Foleo Processor Details Revealed?

You forgot the smilie.

If not...

No one posting at Treocentral said anything about signing NDAs, so I doubt it. I assume Palm expected the fanboys attending these FOOLeo pimping sessions would all be cheap drunks and blindly GUSH about the FOOLeo pigtop laptop all over the Internet the next day.

I'm not sure why Palm is worried at this stage of the game. They only had - what 3 YEARS to sort the FOOLeo out. At this stage of the game it's too late to be wringing their hands over what woulda, shoulda, coulda...

TVoR

Now, (as of this past weekend) BestBuy are one of the new nationwide retail chains still carrying the remaining Palm PDA line (Z22, E2, TX)--albeit at prices about 3-5% HIGHER than Palm's MSRP.

Assuming this oddball strategy continues going forward, expect the Fooleo to cost more from BestBuy than it will from Palm.com or from a Palm retail store/kiosk. Peanuts, yes, but once you hit $600, those extra $20-$30 tacked onto the pricetag hurt the Fooleo's chances even more (as if the $399 Acer Pentium dual-core notebook running Vista on sale a few rows over at the very same BestBuy wasn't damaging enough!)

As a wise man once said, "Whatta game!"

P.S. Remember how the T|E2 launched at $220 but was quickly dropped down to $200 (I think Brighthand or someone even wrote that Palm told them that the price would drop once the initial sales rush wore off)? I'd expect the Fooleo's $100 rebate to, upon expiration, become a permanent price drop. I think (6 months from now) Palm will mainly try to push mail-in rebate types of promotions like "Get a Foleo for $199.99 with the purchase of any new Treo and activation of service from ________!"

This STILL isn't the purely stand-alone, retail-oriented, no ties to carrier-branded devices whatsoever, mass-market device that Palm needs right now. Palm NEEDS a device that they sell to the crowd who do not want to see "Palm" and "wireless carrier" anywhere in the same sentence.

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

Terrible customer service, violent management, and the prices are usually retail or above. I like to visit there in the winters (when the carnivals are in hibernation) to see the freak show of "carnies" hawking extended warranties and people foolishly spending their money there.

Thankfully the internet has created choices for people stuck in areas where Worst Buy has eliminated any reasonable competition. Even if they had a full lineup of Palm hardware I wouldn't give them any money except if in desperate need of parts with absolutely no other choice.

I regularly get MWave and NewEgg SPAM (due to building Yet Another PC with their parts), now Crutchfield, too.

All HIGHLY recommended.

;-O

Bwahahahaha!

According to him in a "veiled comment", he signed up quite some time ago.

According to him in a "veiled comment", he signed up quite some time ago.

I believe Beersy is currently developing an app that scales directly from the Treo to the FOOLeo/desktop. You won't hear him EVER say anything negative about a device that he hopes will put food on his table. As someone once said: "Be careful out there!"

TVoR

I make a very nice living as a mobile application developer. I'm not announcing or promising any products for Foleo at this time. The "if" and "when" will depend on other irons I've got in the fire, and Pikesoft's main business has always been developing applications for other companies. I also wouldn't see much benefit in pre-announcing an application in any case. But the fact that I or any other developer decides to develop for the Foleo shows that they are willing to put real money where their mouth is.

As for you guys, you aren't even willing to put your real name on a PIC comment (not that I can really blame you, heh!)

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

> ...I'm not announcing or promising any products for
> Foleo at this time...

but earlier:

> ...Foleo is a great wide-open opportunity for developers, Pikesoft
> in particular. Can't promise anything just yet, but I think you'll
> be hearing an announcement or two from us later in the year...

I would have changed my mind, too, after finding out more about the Fooleo.

Giggle.

I would have changed my mind, too, after finding out more about the Fooleo.

But from my perspective the system and specs on the Foleo seem pretty spot-on for what it needs to do. I'd rather have the good battery life and that big bright screen than a hotter processor.

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

As someone once said:

"Giggle."

Tee hee!

I am. The Flopeo still sucks ass nevertheless.

Return to earth from your trip already.

The Flopeo still sucks ass

Now I'll post, with link, that you think the Fooleo sucks ass.

Giggle.

Pikesoft might as well just close its doors now. However will you recover from the crippling damage this malicious act will cause? (swoon)

Giggle giggle, tee-hee!

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

Of course - nothing means squat out here unless you can confirm it with an information source outside your control.

nothing means squat out here unless you can confirm it with an information source outside your control.

You can link to that bit of information, too, if it pleases you.

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

There'd still be the option of purchasing more fully-featured and configurable media programs ala` pTunes or Coreplayer if the user so desired. But for Palm to not include any kind of out-of-the-box media functionality (apart from a simple photo viewer) is completely insane for a $600 device.

They keep pushing the "but it's not a laptop, it's an email/document machine" line, but I find myself becoming more and more convinced of the idea that they've had to rush it out before its ready. If Palm shipped Foleo with a decent built-in software package, then it could actually could be the "laptop replacement" that people have been clamoring for. And we do want it: who wants all the clunkiness of a desktop interface while on-the-go? The idea of bringing PDA sensibilities to the laptop is excellent one; but Palm appear to have made some serious mistakes in bringing it to fruition.

Here's hoping Foleo 2.0 is a stronger effort. As it is, they're limiting themselves to quite a small niche. Hopefully it won't be so small that they just abandon the idea altogether, ala` Lifedrive.

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

When "Member of the Executive, but titleless" Jeff Hawkins says DURING the very-public introduction of the Fooleo to Walt Mossberg and Kate Swisher:

== "...If I could do it again I'd put a faster processor in it..."

you could probably lay money on the line that the device, after three years, was indeed "rushed" out.

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.4/

http://www.kernel.org/

TVoR

BTW, the fact that the 2.4.21 is very stable on Fedora does not imply that it will be efficient on an embedded device. After all I was quite unimpressed about the battery life of the Foleo. I wonder how much of that depends on poor power optimization.

It's like the ship is sinking, so Palm decided to go build a dock to tie it up at. They need to right the ship first.

Palm is like the poster child for how to take a company who has been given every opportunity to succeed and the management will find a way to guarantee that they'll run it into the ground.

That is, disregarding handhelds, they have no (intermediate to long term) future EXCEPT Fooleos.

AT BEST, assuming the Fooleo ends up with stronger sales out of the gate than we are expecting, I could forsee Palm releasing one or two spin-offs of the Fooleo architecture: The "fullsize" original Fooleo could be joined by a smaller clamshell Windows CE-sized device (no CF slot, video-out etc), and possibly a larger tablet-oriented device (Samsung Q1-sized perhaps?).

I think that the Treo line will continue along essentially changed for at least the next year, with the higher-end Treos running WM6 and the midrange and low-end Treos running WinMob Standard & various permutations of FrankenGarnet.

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

If Palm is going to get their act together, they need announce that the Foleo is part of an advanced mobile OS strategy to have a consistent OS across multiple Palm handheld/mobile devices (Treos/PDAs in particular). If Palm starts letting developers write apps for this hi-res, mouse pointer-based interface, having developers take those back to smaller screens and touch/button input is going to be a much bigger hurdle.

Palm has needed a new PDA/smartphone OS for years, yet instead of putting resources into that, they develop a new OS for a one-off

If Palm is going to get their act together, they need announce that the Foleo is part of an advanced mobile OS strategy to have a consistent OS across multiple Palm handheld/mobile devices (Treos/PDAs in particular). If Palm starts letting developers write apps for this hi-res, mouse pointer-based interface, having developers take those back to smaller screens and touch/button input is going to be a much bigger hurdle.

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