Comments on: Bluetooth and WiFi SD & Memory Sticks in Development

For what shall it profit a man if he were to gain the whole world, but lose his own soul.

Again this gets to the root of the SD form factor vs. CF. The portion that fits in the slot is so small that it leaves more of the device to fit externally. There's nothing magical about SD and it's ability to have micro-electronics crammed into it.

Compare Margi's Presenter-to-go in CF, SD, and MS versions. The CF version is the smallest by far, and doesn't even leave that much externally beyond the connector.

Again with WiFi, the typical size of Symbol, Intel, Sony, Socket (all the same rebadged card) leaves only a small portion of the card externally. The Socket CF bluetooth card isn't any smaller than the CF WiFi card.

Less so even than the Palm/Toshiba BlueTooth card (more area perhaps but less protrusion).

The external portion of CF cards is wide but narrow and thus not a breakage issue. SD accessories are narrow and thus the external portion is larger and sticks out farther. Indeed one is right to consider the leverage that can be applied to the point of breakage.

As for power, again, this depends on the card. There are SD Bluetooth cards including Palm branded ones that draw 150mA during transmit. And there are low power CF WiFi cards. The low power cards can, as mine does, idle at 11mA, and transfer at 150mA-170mA. Without power saving enabled, yes the cards can consume twice that.

But to say that WiFi isn't for PalmOS devices is to promote myth.

TrgPro's running on AA's have used the Symbol card, and one company was even renting them out.

HandEra 330 owners have reported 6 hours of continuous ping with the Symbol CF WiFi card.

It will be good to have the Tungsten C out with it built in to finally put this anti-WiFi bashing to bed.

With WiFi and even WiFi + BlueTooth built in to PocketPC models such as the Toshiba e7xx line and the Compaq H54xx line, surely the more efficient PalmOS will only excel at this in comparison.

It be nice to see less naysaying here. Perhaps half the reason our PalmOS hardware (including the Tungsten T) isn't as capable yet as PocketPC hardware is the internal self-doubting. It's been done on other platforms, and less well that PalmOS do it. So let's get doing it, and quit giving portions of the marketplace away uncontested to PocketPC and Zaurus/Linux. There's some reasons we don't have that last 30%, and one of them is PalmOS licencess won't make comparable hardware, and get the expansion options sorted out. I mean come on, with Handera in limbo, Handspring having dropped Springboard, and Palm and Sony trying to find their way with the comparatively immature SD and MS, in many ways we're slipping back into 1999.

As for WiFi, before saying it's not for PalmOS, ask a happy HandEra owner about WiFi and PalmOS. Or any of the Developers who took one of the free loaners (HandEra 330 and Symbol WiFi card) for a spin at the last PalmSource developers conference.

Huh? The SD card is longer than the Memory Stick.