Comments on: Sony Updates Clie Software

Sony has posted several new software updates for their Palm OS 5 models. A new build of NetFront is now available as well as the latest version of the Macromedia Flash Player. Sony has also released a update for the integrated camera software for the NZ90 handheld.

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What??

navomaal @ 7/9/2003 1:02:18 AM #

I thought sony never posted updates for their handhelds.....I guess there is a first for everything !

When is that new palm coming out anyway???...I know this is not the place to post - but I can't help but ask the question !

RE: What??

heavyduty @ 7/9/2003 3:17:06 AM #

If there was a release date and some known specs of that Sony device I'd probably put off my purchase of the upcoming T2 (which seems too little, too late).

But right now there are no other models on the horizon...

RE: What??

ganoe @ 7/9/2003 10:02:30 AM #

> I thought sony never posted updates for their handhelds

These aren't OS updates. The Macromedia and NetFront folks probably insisted on providing fixes for their bugs.

Sony wants people to use ImageStation, so that's the reason for that update.

RE: What??

IanJD @ 7/9/2003 12:32:20 PM #

Sony have certainly supplied OS updates previously; fixes for the NR70 MP3 playback and hotsync operation come immediately to mind. They very rarely release major version increment updates that need to be flashed.

Old

cypher76 @ 7/9/2003 9:54:13 AM #

This "news" is almost a week old and has been posted on the other PDA sites for almost as long.

RE: Old

JKingGrim @ 7/9/2003 1:17:27 PM #

Geeeze! Lighten up on PIC. On every story all I hear is 'waaaa waaaa waaaa, PIC doesn't have news'. Haven't you been listening? PIC is updating. News will be back on track soon. PIC is not dying.

RE: Old

WireLess_OneDer @ 7/9/2003 2:14:54 PM #

THERE ARE OTHER PDA SITES???

RE: Old

Admin @ 7/9/2003 3:01:33 PM #

only one person sent in this news tip, and shortly after I did a piece on it. If you have or know of anything that may be newsworthy you can send it in via the "Contribute News" link on the main menu.

TG50 Netfront

jamesgood72 @ 7/9/2003 10:07:25 AM #

At first I was wondering why the TG50 wasn't included in that NetFront update - then I saw that's the version my machine already has.

I would love a few things changed in NetFront, it's very close to being the best hand-held browser. I wish it would scale the frames on a page when using the zoomed-out views though. It's quite frustrating that it does such a great job of letting you see the resized contents of individual frames, but doesn't resize the frames themselves.

A 'view source' would be useful too. And support for pop-up windows (on request only, of course).

Anybody else got wishes for it?

-James.

RE: TG50 Netfront

73939133 @ 7/9/2003 8:07:09 PM #

Anybody else got wishes for it?

Yes: fix the bugs. NetFront fails in various ways on some web sites (for example, I can't display http://mobile.yahoo.com/home with it--Yahoo!'s mobile home page). It also crashes the TG50 with some regularity, although that may be more due to general flakiness in the PalmOS TCP/IP implementation (the mail program also crashes the system).

I would love a few things changed in NetFront, it's very close to being the best hand-held browser.

I disagree. Both Opera and Konqueror on Linux PDAs are far more stable and less buggy, and they have display engines that are at least as good. And they have a much more intuitive UI as well.

Don't get me wrong: NetFront is usable and the TG50 is a sleek little handheld--otherwise I wouldn't be using it. But let's keep things in perspective: these are far from the best quality software you can get for handhelds.

RE: TG50 Netfront

jamesgood72 @ 7/10/2003 7:30:40 AM #

I haven't seen many crashes from it, but I'm not a heavy user I guess. It just works when I've needed it, through my T68i over Bluetooth. I had noticed yahoos mobile portal not working, but I assumed that was because it was a WAP site.

I was being a bit over-enthusiastic about it I suppose. Even though Opera is my main browser at home and at work, I've never used it on a hand-held. Netfronts UI is definitely a bit quirky. It's impressive in what it DOES support though, after my previous browser (Handsprings Blazer).

Cheers,

-James.

RE: TG50 Netfront

73939133 @ 7/10/2003 11:53:37 PM #

I had noticed yahoos mobile portal not working, but I assumed that was because it was a WAP site.

It isn't; it works fine in every other handheld and desktop browser that I have tried.

It's impressive in what it DOES support though, after my previous browser (Handsprings Blazer).

I think people are a bit too easily impressed with these devices. The TG50 has the compute power and memory of what used to be a powerful desktop machine just a few years ago. There is no technical reason whatsoever why something like the TG50 shouldn't be capable of running a complete web browser and reliable operating system.

The real reason why Palm software is in such a primitive state compared to desktop software is PalmOS itself: it still imposes limits that may have been appropriate to the original Palm 1000 but that have no place on current Palm handheld hardware.

Let's hope that PalmOS 6 finally fixes that; Palm's UI is still nicer than the competition, but technically, it is just falling further and further behind all the alternatives (PPC, Symbian, Linux), and it just can't survive on its UI forever.

RE: TG50 Netfront

jamesgood72 @ 7/11/2003 9:23:15 AM #

>>I had noticed yahoos mobile portal not working, but I
>>assumed that was because it was a WAP site.
>It isn't; it works fine in every other handheld and
>desktop browser that I have tried.

Mobile.yahoo.com resolves to http://wap.oa.yahoo.com/ It just has a confusing URL then...

>I think people are a bit too easily impressed with
>these devices. The TG50 has the compute power and
>memory of what used to be a powerful desktop machine
>just a few years ago. There is no technical reason
>whatsoever why something like the TG50 shouldn't be
>capable of running a complete web browser and reliable
>operating system.
>
>The real reason why Palm software is in such a
>primitive state compared to desktop software is PalmOS
>itself: it still imposes limits that may have been
>appropriate to the original Palm 1000 but that have no
>place on current Palm handheld hardware.
>
>Let's hope that PalmOS 6 finally fixes that; Palm's UI
>is still nicer than the competition, but technically,
>it is just falling further and further behind all the
>alternatives (PPC, Symbian, Linux), and it just can't
>survive on its UI forever.

At the time I was using a 200MHz desktop, I don't think browsers were any better than Netfront. Really, I did use Netfront as my prime browser on a weeks vacation a while back, and it didn't crash once. What sites are you frequenting? My prime site uses lots of javascript, and works fine, I just wish it resized the frames better. Netfront displays it much better than my IPaq's IE. I haven't tried Netfront on the IPaq however.

I find it hard to accept that PalmOS is falling behind PPC. I do have both, and prefer PalmOS. I hope PalmOS 6 does keep the good points of PalmOS. Really, it is pretty damn close to what I need in my pocket. I know there are some serious internal memory management issues, and people don't like the lack of a conventional file system...

-James.

Anyone know how to turn the volume bar off in Flash?

Davy Fields @ 7/9/2003 2:50:10 PM #

It's really distracting, unnessecary, and on top of everything else, it's cutting down on the screen size for the flash animations... really, what we needed in this update was the ability to hide the silkbar at the bottom, and instead there's a large bar at the top that just duplicates another function.... sigh.

-Davy Fields
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Palm_OS_5/

Flash 5 at last

vermin2k @ 7/10/2003 6:01:30 PM #

Nice to see a serious implementation of flash anyone know if it supports all the same features as the full blown PC version did?

Would be worth buying a clie for...

HUGE UPDATES!? and no flash rom to stuff them into

nekrataal @ 7/10/2003 10:40:07 PM #

Why is $ony putting out updates that are in excess of 1MB, and not putting flash ROM in thier clies? these HUGE updates only further restrict the already meager 11MB of RAM we have. They should have put FLASH ROM instead of masked ROM so these inevitable updates could be installed without sacrificing our precious RAM. Poor planning on $ony's part i say.

PEG-NX73V

HKHAN @ 5/17/2007 3:56:12 PM #

Can some one please tell me where to find the phone driver software for this modle so i can link it to my cell phone. Sony ericsson W880i....
Please any one