Comments on: Palm TX Dissection Photo Gallery

http://www.1src.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98779&page=4&pp=15

His behaviour is truly shocking (no doubt later he'll blame it on him being under "stress") and Kirvin has revealed himself to be a true nutcase. I doubt there will be ANY Palmapologists left that are willing to defend Kirvin's latest psychotic break...

TVoR

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
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The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

One word: Haloperidol.

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

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Most folks would consider being sick of slanderous attacks as a good reason to get out of something.

You two are pathetic.

"Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up
and continue as if nothing had happened."
- Winston Churchill

Surur

> "...You are not logged in or you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:..."

Voice of Dumbness: the link you posted doesn't work. Not only are you a nasty little whiney person, but you're also incompetant. :)

Hey, Dr. Dumbass,

the link does work; you have to log in to view the forums, dip****. Oh, and by the way, when labelling someone as incompetent, it helps to spell "incompetent" correctly...

Kirvin is a creep, and the karmic circle closed right on his little head. I won't lose any sleep over it.

Kirvin is a creep, and the karmic circle closed right on his little head. I won't lose any sleep over it.

Odds are Kirvin just got fired and is having difficulties dealing with it, ergo the oh-so-public psychotic break.

He should simply have gone quietly into the night. Instead, Kirvin's silly ego mandated that he grandstand for a few days, threatening that he would take his ball and go home. No doubt he was hoping to hear a few fanboys tell him how "wonderful" they think he is and then BEG him to stay. Now Dr Opinion/Jeff Kirvin shows up here and takes a few cowardly shots at me. How sad.

Get help, Jeff. Please. For your sake.

TVoR

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

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

The vibrating alarm seems much more useful. How many times do you take your Palm out of your pocked only to see that you missed a meeting?

Palm OS needs a 300+MHz processor because it's mostly emulating the code for the old 20MHz processor. But there's not much software to make use of the new ARM CPUs since we're still stuck on Garnet. It's just a useless "feature". If only Palm had let developers just re-compile the same programs to run on the new CPUs, we'd be making some use of all those MHz by now. The approach worked for Apple twice (68000 to PowerPC, now PowerPC to Intel).

BTW, in the UK, Alf Garnett was a 1970s sitcom character. A rude, racist, grouchy old man. In the watered-down US version he's called Archie Bunker. So just think of Palm OS Garnet as Palm OS Archie Bunker.

Also, someone gave me a novelty voice memo recording keychain as a gag gift last year. It couldn't have cost more than $10 from Wal-Mart etc. It held at least a few minutes' worth of scratchy audio memos that didn't sound too terribly much worse than my T3 used to.

Why does Palm continue to skimp on the crucial features mentioned above?

Answer: G*R*E*E*D & A*R*R*O*G*A*N*C*E
(with a dash of l*a*z*i*n*e*s*s* and c*h*e*a*p*n*e*s*s thrown in for good measure)

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

-Improved CDMA Bluetooth DUN support (since many execs use Verizon & Sprint phones)
-Charging LED (Palm V & m500s had this)
-Slightly better battery life (a Palm V & m500 hallmark)
-A voice recorder (m500 series had this)
-Metal case (Palm V & m500 series had this)
They'd sell SCORES of units and have the first PDA since the N760C Sony with compelling specs in a decently slim formfactor.

Basically, the PDA equivalent of the RAZR. With build quality up to par, people would actually consider paying a PREMIUM for a device liks this--yes, even today with the subnotebook/smartphone/iPod competition. A solid basic design could last 2+ years with tweaks to case color and internal improvements to the screen, CPU, OS etc.

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

Thanks for proving yourself wrong and showing everyone here just how out of touch you are.

The Porsche 911 Turbo S Cabriolet costs £105K (that's about $185K ) and comes with "a retractable cup holder with space for two drinks containers" (Thank you, Porsche UK).

So again, why does a $55 phone have vibrating alarm whilst a $299 PDA doesn't? There's definitely space for it there when you look at the dissection.

To borrow your car theme, it's like getting reverse gear on the $15K Chevy Chase but no reverse gear on the $70K Porsche.

Sounds like you've been taken for a ride Rome if you dropped $70K on a Porsche yet didn't get the cupholder you were entitled to. Now that would make Porsche look mean!

That's how Palm looks when it asks $300 for a PDA but doesn't bother to put a vibrating alert into it.

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog" - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Still, you see my point.

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

maybe because you're incapable of giving an explanation?

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog" - Dwight D. Eisenhower

>>Palm OS needs a 300+MHz processor because it's mostly emulating the code for the old 20MHz processor. But there's not much software to make use of the new ARM CPUs since we're still stuck on Garnet. It's just a useless "feature". If only Palm had let developers just re-compile the same programs to run on the new CPUs, we'd be making some use of all those MHz by now.

First, even the first OS 5 ARM device - the T|T1 running a 144mhz OMAP processor (slow compared to this and most OS 5 ARM models) ran 'emulated' old Palm OS software MUCH faster than the old, pre-OS 5 motorola cpu devices it was emulating It varied (and there were some exceptions) - but generally if it ran it, it ran it many times faster. The more the software stayed with / relied on the old OS APIs, the faster it ran. That's because the emulation is bolted in at a very low-level - in fact OS 5 is itself a re-write/ re-compile for ARM, of the underlying OS code - with only the exposed API being in 68K emulation.

Secondly - developers can and do write native ARM code for Palm OS 5 / ARM. Virtually all new 'commercial' games and any software that needs the speed (docs to go, etc), has had the ability (and they've used it) to do what palmsource orinally called 'ARMlets' - ARM compiled code snippets / funtions. They eventually improved this (and changed the name to PNOlets) - and now MANY developers doing commercial work do 99% of the apps in ARM (only a 68k - 'emulated mode' loader). Thta's how the opensource guys have been able to bring games like Quake to Palm OS - you sure as heck will NEVER run that on an old pre-OS 5 devcie.

What we really need from PalmSource is a full, puerly native OS API (and of course, the ARM OS WITH multi-tasking to go with it). And PalmSOurce did do this - it was called Cobolt (boyt am i opening up a can of worms nut uttering that word!). We all know what has happened there. So now, take 2: Palm OS on linux. BTW, this is really: Cobolt high-level code + APIs + UI on Linux (no need to throw away all the code you've spent big $$$ developing if you can help right?).

Yea I got it alright but the biggest joke of all is the top of the range Palm has no vibrating alert!

If you want good, thoughful wit and humour, you can't do better than Hoodoo's comment about the coffee cup between the legs!

ROTFL! Good One!

if (!$broke) {
DontFixIt()
}

That's a stupid question. Obviously palm know how to make vibrating alarms: my TC has one. Duh.

The real question is, "why should we include random feature x".

There is only one valid answer. "On a cost/benefit basis, feature x will enable us to sell more units."

That's the only reason. That alone. Any other reason would be stupid.

So how do you solve this strange conundrum? Well, you survey people. You can read about that sort of thing here: http://www.designtech.com/featurecost.html

Clearly in this case Palm decided that it was more important to beat the psychologically important $299 price point than add some irrelevant features that few people want. I mean, really, what percentage of users ever actually used voice memo? Like, every cellphone since 2002 has had voice memo, right? And how many people use it? Like, no-one. I think we can safely scrap that. :)

The "charged" LED is irrelevant. You can look at the screen if you want to check charging status. This is a palm! Just plug it in when you're sitting at the PC and forget about it. It won't run out. It's not like a wince box where you have to keep checking if its charging. I mean, get real.

And vibrating alarm? I don't know about you, but I keep my palm in a case. A nice, soft, comfy case that prevents any semblance of vibrating alarm reaching the outside world. Most people use cases too. If the palm is not in a case, duh, you'll see the alarm on the screen. If it's in the case, you won't feel it.

So easy. People voted for bluetooth, wifi, 128MB non-volatile ram, fantastic screen, and a cool black chassis, all for under $300.

The rest is fluff. And I'm glad Palm didn't listen to the fluff lovers.

The T|X rocks. Good job palm! :)

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"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

I can't stare at a handheld's screen 24 hours a day waiting to see if it shows an alarm on screen. I understand most people are like me. It seems you are unlike most people.

The case vibrates with the device so you do actually feel it, even the vibrating alert on the $55 mobile in its case.

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog" - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Even you would have to admit that skimping on the Treo 650 memory and cheaping out on the vibrating alarms has cost Palm SOME degree of sales. How many sales were and will be lost... who can tell. How many sales were gained by the name change... who can tell. Either way spending that $30 million on the name change was a choice - and it's pretty telling that given the choice Palm would rather spend HUGE amounts of money on minor name changes instead of first improving the basic hardware specifications of their devices.

iPaq used to be the top selling Windoze Pocket PC device, until Dell came along and handed them their heads on a plate. What did Dell do to kick the top dog out? Gave the consumer same and better hardware specs at a lower pricepoint, and supported the product and continued innovating. (HP's corporate schizophrenia didn't hurt them either...).

There were plenty of other time managers and portable calendar devices when Palm came along (I had a Sharp back in the late '80s, a Newton in the 90's, various pen & paper solutions), but Palm kicked them all out of the running by building a thoughtful device and then improving it over the years. Now they seem to be making so many backward steps from the basics that it's sickening to watch.

It's not the NAME that built Palm - it's the DEVICES/OS, stupid! You can't dump all that $$$$$$ on dumb name changes and then come along and say you had to leave off basic elements of a PDA like memory and vibrating alarms to meet "pricepoints." It's complete B.S., like a guy that spends all his money gambling and then goes begging that he can't afford a tip for the cabbie to the airport because he needs to meet a "pricepoint" for the trip.

Palm has/had the money, they just chose to spend it on some magic beans instead of fixing the roof. They continue to wonder why the carpet continues to get wet, then send the next MBA out looking for more magic beans....

I could give you a lecture on the difference between buying a capital asset and spending money on inventory. But what's the point? There is nothing for me to gain in giving you an education. No doubt, you would find yet another spurious way to throw it back at me (because it seems that nobody is entitled to disagree with you). Life's too short for that.

So ... Fine. You win. You are right and I'm wrong. OK?

Let me just add this - I hope that someday Palm produces a unit which has all the features you may desire (including, but not limited to, a vibrating alarm) and that you have enough money to buy it.

That's a great idea. I didn't know anyone had done that.

And speaking of features as accessories, I wonder what would keep someone from developing a voice recorder SDIO card? That wouldn't even require Palm to put a microphone in the hardware.

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

Honestly, I can actually somewhat see Palm's reason for not wanting a vibrating alarm internally--there really might have been a reason for all of those T|Tx series digitizer shift woes. What with the vibrating alarm and the dammed slider going up and down all day, it's entirely possible that was too much rattling going on. By placing the responsibility caveat emptor-style on the buyer, Palm doesn't have yet another warranty headache to deal with. I'm starting to sound like Kirvin now, aren't I? LOL!

This is the sort of thing we need to see Palm spending time & $ on. Not day-glo flip cases, gold-plated styli, Schiffer/Jordan limited edition models, retail kiosks etc etc.

Look at the best "real" Palm accessories offered the past few years:

Power-to-Go Sled: Great product but was initially too expensive and had next to ZERO retai availability
Mini UC USB cradle: Same woes as above.
Palm GPS Bluetooth Navigator kit: Overpriced, unavailable at retail. Sporadic/late availability on Palm.com

The Camera Companion/USB to go adapter for the LD is still NOWHERE in sight despite being promised last summer.

Rebranded (overpriced) SD cards and bulky (overpriced)
"universal" cases add NOTHING to the bottom line and only reinforce the notion that Palm's out there to make a quick buck and sock it to their dwindling customer base.

With a leaner, meaner, more value-oriented line of PDAs should come a line of leaner, meaner and, dare we say, INNOVATIVE accessories?

P.S. If the TX DID have a removable battery you could offer at least two different capacity batteries, both featuring vibrating alarms and a small charging LED. What a way to make up for the shortcomings of the T|E formfactor!

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

Like the wince boxes have a *better* form factor? Nitwit. :)

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"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."