Comments on: Palm Announcing New Smartphone Tomorrow

USR Palm Pilot 1000 --> Palm Pilot Professional --> TRG SuperPilot --> Palm IIIc --> Palm V --> Palm M505 --> Palm M515 --> Tungsten T|2 --> Treo 600 --> LifeDrive --> iPhone

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-e

Palm manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Seeing that the iPhone and iPod Touch both run OS X it's probably not difficult for Apple to add handwriting recognition should the need arise:

http://www.apple.com/uk/macosx/features/inkwell/

I've noticed some of the Inkwell's dialogue boxes and options are suspiciously similar to those displayed in the Newton's handwriting preferences.

removable media, IR, a stylus, handwriting recognition, hard buttons, and 3rd party apps

Well the entire Newton range had all of these over ten years ago, so it can't be difficult for Apple to add these features to a device now that parts are smaller, faster and cheaper. It's simply a matter of whether Apple thinks there's money to be made from such a device. Remember, Apple has a PDA which it decided not to market. I'd be unsurprised if the iPhone and iPod Touch were actually based on this unreleased PDA.

I'm skeptical about these reports unless Apple is thinking of offering an OS X UMPC. I think Apple/Jobs see UMPCs as niche and toy devices, Apple is definitely after the mass market. However the iPod Touch may well be the Trojan Horse that transforms into a PDA, especially if Apple achieves this via a software update of existing Touches and allows 3rd party apps. This will totally kill off the Tx. Mind you, even Palm wants to kill off its own Tx and PDAs.

So tack on (a two-year additional) $240 to the cost...

Nah, it's new PHONE,as in singular!

And now.....Engadget is reporting a $199 EFFECTIVE price with a $100 lame mail-in rebate that'll likely never materialize?

NEXT!

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

It has a $199 price with a $100 mail-in coupon if you sign a 2 year contact for a net purchase price of $99. Either way a vey good price.

Ah, clever, aren't they?
They are masking the phone's hardware costs by forcing Centro purchasers to subscribe to a pricier data plan.

Now, SV, I'm no math whiz but how are you getting $240 over 2 years?

24 months x $25/month= $600!

And I think all of the CDMA carriers mandate that you must have a voice PLUS data plan on their "smart" devices. I know I tried to get Verizon to let me have a data-only plan ($45/month I believe) on my 700p. But they INSISTED I take the minimum $80/month "Smartphone/PDA voice + data plan. So I get 450 mins a month of voice time on my 700p and I probably only use about 45 minutes per month (if that!)

Hey, Palm, here's a tip to get the c00l kidz, hipsters, AND PDA faithful buying your stuff again:

Take THIS device (the Centro). Call it a Z33 or something. Remove the cellular & voice "stuff" entirely but keep the microphone and speaker. Throw in wi-fi, same as the TX. Replace the 2.5mm headset jack with a proper 3.5mm stereo headset jack. Stick a gig or two of flash memory in it. Sell it for $200-$250 at retail as a replacement for both the Z22 and Tungsten E2 and a kinda/sorta iPod Nano/Touch competitor. Partner with someone and "hint" that it can be used as a solid VOIP handset in addition to a poor man's PMP & PDA. People have been begging for a non-Graffiti, QWERTY PDA for years, ever since the Treo 90 died a quiet death.

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

-- http://www.videonewswire.com/event.asp?id=42256