SplashData Releases SplashNotes

I used to consider SplashData *THE* paradigm of a superb Palm OS software house. They had very generous upgrade policies, offered a solid discount for buying their SplashWallet suite, superb customer support and released frequent updates.

Over the past year, however, I get the distinct feeling that they are just treading water (at least on the Palm OS side). They haven't released an update to ANY of their Splash apps since this time last year. At least they managed to attain Treo 700p & 680 compatibility in their last round of updates! Meanwhile, SplashBlog was sold off to someone else and removed from their site, SplashTravel seems a sort of haphazard collection of utilities that's somehow not quite as elegant as their previous efforts and now this repackaged/rebranded release.

I'm not criticizing them, just pointing out what is likely just a sad but undeniable reality facing publishers & developers who were previously loyal to POS. There are quite honestly probably too many mobile platforms out there for companies to support religiously. So they'll go with the safest best (WinMob, BlackBerry, Series 60, Symbian) with poor ol' Palm OS being more and more the odd man out. And with Palm giving increasingly generous (and capable) software bundles with their trickle of new Palm OS handhelds, publishers have even less incentive to keep updating old apps or releasing new ones.

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

I don't so much mind the rebranding if it has been updated as ThoughtManager has not been updated in a long, long while. I wouldn't mind some obvious indication on their website that (1) this an updated version of ThoughtManager, (2) what the changes/fixes are and (3) any upgrade pricing for ThoughtManager users (if any).

I happen to be a member of the SplashData Yahoo User Group and went there before finalizing this post. There it is candidly and upfront stated that the program is an updated version of ThoughtManager. They also state that the only obvious change is the application icons, they give information about "upgrade" pricing and an introductory price of $19.95. They also have been talking about an upcoming major update to SplashID for months. :)

I agree that SplashData has not been releasing updates like they used to but I have attributed this to the fact that they have been porting all of their software to other platforms. I still think they are a good company with good products worth supporting and I am hopeful that their adoption of ThoughtManager means that it will receive meaningful updates in the future, especially since it seems that HandsHigh was not doing anything with it.

In the Spirit of Umoja,
Ronin

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear they are still alive & kicking....well, I KNEW they were still alive and busy porting their stuff to other platforms but I was worried that a whole year devoid of any Palm version updates was a very bad omen.

I'd say that SplashPhoto & SplashID still merit continued development, at least.

I'd also love to see these guys do a voice memo/call recording app. If anyone could wring decent performance out of the 700p it'd be these guys.

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