No New Palm OS Treo's Until mid-2006?

Posted By: Ryan Thursday, February 23, 2006 12:30:15 PM

UPDATED
The Treo notebook article posted earlier today also contains an interesting statement that reads "According to a Palm spokesperson, no new Palm-based Treos are due before mid 2006."

Could this mean we may not see the rumored Palm OS Treo 700p until summer?

UPDATE:
Palm spokesperson Jim Christensen has told PalmInfocenter that they have not had discussion with the author of the PCWorld report. So still not much to go on, but don't take the statement as official.

He went on to reemphasize that Palm has a policy of not commenting on products that may or may not be underway. However, (he said) during the Treo 700w launch Q&A, Palm did say that there would not be another Windows Mobile product before the second half of 2006.

The company has previously disclosed that a GSM version of the Treo 700w would be made available in the second half of 2006.

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Summer

xImtc @ 2/23/2006 11:11:28 AM #

Is that late? Was there ever any reason to suspect something would be out before then?

RE: Summer

hkklife @ 2/23/2006 12:22:04 PM #

Palm has always had a 2x per year (March or April/October) release schedule. Notable exceptions to this rule have been the i705 (Jan '02 & was late for the fall '01 rollout), the T|T2 (July '03-rushed to market as a replacement for the T|T), the LifeDrive (May '05-was launched a bit after the T|E2 for reasons unknown but definitely not for bugfixing!) and the Treo 700W (Jan '06-probably b/c of a clause in the contract saying it would be released in CY 06 but not during the Christmas '05 season)

At any rate, the buzz had been for the 700p to launch this March or April with at least one other new Treo coming this summer and then the remainder of 2006's offerings coming in the fall (the critical back-to-school & Christmas period).

If Palm drops the ball yet again and delays the new POS Treos until July (as other websites & forums have rumored) then it's really time to start writing the eulogy. Four-Five months is an eternity in today's tech market. With the competitors coming from East & West alike, Palm needs impeccable timing, solid quality control and compelling new product. Since it doesn't look like any of those three are in the cards for 2006, we can at best hope for a final round of strong FrankenGarnet PDAs this spring. At worst, Palm might not be releasing ANY new product until midyear.

I've been watching the market closely for years and this is the quietest it's EVER been prior to a "usual launch period" Amazing secrecy on Palm/HTC's part or...a sign of no imminent releases?

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

RE: Summer

joad @ 2/25/2006 11:24:13 PM #

July 2006: "Treo WHO?"

Telling words from the webcast

hkklife @ 2/23/2006 4:03:27 PM #

"All we really care about is sell-thru"

"The Treo today is essentially the power of a PC in your pocket"

(paraphrased) "memory & processing power are commodity items"
(paraphrased) "we trade off processor speed & memory footprint to achieve certain pricepoints...with certain slight carrier subsidies it will be possible to come out of the gate and hit $199 or even $99 pricepoints"

All of the above are Colligan's own words from today's webcast.

Interviewer: "Is it difficult to make a really good smartphone?"

Ed: "Yes......the smallest subtleties make a huge difference"

See, folks, 32mb of RAM on a Treo ain't all that bad! It COULD have had 16mb!

Other tidbits:
They talked about Blackberry/RIM almost as much as Palm's own products.

Treos have very healthy margins (no shiiit!)

Palm & M$ work "really well together".

No specific hints about upcoming Treo specifics.

Palm resisted wi-fi due to "crashing" and "usability complexities" but Palm's always done the "right thing at the right time".

The Web has been "massively underexploited" on handheld devices.

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

RE: Telling words from the webcast

Admin @ 2/23/2006 4:21:12 PM #

great notes. thanks for the report Kris.

RE: Telling words from the webcast

Hal2000 @ 2/23/2006 7:37:09 PM #

Great 'transcript'
Why does my stomach hurt.

Zodiac2/T616/WiFi/2+2 Gigs/In Business Use/Is that an SD card sticking out of your pocket or...

RE: Telling words from the webcast

twrock @ 2/24/2006 4:24:01 AM #

The Web has been "massively underexploited" on handheld devices.

Might have something to do with trying to view the "world wide" web on a two inch screen.

It might not be the "mythical color HandEra", but I'm liking my TX anyway.

RE: Telling words from the webcast

twizza @ 2/24/2006 4:45:47 PM #

The Web has been "massively underexploited" on handheld devices.
then
Might have something to do with trying to view the "world wide" web on a two inch screen.

Might have more to do with web browser that do not have sufficient memory to parse webpages just as they are (scrolling and all). Might have something to do wtih browsers that do not support ANY modern WC3 fomatting specifications, and only subsets of the ones that it does support. Might have something to do with screen size, not down-implementing the [beautiful to everyone who has tried it] PalmSource Webbrowser 3 that was made for the now dead Cobalt. Just maybe, just maybe, in my wildest imagination, they will get it right.

...yea ok.

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com

RE: Telling words from the webcast

twrock @ 2/25/2006 5:07:46 AM #

Might have something to do with screen size, not down-implementing the [beautiful to everyone who has tried it] PalmSource Webbrowser 3 that was made for the now dead Cobalt.

twizza, I'm honestly curious if you have experienced web browsing on a handheld unit that was worth the pain. If all you wish for was actually implemented correctly, would it be something people would use enough to change this: The Web has been "massively underexploited" on handheld devices.? Maybe it's because I haven't used a great "mini" browser, but I find web browsing on a handheld too painful to do for more than the simplest of look-ups. Anything more, and I head for a computer with a real screen.

It might not be the "mythical color HandEra", but I'm liking my TX anyway.

RE: Telling words from the webcast

Scott R @ 2/25/2006 9:05:55 PM #

Web browsing on a mobile device isn't bad if you're accessing a mobile-optimized site. There's no magic formula for taking a site where the designer optimized the experience for a desktop/laptop with a resolution of at least 800 pixels wide and squeezing that down to even a VGA device, let alone a 320-pixel-wide device with a tiny screen.

I still keep hoping that they'll resurrect PQAs, but I don't think the current Palm team is in touch with the "zen" thinking that made the Palm OS so successful in the first place.

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

What else is new????????

rrfranczak3 @ 2/23/2006 7:58:14 PM #

the hell with the Treo's...any other news on maybe a T|X2 or something even better....a T|X maybe with a camera and a faster processor (not to say that the T|X's 312mhz is bad, but maybe even something with dual SD slots.

Perfect Upgrade: a T|X with maybe a 416mhz processor, a camera, and dual SD slots, combined already with how great the T|X is already (Bluetooth,WiFi,Great screen....etc). and maybe a longer battery life and a voice recorder, I personally don't want a phone on my PDA, just everything else...ha ha........Rich

After my divorce, my Palm is my best friend...Palm Pilot that is.......

After my divorce, my Palm is my best friend...Palm Pilot that is.......

RE: What else is new????????

budrowilson @ 2/23/2006 9:45:55 PM #

lol....I never get tired of that joke

RE: What else is new????????

drw @ 2/23/2006 10:32:21 PM #

I'm still waiting for an upgrade to my aging Tungsten C. Treo 6xx thumbpad is too small. Even though the palmOS era will come to and end when the pocket linux era begins, I still have use for palmOS as I only use on a daily basis: handbase, handyshopper, and address book.

What I like about the tungsten C is that it's lightning fast. My ideal C2 would look like this:

- Take the treo 90 as the shell, technology should have increased to fit wifi/bluetooth, fast processor, dailight viewable 320x320 screen into that package.

- Builtin media player with ability to play native *.avi, *.mpg, *.mpeg, *.wmv, *.mov, *.rm, *.mp3 files from sd card and stream wirelessly from web browser.

If I could just PLASTER these two things on the forehead of every Palm employee, post signs in the washroom, break area, stairwells, doormats, mousepads, screensavers, etched into windows, laminated onto pens, who knows, MAYBE they would get it.

---
David

Who cares?

cnegrad @ 2/23/2006 10:03:12 PM #

No new Treos; who cares? Palm would just find creative new ways to screw them up, just like they did their pda's.

RE: Who cares?

joad @ 2/24/2006 6:36:17 PM #

Perhaps they spent all the R+D money on trips to Seattle and plastering busses with the nasty orange Treo posters.

If the 650 was much of an improvement over the 600, this wouldn't be so bad. But the 650 is essentially the device Handspring would have released in 2003 if they weren't cash starved (hi-rez screen and a replaceable battery).

WTF has Palm done in the past 3 years with the franchise except suck it dry and let it die? And to abuse the people who built them - they released the 700w BEFORE the 700p, when we've been waiting since 2003 for the additional memory... Thanks, Palm.