Wrist PDA & iQue 3600 Delayed Again

Posted By: Ryan Monday, July 21, 2003 11:49:45 AM

The shipping dates for two of this summers most anticipated Palm Powered models have slipped behind, yet again. The GPS enabled Garmin iQue 3600 will now ship by the end of July and the Fossil Palm OS wristwatch release date has now been pushed back to the end of September.

Garmin iQue 3600
Amazon.com, which has been accepting pre-orders of the iQue 3600 since mid April, now reports a shipping date of July 30th in the US. It is listed for $549.99 and ships free.

The iQue 3600 uses Palm OS 5 and is powered by Motorola's 200 MHz DragonBall MXL microprocessor, it boasts internal memory of 32 megabytes, SD memory expansion slot, and a 320x480-pixel transflective TFT display with more than 60,000 color combinations. Additionally, the product integrates Garmin's new Que Technology the company's premier application that delivers GPS-based location awareness to PDA users. The handheld measures 5.0" x 2.8" x 0.8" (72 x 128 x 20.3 mm) and weighs 5.2 oz.

Fossil Palm OS Wristwatch
Amazon has also reported a shipping delay on the Fossil Wrist PDA line. The Fossil branded wristwatches now have a shipping date of September 30th. The Abacus wristwatch models claim a release date of July 31st.

The Fossil line comes with a choice of either Metal, sport of a leather wristband, with prices of $295 for the metal and leather and $275 for the sport. The Abacus version goes for $199 with a metal band and $179 for the sport version.

Fossil's WRIST PDA is fully compatible with the Palm OS platform and will run most Palm OS applications. It features an illuminated 1.4-inch, 160 x 160 pixel touch screen with a stylus integrated into the watch band for Graffiti input. It runs Palm OS 4.1 on a 33 MHz Motorola Dragonball VZ processor, 2MB internal memory, Rocker switch user interface, infrared port, rechargeable battery, and the classic Palm OS applications.

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jeez..

helf @ 7/21/2003 12:39:48 PM #

They are going tro be antiques before they are even released.

RE: jeez..

helf @ 7/21/2003 12:42:23 PM #

oh wait a sec... The end of july is only like 10days away....

RE: jeez..

bigfoot @ 7/21/2003 12:53:27 PM #

I'm not going to hold my breath, but I am going to wait them out.

Cheers,

RE: jeez..

hoodoo @ 7/21/2003 4:02:30 PM #

Sniff...sniff...hmmmmmm, is that the distinct odeur of vapourware?

Keep holding your breath, lol.

RE: jeez..

Georg @ 7/23/2003 5:14:10 PM #

Amazon.com, which has been accepting pre-orders of the iQue 3600 since mid April, now reports a shipping date of July 30th in the US.......

May be they speaking about July 30th 2004??????

Not meaning to sound like a broken record, but...

mikemusick @ 7/21/2003 1:01:27 PM #

I have a strong hunch that Garmin keeps delaying the iQue because of backstock of "traditional" GPSs, specifically, the "GPS V" and "Street Pilot III" models. They've been running a rebate on the GPS V (which is normally around $500) and it's still not been moving.

One problem is that the iQue runs rings around the GPS V, which is an old-style handheld GPS with a small black & white screen. As soon as the iQue is out at a very similar price, GPS Vs are simply going to sit on dealer shelves and gather dust.

The Street Pilot III is their "top end" car navigation system with a color screen about the same size as the iQue, although in landscape format. It is listed at $1099 (street of around $750). While the iQue doesn't have all the SP III bells, etc., it has 95% of the features. So it, too, is at risk of serious dust-gathering.

Garmin is running serious risk of burning most of their dealers with high-$$$ inventories in the older models, so they probably perceived that there's lots of incentive to keep delaying the iQue; this is the fourth or fifth delay announcement. It's time for them to... well... get off the pot. Too bad their short-sightedness is about to close the door on expanding their market beyond their traditional niche.

Yeesh!

Lucky Bob @ 7/21/2003 3:52:27 PM #

Well then they shouldn't have announced their handheld in January!

(Why do some people say you can kill two birds with one stone when it's hard enough killing one bird with two stones?)

RE: Not meaning to sound like a broken record, but...

mikemusick @ 7/21/2003 4:09:43 PM #

That would make sense in most circumstances, but my edu-guess here is that Garmin announced the iQue and the pricing, and the retailers complained about cannibalizing sales for stock they'd already paid for but hadn't sold yet. The consumer GPS market is pretty steady-state relative to, say, the PDA trade (which turns-over about every 7 seconds ;-) ), so my guess is that the back inventory of soon-to-be-obsolete product must run into megabucks.

This is a new market for Garmin and I'm moderately sure they're still bumbling their way around. I hope they pull their act together quickly because I've already noticed that Magellan is making inroads into retailers that traditionally were Garmin bastions. Like I said, they need to get off the pot.

RE: Not meaning to sound like a broken record, but...

hkklife @ 7/21/2003 4:17:31 PM #

Garmin has basically done this to themselves...for years they've tried to peddle overpriced, battery-hungry, quirky dedicated GPS units with only moderate success (as least as far as retail penetration is concerned). With insanely priced proprietary accessories and memory cards, I am surprised that the market didn't give up on them long ago-I suppose the utter lack of competition for fully featured color luggable GPS units permits them to sit around complacently. I mean, when you can buy a laptop, software, and a $50 RadioShack GPS antenna, it's going to be a very hard sell to get someone to pop for one of the color Street Pilots-add GPS attachments for Palms and PPCs (most notably, the new Mapopolis navigator software) and you've really a messy situation for Garmin to finds themselves in. I predict this will be the next Handera 330--good hardware but oversized and under-supported.

If Garmin could get the iQue in all of the usual Palm retail channels (OD, OM, Staples, BBuy, CUSA, CCity, Fry's etc) I seriously doubt they'd have to worry about cutting off their GPS receiver sales at sporting good/outdoorsman supply places.

RE: Not meaning to sound like a broken record, but...

mikemusick @ 7/21/2003 4:59:04 PM #

Yep, agreed. After eight years of dealing with 'em the pricing nonsense and the bang:buck problem has become really old. Beyond their bottom-of-the-line eTrex, the rest of what they have is worth 50% of their MSRP, which is probably why they're catching so much grief from the retailers. I'll tell you what - I'm certainly glad I don't have to buy out of their avionics catalog! Ouch!

Your comment about the outdoor shops (being down the street from a BassPro) does make me really wonder. They have an OK market in the eTrex line, and for the outdoorsman it's (IMHO) a better unit than what Magellan has to offer, although both have quirky UIs, just pick your favorite quirks. You do make me think what sort of traffic Garmin really has in the GPS V and SP III. Their market for those should have been saturated a year ago or more, so any further delays will in the end amount to pennies.

[insert thoughtful chin-scratching]

RE: Not meaning to sound like a broken record, but...

reigndub @ 7/21/2003 11:01:04 PM #

If they dont' hurry up, a basic PDA+GPS set up will reach sub $250 this christmas. At $550 one can get pretty fancy PDA with dual wireless plus maybe discounted BT GPS and car craddle set up.

An idea...

Lucky Bob @ 7/21/2003 3:58:10 PM #

Hey, maybe if Fossil keeps pushing back the release date, they can start selling on the anniversary of its PDA's "Best of COMDEX" award! Now wouldn't that be neat?

(Why do some people say you can kill two birds with one stone when it's hard enough killing one bird with two stones?)

In time for Xmas?

mikecane @ 7/21/2003 6:29:28 PM #

Garmin and Fossil better get going.

I hear Santa needs both to make his rounds. His PPC keeps crashing.

Garmin's lost sale

mikecane @ 7/23/2003 8:14:56 AM #

I was in CompUSA yesterday and this guy was hot for a GPS setup. *Everything* he was looking for was in this iQue. Instead of one compact unit, I think he wound up walking out with a honking iPaq setup. And no part of that setup was from Garmin.

RE: Garmin's lost sale

rwf @ 7/23/2003 3:02:42 PM #

Hard to blame him.

Frankly, if the Garmin doesn't ship on the 30th, I'm going to cancel my IQUE order on Amazon and buy a Navman GPS and an M515 (combined price: $330 dollars, $220 less than the IQUE, and it includes a vehicle mount).

July is almost over, and half the point of a gadget like the IQUE is having a toy for summer road trips.