the basics. iPhone 2.0 might be the coolest device ever invented, but iPhone 1.0 is lacking in many important ways. And Apple could sell ice to eskimos, so I'm not swayed that it's a better product simply 'cause a bunch of cashed-up Apple Cultists and gadget geeks have swallowed the hype wholesale and bought half a million on them. If popularity is an indication of quality, then Britney Spears is one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived.

Not for the iPhone user.

All of the iPhone's other strengths and limitations pale in comparison to the fact that your iPhone will always be exactly like the one that Steve Jobs and ten million other iPhonatics carry. I'm sure it's a great iPod, but really, I couldn't care less.

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

That's funny!

As a software provider you should be...in six months you will care when the dollars greatly dwindle of other smartphone sales due to the dreaded "iPhone." You ain't seen nothin' yet. Apple is just beginning my friend. And they have MO on their side, not to mention bookoos of CASH to make it happen. The train has left the station. iPhone has created a new road of competition. It looks like a major crossroad for other companies to me. I hear two long blasts followed by a short blast and another long blast...a new royalty has taken the right of way. :)

Yeah, 'cause Beersie's business customers who buy his custom applications are all going to switch to a device that can't run them. Get real!

That seems to be the mantra of iPhone users. MMS not yet, cut-and-paste not yet, video recording not yet, third-party apps not yet, not yet not yet not yet. Dunno 'bout you, but I'd feel pretty stupid spending $500 on a device that isn't finished...

Tell me...Is adding cut&paste, 3rd party software opportunity, Exchange ActiveSync, etc. harder or easier than making a great foundational OS with people-pleasing iPod features? It's a no-brainer. Go ahead and FOOLeo yourself into thinking that this is not just the beginning of a major new competitor. For example, in less than a week after it's launch, Apple has already announced third party support for business users from Visto.

The current specifications make it faster, smoother, more energy-efficient, etc. For crying out loud, it has 125x the built-in memory of most Treos. The talk about the iPhone deficiencies is hilarious. (I can hear your thoughts..."So, I can ADD external memory, batteries, etc. to my Treo..." Yeah, carry your external SDs and battery packs all you want.) I can just hear that dumb Apple creative group now..."Hey, let's build a powerful and fun smartphone that has the potential to be "killer" but let's just stop at "potential." Yeah, that is the pattern of Apple over the last few years. :0))))

As for criticism about Apple choosing AT&T...It's all about GSM!!!! It's about a world market.

Wall Street KNOWS this is big! It only costs Apple about $250 to make this thing. That's why APPL stock has risen 40 PERCENT since the iPhone annoucement in January. After Apple rakes in the cash, it will leverage that cash to out-price & out-feature others who are tooling up to take them on.

As for current power-user software deficiencies in the iPhone, you must remember that Google is challenging the establishment (Microsoft) with Internet based applications. With the iPhone's OSX and it's Safari browser and Apple's new PC version of Safari 3.0, you can see what Apple is preparing to do here.

BTW. As almost a decade long Palm OS and current Treo 680 user I don't own an iPhone (yet). I did play with one for a few minutes, specifically to test the virtual keyboard. To my surprise, it was a lot easier than I was led to expect from the doomsday reports on it vs. my tactile keyboard. I found it to be very simple and quick.

Linux is a good choice for Palm, but they would need to spend the appropriate cash to develop and test the device to ensure it's a quality product.

Time to burn through Elevation's cash infusion wisely - they can't (yet again) release a half-baked beta product and call it 1.0

Apple raised the bar for the entire industry.

I could never figure out the logic of going into debt.
Was there a threat by big stockholders to dump stocks if Palm didnt pay out a huge dividend? Isnt that illegal in some securities law book or something?

Wow. Yet another lamb for the slaughter. It's amazing to see how many people think Elevation is bringing anything substantial to the Palm Party*. The Elevation deal was yet another elaborate Palm SHELL GAME. They offer Palm the hope of leadership, cost cutting, focus and influence. For a price. A HEAVY price.


*Do you also think Mercedes is being paid to give up Chrysler?

TVoR

I'd bet on them before believing palm will release a tested and DEBUGGED version of Linux next year. I've been burned by palm too many times in the past - I recall reading that the T3 would be upgradeable to cobalt when it was released.

One lie in a long line of broken promises from Palm - how long does it take before people wake up?

So there goes my opinion on the Iphone thingy. When I upgrade my smartphone in three months...I am hoping a better Treo like the 755p or even the 800p will out in CDMA.

Point is that dumbphones do have everything you need, and they work perfectly right out of the box. This is the real competition for all smartphones.

Yeah, like that historically-well-known-TREO-hater Walt Mossberg:

== "...Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature
== omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and
== breakthrough handheld computer..."

WAITAMINUTE - he =didn't= say "feature phone!

== "...The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission
== of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on
== the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite
== our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use,
== Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was
== able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could
== on the Palm Treo he has used for years..."

WAITAMINUTE - as fast as and as accurately as on a TREO!?

== "...the iPhone is a whole new experience and a pleasure to use."

Obviously a paid basher.

Then there’s the small matter of typing. Tapping the skinny little virtual keys on the screen is frustrating, especially at first... Even so, text entry is not the iPhone’s strong suit. The BlackBerry won’t be going away anytime soon.

I've become so used to my Treo I can pretty much touch-type on it now. You simply can't do that on a flat screen. Plus, thinking long-term, the lack of tactile feedback could be a real pain. Literally. When tapping away on the Treo, I can slide my thumb across the thumboard to get to the letters that I'm after without exerting enough force to actually push them. Slide your finger across a touchscreen - even a fancy error-correting one - and you'll probably press keys you didn't want to. The solution then is to keep your thumbs hovering above the screen, which ergonomically isn't a smart thing to do.

Simply put: the smartest, bestest touch-screen keyboard ever will never be as good as the best button keyboard. If you think otherwise you're probably a terrorist. :P

I would like to go to the Palm site and "synch" to the newest firmware, and that's it. This is how all the others are doing it.

Completely different software like GPS, games and so on, should of course be installable by the end user, but those things can also be installed on ordinary phones. The best web browser, Opera, can for instance be installed on everything that crawls.

I also want a smartphone to be able to install other things, but the bare essentials like PIM, email, SMS and so on is simply not something I would like to bother with.

I will give props to the iphone. The OS in general is what Palm should be doing now. However, do not forget for one second that the iphone was a MAJOR marketing push for Apple. They will sell a ton of these no doubt. But the iphone is not a working phone. People have poo-pooed the commnets of "No cut and paste", "keyboard takes a lot of getting used to", and "no 3rd party apps". Add to that no support for corporate e-mail, inconsistant UI, too many steps to do simple tasks, suck sync with the calender function, and no voice command. You can't get work done on it and if you are laying out $600 for a work phone, it better be able to earn its keep. The iphone does not do that right now, and I suspect will not be doing that for at least 12-18 months. I say that because; 1. Apple has probably had a gross profit on the iPhone of about $125M (based on estimated cost to produce per unit of about $250.00 and a WAG that ATT is getting about $100.00 per phone sold from its network and approximately 500,000 units sold over the weekend.)This is actually a conservative estimate as I expect that ATT is getting no cut from sales out of the Apple stores. Apple will ride the 1.0 horse as long as it sells. 2. The 3g iPhone will probably debut in Europe and roll out here at least a year from now so as to allow the sheep, errr.....iPhone purchasers to regrow some new wool to be sheared in the US. 3. Apple needs to focus on getting OS 10.5 out the door. While the estimated $125M+ will hire a lot of code monkeys, the bottom line is that its unlikely that we will see a lot of serious software changes in the iPhone before Macworld. Apple is not going to run the risk of slowing sales with the bad press that a code update going south would cause. Again, if the people are buying what you are selling "as is" why change it?

This window is the "last, best, hope for victory" for Palm. If, they come up with an innovative "Palm OS II", some good design refresh and full 3rd party app support, then the Treo can make it. If they can do the same for the Folio and engineer a Rosetta Stone that lets it sync with any cell phone and get the price down some, the Folio can not only make it but prosper.

If they are not shipping such products by CES 2008/Macworld, then I will probably be looking elsewhere for my next PDA/smartphone.

"Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up
and continue as if nothing had happened."
- Winston Churchill

The problem I have is the fact that Mossberg gets advanced copies of Apple tech well before anyone else and I think he has at least the appearence of too cozy a relationship with Apple.

"Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up
and continue as if nothing had happened."
- Winston Churchill

Lol!

That is funny on multiple levels due to PALM's latest words about TOTALLY outsourcing their Windows devices to ODMs and simply tacking their logo on them.

Nope.

That's why they now have dozens!