Comments on: David Nagel: Linux is the Future

IDG News Service conducted a highly interesting and revealing interview with PalmSource CEO David Nagel while at the 3GSM conference in Cannes, France. Nagel speaks on the new PalmSource offerings that target feature phones and smartphones, the benefits of the CMS acquisition and makes a bold statement about the future of the Palm OS moving to Linux.
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His Wife Bought One?

DevPOV @ 2/16/2005 1:20:56 PM # Q
LOL... I wonder if she went to Best Buy?

RE: His Wife Bought One?
SeldomVisitor @ 2/16/2005 1:49:26 PM # Q
I wonder if her "smartphone" is PalmOS-based...

Ooh ooh ooh...

RE: His Wife Bought One?
drw @ 2/17/2005 2:22:53 AM # Q
if his wife uses a good camera like a canon with compact flash memory, then she will need a pda that accepts compact flash like a pocket pc.

---
David
RE: His Wife Bought One?
Sartre @ 2/17/2005 10:50:48 AM # Q
Why would she need a PDA that accepts bulky CompactFlash? All she would need to do, as most people who do digital photography will, is download the images to a PC and then save to a convenient SD card that's more convenient to carry around.
RE: His Wife Bought One?
tmp12 @ 2/17/2005 1:13:18 PM # Q
Sartre wrote:
Why would she need a PDA that accepts bulky CompactFlash?
All she would need to do, as most people who do digital
photography will, is download the images to a PC and then
save to a convenient SD card that's more convenient to carry
around.


What a strange and time consuming workaround.

Gruß
Uwe

RE: His Wife Bought One?
AdamaDBrown @ 2/17/2005 1:59:06 PM # Q
Very time consuming. Also tethers you to the PC. As for 'bulky CompactFlash', there are dual-slot PPCs that are not much larger than the T5.

RE: His Wife Bought One?
mikecane @ 2/17/2005 3:16:59 PM # Q
Hey, I was shocked -- shocked, I say! -- when I saw that latest round of Black Ugly hp PPCs in a store and saw that in front-to-back thickness they match that new "skinless" Zire -- and yet they manage to have TWO slots instead of p1's stingy and idiotic one. (Wasn't the point of using SD to save space? WHAT saved space?!)

RE: His Wife Bought One?
Gekko @ 2/17/2005 4:26:10 PM # Q

MikeCon - It's a Zen thing.



RE: His Wife Bought One?
Altema @ 2/17/2005 4:44:27 PM # Q
CF is not the only storage media in the universe, so saying someone uses a PDA to show their images does not assume a single format.

RE: His Wife Bought One?
AdamaDBrown @ 2/18/2005 2:06:40 AM # Q
However, CF is the de facto standard for any serious camera. You won't find Digital Rebels sporting SD slots.

RE: His Biotch Bought One?
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/18/2005 3:16:57 AM # Q
Why would she need a PDA that accepts bulky CompactFlash?

A few reasons: Least expensive and highest capacity media. Available (i.e. non-vaporware) expansion cards. Excellent data throughput. Compatible with the format used by the best digital cameras.

It's odd to hear this story about Nagel's wife. I thought he was gay.





*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: His Wife Bought One?
dagwud @ 2/18/2005 11:20:02 AM # Q

Uwe Wrote:

What a strange and time consuming workaround.

You all are thinking like geeks and not photographers. He didn't say his wife used the PDA as a means to view all the images she took recently. He said she used it as photo album.

Any photographer will tell you that he or she takes many more photos than are actually kept. Some are blurry, some just don't look good, and some crop off the tops of people's heads.

Any of you consider that maybe, just maybe, she filters through her photos on her computer to begin with,and then loads the best of them to her PDA Photo Album?

Granted, I could be wrong. Then again, so could those who assume that "doing digital photography" means she must be using a Digital Rebel rather than Powershot SD500.



RE: His Wife Bought One?
MikeInDM @ 2/18/2005 1:44:53 PM # Q
However, if you have SD cards to use, you can get adaptors that will let an SD card be used in a CF card slot, hence, you CAN use an SD card with a Digital Rebel.

Since PalmSource doesn't sell the hardware, I'm glad his wife bought on... otherwise, she would have had to steal it ;-)

Reply to this comment

Cobalt for phones?

Be_True @ 2/16/2005 1:44:45 PM # Q
I thought Cobalt was to be for High end devices,
and Garnet to be a cheaper version to make it easier for phone developers to use?

If they have supposedly shifted so much attention to Cobalt, why is Garnet still around?

-Chris


Tungsten C, Palm IIIxe, Wizard OZ-9520

"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati"

RE: Cobalt for phones?
AdamaDBrown @ 2/16/2005 2:34:50 PM # Q
That was supposed to be more or less the plan: Cobalt for handhelds and high-end smartphones, and Garnet for more basic smartphones. Then they decided no, Cobalt is for ALL smartphones, it's the smartphone OS. No, wait, forget Cobalt, we want to run Linux. Yeah, that's it.

It's no wonder that confidence in PalmSource is low, particularly amongst licensees. Between their pinballesqe future plans, their weasling around the hard questions--notice that Nagel didn't even come close to answering the question about whether Linux would squeeze out Cobalt?--and the general lack of inititive, they look like they don't know what they're doing or what they want to do. They need to get on the ball now, produce a single new OS that has support for things like WiFi, video hardware, etc., then convince PalmOne to produce some actual compelling hardware. It's the only way to reclaim the inititive, mind-share, and image that they've lost.

RE: Cobalt for phones?
hkklife @ 2/16/2005 3:23:54 PM # Q
The spin-off (beheading??) of P1 & PalmSource was the single worst thing to ever happen to the platform, Yankowski aside.

P1 was never a strong hardware company and now they have weak hardware further handicapped by patched-up OS 5 revisions and buggy filesystems etc. The Palm OS platform never enjoyed a strong licensee aside from Sony and now that they are gone, PalmSource has nothing to lean on.

I think that only saving grace would be for some white knight to swoop in and pick up the pieces of both companies in one fell swoop OR for P1 to repurchase PalmSource and bring them back into the fold--but only after paring the PDA & Treo lineup to a few strong models.

Oh, and RIM has a few dark days in court wouldn't hur either of the above parties in the slightest.


RE: Cobalt for phones?
Gekko @ 2/16/2005 5:24:55 PM # Q

>Cobalt for handhelds and high-end smartphones, and Garnet for more basic smartphones. Then they decided no, Cobalt is for ALL smartphones, it's the smartphone OS. No, wait, forget Cobalt, we want to run Linux.

That's the best explanation of Nagel's convoluted strategy that I've ever heard.



RE: Cobalt for phones?
cbowers @ 2/16/2005 6:28:45 PM # Q
"I think that only saving grace would be for some white knight to swoop in and pick up the pieces of both companies in one fell swoop OR for P1 to repurchase PalmSource and bring them back into the fold"

No no no. If that's what it takes, it's not worth saving, let it die. If there's any chance for the platform, it's with Licensees the likes of HP and Dell. They can't/won't compete if the deck is stacked. PalmOne may suck on the hardware side, but they don't suck enough that any other licensees would compete with them in the platform with PalmOne having the inside edge on the OS. Jeeze they're bad enough as it is with holding their API cards close to their chest (reference the history of WiFi API's on the Tungsten C, and WiFi SD card driver issues on the other devices). And I guess I can't blame them. I DO blame Palmsource however. This year has been a colossal waste of time. The PalmOS economy is anything *but* enabled by PalmSource. If they can't get an OS out that captures and enables the hardware designers imaginations, and the licensees we *need* can't resist being on the outside of any longer, and PalmSource can't get those licensees into the platform, then stick a fork in us, we're done. No more artificial prop ups.

Give me an HP or Dell class hardware product with BT+WiFi, and OS5x and I could be happy for another year while they get the OS kernel mess sorted out.

But given no new licensees, and no miracles from PalmOne (now there's a long shot to bet on...), that's a wrap folks. Treo buyers will just slow things to a protracted, painful death.

I dare pa1mOne to dump PalmOS. Do it and you BOTH die.
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/16/2005 9:47:14 PM # Q
The spin-off (beheading??) of P1 & PalmSource was the single worst thing to ever happen to the platform, Yankowski aside.

P1 was never a strong hardware company and now they have weak hardware further handicapped by patched-up OS 5 revisions and buggy filesystems etc. The Palm OS platform never enjoyed a strong licensee aside from Sony and now that they are gone, PalmSource has nothing to lean on.

I think that only saving grace would be for some white knight to swoop in and pick up the pieces of both companies in one fell swoop OR for P1 to repurchase PalmSource and bring them back into the fold--but only after paring the PDA & Treo lineup to a few strong models.

The "split" made good economic sense at the time and made Palm a quick buck. Who cares about long term results if you're operating under a fatally flawed business model?

If the sham split is dissolved, I know of a few Palm execs that will deserve to be sent to jail along with Martha Stewart...


To expect decent hardware from pa1mOne (or any remaining licencee) is unrealistic. Palm has NO tradition of supplying advanced hardware. That was up to the likes of HandEra, Sony, Tapwave, Garmin, Handspring, AlphaSmart and Samsung. And now who's left?

HandEra. Dead. Killed by Palm's greed.

Sony. Retreated to Japan. Battered by Sony's desire to consolidate product lines.

Tapwave. Almost dead. Brutalized by poor retail presence, questionable business model and inadequate software support. About to be killed by Sony's PSP. Tapwave: your 15 minutes of (non)fame is up. Please exit stage left along the HandEra Pathway.

Garmin. Turncoat. Switching to PPC. Smart.

AlphaSmart. Near dead. Savaged by shaky business model.

Samsung. Bored. Ignored by carriers and not serious about PalmOS commitment.

Handspring. Dead. Born again in the Holy Palm Spirit, then Dead Again due to stagnant development of Treo 600.

PalmSource could have been a valuable asset had management not made so many mistakes. BUt now it's spinning out of control. PalmLinux, PalmOS 6/Cobalt, PalmOS 5/Garnet, China MobileSoft PhoneOS, Bob... Bless their hearts!

pa1mOne is a guppy hardware seller swimming in the PalmOS fish tank, floating in a sea of sharks. Expose themselves to REAL competition and they'll be devoured within a year. Go ahead, Palm: dump PalmOS and see what happens. Dumba$$es.







*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Cobalt for phones?
tompi @ 2/20/2005 11:53:08 PM # Q
"The spin-off (beheading??) of P1 & PalmSource was the single worst thing to ever happen to the platform, Yankowski aside."

No, the worst thing was PalmOS 5 and 6: it was an incredibly stupid move by Palm to try to develop their own OS for ARM rather than building on BSD and/or Linux from the start (or even a commercial kernel). PalmOS 5 based on Linux could have shipped sooner than it did, with the same degree of compatibility (since PalmOS 4 is already running emulated on top of PalmOS 5), and Palm could have spent the last several years doing what they do best: applications and libraries, rather than kernels.

PalmLinux™ Pipedreams. Vs. Cobalt (available within WEEKS!)
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/21/2005 3:25:51 AM # Q
No, the worst thing was PalmOS 5 and 6: it was an incredibly stupid move by Palm to try to develop their own OS for ARM rather than building on BSD and/or Linux from the start (or even a commercial kernel). PalmOS 5 based on Linux could have shipped sooner than it did, with the same degree of compatibility (since PalmOS 4 is already running emulated on top of PalmOS 5), and Palm could have spent the last several years doing what they do best: applications and libraries, rather than kernels.

Nonsense. PalmOS 5 was well-executed and did the job required of it. A clean-sheet rewrite at that time would have cost Palm too much time. PalmOS 6, on the other hand should have been planned as PalmLinux from the very beginning. The fact that PalmOS 5 has stayed so capable over the years is a testament to PalmSource.

If you think applications are one of the things that Palm "do best", you obviously are clueless. And PalmSource HAS been spending a lot of time looking at APIs etc over the past two years. Only problem is no one knows how portable the Cobalt frameworks will be to PalmLinux.

At least Cobalt will finally be seen on a real device in March. Yawn.






*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

Reply to this comment

Wonder who's buying into the EXISTING Cobalt

SeldomVisitor @ 2/16/2005 1:47:48 PM # Q
What does this say about the "existing" Cobalt?...

Yow.

Reply to this comment

Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out

feranick @ 2/16/2005 1:50:50 PM # Q
Quoting Nagel:

"When you build an open platform for mobile phones, you find yourself confronted with an extensive set of forward looking developments that you need to support, such as a whole variety of different micro processors and radio modules -- each requiring a significant amount of software to integrate with your basic platform. In the case of Linux, the work required to develop all these drivers is already done. Many chip makers do a reference port of their chips and create the software for integrating those chips to standard embedded Linux."

Now we officially know why there aren't any Cobalt devices out there. Basically too little chips are supported. It's too much for the licensees to do.

I guess PalmSource should have gone Linux long ago, instead of picking up BeOS.

RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
Texonite @ 2/16/2005 4:23:03 PM # Q
Well, as he said there will be only an Linux KERNELL (if you know what it is) and they took all multimedia system from BeOS wich will remain intact in PalmOS for Linux.
Actually what they'll replace in new system just will be a Kernel - with wide variety of drivers and open development wich will bust the simplicity of production of new devices and accesories.

Don't blame their stupidity, they're much more clever then you think...

____________________
Future Online!
Sorry for my bad english :(

RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
feranick @ 2/16/2005 5:41:40 PM # Q
The kernel is the underlaying part of the OS that runs the low level I/O of the computer. From your answer, you are saying that the kernel is not really relevant. It may be to you, end user. in fact from that perspective the user won't see any difference between the original Cobalt and the Linux Cobalt (or whatever the name is). The kernel is very important for the hardware manifacturer: What's cool about the Linux kernel is that the supported drivers are there already, while basically no drivers are available for the BeOS based Cobalt. The drivers talk to the kernel. Also feature currently not implemented in cobalt and way needed and requested by the users (a filesystem to start...), are already there. So Cobalt may be the coolest thing, with the best multimedia features. But if the hardware support is poor you don't go anywhere.

I don't think it is clever to invest a huge amount of money in developing a microkernel that didn't last very long (to actually be scrapped for Linux). A smarter move would have been to design the first kernel on Linux, or FreeBSD for Cobalt. In other words do what Apple (succesfully) did for OSX. Now they are late a year, there isn't any Cobalt device out, and we will have to wait another year to see the linux version.

Now this doesn't sound very smart... although I must say: better later than never.

RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
Texonite @ 2/16/2005 8:00:25 PM # Q
Well, what I say is "Cobalt Wasn't a Void development" though they'll not use its kernell, they'll use all tech above it. So it's better to go Be&Linux then just Linux.

____________________
Future Online!
Sorry for my bad english :(
RE: Reason for Cobalt devices not yet out
drw @ 2/17/2005 2:33:17 AM # Q
the kernal uses a secret recipe of 9 languages and debuggers, drenched in java, and outsourced atop a medley of solaris and aix.

---
David
Reply to this comment

Pic of Nagel doing what he does best

Gekko @ 2/16/2005 4:19:14 PM # Q

http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:Wi0ZfptuJmUJ:http://¬¤¸.adelaide.edu.au/pr/media/releases/2001/images/suckling.jpg



RE: Pic of Nagel doing what he does best
Gekko @ 2/16/2005 4:24:56 PM # Q
RE: Pic of Nagel doing what he does best
hkklife @ 2/16/2005 5:19:08 PM # Q
LOL!!!! Is Nagel suckling on the T5 or is that the T5 suckling on Nagel?



RE: Pic of Nagel doing what he does best
Gekko @ 2/16/2005 5:23:00 PM # Q

That's Nagel sucking out the very last drop of milk from the teat of Mother Palm.



RE: Pic of Nagel doing what he does best
drw @ 2/17/2005 2:32:12 AM # Q
He's about as relavent as Patrick Nagel.

---
David
Reply to this comment

Nagel: CELL chip is the future

mikecane @ 2/17/2005 9:32:14 AM # Q
I hope this CPU is on your radar!
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21304

Cellphone security?
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?ContentId=4088
-- hmmmm, supplementary products for WinMob and Symbian...

Reply to this comment

Linux security?

mikecane @ 2/17/2005 9:44:03 AM # Q
Reply to this comment

Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!

Gekko @ 2/17/2005 4:24:48 PM # Q

FOOL!



RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
mikecane @ 2/17/2005 4:30:41 PM # Q
hackbod must be *really* snowed under with work that she hasn't popped in here to console us...

RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
Gekko @ 2/17/2005 7:17:02 PM # Q

Nagel, Mace, Hackbod, et al are all staring out the window right now.



RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
Gekko @ 2/17/2005 7:20:23 PM # Q

and where's our Chief Anti-competitive Officer Michael Mace? He's been as scarce as a kid on the back of a milk carton.



Where *is* Michael Mace???
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/17/2005 11:26:36 PM # Q
Cane and Geeko: Please don't make fun of Mistress Hackborn and longtime Palm Rotation Engineer Michael Mace.

- hackbod is a wonderful person, a great programmer and a "femme fatale" to boot! It's not her fault that Cobalt suffered the same fate as BeOS - it's just a coincidence that she also worked at Be. Yes, those of us who know PalmOS suggested Palm go the PalmLinux route three years ago, but it's time you stopped crying over spilt goo. Buy a TH55 and another one as a backup if you can afford it. That's as good as it's gonna get, Cane


- Michael Mace has effectively been ousted from Palm. He hasn't served any real function there in a couple years, in case you didn't realize.

This would all be hilarious if the mutilation of the PalmOS platform wasn't so sad. At least a lot of Palm execs got rich before everything collapsed. And between the UX50 and the TH55, there should be enough of a supply of good PDAs for enthusiasts to use for years to come.

Now I know how Newton owners felt when crApple pulled the plug on that platform.





*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
drw @ 2/18/2005 12:40:30 AM # Q
I bet someone at palmone is reading this thread. If not, they should be. If I were CEO of palm one I would instantly go after market share currently held by mp3 players and video players. They are taking space on the counter that USED TO BE for PDA's ONLY! Just blatently copy the ipod and put a color OS5 palm in the same unit. Then for the videofiles, make a PalmLinux version that can play mpg, mpeg, wmv, avi, mov files, and also do WIFI and.

And what's his name who wrote that brain book, cut him loose. Fire him. He may have invented the platform, but what has he done for it lately?

---
David

RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is OVER!
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/18/2005 2:59:24 AM # Q
If I were CEO of palm one I would instantly go after market share currently held by mp3 players and video players. They are taking space on the counter that USED TO BE for PDA's ONLY! Just blatently copy the ipod and put a color OS5 palm in the same unit.

Are you crazy? Why do you think Palm would want to adapt to the market and produce a successful new product out of parts they already have?

By the way, Sony already released a Palm-as-video-player model: the VZ90. Video handhelds will probably never really take off unless they have some other essential function. Anything that is comfortably portable will have a screen that's too small to watch. Also, people like MP3 players because they can listen to music while doing other things. If you're watching a video, that all you can do.

Had Palm just MARKETED their ability to work as a MP3 player as-is, they could have generated a lot more sales.







*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
hkklife @ 2/18/2005 9:26:07 AM # Q
You are also faced with the (at least for P1 in its current state) on how to hurdle battery drain and the actual interface to the hard drive. P1 can barely keep It would have to be something USB-related as the current Xscales, PXAs & OMAPs that P1 is using don't have IDE interface capabilities. IMHO, dual SDIO is the best way in order to maintain a balance between battery life & storage capacity. However, 2gb SD cards still aren't out yet and P1 is reluctant to give their handhelds any features that might extend their lifespans and keep them from buying the latest T|E revision.

I think that putting the "portable media player" spin on things is the current flavor du jour with manufacturers of portable devices. In the case of Tapwave, it's a floundering company's last attempt to respin a product that lacked a focused approach from the start. The last thing P1 needs is to try and become a provider of media player.

Voice is right: P1 should have pushed the early Tungstens as dual work/mp3 player devices starting in '02. The various volume issues/audio bugs/SD card killing woes should never have been present in shipping models. P1 could have done what Sony did with the PS2's DVD playback--offer mainstream consumers a first taste of a rapidly growing technology on a device where that was not its primary purpose. There are still likely many homes where the PS2 is the primary DVD player. Crude, but it works. P1 should also have pushed Sandisk years ago to get SD capacities up and prices down.

RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
Surur @ 2/18/2005 10:26:39 AM # Q
You are also faced with the (at least for P1 in its current state) on how to hurdle battery drain and the actual interface to the hard drive. P1 can barely keep It would have to be something USB-related as the current Xscales, PXAs & OMAPs that P1 is using don't have IDE interface capabilities. IMHO, dual SDIO is the best way in order to maintain a balance between battery life & storage capacity.
------------------------------------

I dont understand this. You do know compact flash is just a mini ide interface, dont you. And that the mini-ipod etc uses exactly the same interface as a CF microdrive. It has nothing to do with the chips being used.
------------------------------------
However, 2gb SD cards still aren't out yet and P1 is reluctant to give their handhelds any features that might extend their lifespans and keep them from buying the latest T|E revision.
-------------------------------------

Again, whats wrong with CF, or would it have ruined the sleek "zen of palm"?

Surur

RE: Hey Nagel: The Future is NOW!
hkklife @ 2/18/2005 10:57:12 AM # Q
I know that CF IS IDE but I was under the impression that the iPod & other similar tiny media players (not the big Archos units) used some sort of IDE->USB interface. I stand corrected.

P1 (Palm Inc. actually) made a commitment long ago to SD/MMC and is a card-carrying part of the SD consortium.
http://www.sdcard.com/usa/

I just don't see a compelling reason to put a CF slot in a regaular mainstream P1 model. At least, not a reason compelling enough to revive P1's sagging fortunes. They have enough consumer & markeplace confusion with products out there running different OSs, with different connectors and even carrying different branding ("Palm" vs. "PalmOne"). CF would only further cloud the issue.

Besides, if power users and professionals use CF, then that's entirely the market that P1 does not want to appeal to anymore. Didn't anyone tell you that soccer moms, high school kids, and middlin' businesspeople are the lucrative new market? SD & MP3 players are hip. CF, RS232, open standards and high quality are sooo last millennium!



Reply to this comment

Motorola working on RAZR-like Pocket PC Phone

mikecane @ 2/17/2005 4:33:13 PM # Q
http://www.pdalive.com/showarticle.php?threadid=8057

Suddenly, the Treo looks so... brick-like!

Reply to this comment

OLED ain't the future

mikecane @ 2/17/2005 7:12:38 PM # Q
Reply to this comment

e-knarr

e_tellurian @ 2/18/2005 2:20:13 PM # Q
To build or not to build is a $250,000,000 question.

Choices in ROI 6 months do dicatate choices, however, is that a choice?

Is trade of value in markets that value a cost of living index too?

A prototype is needed to test all choices so the market may choose.

E-T

e-tellurian

completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution

"Naglegible"
NewtonDKC @ 2/19/2005 12:56:20 AM # Q
I think it's hilarious when people being interviewed totally give an answer that has absolutely nothing (or very little) to do with a question (or questions) they were asked. When the interviewer asked Nagel if the move to Linux would squeeze development efforts of Cobalt - he responds by saying something about applications being the reason people by PDA's and that they offer these apps (really? I thought the software vendors did) and that by moving to Linux they'll bring tremendous value to the Linux community.

I would have laughed until I cried if the interviewer - in response to his response - would have said:
"Oh, well that's just nifty. But back to the original question - Do you think the shift to Linux will put a squeeze on Cobalt or some of your other OS'es?"

And just keep doing that until he actually answered it. It annoys me to no end when people side step questions by giving an answer that leads people away from (or makes them forget) what the original question even was! Every interviewer should keep repeating the question until they get a satisfactory answer or the best one the interviewee can give such as "Yes, it probably will and no one will like that answer so that's why I rattled off a bunch of B-LLSH-T a moment ago" or the far more likely answer of "I really have no clue what the answer to that question is. Not my area of expertise."
Loser! :-)
Oh - one last, totally off topic question - when the T5 came out, people were saying the extra flash ram was just an internal SD slot holding an el cheapo SD memory card. I laughed, but I read (or possibly dreamed) somewhere that this was true? That has to be a joke or just someone sayingsomething they have no clue about whatsoever, right? OR did someone take one apart and that really is what's there? Does anyone? I can not find this post now (so maybe I really di dream it), but it would be incredibly lame of Palm to pull something like that. Then again, if that *really* is the case, then what's to stop someone from yanking the SD memory out and popping in the WiFi card? Hey - internal wireless for a Palm finally (yeah,natch the T C) and no pesky protruding antenna. :-) Heck, I'm almost wishing this IS true...

RE: e-Nagellurian
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/19/2005 3:27:36 PM # Q
http://www.red-mercury.com/nvfs.html

The T5 uses a new (for Palm) type of memory chip that more or less acts like a small SD card. It's nothing like an SD card in terms of form factor, so your dream is dead. In this day of cheap 1 GB expansion cards, it's not reallly much of a selling point, though. Palm would have helped users a a lot more by simply including two SDIO slots in its PDAs along with a backup app like BackupMan. The T5 architecture is a waste of time, space and money. Anyone serious about Palms is holding out for more intelligent designs - like the one from Tapwave. Why Tapwave hasn't stopped their suicidal business plan and released a SMALL dual expansion tablet version of the Zodiac is bizarre. They could have cornered the market for power users now that Sony has retreated to Japan to lick their wounds.

Regarding Nagel's slippery answers. Yes, it's ridiculous to see Palm execs trying to spin things when dealing with the media, but what else do you expect him to do? Admit that PalmSource made a massive, MASSIVE mistake by not developing PalmLinux three years ago, admit that Cobalt has been a buggy flop that neither licencees nor developers care for and that Cobalt has been spurned for the Vaporware PalmLinux despite the fact that PalmLinux might take two years to reach the market in a stable configuration? That would be one sure way to destroy PalmSource's stock price. (Even interviews with obscure, minor league media get quickly sent around the world these days.)

Think of Nagel as being like Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister and you'll appreciate why he says what he says.

http://www.palmgear.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=software.showsoftware&prodid=49043


Direct download:
http://tinyurl.com/55ejo

I'm thinking of releasing a similar app full of the typical Nagelisms we've been hearing for years...






*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

Naglebabble
Gekko @ 2/19/2005 4:04:35 PM # Q

this is how he got the job

peter principle


Because Tapwave is Dead Man Walking
mikecane @ 2/23/2005 1:03:43 PM # Q
>>>Why Tapwave hasn't stopped their suicidal business plan and released a SMALL dual expansion tablet version of the Zodiac is bizarre.

PalmOne Tungsten T5 Review
http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/2005/02/palmone-tungsten-t5-review.htm

Reply to this comment

Out of their Minds...

mopcodes @ 2/20/2005 10:28:40 PM # Q
I think Palm is loosing it's luster fast. I'm have Palm devices since the IIIxe and one IPAQ. The T5 is a bust. I'm about to sell my T3.

After months of looking and reading I bought a Treo 650 even though I said I'd never do that. However my other phone was on it's last legs and Sprint made me an offer I could not refuse. So I got the 650.

Well as far as the wow factor it earns an "A". As a phone I'd say a "C" - it's not easy to use when driving and none of the internal voice products are worth crap. I finally went to the SprintPCS voice package - dial "*" Send deal. It's working 95% of the time.

Now I hear Palm talking about Linux. Oh please. That's all we need. I think they need to stick with Palm OS and work on it's bugs. The Treo 650 is go buggy it's almost crazy.

Take one bug--- errr feature - you cannot PASTE a link into the 650's browser. I mean like DUH! That sucked when I found that out.

I'll be stuck with this 650 for 18 months. Then I'll look for a phone replacement for it.

I doubt unless something changes at Palm that I will buy another Palm device of any sort.

Maybe I should go with a Franklin Planner! At least it works.

RE: Out of their Minds...
svrontis @ 2/20/2005 11:29:17 PM # Q
I guess there is always WinCE/PPC/WinMobile/whatever - who knows, maybe in 18 months time, they would have sorted out the bugs with ActiveSync, so that you an synchronise with a PC without the inevitable hang.

RE: Out of their Minds...
drw @ 2/21/2005 12:18:10 AM # Q
Made a trip to verizon and sprintpcs stores today. Thought the 650's screen looked nice now that it is 320x320, but the audiovox xv6600 easily plays streaming media over EVDO. I tried the same on my tungsten C (going to windowsmedia.com and clicking on links), but it didn't work and I have several media and music players intalled.

Palm should have a PALM MEDIA PLAYER preinstalled on every palm which can play mpg, mpeg, avi, wmv, wma, whatever and is INTEGRATED with a standard PALM WEB BROWSER.

I can only guess what happened when BeOS programmers met PalmSource managers. BeOS people told PSRC how a multimedia multitasking os would need to happen, and the PSRC managers probably micromanaged till the BeOS people threw in the towel in disgust. Someone needs to be held accountable for the fact that no hardware maker has elected to produce an OS6 device. It's all about office politics and turf wars I bet and no one is looking at the big picture. They're a bunch of ants with no idea of the mound.

I'm ridiculed for suggesting a palm mp3 player, when the only product left on display at best buy is a zire 21 and 71 with the paint scratched off. Pretty soon you'll need to ask a pimply faced associate where the pda's are and it will no longer be a display table on an aisle, it will be the butt end of an aisle a couple units cryovac'd hanging on a rod as is with no accessories and software.

And take the tmobile sidekick. That should have been a palm device instead of proprietary with no 3rd party stuff. If the sidekick is good enough for Paris Hilton and her friends, then there's another opportunity that palm1 missed.

And there should be a palm blackberry with push email, nice thumbpad, yet palm os so one can take advantage of the 3rd party software out there.

---
David

RE: Out of their Minds...
SeldomVisitor @ 2/21/2005 9:16:49 AM # Q
> ...Take one bug--- errr feature - you cannot PASTE a link into
> the 650's browser. I mean like DUH! That sucked when I found that
> out...

I asked about this on Yahoo and a TREO 650 owner said it is not true:

-- http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=1607137051&tid=plmo&sid=1607137051&mid=46136

Someone is incorrect.


RE: Out of their Minds...
mopcodes @ 2/22/2005 1:58:20 PM # Q
If you launch the Browswer on the 650 you'll press the menu button the treo. The Edit drop down reads:

EDIT
Copy /C
Select All
..............

There is no option to PASTE. I was in Memos. I had a URL there. I copied it. Went to the Browser and there was no paste option. However then it gets tricky. you have to select the field a certain way and viola! a PASTE feature appears. It's just not intuitive. That's all. So I'm sorta right and sorta wrong. Goofy thing.

Reply to this comment

New Sony CLIE available within weeks? Truth or fiction???

The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/20/2005 2:32:35 PM # Q
http://palmaddict.typepad.com/palmaddicts/2005/02/rumor_of_new_cl.html


A TH55 with an OLED screen, 1 MP camera, upgraded PIM and portrait/landscape ability would be an easy upgrade to produce. Will it happen? Has Sony come to its senses and realized that there is a huge market for PDAs that has no interest in Sony's PSP?





*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: New Sony CLIE available within weeks? Truth or fiction???
mikecane @ 2/23/2005 1:07:01 PM # Q
HAHA -- I'd do a billion of them, but Ryan would have to edit it down to spare the formatting.

New CLIE within weeks? Truth or fiction?

Yo! Voiceboy. How about DELUSION?!

Reply to this comment

Palm Apologists = Battered/Cheated Wives

Gekko @ 2/23/2005 9:02:21 PM # Q

The Palm Apologists are like wives who are continually battered and cheated on yet stay with their husbands and blame the police when they are called to save them from the next beating or the friend who tells them of the affairs. They blind themselves to the truth and make excuses to dismiss reality.



RE: Palm Apologists = Battered/Cheated Wives
Gekko @ 2/23/2005 9:06:10 PM # Q
Psychology of the Battered Palm Apologist Syndrome

FOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL STAGES OF THE BATTERED PALM APOLOGIST SYNDROME

1. DENIAL
The Palm apologist refuses to admit--even to himself--that there is a "problem". He may call each Palm debacle an "accident". He offers excuses for Palm's incompetence and each time firmly believes it will never happen again.

2. GUILT
He now acknowledges there is a problem, but considers himself responsible for it. He "deserves" a underfeatured, poor quality, overpriced, buggy product, he feels, because he has defects in his character and deserves to pay more for less and really didn't "need" those features anyway.

3. ENLIGHTENMENT
The apologist no longer assumes responsibility for Palm's abusive treatment, recognizing that no one "deserves" to be ripped off. He is still committed to the platform, though, and stays with Palm, hoping they will release a decent product next season.

4. RESPONSIBILITY
Accepting the fact that Palm will not, or can not, release a decent product, the battered apologist decides he will no longer submit to it and starts a new life with PPC.



RE: Palm Apologists = Battered/Cheated Wives
svrontis @ 2/23/2005 9:51:25 PM # Q
You could well say the same thing about those of us who use Windoze on our desktops, although of course there is no alternative in that case.

RE: Palm Apologists = Battered/Cheated Wives
Gekko @ 2/23/2005 9:56:02 PM # Q

Look at the advancements of Windows over the last 10 years.

RE: Palm Apologists = Battered/Cheated Wives
A9700rO @ 2/23/2005 10:15:01 PM # Q
Well put, Gekko.

Clie-SJ22>>Tungsten | E >>> Clie-NX60>>Zire 72
??????????????
The_Voice_of_Reason @ 2/24/2005 3:19:22 AM # Q
Geeko, some things you should never joke about. Abused women is one. I've been guilty of saying the occasional inappropriate thing or two, but even for me your post just isn't funny.





*************************************************************************************

Press release: CUPERTINO, California — February 11, 2005 — Apple® announced today that Steve Jobs will begin selling his own feces to Apple Cultists beginning March 1. Apple's new iPoo™ lineup is expected to easily surpass the iPod shuffle as the company's most popular product. Yes, Apple Cultists can already easily create their own iPoo™, but feces didn't seem cool until Jobs told them it was cool. Remember, kids: the ONLY cool feces is Jobs' highly individualistic, rebellious iPoo™ (coming soon in six different colors/flavors, including the red [hematochezia] and black [melena] U2 GI bleed model)

*************************************************************************************





******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Palm Apologists = Battered/Cheated Wives
e_tellurian @ 3/23/2005 9:31:54 PM # Q
Perhaps we need more for all to do?

Some choose to ridicule and some choose to innovate. Some thoughts offer value for those that have no better thoughts than ridicule. Here too the innovator offers work for thoughtless.

E-T

e-tellurian

completing the e-com circle with a people driven we-com solution

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